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Desert Dust: Are you busy?
Ye Xiu paused the lazy wanderings of his borrowed berserker, much to the disgust of the quest NPC he was supposedly guiding home. If anything, the Heavenly Domain today had been especially unbusy, without even a single murmur of a wild boss to be found – which, of course, was the sole reason his berserker was playing through the sixth stage of what was turning out to be a longer quest sequence than he’d anticipated.
One Autumn Leaf: What’s up?
The reply came a minute later, when he was tapping impatiently on the keys in an attempt to make the dialogue scroll faster. Ye Xiu was confident that the Glory writers had made every effort to script convincingly romantic dialogue for Lady Lisabeth’s declaration of eternal love, but he really was only interested in her necklace. The imp he had met at the start of the stage had assured him that he couldn’t pass without it.
Desert Dust: Come run a dungeon with me.
Well.
Between Han Wenqing and an NPC with seemingly limitless dialogue, Ye Xiu knew exactly who he’d prefer. And if he was smiling as he logged off the berserker, too impatient for the dialogue to run its course, that wasn’t for Han Wenqing to know.
The most recent Glory patch had released a scattered handful of new levelling areas without wild bosses at the furthest corners of the map that all but confirmed the imminent arrival of the level cap raise. Han Wenqing was waiting for him in one of them, a deeply carved valley with slopes that reminded Ye Xiu of Line Canyon if Line Canyon was infested by vultures with knives for beaks.
Five percent fixed damage from a single dive was a lot of damage when the vultures swooped around in synchronised, diabolical formations.
“You came,” Han Wenqing said in greeting, his voice echoing out of the shadowed alcove he was using to avoid the murderous birds. Up close, Ye Xiu recognised the flowing robes of a qi master behind the team-invite popup on his screen – a perfectly logical class choice, really, given that only magic and bullets affected the nimble vultures. He accepted the invite, leaning sideways to allow the qi bullet to pass by.
A vulture squawked indignantly behind him.
“You’re much better company than an NPC,” he replied, propping his elementalist more fully against the steep rock face. “Unless this is a ploy to prevent me from chasing a wild boss?”
“I’m sure Excellent Dynasty will survive without you,” Han Wenqing said dryly. His qi master stepped out of the alcove, and Ye Xiu fell into step beside him as they headed for the dungeon.
“Oh, but I don’t want to only survive,” he said. “I want to win.”
He counted Han Wenqing’s soft huff of agreeing laughter as a victory.
The five-person max-level dungeon they entered may not been designed for a two-player party without a healer, but neither had it been designed with two pro-players in mind. In the end, they just about balanced each other out, and Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing left the first boss in smoking ruins with only minor dents to their health bars.
The mana bar, on the other hand, was a different matter. “I hope you brought potions with you,” he said, picking up the loot from the first boss. “Unless we want to start setting records for the slowest dungeon run ever, the regeneration won’t keep up with consumption after the second boss.”
“You could have just said you have an empty inventory instead of tying yourself in knots, you know.” There was no way Ye Xiu was imagining the exasperated laughter floating through his headphones, warm with complaining amusement. His mouth curved into a smile.
“Hey, I’m the one giving you the opportunity to sweep in like a dashing knight with life-saving medicines,” he teased. “And my inventory isn’t empty, Excellent Dynasty isn’t that poor.”
“Ah, yes, the legendary dashing qi master and his satchel full of mana potions,” Han Wenqing snorted. “As Su Mucheng undoubtedly has better taste, I shudder to think of what made your mind draw that comparison.”
“The effect is ruined by you not having a horse,” Ye Xiu agreed in mock sadness. “So, my legendary dashing qi master, would you like to share your satchel of mana potions?”
“What would you say if I refused?” Han Wenqing wondered.
“Well, you wouldn’t,” he said, placing all his certainty into the words. He was rewarded by the barrage of mana potions that started appearing in his inventory a moment later, the elaborate icons revealing them to be the high-quality potions that required a full mastery of alchemy and a significant amount of dedication to brew. If the crafting aspects of Glory involved less NPCs and lighter equipment, Ye Xiu thought, they’d be a lot more popular – expensive twenty-kilogram cauldrons weren’t high on the list of things to carry around in a fight. Then again, maybe people who liked lore enjoyed that kind of thing.
“You’re thinking about something very strange,” Han Wenqing deduced from his sudden silence and lack of mana recovery. “What is it?”
“Nothing important,” he decided, downing one of the mana potions. “Onwards, my brave knightly horseless qi master!”
Somehow, he could perfectly visualise Han Wenqing’s expression in the flatly despondent silence that followed.
“So, what are your plans for next season?” Ye Xiu asked as they reduced the second boss to a powerless corpse on the ground. “I hope it’s not the championship – that’s already got Excellent Era’s names written on it.”
“Does it?” A lazy blast of qi sent a minion straight into his elementalist’s spells. “You might need to go back to primary school, the characters quite clearly say Tyranny.”
He had to admit, that was a good one. If Han Wenqing pulled that out during a match everyone would probably surrender in pure shock. “How long did it take for you to come up with that?”
“Less long than you think. It must be from hanging out with you.” Ye Xiu would eat his keyboard whole if there wasn’t any kind of tiny, self-satisfied smirk decorating Han Wenqing’s face. “Tyranny’s plan is easy. Win the regular season, win the championship, try prevent R&D from having a nervous breakdown before the level cap update rolls out. I did mention it was too early to get worried, but my boss told me it apparently wasn’t very reassuring.”
“Ah, but did any of them try to take out their wallet?” Ye Xiu teased, sending lightning crackling across the third boss to attract its attention. They fell quiet for a while, working its health down to zero, but when the drops finally rolled out from its body Han Wenqing sighed and muttered, “A few.”
Ye Xiu didn’t even attempt to hold back his snickers.
“You should have accepted,” he gasped out when they finally ended. “Could have used it to buy shrimp or other snacks.” He didn’t bother dodging the qi bullet that followed – teammates were exempt from friendly fire anyway, despite however much Han Wenqing wanted to murder his elementalist at that moment.
On the other end, Han Wenqing seemed like he was struggling to pick a word. “Shameless,” he finally said, rather resignedly.
“Just the way you like it,” Ye Xiu agreed.
The rest of the dungeon passed without incident, Han Wenqing’s apparently unlimited supply of mana potions easily making up for the fact that they needed the output of two DPS to equal the attacks of four. They talked about the last season and picked apart matches that had been won and lost in the singular flash of a sword, and they counted the week's bosses and pretended a fair distribution to each team based on class differences that nobody, least of all themselves, would agree to, and they speculated the undeniably incoming level cap raise and skills for each class from the perspective of increasing flexibility until Ye Xiu's mouth had gone dry and a profound satisfaction had settled beneath his skin from the sound of Han Wenqing's voice, familiar in its fiery passion.
“Well, that was fun,” he said, stretching as they exited the dungeon. “But Old Han, just saying… don’t dates usually involve food?”
Han Wenqing laughed softly, the sound warm down his spine. Before Ye Xiu could comment further, a knock sounded on his door.
“Come in,” he called, taking off his headphones.
“An extremely starstruck delivery guy said this was for you, Captain Ye,” said Excellent Era’s security guard. “Be careful, it’s still hot – he must have rushed over at top speed, the restaurant is at the other end of the city. Eat slowly, don’t try to shovel it all into your mouth so you can get back to Glory quicker, okay? Excellent Dynasty needs wild bosses, whatever they are, not a sick captain.”
Baffled, Ye Xiu thanked him and took the bag.
Inside the container was shrimp. Their heat sank into his hands, and their light steam had begun to fog the sides of the box. Ye Xiu stared at them, incredulous, and then lunged for his headphones.
“I completely agree,” Han Wenqing said, before Ye Xiu could get out more than a garbled noise. “Dates should involve food, and this was a very pleasant one.”
Ye Xiu closed his mouth and opened it and closed it again, and blurted out, “If you were here, I would kiss you.”
There was a long pause.
“You know what,” Han Wenqing finally said, his voice low, “I’ll hold you to that promise.”
“Oh, you better,” Ye Xiu told him.