Chapter 131: There's Always a Bigger Fish (Patreon)

Melia found the halfling version of Y’cennia both amusing and adorable. Ebonvale didn’t really do half-races, such as half-elf or half-dwarf. If a kid was born to parents of different races, they were either one or the other despite their mixed blood. On one hand, this did away with the complexity of mixed races (including a lot of potential discrimination), but on the other….

No kitty-kin.

In other news, halflings knew how to party. Maybe it wasn’t the sort of party people were familiar with in her last life, but then again, Melia never went to any party (besides a few birthdays when she was little), so she couldn’t really say.

But there was good food, good company, and good times. Simple, genuine folk looking to wind down after an honest day in the fields. Melia ended up talking to several farmers who got hired on by the abbey to run the growing plots and became quite taken by the [Moai]. They were interested in the lore and wondered what culture used giant heads to guard their crops.

For a very brief moment, Melia considered making up an outlandish tale of island-tribe [Warrior-Farmers] who specialized in [Statuemancy].

But she didn’t have the heart to pull the wool over the simple folks’ eyes. Besides…making up stupid stories had kind of come back to bite her in the butt, since half the stuff she told Moeldywn might actually be real history. She ended up admitting she made the [Moai] because she found them very funny and liked to amuse the brothers at the abbey. They oohed and ahhed at all the appropriate moments, getting progressively more drunk as the night went on and Melia delved into the intricacies of [Enchanting] theory. Almost everything she said went entirely over their heads, but they kept offering her more stew until the moon rose, night fell, and the pot ran dry, completely consumed. Most of the halflings stumbled back to their homes, but several passed out drunk and their neighbors and family members seemed content to leave them at their tables. They’d likely wake up with a killer hangover, but that’s what they got for overindulging.

Y’cennia and Jessica both had far too much to drink, on top of the fact that they were still recovering from their Resurrection Sickness. Lethia had them taken back home to sleep in a comfortable bed so they wouldn’t strain their recovery. Melia hung around until the only remaining halflings were utterly unconscious before turning in herself. Just like her party, Melia needed to recover…in her own way. She wobbled through a dark field, found a comfortable hill with a gentle slope, and returned to her real form. She yawned into the heavens, stretched her long neck, and curled up to sleep.

Like the rest of the party, Melia “died” in the dungeon. While the others actually died and needed to be respawned by a gracious goddess, Melia’s experience was slightly different. She didn’t know if it was because she was so insanely high level or her status as a godlike being, but her body never expired. Once she was overwhelmed and taken down to a fraction of her health, her nature overrode the synchronization effect, reverting her to her real form and kicking her out of the dungeon. The [Retainers] waiting outside got a good spook seeing an unconscious, giant black dragon get yeeted out of the dungeon portal, but after the initial shock, they calmed down. Melia was merely unconscious, not dead; her health bar was mostly full. Once her full stats unlocked, her regeneration kicked in and the missing quarter of health returned within minutes. Melia didn’t even get the Resurrection Sickness debuff.

She was, however, very sore. It felt like somebody had taken a meat tenderizer and went to town on her like she was several pounds of abalone. When she woke up, Melia worried more about the team than her injuries and immediately opened a portal back to Abbyton, where she found them recuperating. She first stumbled upon Ellesea and Y’cennia, who looked worn down, but they could have been much worse. They were taking a light stroll while being assisted by a watching nurse. Obviously, her first question was whether everyone was okay, and that's when she learned Jessica was showing little improvement. Of course, that made her panic, and she felt horrible for dragging everybody into a situation they clearly weren’t prepared for.

In retrospect, Melia probably needed the slow-life infusion from the halflings just as much as everyone else. Her life hadn’t been as physically demanding as it had been for the others these last few weeks, but her mind wasn’t in a healthy state. What with Brandy appearing, then disappearing, hearing there might be a way to let her come and go as she pleased…somewhere along the line, Melia forgot she needed to live for herself, too.

So now she was.

Melia woke to the sun peeking over the mountains in the distance, baking her scales like crockery in an oven. Not that it was unpleasant; in fact, it motivated her to be lazier for longer, the urge to simply sit there, sprawled over a lovely hill growing stronger. Perhaps this was what cats felt the moment they walked down a hallway and entered the light streaming through a window.

She wasn’t the only one awake at sunrise, either. It turned out that the hill she was using as a pillow-slash-elbow rest was actually a halfling hall. Several farmers emerged with smiles on their faces, whistling a jaunty tune, as if getting blackout drunk on a midweek night was a common occurrence. As soon as they turned to lock their door and saw her grinning visage with her ching resting on their roof, they froze. Caught, like a handful of mice in a trap, Melia could smell the primal need to flee welling up inside them. But they held their ground, either through previously unforeseen bravery, sheer stupidity, or maybe…routine laziness. Running was hard work if the destination wasn’t the breakfast table, and judging from the lingering scent of eggs and cheese, these fine folks had already eaten.

“Good morn’ to you, Lady Dragon,” one of the farmers said, tipping his hat to reveal a receding hairline. “A fine day for growing crops, isn’t it?”

Melia couldn’t argue with that.

“Indeed,” she purred. She watched the man shiver as if his body were being assaulted by goosebumps, but he nodded and the group slowly trundled down the lane. She listened as they started humming again and watched until they disappeared around a corner.

She should really get up. The day was starting, and responsible people were already getting a head start on the day’s work, but…she didn’t wanna. Melia closed her eyes and listened as the day woke around her; the insects and birds grew comfortable enough with her presence to start chirping again.

Melia slipped in and out of a dreamlike state as she napped. The smell of freshly cut grass and tilled soil floated over the downs as halflings puttered in their gardens. The distant drone of bees buzzed like the mumblings of a multitude of sleep-deprived office workers. Things were peaceful, and Melia was content just to be.

…a small disturbance made itself known, though Melia carefully maintained the illusion of sleep. With her eyes closed, her magical senses picked up several tiny figures attempting (and failing) to be sneaky. She maneuvered her magical sight over to a bush and found three little halfling children staring at her in starry-eyed wonder. Two girls dared each other to touch the beast, while a timid little boy watched on, worried.

Welp. So much for getting up. She couldn’t deprive the children of their chance to climb a dragon.

As if materializing out of thin air, Layalee appeared behind the children. She stood there like a towering statue, silently watching over them, ready to assist in whatever adventure they had planned. The boy got too close to one of the girls; her hair wafted lazily on the breeze and tickled his nose…and he sneezed.

“Wah…ah…choo!”

Melia remained perfectly calm and in control. She even added a convincing fake snore, just to be safe.

All three halflings stared up at her, terrified, but once they assured themselves the beast had slept through the sneeze, they relaxed. Perhaps they decided a retreat was the better part of valor, because they turned to leave…and ran straight into Layalee’s knees. They looked up…and instead of crying out in shock or becoming distraught from being caught, they were fascinated. Watching a sleeping dragon might be one thing, but these children had clearly never seen a Real Person (™) this big before. Layalee merely held her finger up to her lips in the universal shhhh gesture before gently turning them around and nudging them toward Melia.

The kids were clearly nervous and a little bit afraid, but they were also ruinously fascinated by the slumbering dragon. Layalee picked them up, one at a time, and let them feel her scales. It took considerable willpower not to break out in a massive, fang-filled grin. Soon, they were climbing up her back from the ridge of her tail, and now the halfling children had discovered the joys of a dragon-slide.

Eventually they had their fun and ran off to do other children things, which was probably a good thing, because Melia had been sleeping on this same hill for several hours. She couldn’t forget, more often than not, the hills in these downs were houses. Melia wasn’t worried about the structural integrity of the homes (since she built most of them), but there was the matter of heat. Melia’s dragon form put out a considerable amount of heat, and though it wouldn’t affect the children as they played, it would act as a heater to the house below. The family might not take too kindly to Melia running the heat in the middle of the summer, especially since most people in this world didn’t have air conditioning.

Technically, the concept existed. It was a lucrative industry for ice [Mages] and could be found in magitech or mana crystals. Though Melia couldn’t be sure, she thought she'd once heard that people built homes underground to protect against the heat. Maybe it acted as insulation? Perhaps she’d need to revisit the Abbytonshire homes and install central air.

Melia knew she’d been lying around too long when L’menia returned and asked if she wanted to take lunch here or if someone needed to send for Jessica so she could go feed somewhere else. Today was supposed to be a laid-back day, so Melia didn’t want to bug the [Hunter]. She had her [Retainers] toss some [Crimson Cattle] into her mouth, much like paintings of ancient people eating grapes, and was grateful that she had the foresight yesterday to bag a few extras. Nothing like a bogo on [Cattle] so she didn’t need to stock up again.

At this point, Melia was wide awake and couldn’t hide it any longer. Not since more and more people were traveling down the lane, sometimes out for a nice summer stroll or pulling a little cart behind them. Occasionally, a halfling would do a double take, as if just now realizing that their halls didn’t come installed with dragons lounging on them. She’d either wink or wave, and if she got a favorable response, she’d add a grin. More than once, she noticed their auras tint into the orangish-yellow of fear before calming down. They’d then toss out a timeless platitude or two and continue on their day. Mind the pond; wet, that, was probably Melia's favorite, followed closely by, well, these potatoes won’t grow themselves, because, yeah, they kind of did.

Despite the slow, laid-back life, all the halflings seemed to move with purpose…even if it might take a while for said purpose to arrive. She watched a group carry bundles of clothes down to the well to do laundry, gossiping like a bunch of old hens; there was even an old farmer trying to wrangle a cow that clearly understood the dynamic in this “I’m a fat cow and you’re a tiny person” relationship. But eventually, somebody interesting popped up, and Melia decided to follow them.

It was a middle-aged man, clearly not a boy, but also not one of the wizened fathers. Yet unlike nearly all the halflings his age, he wasn’t headed out to work the fields…instead, he was wandering through the fields.

Melia’s curiosity got the better of her; she simply had to know where he was going.

Melia stretched her neck, stood up, and made the ground tremble slightly as she shook herself out. She glanced warily down at the hill she’d been using as a pillow, but it remained firm. Good. Yes, this hole in particular was going to receive a home installation of Melia-certified air conditioning soon as a reward for putting up with her hijinx.

Now, she could have [Stealthed] and followed the man without him ever knowing…but where was the fun in that? Instead, she ambled along behind him, making sure not to step on anything important (which was tricky now that she had 4 feet), and matched his pace.

Of course, the man instantly tracked that he was being followed. How could he not? The ground rumbled with her every footfall, and at times her shadow cast the man into darkness. He froze the first time it happened, employed that questionable practice of if they can’t see me move, they won’t know I’m here bit, and slowly turned around.

Melia wasn’t in a hurry, so she simply stared down at him and blinked.

The man’s jaw slowly fell open…but that was about it. He cleared his throat, carefully turned around…and started powerwalking away.

As if his tiny legs could outpace a dragon the size of a small hill.

Melia shrugged and ambled after him.

Thus ensued a little game of cat and mouse…or tag…or something. The man got tired of his brisk walk and turned again, staring up at her. But he didn’t actually say anything, so Melia didn’t either. Perhaps she really should have, because she was dying to know where this guy was going, but now it was hilarious and she was invested. The man did the “stop and look” routine four times before he gave up. Melia could only assume his apathy had reached its limit and he no longer cared.

After nearly an hour of walking without a word, the man led Melia to a stream. To a halfling, it was a decent brook bordering on a river, deep enough to drown in, if maybe not enough to need a boat or a crossing. He perched himself on a rock beneath a shady oak tree…and began to fish.

Melia watched, fascinated, as the man pulled a [Sturdy Rod] from his inventory, secured bait and a bobber to the hook, and cast his line. He then proceeded to lean against the tree, pull his hat low over his face, and close his eyes.

Well.

If that was how it was….

Melia could certainly do better.

She pranced around, making sure to get her positioning just right…and sat down with a mighty fwump. She deliberately made sure that her head and horns didn’t cast a shadow over the man or the river, though she did need to curl her tail in an odd direction and align it with the stream so it didn’t dip into the water. One arm she used as a chin rest, while the other would do the real work. She reached forward with her claws, set her frontal foot-hand-thing down about a dozen feet away from the [Fisherman]...and brought out a fishing rod of her own.

​

[Titansteel Arcanocaster]

Level: 1000

Rarity: Epic

Quality: 5-Stars

Made By: Fisherman Mei-li

​

On Equip: Increase [Fishing] Skill by 500.

On Equip: Increase Attraction Rate of Rare fish by 100%.

On Cast: Send out a fish-seeking sonar, revealing the shadows of lurking lunkers for 7 seconds.

On Hook: Cast level 1000 [Inspect]

On Catch: Raise Quality by 100%.

​

Fish fear me; no beast dares make a sound in my presence. I am alone on this barren land….

​

…Maybe it was a little overkill.

Melia held the beautiful diamond-encrusted, silver-gleaming rod between her two nails and pinched them together carefully, holding it steady as she locked it in place with magic. The halfling, despite wanting to look like he was taking a nap, begrudgingly tilted his hat up so he could properly stare. But his stoic silence was resolute, as he said nothing and went back to fishing, though he no longer seemed content to take a nap. It appeared there was now a silent war between two [Fishermen]....

…and if Melia was going to go the whole way, she might as well make it official.

She wafted away her perpetual title of the Magnificent and replaced it with [Fisherman]. Much like [Archmage] was a class that could be rewarded as a title, Melia had received this title from the system as proof of her many [Fishing] deeds.

No longer would she be [Melia the Magnificent]!

The world would cower in the presence of [Fisherman Meliastraza]!

…or they’d continue to lean lazily against a tree. Either or.

Melia ignored her silent companion and flicked the line into the river. In the game, [Fishing] differed from most gathering professions because it didn’t require specific nodes to fish from.

Any body of water would do…and the fishing community of Ebonvale put that notion to the test. They’d discovered some incredibly creative fishing spots, some of which the developers never intended. Including one that happened to be in the middle of a landlocked city! Apparently, there was unused geometry underneath the city that wasn’t accessible. For reasons only known to the developers, there was a small pool of water hidden under the streets, and by fishing into the side of a specific pillar, the line would clip through the world and land in it. The first player to catch something was incredibly surprised, even if the fish they landed was a bog-standard, level 1 [Carp]. They posted screenshots on the forums, creating an overnight sensation among the anglers, and instead of patching out the broken wall, the devs changed the water’s loot table. No more fish would spawn; only trash items. There was the classic [Old Boot], a slip of paper called [Broken Patch Notes], and a very, very rare cosmetic shirt called [Novel-Tee] with a flavor text that read: I fished through the world and all I got was this lousy shirt.

So! Unlike [Mining], which had nodes of [Iron] or [Copper] in mini-mounds dotted across the countryside, or [Logging] or [Herbalism] that had interacable trees and plants, fish could be caught anywhere. Yes, there were [Schools] of fish that appeared, nodes where a specific type of fish could be caught with much greater regularity. But in a place like this, in the backwoods of Abbyton, all they should expect was a [Snapper] or a [Mudfish].

Which, of course, was exactly what Melia got.

The first time.

Melia didn’t have to wait long for the first bite, even though her buddy had cast his line several minutes ago. Her gear was too powerful. She instantly caught a [Snapper], but the screen from her fishing pole told her it wasn’t worth her time. Level 1, barely 6 inches long, weighing a little more than a pound. Melia let it eat the bait and get away. She wasn’t really sure what she was fishing for, even if she knew she wanted to fish.

After several minutes, the halfling got a bite, and Melia let her own pole go completely forgotten as she watched with bated breath as he reeled it in. He proved to be an adept hand at [Fishing], pulling in a respectable level 100 [Catfish] as long as his arm. He struggled with it momentarily until doing as all [Fishermen] do who wish to eventually eat their catches…and brutally clubbed it on the head. At least it didn’t need to suffer. It went into his inventory and he cast again.

Well.

Melia should have guessed that a halfling was [Fishing] for food, since they never passed up the opportunity to eat. Maybe the next bite that landed, she’d give him too.

Which, of course, meant it had to be a real whopper, because the gods had their sense of humor.

After several minutes of peaceful silence, Melia’s bobber began to dip. Her scaly brow rose eagerly as whatever lurked beneath the surface toyed with her line. A dip. A shake. A nudge.

And then…

It plunged.

Melia nearly bolted up in her excitement, her jaw falling slightly open and her tongue lolling out. Perhaps one might expect an epic tale of struggle as the fish fought for survival…but it stood no chance. Not even the glorious specimen that it was.

​

[Dels Catfish]

​

Level: 500

Rarity: Rare

Quality: 5-Stars

​

Length: 77 inches

Weight: 198 pounds

​

Melia gently used magic to lift the fish off the ground as soon as she pulled it from the water…it was nearly the size of one of her nails. The halfling, all pretense of ignoring her forgotten, stared up at it in wide-eyed wonder.

Where did this thing even come from? Sure, the water was just deep enough to obscure the bottom, but there was no way this behemoth was simply waiting around in the shallows of Abbyton, right? But then again…maybe the fish was onto something. Who in their right mind would look for it here? No other fish in the area were above level 100, so surely no [Fisherman] above rank 5 would try, right? Apparently, it didn’t account for [Fisher-dragons]. Bad luck, mate.

“Tha’s a biggun,” the man finally said, and that was that.

​

Melia gave the fish to the man and decided her job here was done. She ambled back into the field, stared down at some nervous-looking farmers as they tended to a field and eventually made her way toward the abbey where the [Scholars] were building a shed-sized [Greenhouse]. Unlike Melia's, this one was actually the size of a shed, with the same interior size it should have. They were attempting to recreate the automated irrigation system that drew from the [Moonwell] without actually being connected, to very little success. But little wasn’t none, and they managed to get a drip-feed system going that could sustain a single potted plant.

It was progress.

As she observed them, they, in turn, observed her, and Melia remained frozen in place far longer than she planned because she felt it would be bad form to leave in the middle of their studies. She was too polite to simply walk away, even though her legs were a little stiff and she wanted to find her team.

After an entire day of loafing around, Melia finally thought of something. The reason why their failure in [Az-tiki] weighed so heavily on her.

Maybe the problem was that she was trying too hard to fit in. Fitting in wasn’t Melia’s style, and it felt like the world itself seemed to know it, even if Melia didn’t. Having seen a few of the ways history portrayed her, the Melia of Ebonvale was closer to how she acted in the game than a real adventurer or dragon.

She couldn’t fault her friends for treating adventuring like a job. They should…because it was! It was their livelihood before Melia came along, and even if they didn’t need to keep doing it to put food on the table, they had no reason to fall into bad habits. But Melia wasn’t a professional dungeon diver, nor was she a classically trained tank. Not in this world’s sense. She could do the job; she was more than qualified on all fronts, but when she was in charge, she found she was missing a vital element to really bring it to life.

The personality, the flair.

During [Az-tiki], Melia had tried her best to emulate Hank. He was the best tank she knew, far better than herself, and he was a serious, no-nonsense person like a “real” tank ought to be. Melia wasn’t serious. Not then, not now. That wasn’t to say she didn’t take her job seriously; of course she did. She knew exactly how to follow procedure. But the banter, the jokes…and most importantly, the laughter was gone.

Thankfully, Melia had a good idea on how to get that back. As well as some of the equipment the group lost when they all died.

It might not be on Order’s list, but perhaps it was time to take another trip to [Astoria Boondocks].