Therapy

"No, please—Minori! Pleassssssse... you do it, I'll wait in the back! Now that I know you're okay, I don't really need to face my fears, so please..." She was begging me, leaning back diagonally with her heels scraping the ground as I pushed her butt (literally) forward.

"'Now that I'm okay?' Do you have any idea how many brushes with death I just had?!" Really, if it weren't for that random wandering Elf, I wouldn't even be here right now. "I need you Leilei. You're a level 5 fire Elementalist. If anyone can make quick work of this, it's you."

"I can't—I can't, please—no we pulled one! Minori Please, stop—ahhhhhhhh!" she squealed as the nearest spider noticed us and began skittering and hissing straight for us.

I smiled my wicked little smile and kept pushing. "All the more reason to start casting—if you don't burn it soon, it's going to crawl all over you with those ugly hairy legs, kiss and lick you with its icky mouth, tickle you with its creepy pedipalps..."

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" I could literally feel her body go cold. 

Shoot... This wasn't working. I finally let go of her and she fell to the ground like a stiff board. I then positioned myself between her and the aggro'd spider.

Such a shame I couldn't get her to find the courage within herself. This was the perfect opportunity... 

She seemed legitimately willing to face them before!

Just because I wasn't in immediate danger now she totally lost her nerve? 

What do I have to do, let this thing... Oh no...

I realized that that was exactly what I had to do. "Here we go again," I sighed.

"Ice Shard!" I cast my favorite spell.

However, I deliberately aimed it at the sky.

Miss.

"Oh no! I missed because I'm level 1 and don't have a high enough hit rating!" And yes, you guessed it. For the third (or was it the fourth (or even the fifth time?!)) I lost count of how many times I'd been pinned beneath a spider tonight, but there I was, yet again. "Oh no, It's going to eat me—I can't fight it off myself, if only there were someone with fire magic to help!"

"Fireball!" screamed Leilei. 

Although props had to be given to her for not hesitating to help me, she cast her spell with a true, girlish scream—the exact sound an arachnophobic girl makes when she throws her shoe at a spider across the room. 

The spider erupted in flames. Her magic, however, was nowhere near as potent as the Elf's.

Now I had a flaming spider pinning me down, trying to eat me. "Uh, Leilei..."

"Oh right, sorry, that was foolish of me, here, let me try... Water Spout!"

What seemed like a giant pail of water was dumped onto the spider, with me beneath it. It went in my mouth and nose and eyes and I had to gasp for air. "Agh, Lei—agh-lei!" I managed to choke out, beginning to worry I might actually drown.

"Oh, sorry! Maybe let's try: Lightning St—"

"Just use the darn amulet!" I snapped.

"Oh right! It should be weak enough by now..."

A pink miasma enveloped the spider. I felt the pressure of weight and strength of it lessen, slowly at first, then drastically, until I leaned up to see nothing but a spider the size of a pebble on my chest. 

It was petrified, no longer able to move. 

I picked it up, got to my feet then stormed straight over to Leilei.

"Minori, please don't be mad, I just panicked... please, I promise to hit the next one before it gets so close..." She'd fallen onto her butt and was pleading me with her hands gesticulating wildly in front of her.

I snatched one of her wrists and held it in an iron grip. 

"What are you—ehhhh?!" She began to squeal as I opened her hand and set the petrified spider into her palm.

"Look at it!" I snapped, squeezing her wrist.

She peeked between her fingers, saw it, shrieked and closed her eyes again.

"I said look!"

She peaked back through.

"Don't look away."

She obeyed, but her breathing was short and shallow.

"Open your eyes, all the way."

She moved her hand, but kept it up, like a fighter in a defensive stance. She was practically hyperventilating at this point. The hand holding the spider was trembling and her face was pale.

"It's okay. Just breathe, nice and slow. It can't hurt you."

She started to breathe more deeply.

Her trembling subsided; a little bit of her natural green returned to her complexion. Yet her eyes were still wide; her muscles still tense.

"Now, I'm going to let go of your hand. Don't drop it, and don't close your eyes!"

She responded with a timid nod of her head.

"Breathe," I reminded her as she started shaking more intensely after the comfort of my touch left her—she no longer had a crutch to lean on. "Eyes open!"

She caught her lids from snapping shut, then ripped them back open. Then she stood for a long moment, staring at the spider pebble in her outstretched hand.

Her breathing slowly steadied.

I was so proud to see her—without any further goading from my end—slowly drawing her hand closer to her. She looked at the thing, still cautious, yet no longer as though she were about to crawl out of her skin.

She then looked at me and gave me a beaming smile. "I did it!"

"Almost... we still need seven more of those, you know."

Hearing that she clutched her hand shut and squirmed like she were about to panic and run away.

But then she gave one decisive shake of her head and stomped her heel down as if in defiance of an inner voice telling her to flee. She then opened her palm again, glared at the the spider with furious determination, then gave me a nod: "Let's do it!"

That's what I liked to hear. "Great. I'll pull them, then you finish them off."

"Moonbeam!" one of them ran at us, taking a train of 1's, seven in total. If I wasn't mistaken, it should have 13 HP left.

"Fireball!"

Another 7 damage, plus a burn DoT (damage over time) dealing 2 damage every 3 seconds over 12 seconds. Leilei dutifully raised the amulet, ready to petrify the spider before her DoT could finish it off, but—

Another spider respawned, right behind her.

"Look out!" I cried.

This was bad, really bad. Although she'd found some inner strength to face her fears so long as a few failsafes were in place, she was no doubt about to crumble from this thing sneaking into her personal space.

I rose my hands, preparing to cast Ice Shard, even though I knew it was worthless at this distance.

Leilei, despite it all—and this was truly a pleasant surprise—planted her feet firmly beneath her and yielded not a single inch as she then stuck her hand between her breasts (huh? oh, well where else would a naked girl keep her inventory? (Never mind, please don't answer that)) and pulled out a giant paintbrush, which she whacked the creature in the face with.

"Dragon's Ire!" she shouted. And the spider squealed as it burst into flames and ran off.

That must have been some kind of Elementalist CC (crowd control) similar to a fear—which forced enemies to flee from the battlefield.

She turned back to the first spider, which had just promptly rolled over on its back as the final tick of her burn DoT brought its HP to zero.

Darn. Clearly we weren't going to be adding those two to our collection... but it wasn't like there were any shortage of spiders around here...