After almost two Etalen hours, both Lily and Epona joined Anika at level 7. Farming an additional 62 lidoks for experience was not a fast process, and Anika was tired. She also was very over both dodging and getting hit by the lidoks’ ‘rocks’... thinking of it as poop just made her shudder and think about finding herself a pet Scouring Slime to rub all over herself after each encounter.

  She’d gotten a fair amount of practice with Soothing Waters as well. Dodgeball was never a game she excelled at. She recalled many times throughout her childhood where she was the first or second person to get hit with a ball, taking the walk of shame to the bleachers as she watched the more athletic kids at school dodge balls with dazzling feats of agility and throw balls that seemed to unerringly hit their targets.

  At least her track record with the bow and arrow greatly exceeded her achievements in throwing things in gym class. It was a lot easier to hold a position and have the arrow fly straight than to coordinate all the different muscles and body parts needed to throw a fast, accurate ball.

  Anika had managed to gain some accuracy in their many battles with the lidoks, and had several times managed to pierce one through the eye, which turned out to be an effective means of killing them faster than the first batch which had largely been bludgeoned to death. She was pretty thrilled she’d managed to be useful in killing several… four… lidoks with an eye shot.

  Lily had emerged as the most effective killer of lidoks throughout the afternoon, as she had gotten quite good at using Aether magic to control the arrows that did not successfully hit lidoks after Anika released them; picking up the errant arrows with her mind-magic and drilling them straight into the eyes of the monsters. That had become a large part of their strategy as an arrow didn’t need nearly as much speed or force behind it to penetrate the eye and enter the brain.

  At least, Anika assumed they had a brain and piercing it was what killed them. She hadn’t exactly cut their heads open to check. Maybe she should have asked Leka? Probably not important.

  Anika had originally thought they would need to create some kind of funnel strategy to try to group the resilient monsters up, but they were quite reticent to move, and waiting for all of Philip’s spells to come off cooldown to group them up would have greatly decreased the speed with which they were able to kill and gain experience.

  The spell Philip had used to pull the lidoks together, it turned out, was one he got from having Space magic as well, and was called Gravity Well. Leka explained it a little more effectively than Philip, who had said it ‘made a hole that made things fall into it’. Leka said it was a combination of super condensing earth to create a small, gravity-like force within a secondary spatial void that worked to pull enemies toward it. She said Philip had clearly worked with his magic a lot to be able to make it target just creatures, as less experienced practitioners did try to avoid the spell as it could just as easily pull in trees and other objects in the casting area.

  Anika had a feeling that the people around Philip on his home world had not realized how skilled he was with his magic when they had made the rules about what he was allowed to do on the farm. He had said during the fight he had been told not to use the spell, likely because they judged him solely on his manner and not his magic.

  Philip was not the smartest person in the group, by far, but magic was a different type of intelligence that he had a much higher aptitude with. Anika would be sure not to underestimate his capabilities as a mage just because of his outward appearance of a friendly, bumbling himbo farmer. She would, however, try to keep the strategy simple so he didn’t get bogged down in details and was able to let his magical abilities shine.

  At level 7, Lily and Epona both gained buff spells similar to Philip’s Fortify spell. While Fortify gave a boost to Vitality, Lily’s aptly named Boost buffed Anima, and Epona’s Zephyr spell increased Potency. Between the three of them, the party could increase all three stats, though there were currently limitations based on cooldown and duration.

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  While Philip’s Fortify spell lasted for almost 45 minutes, at their level, Lily and Epona’s spells lasted just shy of 15 minutes. Leka had said that cooldowns for spells decreased with level, aptitude and proficiency, so Philip’s Fortify cooldown was only a few minutes, whereas Lily and Epona had to wait around 10 minutes before they could buff again. For now, it made the most sense to use their casts on Philip, as he was the highest level and could do the most damage with his spells and abilities.

  Philip, on the other hand, was able to keep Fortify up on the entire party with little difficulty other than remembering to recast it once it wore off. Anika really wished for better status tracking. Maybe there was some kind of ritual or item that would offer some more options. She would have to remember to ask Leka.

  “I think I am tired of killing lidoks,” Anika stretched out her arms and rolled her neck. “I’ve been able to heal all the hits I’ve taken, but I am starting to have this lingering ache that just won’t go away!”

  “I don’t think they are so bad! But maybe the ache is what Leka was talking about when she said not to heal everything! It starts to not work so well.” Lily had managed to avoid taking any hits from the lidoks’ flying feces, which made Anika happy, as she didn’t have armor, but also a little disgruntled as it meant Lily did not understand the physical and mental anguish of getting pounded with poop.

  “Epona says we should find more of those squirrel bosses from yesterday.” Philip was riding Epona’s back, his giant trident holstered diagonally on his back and hanging off to either side of Epona, the business end in the air while the other side rested near her hind quarters.

  “Hm, that isn’t a bad idea,” Anika looked down at Lily. “Are you able to use your map ability to look for them? They had bigger dots right? We have a lot more abilities now, so we should be able to kill them and all their little friends much easier. And the Scurry Captain was worth a lot of experience!”

  ”I think I can see them on the map and find out they are the Captains by the size, but the range isn’t very big. And I don’t know where to start looking - we started in a different part of the dungeon today!” Lily looked around where they were currently walking, still in the large forested part of the dungeon that was home to the lidoks.

  ”We’ve walked around in circles a lot today, but we should be able to use the map to get back to where we were yesterday. I can find our way there, but I can’t see if we are about to walk into other monsters like you can.” Anika opened up her own map, which included an overview of the dungeon with some markers on it, and noted that they were currently northwest of the entrance they had used to get into the dungeon.

  Yesterday, they had stayed to the east side of the dungeon. The giant squirrels had been north of the gate, though not as far north as they were now. Of course, the Scurry Captain had been the furthest north monster they fought, so if the one they killed yesterday had respawned, or if there were other Scurry Captain mini-bosses in the dungeon, it would make sense that they would be closer to the latitude they were at now. Anika had a decent memory for maps and finding her way around in games, so she was confident in her navigation abilities and pinpointed where she believed the Scurry Captain’s stand of trees was.

  ”I’m pretty sure if we walk this way,” Anika pointed to the east and slightly south, “we should get back to the area of the giant squirrels. I’d really like to avoid fighting more lidoks if we can, so Lily I want you to keep a careful watch on your map as we walk so we can try to avoid any encounters. If you see any dots, let's avoid them until we reach the edge of the forest.”

  ”Epona says that’s a good idea but wants us to go first.” Philip straightened a bit in his seat as he spoke, prepared to defend the party with Epona’s idea for them to take the lead.

  ”Okay! I’ll walk behind Epona and look for monsters!” Lily ran ahead of Anika to stand right behind Epona.

  Anika sighed. She supposed if they were walking mostly straight it didn’t matter if she was in the back. But it would be harder for her to react to an encounter if she was the last to see something.

  “I’ll do my best to watch the rear, I guess. I really wish I had a minimap that showed monsters that were nearby. I know you can tell us when things are close, Lily, but it’s a lot of responsibility for just you to warn us. Stay close to Epona so you can stop them before we run into anything.”

  ”I will keep a good watch.” Lily said seriously as Epona started to move in the direction Anika had indicated.