Chapter Forty-Four: Intended Effect (Patreon)

Wei Shengyuan wins his first battle with agonizing slowness. It’s going to be a mess going through the level with this type of party composition and strategy.

Zan Xinyi slumps back into the couch cushions, exhausted by the thought. It’s been such a long day, and she’s still in so much pain. And now she has to watch someone be bad at video games.

Truly, her life is a nightmare. 

“I didn’t get any currency for winning that,” Wei Shengyuan says.

“Yes, you get all currency given to you when the level is cleared.” Because it’s easier for her to track. 

“But what if someone fails this fight and the Witch is dead and they don’t have enough summons to unlock a better option?” 

“Don’t you get currency for clearing the first level.” Zan Xinyi reaches for her laptop to check Guan Yu’s bug reports, and then realizes she doesn’t have access to them when Wei Shengyuan is using it to play the game. 

“No, Guan Yu was complaining about that,” Wei Shengyuan says. “There isn’t any currency tied to the first floor.” 

He begins to push onwards through the wind and leaves until he triggers the next battle, the first introduction to the Horned Shadow. It’s still using the same rigging as previous, except that dark stag horns protrude from the head. 

And there’s only one of them. 

“Most gacha games provide currency gifts for their beginning players,” Jiang Jin says. “It doesn’t have to be a reward for effort, just a reward for signing up!” 

“Should I reward someone for that?” Zan Xinyi mutters. 

“Yiyi~” Jiang Jin says, clasping her hands together. “Please reward them for binding to your game. I think they deserve a reward for trusting you. And then they get to hear all of my awesome summon music and character theme songs! I wish there was a way to watch people listen and react to my songs...but the internet is down.” 

Is creating an account equivalent to trusting someone these days. 

“I’ll fix it,” Zan Xinyi says at the same time as the Horned Shadow takes its first turn and the battle music, which should have started when the last combat was initiated, finally begins to play with a loud trill of a clarinet. 

“It’s a wind quintet plus a snare drum,” Jiang Jin says, explanations that don’t quite make sense to Zan Xinyi spilling everywhere in her eagerness. “I wrote it for any combination of woodwinds, but when I put together the final recording I decided on the traditional wind quintet, and layered a clarinet, a flute, an oboe, a bassoon, and a horn. I wish--”

“Fuck!” 

It’s rare to hear Wei Shengyuan curse. Zan Xinyi looks back over to his trainwreck of a run. Ah, the weather.

The Horned Shadow has two moves, just like all of Zan Xinyi’s set ups. But more importantly, Zan Xinyi has finally started remembering to make the weather relevant to each level.

THE WIND REVEALS YOUR WEAKNESS. THE HORNED SHADOW SCENTS BLOOD ON THE BREEZE!

While before the Horned Shadow was completely a dark silhouette, now red eyes peer out from its empty head.

“On wind levels, enemies will always target the most injured characters first unless specifically countered by a character ability,” Zan Xinyi says. “It didn’t happen during the first fight because you started with everyone at full health.” 

Wei Shengyuan’s shoulders hunch into terrible gamer posture as he deals with the new obstacle. But as long as all the cards are loading into the combat set up and the health points are visible, this is merely a difficult game and not an unplayable game. 

“You made the wind reveal weakness?” Jiang Jin asks. 

“The wind as a weather condition reveals weakness. If Echo was here, Wei Shengyuan wouldn’t be struggling so much. Echo’s got counters for this type of thing, and so does Lost Soldier and Shout. Technically Whisper does too, if he were willing to exert more control over rotating who has the lowest health pool. He just isn’t good at the game.” 

She looks back at Wei Shengyuan as the snare drum goes faster and faster within the music loop. 

He’s-- really distressed. Breathing rapidly. 

Huh? 

“Wei Shengyuan?” 

She presses her hand against his neck and feels his pulse speed along underneath the desperate flaring of his gills. 

“They’re all going to die,” he mumbles.

She looks over his shoulder.

Well, yes. Because he sucks. And honestly, it would be better if they all did die so he could repick from a team that would work better with his personality. She could set him up with Secretive Echo, River’s Maw, and Siren and they’d steamroll. The only problem then being she wouldn’t be able to check that the cutscenes she’d set up for the Witch and Siren would still trigger, but it’s not a big loss since those were always optional anyway. 

“They’re not going to die,” Jiang Jin says. “This music is way better than my death music. And we’ve got a lot of floors to go!” 

The floors will happen no matter what. 

But..

Zan Xinyi sighs and shoves Wei Shengyuan’s hands off her keyboard. 

“I know that nothing is labeled, but that’s no excuse for forgetting everything.” She starts lining up the cards for the next round, picking Whisper to heal herself, setting the Siren to cast Dance of Hot Coals.

Wei Shengyuan has been stacking the Witch’s Vicious Curse on the Horned Shadow every round, so it would be dead already if he’d just focused more on dealing damage. Whatever. 

The more important thing is that she’d fixed the bug that had plagued the Witch before and thus, has the availability of the Witch’s second ability. 

She clicks on Skies Beyond Skies. 

WITCH BENEATH CLEAR SKIES: We’re halfway through this windy day already, Lantern-Bearer. Are you sure you can’t get through this without my aid?

It’s odd, listening to her own voice have such a rasp to it.

“Do I really sound like that?” Zan Xinyi asks.

“Yes,” Jiang Jin and Wei Shengyuan both say immediately. 

“Why does your skill have a warning attached to it?” Wei Shengyuan adds on. “None of the others do.” 

“I thought you were complaining that there aren’t any tutorial features,” Zan Xinyi says

“I’m not complaining. I’m just surprised. Though I don’t actually think it counts as a tutorial element if the Witch doesn’t explain anything.” 

“It explains plenty.” 

Zan Xinyi clicks on the card again. 

LANTERN-BEARER: This is my decision.

WITCH BENEATH CLEAR SKIES: Then as you command.

The witch raises one hand up, and then ceases moving as Zan Xinyi was not going to animate anything she didn’t have to. Instead, a red ritual circle begins to paint itself across the sky until every single character and enemy and painted leaf is aglow with red light.

Then the battle music cuts out so that all anyone can hear is the whistle of wind.

She has got to figure out why the music keeps doing that. Even if she never fixes it, it’s starting to really irritate her. 

Then the circle shrinks until it is just over the Horned Shadow’s head, and sends a bolt of red lightning directly down at it, killing it. 

Zan Xinyi takes her hands off the keyboard and shoves it back in Wei Shengyuan’s direction. 

“What on earth did that warning explain??” Wei Shengyuan demands. “Why warn against doing something that will work perfectly?” 

“Hey,” Jiang Jin says. “My clarinets haven’t come back. And the sound effects have stopped working, too.” 

Obviously. 

“There’s no more wind in the level,” Zan Xinyi says. “It won’t return as long as the Witch is present on the field.” 

Using it on this floor is fine, but making it work with the rain was still not perfect, and now that she’s thinking about it, she thinks she forgot to make it turn off the sound effects on the fourth floor too. Damn it. 

While she’s caught up in her own thoughts, Wei Shengyuan once again progresses the Lantern-Bearer forward through the now silent forest. 

“The lack of hearing the wind makes the leaves seem weirdly frozen in place instead of gently falling,” Wei Shengyuan says. “It ruins the illusion.” 

“Well if you’d like to draw up a completely different background of leaves to swap too when one specific and rare ability is used--”

“I’d like to!”

“I refuse. It’s fine as it is.”

“Can I add in more music to reflect still wind? It’s sad having nothing, Yiyi...”

“No, it’s good to have silence. It’s got contrast. No need to add more things, Jiang Jin!” 

Even though the argument continues all through the second level, Zan Xinyi is still close enough to her first subordinate to feel him calm down as if his complete stress over the Witch taking damage was nothing but a brittle illusion.

Even though he continues to fight terribly. 

She drifts, losing focus on the playthrough as the stupid system prompt still floats its reminder in front of her eyes. 

>13 players have been bound to the game. 

>Your choice of three rewards remains. Please choose, host. 

The lightning rod, the barrier, the pool. 

She thinks about Jiang Jin’s broken arm, which took over a month to heal. Wei Shengyuan, who in the barely five days he spent away from his bathtub began to have his skin crack open and peel patchily like some abused goldfish. 

“We made it to the Door to Unknown!” Jiang Jin says. “One down, three more to go! Zan Xinyi told me the music for floor three should be ‘wet’ and ‘miserable’, so I tried my best.” 

“I wouldn’t describe the art direction as wet and miserable,” Wei Shengyuan says, affronted. “It’s a rainforest jungle with bright greens and colors. Zan Xinyi, it’s not miserable just because you were struggling with the rain mechanics. Now it’s going to affect the player experience.” 

It was going to affect the player experience no matter what, because Zan Xinyi does not believe in suffering alone. 

But she stares at the Unknown Door, and thinks about the door to the rooftop that Qingqing is still guarding.

In the end, the plant is the one that is most rooted here.

“I’m going to do something,” Zan Xinyi says. 

Wei Shengyuan offers her the computer back.

“No, unrelated to that. Wei Shengyuan, Jiang Jin, you guys... negotiate with the plant again. Our company should get some further benefits.” 

“Huh?”

“Zan Xinyi, what are you talking about?”

“Crystaline Pool.” 

>Choice accepted. The crystalline pool has been placed in a suitable location within the base. Suitable location: Apartment basement level. 

Right in front of her eyes, both Jiang Jin and Wei Shengyuan turn and stare downwards, their senses strong enough to tell them off a change that’s four floors and many layers of concrete below them.

“You two should head down there,” Zan Xinyi says. “That thing could heal the Lighting Beast, right? It will definitely have healing benefits for you two as well.” 

“But you’re the one injured,” Jiang Jin says, while Wei Shengyuan works his jaw and stares at the laptop and says nothing. “We should take you down there, Yiyi!” 

“It won’t heal me.” 

She knows that instinctively, deeply. 

There’s power there. Of course there is. 

But she only gains power from what she can hurt. There’s nothing valuable at all to her in glowing water. 

“No, I want to stay here and finish the playthrough,” Wei Shengyuan says. 

“I can do it better than you,” Zan Xinyi says. “You fight so slowly. The deadline is close.” 

He clutches at that laptop like it’s the real gift, and not the healing, power giving waters below.

“I’ll go faster,” he says. “You’re just going to get the Witch killed and replace the team.” 

He knows her so well. 

“You’d do better with different players, especially for the rain level.” 

Though the Siren will do well there. 

“It doesn’t have to be good!” Wei Shengyuan says. “I just have to do it.”

He only uses that against her when he doesn't have better arguments. Fucker. 

“I’ll stay here too,” Jiang Jin says. “I can talk to Qingqing from here, Yiyi. Don’t worry!”

Was she worrying?

“Everyone is so panicky,” Zan Xinyi says, finally. “Calm down.” 

She’s almost hurt. She put a lot of thought into helping them, but they don’t seem grateful at all.