BOGWITCH: Damned right.
OtterLeader: You ever take on the FireMiser?
She blinked in surprise, shoving some hair out of her eyes. The what?
BOGWITCH: That is NOT what he’s named.
BOGWITCH: Oh my God. All I can think of is that weird, angry Claymation dude.
OtterLeader: lol no it’s not his real name
OtterLeader: He’s this fire demon, up in this hidden cave at the upper NorthEast quadrant of the dessert map.
OtterLeader: *desert
She felt a little curl of curiosity starting to twist and break up her foul mood.
BOGWITCH: How are the drops? How tough is the boss?
OtterLeader: Don’t know. Never run it. Guys think it’s a waste of time, it’s kind of apocryphal. Nobody I know has actually done the mission. It’s kind of an urban legend.
BOGWITCH: So why’s he called FireMiser?
OtterLeader: Don’t know. I imagine he looks like it? Don’t know what his real name is, either. Just saw it on some of the boards and in the wiki.
She quickly called up the Blood Saga wiki, typing in FireMiser in the search bar. Sure enough: “The FireMiser is rumored to be in the northeast quadrant of Tryal desert biome. Few enter—none leave to tell the tale. Easter egg. Developer’s notes.”
BOGWITCH: Do you even know where to look?
OtterLeader: Kinda?
Maggie grimaced. On the one hand, it did not fulfill the “kill shit” adrenaline-elimination purpose she’d initially wanted. On the other hand . . . she was curious. Kit had said she was viciously tenacious when she decided to figure something out. “It’s a good thing you’re not into true-crime podcasts like I am,” he’d said, shaking his head, “or you’d be like that dude from Always Sunny, looking wild eyed in front of a murder board with, like, pins and strings and newspaper clippings all over it.”
BOGWITCH: What the hell. Let’s try it.
They geared up and then ported over to the desert biome, heading for the far corner of the map. Since they hadn’t been there before, it meant traveling by foot rather than using a spell and teleporting. Which meant a lot of boring travel. Which meant they had time to talk—or rather, text.
OtterLeader: Bad day?
BOGWITCH: Why do u ask?
OtterLeader: You said you wanted to kill things. I just figured.
She took a deep breath, then tried using Kit’s favorite method of deflecting.
BOGWITCH: Bold of you to assume I don’t want to kill things as a default.
OtterLeader: lol
OtterLeader: Well, do you?
BOGWITCH: It’s not my factory setting. But more often than not, probably.
BOGWITCH: I’m guessing you’re all sunshine and light.
OtterLeader: I have my bad days, sure, but I try not to let them get me down.
OtterLeader: Too many people have it really bad. I look like a punk ass bitch in comparison.
BOGWITCH: You saying I’m a punk ass bitch?
OtterLeader: I would never. :）
She laughed.
BOGWITCH: Fuckin’ A right.
OtterLeader: lol
She bit her lip. She didn’t owe him anything—no explanation. But something about the fact that he’d asked, that he was concerned, kind of tugged at her. She finally sighed, then typed.
BOGWITCH: Bad day. I hate people-ing.
OtterLeader: Hard same.
OtterLeader: Social stuff sucks ass.
She let out an actual laugh. He was usually so much more . . . professional wasn’t quite the right term, but he struck her as the type that shepherded the rest of the knuckleheads in the guild, like a teen tour guide amid his ragged, unruly band. Mouse was good at cracking skulls, but he didn’t have Otter’s implacability. Otter tended to be calm, soothing.
Maybe she was responding to that.
BOGWITCH: I have reached the age when I give absolutely zero fucks about what anyone else thinks. Mostly.
BOGWITCH: Ever see that meme, from anime, where one school kid is chasing another school kid? And they’re labeled “fuck around” and “find out”， and they’re being followed by a reporter who’s talking to a camera and he says “as you can see, the gap is narrowing . . .”
OtterLeader: LOLOLOL
OtterLeader: You’re pretty cool for an elderly person BOGWITCH: Picture me flipping you off.
BOGWITCH: And then letting Mr. Fire Miser or whatever eat you.
OtterLeader: which would leave you healer-less, and then where would you be?
BOGWITCH: Worth it. I am just that petty.
They kept bantering like that as they got to the corner, a Mordor-like environment with some nasty steam spouts and what seemed to be mini volcanoes. They searched fruitlessly for about an hour. Ordinarily, she’d be getting more fixated—and more frustrated. Now, she was wondering if maybe they’d missed it because they were too busy chatting. Not so much about themselves—she liked the anonymity, and frankly, she’d had enough of small talk for one day—but talking about . . . concepts? Life? Just silly observations, things they liked and hated, things that made sense and didn’t make sense.
BOGWITCH: So that’s why I think it’s impossible to go back in time and kill your grandfather.
BOGWITCH: Which is why I think the movie TENET is kind of ridiculous.
OtterLeader: That’s sort of wild. I have never thought of time travel that way.
She had never actually told anybody her time-travel theory. Well, other than Kit, who had heard her as she refined it over the years, to the point where he covered his ears if she so much as breathed the term “time travel.” Otter, on the other hand, not only “listened,” he proved that he was paying attention and that he understood the concepts by asking her some very good questions.
OtterLeader: I have mixed feelings about Christohper Nolan. I appreciate his obvious influences from Andrew Niccol, like Gattaca . . .
BOGWITCH: YOU watched Gattaca? Isn’t that, what, vintage for you?
OtterLeader: lol I’m not that young
She wondered what that meant. Maybe he was all of twenty-one or something. Kids these days. She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it, feeling indulgent.
BOGWITCH: Kiddo, you probably tell people your age still using halves and quarters.
It looked like he was about to type, but she quickly saw something behind a crevice they’d walked past easily twenty times.
BOGWITCH: Oh my God do you see that??
BOGWITCH: The purple stones.
Whatever he’d been about to type, he didn’t seem to complete, because she saw his response.
OtterLeader: Holy shit is that a door??
BOGWITCH: Let’s gooo
They entered tentatively. And then spent the next five （yes, five） hours exploring a small cavern that opened into a bigger cavern. That brought on one of the toughest, weirdest bosses she’d ever fought in Blood Saga.
One that looked, funnily enough, like the damned Claymation villain.
After getting killed three times, they finally decided to return to the guildhall and then try to convince the rest of the team to work with them to take down the boss. Hopefully they would be able to find it again. As it was, it was now two in the morning, and Maggie was starting to feel exhaustion descend on her like a storm.
BOGWITCH: 2 am I gotta sleep
OtterLeader: I’m sorry
BOGWITCH: Why?
BOGWITCH: I make my own decisions. If I wanted to sleep earlier, I would’ve told you. Don’t be ridiculous.