Lemon stirs and yawns. Maka, it's too early to be so energetic.
I make my way towards the window and take a look out at the beautiful scenery. What do you mean? It's the middle of the afternoon, plus today is a big day, y’know. Also you literally slept all day yesterday.
Not my fault, being a dragon is tiring. Especially when there is no aether, getting energy solely from the sun takes a while.
Fair enough. Well then you should be perfectly happy staying here all day, right.
You just want me to distract Apple, don't you? Lemon sighs. Alrighty then.
I spend the next two hours or so getting ready. I make my hair all fancy and even put on a nice blue shirt and fancier pants. Not too fancy though, we will be walking around a bit so I don't want to be uncomfortable. I even apply some fancy cologne I bought, it carries a hint of petrichor, one of my favourite smells.
I head out into the lobby of the hotel and find Moxie curled in a window, reading a book of course. “Are you not going to the festival?” I say, approaching her.
She jumps a bit and realizes it's just me. “Too many people.” She turns to look at me and her brow furrows. Countless calculations must run through her mind. “You look too fancy, who did you punch?”
“Wait, how did you know I punched someone? Oh no, has the word spread already?” That is slightly concerning.
“No word, you look dressed up. Meaning festival date. Thus you saved some damsel and extorted favor from her.”
I gasp and stare at her. “Why would you presume that I can’t get a date normally? It's not a date anyways, I just happen to be attending the festival with Violet.”
She squints at me, a look of disbelief on her face. “Uh huh. Don't die.”
“I won't!" I shout as I walk out of the hotel and onto the streets. It's currently 18:00, so I have just a bit of time to kill before our meeting. So naturally, I end up grabbing a nice bite to eat. It's not as if I won't be hungry later still.
The streets are absolutely packed, it's hard to move through them as I make my way to the pier. The sun is almost fully set now, and the town is cast in artificial lights. Yet it is louder than ever as all the festivalgoers move about.
I arrive at the pier precisely one hour early. To my great surprise, Violet is already there. I stop moving as her beauty transfixes me.
She is leaning against a bollard, looking out at the ocean. She is wearing a simple red dress that goes down to her knees. It may be simple, but it is damn beautiful on her. Her hair is arranged to look like a crown around her head, it is really cute. She has a pair of blue teardrop earrings on that complement her eyes fantastically.
Her mouth has a faint curve, it looks like she is gently smiling as she stares out at the ocean. She is constantly shifting her weight and seems to be fidgeting a lot. I wonder what she is thinking about, must be some political stuff. After a few moments she turns and looks directly at me, the light catches her eyes in just the right way and it looks like they are glowing for a moment.
My feet start working again so I walk up beside her. My voice insists on being a bit shaky for some reason. “Good evening, I hope I didn't keep you waiting.” Wait, should I have complimented her? It could've gone poorly, maybe It's good that I kept it simple. Moxie did tell me not to die after all.
“Not at all. I wanted to see the water before it got too busy.” Her voice is as wonderful as ever. As I get a bit closer, I get a lovely dose of her lavender perfume. I can feel her eyes quickly look me over, probably noting how horrible I look in comparison to her. She bites her lip, something I have never seen her do, it's super cute. Almost too quiet for me to hear, she whispers. “You look nice, for an idiot anyways.” She immediately looks away from me, but I can see a faint smile on her face.
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest and my mouth opens a bit. I barely avoid dying right on the spot at the shock, and happiness. Stammering a bit I manage to form a coherent sentence. “You look stunning yourself, for a genius anyways.”
She bursts out into laughter. “You really need that insulting class.” She looks back at me and smiles. Not a hint of a smile, a full smile.
I think this might be the night where I die. My heart and body simply won't sustain much more of this. “Well then, perhaps you could be my teacher.”
“In your dreams, idiot.” Just then, her stomach grumbles. “We are getting food.” She extends her arm, and wasting no time, I loop my arm through her own.
She then proceeds to drag me all around the festival. We barely talk at all, but it turns out she has even more of an appetite than me.
We end up bumping (literally) into Liv and Stephen. They are wearing their normal clothes, and Stephen’s arm is tightly looped through Liv’s. He must be maintaining a tight watch on her. I can't imagine the chaos she would cause were she to get loose. We exchange a few quick words, but Stephen and Liv glance at each other, then they quickly make an excuse to disappear. It is a very strange interaction overall, I wonder what came up that caused them to leave so suddenly.
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Afterwards, Violet and I make our rounds through the entire festival and we both manage to stuff ourselves full of delicious festival food. I think combined we consume an amount of food that could feed a small city for an entire year. But the salespeople seem quite happy with our ravenous appetite at least. Every time I try to pay for Violet’s food she just waves me off and then proceeds to pay for both of us.
We eventually head back to the beach. It is quite crowded, but I enact my secret plan using my super secret knowledge. “I heard of this wonderful place to watch the jellyfish, but it's a bit out of the way.”
Violet’s arm wraps a bit tighter around mine. “Well then, lead the way. You better not get us lost.” I take the warning with much seriousness, I can't imagine what tortures she would inflict upon me.
We walk along the beach until we come upon an outcropping of rocks. From what the woman told me, there should be a small boat nestled amongst them. I separate myself from Violet and we climb up on the rocks, and surely enough, there is a small wooden rowboat nestled there.
“After you.” I say to Violet, offering my hand to help her step down. She doesn't take it, and jumps down into the boat, nailing the landing. She is such a badass, and I love it.
I get into the boat and it rocks gently back and forth. It's not very large, so our legs are squished together. Not that I can complain of course, plus it gives me a perfect excuse to stare at her beautiful face.
I gently row the boat out of the rocks and into the water a bit. The place we are going is a small island offshore, or so the woman says. I have a map pulled up in my vision, so we make it there in record time.
The boat crunches against the sand of the shoreline and we come to an abrupt halt. Unfortunately, Violet ends up getting jerked forward and ends up falling into my arms. For the briefest moment, she lingers there. But then she pushes herself up violently and gets out of the boat. “Idiot, you can not even park properly.”
I step out of the boat and onto the island. “Hmm, perhaps you should drive on the way back then, let's see how you do.” I propose.
“Whatever, what is so special about this place?” Violet asks, gesturing to the island. It is quite small, only about thirty meters in diameter. In the center of the island is a gigantic tree, yet it lacks leaves and seems dead.
I check the time, 23:58. “Wait a few more minutes. Trust me, it will be worth it.” I grab her hand and guide her over to the tree.
Right on the 00:00 mark, it happens.
The entire ocean around the island lights with a rainbow of colors. My eyes are immediately drawn to the water as blobs of color appear at the surface of the water. A very rare creature, the prismatic jellyfish. They spend the entirety of their ten year life down in the depths of the ocean, only coming to the surface at the end of their lives to reproduce.
Beside me, Violet is transfixed, staring out at the water. Her mouth hangs slightly open. “They are beautiful.” She whispers.
“Just wait, this isn't the least of it.”
The jellyfish start to move towards the island, after a few moments, a blue one makes its way onto land. It lacks legs, but it slowly makes its way inwards towards us.
I press my arm gently around Violet’s waist, moving us to the side as it passes by. She is very warm, even compared to the tropical air. She doesn't push my arm away.
The jellyfish makes its way to the strange tree and starts to climb up it. It reaches the branches and settles on the end of one of the branches, like a leaf.
Violet turns and looks slightly up at me. “What is it doing?”
“It's dying. This is the end of their lifecycle.” I say, just as several dozen more reach the land. They make their way to the tree and climb up it as well. More and more pour onto the island, thousands of them. We try to stay out of their way.
Slowly, the giant tree gains leaves, in the form of the jellyfish. It is beautiful, a rainbow of colors dot the branches, casting light down onto the island that makes a wonderful pattern.
“It is sad that beautiful creatures have such short lifespans. All of the best things tend to be so short lived, yet the worst things last forever.” Violet says.
“Things that burn the brightest usually burn out the fastest.” I try to think of something super philosophical, but that is the best I come up with.
“Perhaps so.”
I muster up the courage and take a step away from Violet. I reach into my pocket and pull out a small case. “I uh, got this for you.” My hands shake a bit as I present it towards her.
She stares at the case for a moment, her eyes narrowing. Then she very carefully takes it in her hand. My heart is beating at about ten thousand BPM as she opens it. She takes a look at the necklace with the gemstone I bought yesterday and doesn't say anything for several seconds, but it feels like hours pass.
“It is so pretty. Why?” She seems confused, though I don't know about what.
“Why what?”
“Why would you give this to me? You know I have no need for jewelry."
“It looked super pretty so I immediately thought that I should get it for you.” I am unsure what the problem seems to be. It is a simple thing to give a pretty girl something pretty, is it not?
A few moments pass and then her eyes widen. Her face turns bright red, unmistakably a blush. She looks up at me and smirks. “Put it on me?”
My heartrate somehow accelerates even faster as I grab the necklace in my shaking hands. I slowly move around to her back and undo the clasp on the necklace. As I put it on her, my fingers brush against her neck for the briefest moment.
She takes a step back and turns around to face me again. “How do I look?” She moves a bit, making the necklace jingle a bit on her chest, highlighting the slight curves found there.
“Fucking beautiful.” I say with complete honesty.
Her smirk turns into a confused expression. Pushing my luck way too much, I take a step forward. We are now about two centimeters apart. I can feel her warmth filling the air between us.
A strand of hair has fallen out of her braids, so I reach up and brush it out of her face. After all, such a cute face deserves to be seen in full. She doesn't push me away as I gently brush my hand against her cheek.
She tilts her head up ever so slightly. I lean in, slowly closing the distance.
Then, a large bird flies past and caws.
The moment shatters, and Violet violently pushes me away. I lose my balance and end up falling on my ass in the sand.
“This was a mistake. I should not have come here.” She says, sounding panicked. Then she runs towards the shore and jumps towards the water.
A boom sounds in the distance and a bright light approaches. Just as Violet is about to land in the water, her glideboard appears under her. She nails the landing and takes off into the distance.
I sit in the sand for several moments, completely confused.
“What the fuck just happened?” I say aloud.
Seemingly in response, the jellyfish in the tree start to hum a low tune. Then, they explode into a display of light, goo goes everywhere. I watch as a bunch of spore-like things hover in the air before being carried away on the breeze.
I feel a pang of sadness break through the confusion as I sit there on the beach, alone. I lean back, and look up at the stars, pondering just where things went wrong. I do come to at least one realization.
My pants are now full of sand, and it is really uncomfortable.
Next Chapter: Petrichor
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Roguelike LitRPG
By Fyffe
LitRPG Action Mystery VR/Game
Elizabeth always chose to play as a sneaky rogue or a wizard slinging sparkly spells.
Now all she's got is a class she hates and a stupid club to defend herself. The pain is too real and the fights too graphic.
But the game's cruellest feature is its core mechanic.
It's a flippin roguelike.
Death is a brutal reset, stripping her of everything she's earned and forcing her to start over, armed with nothing but the bitter memories of her last failure.
To survive, she'll have to get stronger, smarter, and meaner with every loop.
What to expect
- ?? Gallows humour
- ?? Some gore
- ???????? Multi-dimensional characters (this includes queer people existing)
- ?? Vicious rodents of unusual size
- ?? Slow, grindy but satisfying growth
- ?? An adorable companion
- ?? A few puzzles and quests that use brain over brawn
- ? Real-world stakes
- New chapters: Mon / Wed / Fri (new Schedule!)