Trouble With Horns

** Taylor **

“So what does this herb you want to collect actually do?” I asked as we trudged our way along the road.

We had yet to really enter the foothills of the Corugh highlands, the ground was only just now beginning to slope upwards, and it was already looking like we’d have to stop for the night. The sun was gone now, hidden behind those same highlands, and the temperature was starting to drop rapidly. It was going to be another cold night, despite the daytime temperatures.

“I don’t know, but it only grows in this one place, so it must be good,” she smiled shyly, looking up at me through those long lashes that her character had.

I wasn’t totally sure, but I don’t think she even realised she was pulling some moves on me. The fact she had no idea made her seem that much cuter. How could one person be so obliviously cute? She’d even picked out how her body was going to look both in and out of the game, and I’m willing to bet she’d still mutter some bullshit about how she was only cute from one angle or something.

“Well, let’s hope it’s good then,” I replied, smiling fondly down at her.

Her little face turned worried for a moment as she realised something, “You won’t be upset with me if it’s a crap herb right?”

“Millie, the prize for me is getting to hang out with you, and possibly make you happy,” I told her truthfully.

“O-oh!” she gaped, smiling shyly as a blush spread across her cheeks. So cute.

The stream chat seemed to catch wind of something in the exchange, because another rampant round of shipping exploded in the comments of both our streams like a hailstorm. Chat moving so fast nobody will see me… etcetera. That tired old meme.

I smiled again at her absolutely adorable reaction, but the expression was quickly stolen from my face when I looked up and laid eyes on something ahead. At least eight players, possibly more, and they were blocking the road.

“Well, that happened quicker than I thought,” I remarked calmly, so as not to spook the flighty girl next to me.

“What happened?” she asked, glancing curiously between me and the players up ahead.

“I’m willing to bet those are stream snipers,” I sighed, going through my inventory and equipping all my armour.

As each piece phased into existence on my body, Millie’s eyes grew wider and wider, and she whispered, “Whoa.”

I had to fight a grin, because I had been waiting for this moment ever since she’d decided she wanted to play with me. My armour was a set of well fitted plate armour that covered me from head to toe in gleaming silver and green steel, with a little bit of blue trim here and there. My huge kite shield also phased into existence and pulled my arm down with its sheer weight. It was full steel, and in real life would have been completely unusable.

“These guys are probably going to be higher level than you, so you might have a hard time making any fatal blows,” I told the short girl next to me. “Do you have any like, crippling poisons? Ones that will just keep them in place, or possibly inhibit them in other ways?”

“Um, yeah,” she said, nodding in thought.

“Alright, I’m going to send you a message, because these guys will be watching our stream right now. Don’t say anything about the plan alright?” I winked, and began typing.

The plan was reasonably simple, and I was confident that with her help it would work, and also as an added bonus, allow me to use an ability I didn’t often get to whip out.

“Oh wow!” Millie exclaimed, a grin forming on her pretty face. “That’s evil! I can’t wait! Oh, and I have just the thing to help!”

She typed out a reply back, and I gave her a wide grin of approval.

“Oh that’s great!” I laughed, offering her a high five that was purposefully too high for her.

She tried, she really did, but she only ended up slapping my forearm and pouting adorably. That may have been the plan. I lowered the high five with a chuckle and she got it the second time. I was having way too much fun teasing this little cutie.

After teasing Millie with the high five, the both of us continued forward towards the waiting players. Stream snipers, as I’d called them, were players who watched a stream and used it to figure out where the streamer was, then came in and tried to get on camera. Some, like the ones ahead of us, would try and kill or pester the streamer too.

You could see the grins on their faces as we approached, and I couldn’t help an open and derisive eyeroll. Fucking idiots, all of them.

“We heard on the stream that you already figured out we’re here to fight you,” one of the players ahead laughed, a guy with long black hair and dark robes on.

“Yup,” I nodded. “Can’t wait to watch my chat laugh at you.”

“Doubt it, we made sure to bring ways to counter your flying and tankiness and shit. You’re fucked girl,” he grinned, and launched straight into casting some buff on himself.

“Ready?” I asked Millie with a confident and feral grin.

“Yes,” she nodded eagerly, pulling out her little blade.

As the goons surrounded us, I drew my sword from its sheath within my shield and raised it high. Time to show these idiots what a level eighty four player could do with a single spell, and their help.

It started slow, a slight breeze shifting the grass that grew up against the side of the dirt road. Millie took this moment to disappear with her invisibility, knowing to keep out of the way until it was her time to strike.

“What’s she doing?” one of the goons asked, eyeing me warily.

“I don’t know, a statue impression?” one of the other guys joked.

“Just hit her!”

One of them did just that, rushing in with a sword, swinging viciously straight for my side. The sword bounced off my armour, and the breeze picked up a bit of a chill as one of my passives kicked in. The wind swirling around us with little whisps of white fluttering between the strands of the shifting air.

One of the ranged ones tried again, firing a bolt of arcane energy at my chest, where is splashed and caused me to rock slightly. I took the blow with a grin, feeling the spell build in power with every hit. Just a few more blows and I’d be able to start pumping my own energy into it.

“Fuck this, I’m going to do what I came here for,” the ring leader of the group growled, pulling an enchanted looking dagger from his belt.

Oh, that looks promising. Was it spelled to pierce armour maybe? I hoped it was.

He lunged, and the blade phased through the metal of my armour to pierce the skin beneath, bringing a grunt from me and a cry of victory from them. Oh yes, I could feel the blood trickling down my skin. Time to get this show really started.

I activated the main part of the spell, pouring my mana into the voracious arcane work with an almost feral grin on my lips. The wind sprang into action, all the moisture in the air and plants around us whipping up into a frozen whirl of sleet that was all focused on rushing towards my sword.

The radius would be huge, even if I couldn’t see it. Thirty, maybe forty meters away the wind was rushing in and freezing into a deathly cold that sapped the heat from everything it touched. Everything except myself, and a little alchemist with a sadistic streak.

I watched her move through the now almost blinding blizzard, party sense and the built in visual aids within the spell allowing both her and I to see within the growing maelstrom. I watched her move up to the ring leader first, kneeling down to viciously cut his hamstrings. He fell with a cry, and the sound was caught and yanked towards my sword along with everything else.

I took a glance at my blade and saw the spell building within, the metal growing cold to the touch as it took in the energy I provided it. It had taken on a frost-like blue hue, and that would only grow deeper as things progressed.

Millie continued to move through the blizzard like it was only a mild wind, systematically cutting the tendons of each enemy player like she was at the freezing works. Fitting, really, considering the chill of the spell. I saw some of the mages casting healing spells on themselves, along with others downing healing potions, only to learn of her other little surprise.

She’d coated her blade with a poison to inhibit healing, all their desperate attempts to repair the damage she’d done falling short of the intended effects. The ice in the air and the speed of the wind was such now that it was becoming a hazard as well, taking more healing energy away from the crippling wounds.

Small cuts and bruises were appearing on our would-be attackers as my storm of ice reached a crescendo. And then, when my sword held all that it could, the storm was gone from one gust to the next.

The area around us was slick with ice, the plantlife having been all but wiped out by the razor sharp ice and wind. The enemy players stared up at me with wide, terrified eyes, and I laughed at their shock. It was funny, seeing the cocky scumbags staring up at me with a mixture of awe, terror and pleading whimpers.

“Goodbye, have fun in your death dream! I’m sure my little sister will greet you warmly,” I chuckled, and released the raw devastation that I’d built.

From within my sword erupted a violent explosion of razor sharp ice. The shards were not small things, like they had been as they whirled in and collected within my blade. No, they were the size of spears, cracking out to impale everyone and everything that was not marked as friendly. Every single one of them died in that instant, leaving myself and Millie as the only entities left unharmed and unfrozen within fifty meters.

“Wow! They’re all dead!” Millie exclaimed, giggling and clapping. “Awesome!”

I watched the blood oozing from the ring leader, his body so pulped by the detonation that there wasn’t actually a whole lot of skin left. The sheer force of my spell had flayed the poor bastard. Oops, sorry sis.

“This is so gruesome!” Millie said, stepping over an arm to stand next to me.

“You don’t seem phased by that?” I asked, curious about the blushing girl who could stare at a mulated corpse and not bat an eyelid.

“Nah, just digital bits of person. They’ll be back together in no time, right after May half asses their death dream I’m sure,” she laughed.

“Remember we’re on stream little Millie,” I chuckled. “Play coy.”

“Oh right,” she winced, her eyes flicking to her camera.

“Let’s hope that their death dream adequately helps them with the trauma of being pulped,” I said diplomatically.

“Right, yeah. That,” she said, struggling to keep a neutral expression. “Fuzzy little death dream. No surprises in it at all. Not even a ghost that says, boo!”

“Yup, total agreement here,” I nodded, then casually indicated the road ahead. “Shall we?”

“Definitely, it’s going to be a bit of a mess here when it all melts,” she said as she began to pick her way through the wreckage.

This girl was pretty damn great. A little sadistic if she was your enemy, but that also indicated some rather interesting things on the flip side of that arrangement. So many delicious thoughts to consider.