"Oh, interesting! I think I see what you mean. How high do skill tiers go, then, I wonder?"

"If there's a fourth tier no one knows about it. I read about this once: the highest level ever achieved in recorded history was forty-nine, so maybe a fourth tier unlocks at level fifty and is just waiting for someone to discover it, but there aren't monsters that strong more than once in a thousand years so even if you have a way to keep yourself young indefinitely probably there's nothing waiting at that threshold. The man who got to level forty-nine, it took him two thousand years and he hasn't been seen since he banished the Winter Fairy Queen a century ago."

"Well, I think I just discovered a new life ambition."

Headtilt.

"Getting to level fifty?"

"Indeed! And beyond, eventually."

"Well, I guess it's good to have a long-term plan," she laughs. "I hope you plan to live life a bit more than highest-level-record guy along the way, though."

"Oh? Was he notoriously singleminded? I suppose that tracks, it'd be difficult to get there any other way." He squeezes Eelesia's hand and pets Sky's hair. "I like having friends and I don't plan to stop. It would be something of a tragedy if I reached level fifty and I wasn't still making dinner for my party every night and then snuggling you all to sleep."

D'awww.

Cheek kiss.

"I did plan out an eternal youth synergy early," Eelesia says. "I should have it by level twelve if all goes to plan. I could have it sooner but I decided it was safer to prioritize combat power in my early levels."

"Extremely valid. What's your eternal youth plan?"

Eelesia explains the two tier two skills and one tier one skill that, when combined, should keep her young and healthy indefinitely! The key to the scheme is actually a cosmetic passive skill that prevents scars. The sacred greater version of that combined with this other passive skill that lets her metabolize mana in place of food (it requires higher Ardor than she currently has but she has planned for that) and a third passive that the author assures you somehow connects the first two into a cure for aging. The formation stabilizes and becomes self-perpetuating at a Sanity of 28 or above, for a total of nine skill points spent.

"28 Sanity! A worthy aspiration in itself. Is that relying at all on class-based stat bonuses, or could I theoretically do the same? On the other hand I wonder if we could come up with a more skill-point-efficient version that relies on combining skills across classes..."

"That's actually a good question I don't know if my Ardor bonus would be boosting that effect or if it would be necessary if it did. Eternal youth synergies are a much-studied topic and I think mine is a good one but I admittedly didn't read very thoroughly into the other classes. There probably are some superior formations that only a classless adventurer can use though, if only because of the sheer amount of possible combinations! I wonder if anyone classless has tested any of the class-specific formations though now I'm curious."

"We can try looking into it! And something for Sky, too," petpet, "if eternal youth is something you're interested in."

Sky nuzzles into his petting.

"It would be nice to have. I haven't, um, looked up how Shamans do it, yet. I wasn't sure I'd ever get to a high enough level for it to matter. But, that was before, and this party is um, really effective. So. Yeah."

"I would very much like to have you with me on my journey to higher levels than anyone has yet been recorded to reach!"

Blu~u~u~uwu~u~u~ush.

"Eelesia!Laurent! Wake up!! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!"

"SEAFOAM BARRAGE!"

A towering, foamy breaker suddenly surges up and soaks Laurent, Eelesia, and Sky from head to toe.

A half-dozen dinner-plate sized creatures are washed out of the air and flounder dizzily as they float on the water. Four prismatic fins like the wings of a butterfly flap limply, flickering with patterns of light, surrounding a small central body that seems to be just a knot of tiny tentacles.

Coventina's body is covered in several of these things, latched onto her like starfish to a rock. A half dozen on her arms and legs, one on each breast and one cupping her crotch.

Laurent, Sky, and Eelesia are standing waist-deep in the water. They're naked. Their equipment is all piled up on the shore, behind Coventina.

He heads out of the water as fast as humanly possible, resisting the urge to claw at all his exposed skin where he cannot currently detect any psychic fish but no longer feels like he can trust that impression.

While Laurent is splashing toward shore in a panic, Coventina is wrestling with her own psychic fish problem. Literally.

She got her spell off well before any of the psychic fish touched Laurent or the other girls. They're not actually doing a very good job of restraining her, and it's only the sheer number of them that makes them a threat. But casting Purify on water means casting it as a water-element spell which means her mana is still at full capacity.

"Sky! Mirror!" And she sends a Seafoam Barrage at Sky.

She startles, stumbling as she turns away from Laurent.

Then it takes her a second to realize what Coventina intends. "M-Mirror of Planes!" she yelps.

The foaming wave folds into her spell glyph, then fires back out, crashing over Coventina and leaving the goddess' body bare of mesmers.

Eelesia, meanwhile, sees ripples of peaceful color in the water and shakes herself, hard. Her mind chews through the deception now that she knows to be on guard against it, and suddenly she realizes that hundreds of mesmers are swimming toward her, and toward Sky, and that Coventina is already surrounded.

She doesn't have her wands, but she hardly needs to aim, here...

Laurent is only barely beginning to awaken to the fact that he is normally much more useful in a fight than this. He definitely doesn't have enough of his brain online to strategize. Part of him wants to stop and reevaluate and try to think about what his teammates are doing and what implications their behaviour has but that part is being shouted down by all the parts that are insisting he get out of the water nownownow and not stop to think no, not even about how to get out of the water more efficiently.

Eelesia isn't panicking exactly but she's very much acting on impulse herself when she screams, "Forked Lightning!"

And then her world is pain, because she doesn't have any defense against lightning.

(But all of the mesmers are very very dead.)

He notices that, because even to his panic-addled mind, the lake which you are standing in suddenly being electrified is a pretty attention-getting event.

It doesn't stop him splashing toward the shore, until a couple of steps later when he connects the dots and realizes that Eelesia doesn't have Stormheart and she was standing inside the same body of water she just zapped, and that actually gets him to turn around.

Sky is busy pulling Coventina out of the water.

Coventina held up to the electrocution better than Eelesia (in that she is still conscious) and is able to make this slightly easier than it might otherwise have been. Sky gets Coventina to shore, glances back at where Laurent is pulling Eelesia out likewise, and gasps suddenly as she realizes there's something else she can do to help.

She applies herself to Coventina's breast, fills her mouth with milk, and then runs over to kiss Eelesia.