Trials of a VRMMO Healer

Chapter 11 - At a Crossroads

Several weeks had passed since the NPC PK incident or whatever it was. I'd gone on various hunts with Lily just so we could do some skill building. A few times we'd group with Devlin and Kiira and sometimes we grouped with Rika and Viero (the two groups rarely were on during the same hours, unfortunately). I was starting to finally feel like I was becoming a proper healer. Playing in a group setting meant a lot of different choices. For instance, when I was solo, my new armor was invaluable because it not only gave me better defense, but even just having a little scorpid pet to take the heat off me was a big help. In a group, though, I rarely took damage and had to carefully coordinate my attacks to maintain Mountainsong and keep healing. On more than one occasion, I cut it really close. Dividing my attention between healing and damage was difficult, but the added damage came in handy. My build had a fair amount of flexibility, but I did somewhat lack utility spells and range. My [Light Magic] skill kept progressing, but it capped out. In fact, [Magic Manipulation] and [Magic Capacity] had capped out as well. I wasn't much for looking at manuals, but having others to help explain the game mechanics was helpful. The basic problem was that a Rank 3 player like myself was capped on basic skills. At this point, my stats looked like this:

[Light Magic] 10

[Magic Manipulation] 10

[Magic Capacity] 10

[Staff] 4

[Crushing] 10

[Fast Reflexes] 7

[Mana Infusion] 10

[Glide] 5

[Jump] 10

[Navigation] 3

Skill Points: 85/90

Abilities:

[Minor Heal]

[Heal]

[Blessing of Sunlight]

[Cure Poison]

[Starfall Strike]

Titles:

[Savior of Ourth]

[Class: Healer]

[Threadbound]

To raise my level cap, I'd need to take some advanced skills, but to do that required training. I had to seek out NPC mentors and quests to unlock new skills. Rank 4 was close, but just hitting it wasn't enough. Also, at Rank 4 I could start creating different builds. One per day, after I slept, I could switch to a different set of skills which were uncapped. Apparently at the max, a player could have three different builds. But given the difficulty in raising more advanced and complex skills, not to mention just finding a trainer in the first place, I was kind of stuck.

Besides, I didn't have time to do research. I had been using my sleep time to play more often than I should. This was possible to do because of the way the system worked, but the sleep you got just wasn't as restful as natural sleep. It's the sort of thing you could do for a few days but after that, you'd be so exhausted in-game that you were likely to pass out. Still, work was stressful and EO was my escape. And then the day came where our big project was finished. As much as I wanted to go home and rest and play, my boss was throwing us a congratulatory dinner and we were going out for drinks after and I didn't feel it was appropriate to turn them down. I'm not a big drinker, but in the end, I hung out until the early morning when I started to head home. The streets were dark and empty. I wasn't far from my apartment and while I would have preferred not to have to walk it was hard to justify paying for a car service to take me a few blocks. This whole thing felt eerily familiar.

I heard footsteps behind me and I picked up my pace. I glanced behind me and a figure, likely a man, was about 30 feet away. As I sped up to a brisk walk, the footsteps sped up more. My heart was racing. It might be nothing. It was probably nothing. I felt someone grab my arm and spun, ready for a fight. I knew that face. I knew those wild eyes. The knife... was different, it wasn't a dagger, of course, it seemed more like a utility knife from the hardware store. He reached for my purse and then fell over. I was stunned, though obviously not as stunned as he was. He writhed on the ground for a moment and I used that second to snatch the knife that he had dropped.

Standing in front of me was a young woman holding a stun gun. The man, being disarmed and outnumbered, scrambled to his feet and stumbled away. I let him, having no particular desire to chase him down.

"Are you okay?" the young woman asked. She wore jeans and a tank top and had a bunch of tattoos with pop culture stuff on her arms. I recognized a few from video games. Her face... looked familiar.

"Lily?" I asked. Her eyes went wide, but then she blinked in recognition.

"Mei?"

She was taller and built differently, of course, and her hair and cloths were different, but I still recognized her. We were, in fact, just outside the bar where she tended and she was just closing up, but she took me inside and got me a drink of water. I sat at the bar with her for a bit.

"You must have some bad luck to get this twice in a week," she muttered.

"I know this is stupid but he... he looked like the same guy."

"Huh. Are you sure?" she sounded skeptical.

"I mean, not completely sure, but it hasn't been that long. I know these sorts of things can mess with your memory, but... I just remember his face too well."

"Weird," she responded, not sounding entirely convinced. "I didn't know you lived around here. I mean, I knew you lived in same time zone as me but this is a much cooler coincidence."

"Yeah, for sure. It's weird but even though your avatar looks different, I can still see you as, well, you."

"Yeah, same. I wonder why?"

"Maybe the system fills in the gaps like it does with other things?"

She shrugged.

"Could be. I mostly just play the games."

We talked for a while, about games, about Lily's tattoos, about our work. She was an avid gamer, even more so than me. She worked most evenings but was up late on the others due to her schedule. She was going to school for engineering but it was slow going. EO was her current obsession, though she did tend to hop from game to game.

I yawned.

"Oh, getting bored?" she asked with a smirk.

"It's just late and the adrenaline has worn off and I feel exhausted."

"I figured. Hey, what are you gonna do in EO now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said your skills were getting close to maxed out."

"Right. So, like, I was thinking about it and I'm a pretty okay healer when it comes to pure healing, plus I've got some good damage. But I don't have a lot of skills beyond that, so I dunno. I don't even know what's out there."

"Hm. You have Magic Manipulation and Mana Infusion, right? How about Spirit Manipulation?"

"What's that?"

"I guess it's like, magic comes from controlling the magic and spirits, like, live in it? Or with it? I don't really know, I'm a crafter. But it seems up your alley."

"Huh. I have no idea what it does but it sounds cool."

Lily offered to walk me home and I took her up on it. To be honest, it was nice to have someone else to talk about nerd stuff with. When I finally got home I crashed and slept, but not very well.

I ended up wandering the streets of Illium trying to find some information for how to start working on my build. From what I'd read on social media, EO generated quests dynamically based on the circumstances. That was pretty cool for the sake of, you know, personal narrative, but it sucked for being able to figure out what to do. I eventually decided that I would head north. In the northern hinterlands, there was a necropolis tended to by a tribe of spiritualists. It seemed like a good place to look. Unfortunately, travel took about a week by foot and I had no mount, so I'd have to walk it. I sent an offline message to my usual group mates and, early in the morning, began the long trek up the river.