The Wizard of Quintz: A coming of age LitRPG

by Ember Lane

  Mystix looked away. His narrow, elfen eyes betrayed his regret. “Once, once we might have been able to. Once our fighters fought alongside humans to tame these lands and wrestle them from goblin, orc and dreadnail. We tasted the march of victory, the beat of war drums, and the scream of the piper. We drove that enemy under the mountains, into the wastelands and bogs and marshes, and there they stayed.” Mystix then brought his gaze to bear. “But evil cannot be kept at bay for all time. Evil will always rise, and good must fill its resolute ranks once more, and it must stand firm and snuff out that black fire before it gains sway.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Merl, “that sounds a bit depressin’. Who’s got the nuts to stand against all them bastards?”

  Mystix drew them close, as if his words were for their subterfuge and no other. “The goblin grows bold already. It is too early unless…”

  “Unless…” both Billy and Merl whispered.

  “Unless they know.” The elf nodded knowingly.

  “Know what?” both Billy and Merl hissed.

  “Something we don’t.”

  Billy looked at Merl, and vice-versa. “Like?” Merl asked.

  Mystix shrugged his fine shoulders. “I dunno.”

  “What?” screeched Billy.

  The elf stood. He raised his head aloft and his mug high. “I dunno. I just know this. It’s going to take a hero to beat them all. It’s going to take a blisterin’ God with balls of steel and a smiting wrath that will lay waste to all the bastards in the land. It’s going to take a hero the like of which the world has never seen.”

  Merl and Billy raised their mugs too. “Frank!” they said in unison.

  Frank marched up the muddy trail, but no matter which way he turned it didn’t feel right. He was positive neither Billy or Merl had floated by him, and he’d waited long enough that they’d have had to. He therefore reasoned that they must have been washed up farther upstream. He set out to meet them, and that was where his troubles started.

  No matter what he tried, he was always turned inland. As he trod along the riverbank, a boulder barred his way. He couldn’t go over it, nor would the river’s torrid current let him wade around it, but as he ventured into the forest to bypass it, the river simply vanished. He retraced his steps. The river flowed by. He tried his improvised grapple hook so he could scale the damn rock, but it never bit on any crease or crack. He tried wading into the river, but the current appeared to double, even triple in power, and so he attempted the forest again, but the river merely vanished, and that was that.

  He knew he couldn’t just linger.

  “Those two will find mischief as easily as a dune flea finds a dune dog,” he growled, and gritted his teeth before stomping into the forest.

  Being a seasoned traveler, Frank had a great sense of direction, and he tore through the forest’s undergrowth intent on finding the pair of them as quickly as possible. He forged a decent line, and then turned ninety degrees and forged another of equal length, then finally came to a trail. Stepping on it, he furrowed his brow.

  “How can this be happening? Where’s the river gone?”

  He carried on, knowing he must come to it sooner or later, but instead he came across another trail.

  “Impossible,” he muttered, and sat upon a close by rock. “Perhaps…”

  Frank took out his chalk and marked a big X on the rock.

  “It’s an X, Merl, an X.” He smiled at the thought of the funny, skinny youth from Morgan Mount, before heading straight into the undergrowth and hacking his way through it.

  He came upon a muddy trail, and walked a few hundred yards one way, before turning and walking double the amount the other, whereupon he stumbled across a rock marked with an X. Dumping himself down on the rock, he took a long slug on his water bottle. “A damnable enchanted forest. Of all the times…” Frank swore he heard laughter.

  He marched up the trail. His anger rose with every step as he shouted, “Merl! Billy!”

  To his surprise, he came to a man standing at a fork in the trail. The man eyed him suspiciously. “Really? Another?” The man smoothed down his beard and straightened his pointed hat. He cleared his throat. “Greetings, traveler. My name is Aloysius T Guide. Do you have a question for me?”

  “Have you seen two men, one about yea-high and the other as big as a mountain bear?” Frank’s hand dithered as he tried to remember how big Merl was and show the man. He settled on somewhere between his shoulders and the top of his head. “Well?”

  “What is it with you lot? You’re supposed to ask me the correct question.”

  Aloysius appeared frustrated.

  Frank, however, was in no mood to dally—he was too worried about Merl and Billy. He grabbed Aloysius by the throat and shoved him up against the tree behind him. With his pent-up anger suddenly unleashed, Frank growled, “Now listen here, you daft dangler, I asked you a question, and I’m not in the mood for any dirty tricks. Those two are very precious to me, and you either tell me what you know, or you’ll feel cold steel slide up your gut and out the top of your head, got it?”

  Aloysius crumbled into a sobbing heap at the bottom of the tree. He looked up at Frank, trembling from head to foot. “Greetings, traveler. My name is Aloysius T Guide. Do you have a question for me?” he whimpered.

  Frank wondered if he’d gone a little overboard. His rage plateaued but remained at the steady level of murderous. “Are you taking the piss?”

  Aloysius inhaled long and hard. His eyes shed their tears and morphed to steel. His jaw tightened and through gritted teeth he ground out his mantra. “Greetings, traveler. My name is Aloysius T Guide. Do you have a question for me?”

  Frank’s mood boiled from murderous to incandescent homicidal maniac as he grabbed Aloysius T Guide and pinned him to the tree once more. “You get one chance. One more, you hear? You tell me which path to take, and I’ll let you go. You spout that bastard shit again, and”—he equipped Scaramanza—“I’ll shove my sword so far up your divine dungeon that you’ll taste its crimson steel for the rest of your short, painful life.”

  “Greetings, traveler. My name is Aloysius T—Ah, sod it, that way.”

  Aloysius pointed.

  Frank dropped him to the ground and stomped off.

  “Sorry if I was a little over the top, but those lads mean everything to me,” he called back.

  “Think nothing of it,” Aloysius cried, winked at him slyly, and immediately sprinted off down the other path.

  Stopping dead in his tracks, Frank looked back wondering if he’d been tricked. “No, he wouldn’t have had the guts to trick me, this must be the way.”

  Dusk was crawling over the land, cloaking it in malignant black. The path soon leveled, and the forest thinned, enabling Frank to see a little farther, despite the encroaching dark. The first thing he spied was the tiny, amber blot of a light that told him a nice, warm fire was ablaze and not too far away.

  “That Billy will find food anywhere,” he muttered, grinning from ear to ear.

  He hurried on. The path twisted and turned, but the fire always burned brightly, although it remained just ahead and to his left. Frank stopped.

  “It’s not getting any closer…”

  But he understood that this was an enchanted woods and things weren’t always what they seemed. Just as he was about to stop again, the smell of freshly roasted meat assailed his nostrils.

  “That smells so good. If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s Billy looking after his belly!”

  Frank carried on. The forest was soon pitch black. The squawks of bats and the hoots of owls sounded. Yellow eyes, tinged red, stared out from heavy shadows, but the fire endured—a beacon to the lost—an emblem of hope for a now desperate Frank.

  “Billy! Merl!”

  He had to get to them. He had to protect them. There was no way those two could fend of so many creatures of the night. He sighed with relief as he finally closed on the fire. The smell of simmering, meaty broth now saturated th
e air—and then he saw it wasn’t actually a fire but a square window illuminated with the promise of a fire, and that the window belonged to a quaint little stone cottage with a slate-tiled roof and a bright-red door. It had a little porch, with golden wind chimes. A well sat in a patch of green grass, and a stepping-stone path led up to the front door.

  “Well, they found a nice place to stay!” Frank cried, and picked up his step as his belly grumbled, and he rubbed his hands together in eager anticipation. Smartening himself and wetting his copper hair down, he knocked on the door.

  It opened but a crack, and a bright, sparkly blue eye looked out. “Hello?” the young lady said. The tremor of fear colored her voice.

  “It’s okay. I’m just looking for my friends.” At that precise moment, the skies opened, and fat blobs of rain fell. “Have you seen two lads? One’s called Merl and he’s a little shorter than me. The other’s a big man whose shadow is as broad as it is long.”

  She opened the door another few inches. “No, no I haven’t. Did they come this way? Or… Oh no… Come in, come in,” and she ushered Frank inside.

  She faced away from him and stared at the fire as if it were her salvation. Her long black hair glinted blue and amber, and her curvaceous body radiated some form of power, though Frank couldn’t make out what. He took it for sorrow.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She spun around, biting her ruby-red lips and fluttering her long curling eyebrows. “Did you meet that bastard leprechaun on the way?”

  “Leprechaun? I saw a man with a long gray beard and a pointed hat.”

  “Aloysious,” the woman spat. “He’s a trickster, a leprechaun disguised as a guide. I’ll bet he tricked them into going to Timotholight with the promise of ale and food and a bed for the night.”

  “Timotholight? Is it far?”

  “Alas,” she said. “Near or far makes no odds. It is an elfen village and at the heart of the magic that blights this forest. Even if you set out now, the path would never let you find the village.”

  “But how can a path—” Frank stopped in mid-sentence, for he knew the truth of it. The forest had already bested him once before. “Will they?”

  “Kill them? Bastard elfs! Not until morning. That is the elfen way. If you rest here for the night, I can take you there at first light, and we can rescue them before—”

  Frank exhaled long and hard. He wanted to shout and scream, to tear those damnable elves from limb to limb. He wanted to punch holes in the walls of the sweet woman’s cottage. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  She smiled a smile packed with virgin innocence. “My name is Desmelda, and this place is called Falling Glen. You sir, are welcome to share my broth and can sleep in the chair by the hearth. A kindness given is a kindness shared.”

  “A kindness given is a kindness shared,” Frank said, mesmerized by her lush, red lips.

  “Would you like to stay with me…?”

  “Frank.”

  “Would you like to stay with me, Frank?”

  “That would be…” he said, but tiredness rushed over him before he could complete his words. It had been one hell of a few days. Frank’s feet suddenly ached. His whole body cried for a nice, comfortable seat. His belly hankered for the warm, tasty broth its fragrance promised. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, as the very last of energy dissipated.

  “Sit, kind sir, sit. Sit by the fire and warm your aching bones.” Desmelda guided him to a homey armchair by a hearty, warming hearth and settled him down. She knelt before him and pulled off his boots, then massaging his weary feet. “Sit, brave traveler and I will get you some wine as red as blood from vein not vine.” She fetched a tin tankard and filled it halfway. “Drink, fair Frank, drink.”

  Frank drunk, he gulped the wine down, and as he fell asleep, he could hear Desmelda’s laughter cackle through the black forest.

  Merl stared at the tavern’s door. He was as miserable as miserable could be.

  “Do you ever think we’ll see Frank again?”

  “He’ll find us. Frank’ll find us,” Billy affirmed, nodding furiously.

  “But he should have been here afore now,” Merl moaned.

  “Aye, you would have thought so, like.”

  As Billy spoke, the tavern door creaked open, and Aloysius skulked in. He grabbed a stool at the counter and hailed an ale. Billy swapped glances with Merl, and the pair strode up to him and slumped onto the bar either side of him.

  “Don’t s’pose you saw Frank?” Billy asked.

  “Saw no one,” Aloysius snapped, far too quickly.

  “No one?” Merl inquired.

  “No one. Not a single soul. Not one iddy-bitty man, not one giant warrior with flared nostrils and a boiling temper. No one. Get it?”

  Aloysius downed a good half of his ale before fixing his eyes straight ahead.

  “Whaddaya reckon, Billy?”

  “Think he saw someone,” Billy replied. “You see someone, Aloysius?”

  “No one. Nothing. I told you, you two were the first that we’d ever seen. My father, my grandfather, his—”

  “Great grandfather,” Billy interrupted. “We get it, but we’re not askin’ about then. We’re askin’ about now.”

  “And you’re lying,” Merl added.

  “I ain’t lying,” Aloysius said, thumping his mug down hard and getting a dirty look from the elfen innkeeper.

  Mystix approached them. “Two against one is no fair fight. Aloysius, have you news of their friend? Good or bad, they’ll take any fragment sure as a silk moth sleeps in a comfy bed.”

  “I saw no one.” Aloysius was adamant in his denial.

  Mystix sniffed his breath. “Yet I smell the stench of untruth. Tell me Aloysius, if you didn’t see anybody, exactly what did this person you didn’t see look like?”

  Aloysius eyed him suspiciously. “If I didn’t see anyone, then I didn’t see a raging man foaming at the mouth and red of face, who pinned me by the throat and spat his gob all over me. If I didn’t see anyone, then it was a man who threatened to gut me with a crimson blade longer than me arm and just as fat. And if I didn’t see anyone, it wouldn’t be someone looking fer these two whippersnappers, and was willin’ to lay waste to any that got in his way, rude bastard.”

  “Frank!” Merl shouted.

  “If it was yer Frank, he wants to learn some manners,” Aloysius proclaimed, then muttered. “If he lives t’see another day.”

  “What? What did you just say?” Billy burst out.

  “Oh no… Oh no, no, no, no, no!” Mystix said, desperation coloring his words. “Tell me you didn’t, Aloysius. Tell me you didn’t direct him up the wrong path.”

  “Oh I sent him up the wrong ‘un, all right.”

  “No!” Mystix, if possible, had paled. “You did what?”

  “After what he threatened me with, he got what he deserved.”

  “What is it, Mystix? What’s wrong?” Merl asked, tugging on the elf’s jerkin and glaring at Aloysius.

  “Frank’s dead, or as good as. Aloysius sent him to The Witch of Fallen Glen. He sent him to Desmelda, and she’ll be peeling his skin from his bones before the night’s out.”

  10

  Billy reddened. He reared up, fists at the ready, while he strained on an invisible leash. “You did what?”

  Surprisingly, calmness settled within Merl. His thoughts became as clear as a bright, spring morning. He assessed all three men in turn. Billy was ready to plow through the whole forest to save Frank. Mystix appeared affronted by Aloysius’ actions and Aloysius’ expression ressembled his dad’s when he used to wonder why his day had gone so tits up.

  “What’s done is done. We must go and rescue Frank,” Merl said, his words spoken softly but with terrible force at the same time.

  All eyes fell on him.

  Mystix was first to become downcast. “Alas, this is an enchanted forest, and Desmelda holds sway within it. All paths that lead to her hut will be befuddled by he
r dread magic.”

  “The elf is correct,” Aloysius added haughtily. “No traveler may venture into the forest with a destination in mind, because all roads lead to The Guide, and The Guide is here, and I am he.”

  “All roads lead to you,” Merl repeated.

  “Indeed, so if you set out now, you will merely become lost until I man my post just after dawn and direct you to one of two choices.”

  “The village or the witch.” Merl scratched the end of his nose. “But if you come with us…”

  “Impossible! I only attend the fork in the road from sunrise to sunset. At no other time do the paths meet, it is, after all, and enchanted forest.”

  “Says who?” Merl asked, and Billy moved closer, casting a great shadow over The Guide.

  “Yeah, says who?”

  Aloysius leaned backward, as if Billy stank, and his mouth twitched in fear. His eyes bulged, and he glanced intermittently at Mystix. “Are you going to allow these two thugs to intimidate me?”

  Mystix took a step back and looked from Billy to Aloysius and back. “Yes, yes I think I am. You sent a man to Desmelda. No matter what you thought of him, no man deserves to be boiled alive and made into broth.”

  “What?” Merl screeched, but Mystix held his hand up.

  “No man deserves to have his blood drained and fermented into fine wine!”

  “What?” Merl screeched, but Mystix held his hand up.

  “No man, no matter what he’s done, deserves to have his eyes popped out and preserved in a jar for all eternity so he sees all but can do nothing!”

  “She’ll do what?” Merl’s anger rose. “Who is this witch, and what befell her that she’s so evil?”

  Mystix beckoned them close. “She,” he whispered, his voice as soft as a duck down pillow. Then looked around to check that no one was listening. “She was spurned in love, cast aside for another. She was one of three sisters, the poor one, the one who was made to slave away. She was the ugly one, and she was the dumb one. Desmelda hates everyone, despises all. Why else live alone in an enchanted forest? Why else trap weary travelers and make hideous creations out of their body parts?”