Astaroth opened his eyes to a familiar cave ceiling.
‘It feels good to be back,’ he thought, as he got up.
He stretched his body a bit, making sure his character hadn’t atrophied. After all, it had spent a week sleeping on that bed.
That thought brought him to another one.
‘Do our characters stay visible while we are offline? Or do we disappear?’
Since there weren’t any other players here before, he never really knew the answer to that question. But now he had Violette.
He could test out his theory with her help. Which reminded him to contact her.
He wrote a quick message to her, telling her he was back online. Not a second after sending it, he received a reply.
‘I’m with Genie, outside the barrier. We are fighting the blood bats. Come join us!’
He chuckled as he read the reply. Violette had taken a liking to his wolf companion, Genie, and the wolf did not seem to be bothered by it.
Often, when he was late to connect, or when he couldn’t log in at all, Violette went hunting with Genie, ensuring both she and the wolf kept levelling up.
He walked out of his alcove and headed toward the village entrance. The villagers saluted him as he passed, as they had long since been accustomed to his presence.
Once outside the barrier, all he had to do to find Genie and Violette was to look up. He quickly located the large swarm of blood-red bats, flying circles over a part of the nearby forest.
Astaroth started sprinting towards the swarm, melding with White on the way there to get more speed. Once he reached his destination, he let loose amongst the flying monsters, letting the thrill of the hunt sink back in.
The freedom of fighting in this game just couldn’t be matched outside, in the real world. Since the physical capacity of the human body had a limit out there, many things were impossible to do.
Here, on the other hand, it seemed like anything could be achieved if you just had the strength to do it. Astaroth was jumping meters into the air, catching bats as they flew up and ripping them to shreds.
He had accustomed himself to fighting without weapons in this form, as it felt more…natural. Of course, when faced with a dangerous foe, he didn’t hesitate to pull out his weapons.
He wasn’t a fool, after all. But fighting like a beast, when fused with a beast, had its own charm.
White had also given him many pointers on how to maximize his form, since he was accustomed to this mode of combat. An hour after he arrived, there were already very few bats left.
Most were dead, and some had fled. What was left, were soon to be killed, as Violette used her magic to round them up in a massive sphere of water, before flash-freezing it.
Astaroth looked at her, impressed.
“Your control is getting better. When did you learn to freeze your water spells?” he asked the girl.
“While you were gone. I had nothing much to do, since hunting alone is too dangerous. So I went to old man Aberon’s house. He’s the one who taught me,” she answered, all smiles.
A few of the village warriors looked at the little girl weirdly, when she called Aberon ‘old man’ so casually. Most of them had an ingrained fear of him, and not without reason.
And as they spun around to go back on patrol, they became livid.
“Sire Aberon!” They called out, bowing in unison.
Astaroth and Violette both spun on their heels, seeing the mage standing there, his arms crossed. He had an angry look on his face as he looked at the duo.
The warriors gulped in unison.
‘They are dead.’ They thought.
“You could have come to me first, before throwing yourself into battle, you bloodthirsty youngster.” Aberon admonished Astaroth.
Then his traits softened as he looked at Violette and caressed her head gently.
“That was impressive magic control, little one. You make my old heart proud,” he told her, smiling like a proud grandfather.
Everyone except Astaroth had their jaws drop simultaneously. No one could believe what they were seeing.
Astaroth was used to seeing this attitude from Aberon, as he had been the one to present the two. He hadn’t expected Aberon to act as an old grandpa with Violette, but it wasn’t a bad thing.
Her very high magical aptitude made her a potential apprentice for the old man, and he practically pounced at the prospect. The last apprentice he had trained still worked with the king, after all.
Getting to form another talented mage, into possibly a superpower in the magical world, was a high honour for mages. Aberon was not one to refuse such an honour.
And Violette was such a studious apprentice that she could grasp advanced concepts in days that took many mages’ years to learn.
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He had quickly noticed that in terms of magic ability, Violette was head and shoulders over him, possibly being on par with Phoenix. This was a welcome surprise, coming from such a young child.
While his mind was reminiscing, Aberon had been giving pointers on how to improve her technique to Violette. She listened avidly, her eyes wide and her ears perked, taking in every word like it was law.
Eventually, Astaroth had to break up their discussion on magic, since they had veered off technique, and were now talking about advanced concepts.
“Ahem.” Astaroth cleared his throat.
Aberon snapped his head at him with an angry stare. He hated being interrupted, especially when talking about magic.
But his gaze went back to normal quickly, as he understood Astaroth’s look.
“Sir. May I ask why you are out here?” Astaroth asked the old mage.
“Ahh yes. I came to see you. Come to my abode before disappearing again in the morning. We have much to discuss,” Aberon said, tucking his hands inside his sleeves.
He had a serious look in his eyes when he said that, so Astaroth understood it was an important matter.
“In that case, I shall be there by dawn,” he replied, giving a quick bow.
Aberon nodded, and vanished from before the two players.
“What is it? Are you in trouble?” Violette asked, looking at Astaroth with her head slightly tilted.
“I highly doubt it, little one. I just think we need to have a grown-up talk, that’s all,” Astaroth answered, giving the girl a wide smile.
Violette pouted at the answer, but they quickly went back to hunting, making her forget why she was mad.