“Should those kids be playing in there?” Mina asked the man with the pipe.
He barely glanced at the kids. “They’re not hurting anything. I’ll paint over the drawings with fresh paint.”
“It doesn’t look sound enough for them to be crawling all over it like that,” Mina ventured.
The man gave her a hard gaze with grey eyes set beneath bushy brows. “My family built all the houses in this village for the last five generations, and not one building has collapsed yet.”
“Then you better go get them to fix this mess,” Mina said, pointing at the frame. “It’s swaying in the wind! It’s a sneeze away from falling on those kids.”
The man took his pipe from his mouth and spat on the ground. “I don’t need a tribeswoman, whose people build their homes from mud and sticks, to tell me about my craft. If you think you can do better, then, by all means, the wood and my tools are over there. Show me how it’s done.” He kicked the box of tools towards her, and they scattered across the grass. The sound was loud enough to draw the attention of the kids who stopped playing to watch.
Mina stepped back, holding up her hands. “You don’t have to be rude about it. I’ll just go.”
“You do that,” the man snarled.
Mina turned on her heel and marched off. Her face was burning in embarrassment and anger. No, not anger, just humiliation. She wasn’t angry at all. What was it to her if digital kids got crushed in a digital building built by some cranky old digital man.
And where the hell was Naomi?
At last, Mina saw Naomi knocking on the door of a large house at the far end of the street. Striding forward, Mina kept her hands from curling into fists and pushed away the images of wringing Naomi’s neck.
“Naomi!” She said sternly as she approached the front steps.
Naomi looked over her shoulder with a hand still raised in a knocking motion when the door opened. A woman with graying, dark hair peered through the crack in the door. “Yes?”
Ignoring Mina, Naomi turned to the woman. “Is the mayor here, ma’am?”
“My husband is resting,” the woman said, eyeing Naomi’s scruffy appearance, and then she noticed Mina standing behind her. Her eyes widened, and she slightly closed the door a touch more. “What need have you of my husband?”
“I want to offer him our services as hunters,” Naomi said.
The woman looked surprised, and she opened the door a bit more. “Are you hunters?”
“We killed some wolves last night on our way to River’s Edge, and we heard they were causing problems for you.”
Mina had no idea of what she could do to keep Naomi silent short of grabbing her and slapping a hand across her mouth. She hissed Naomi’s name several times, but the girl kept plodding along.
“If I could have a few minutes of his time?”
The woman considered this for several moments. “One moment while I fetch my husband. Wait a moment, please.”
The door closed, and they heard footsteps hurrying away. Mina bent down to speak into Naomi’s ear. “What are you doing?”
“We need money. Darcy said we don’t have enough money for rations to get us to Everguard. If we take on a quest, we’ll get paid, and we might find some good loot.” Naomi said back with a conspiratorial wink.
“You haven’t had your fill of wolves after last night?” Mina hissed in disbelief. “You want to go looking for more?”
“It’s part of the game. You go to a village, they got a problem that you have to solve, and they reward you with money or loot.”
Wringing her hands, Mina said, “Naomi, this isn’t a game. I mean…it is, but it doesn’t work like that anymore. And you can’t make decisions like this without talking to the others. Just tell the woman you made a mistake, and let’s go back to the tavern.”
The door burst open, and a bearded man leaned out from the door frame. “You’re hunters? Genuine wolf hunters? Thank the gods that you’ve come. Please, come inside. There is much we must discuss.”
***
“They better have been kidnapped, chopped up, and buried somewhere to be gone for so long,” Darcy muttered, glaring into her soup as if she was holding it responsible.
Sally spooned some gruel into her mouth and grimaced. “Don’t be like that. They’ll come back soon.” She was reassuring herself as much as she was Darcy. What if something had happened to them? What if they never came back?
It didn’t seem as though Tom was enjoying his soup either. He ate each spoonful gracefully, but Sally noticed that he waited a bit between each swallow as if bracing himself. “We can go look for them if they don’t come back soon.”
And she still had to apologize to Tom for last night. Now she had even less of an appetite, and it had nothing to do with the food. Maybe she should talk to him now while Darcy looked for Mina and Naomi. Before she could make that suggestion, the door opened, and Naomi was practically skipping in while Mina trudged in behind her with a stricken look. Naomi was happy about something while Mina was upset about something. That didn’t bode well.
Darcy was on her feet as if she would lunge for their throats. “Where the hell have you two been?”
“Naomi got us jobs hunting wolves,” Mina said dourly. “Don’t look at me! It was her idea! I didn’t get there in time to stop her.”
Naomi sat down as pleased as a cat bringing its owner a dead mouse. “It’ll solve our money problems.”
“Are you freakin’ serious?” Sally burst out. “I don’t care if I never see a wolf again in my life.”
“How much are they offering?” Darcy asked.
Both Sally and Mina looked at Darcy with raised eyebrows.
Naomi settled into her chair and said, “He was offering twenty gold per wolf tail, but I told him we’d do it for five gold per wolf tail instead. We’re doing it for the good of the village after all.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “Remind me to slap you later. Did you ask about an advance?”
Sally became alarmed as Darcy developed a very familiar thoughtful look. “Darcy, you aren’t seriously considering…”
“We could use the money.”
“What about Naomi? We’re on a time limit,” Sally hissed in a low voice, bewildered by the sudden change in plans. “We don’t have time to traipse after wolves.”
“We made good time getting here,” Darcy said with her brows knitted. “And we don’t have to go after them. They said the wolves regularly attack the village from the north. We’ll wait until they attack and kill enough of them to put money in our pockets.”
Mina wrung her hands in a near panic. “But look at what happened last night.”
“They took us by surprise,” Darcy stated wisely. “This time, we’ll know they’re coming and be ready for them.”
Shaking her head, Mina said in a pang voice, “I think we should just stick with the plan and leave in the morning…”
Sally knew that Mina’s pleas would fall on deaf ears. Once Darcy made up her mind, nothing short of winning the lottery or death would change her plans. Naomi was practically squirming in anticipation of them taking on a quest. Sally turned to Tom, wondering what he thought of this.
She caught his eyes, and he gave her a small shrug. What did that mean? Was he on board with Darcy, or was this his way of saying “don’t look at me, I’m not talking to you?” Dammit, she needed to find a good time to apologize.
Chapter 16
The Job
It was decided that they would patrol the village in two groups. Mina and Naomi would partner up since—as Darcy sardonically put it—they seemed to work so well together. After rolling her eyes, Mina led Naomi away towards the east side of the village while Darcy, Sally, and Tom set off for the other side. Word had passed quickly among the village inhabitants, as it would in small towns, of the mayor hiring hunters to solve the wolf crisis. More people ventured to leave their homes, and some even waved gratefully at them as they walked by.
Oddly enough,
Sally found herself raising a hand in greeting. There was something infectious about a simple nod and salute of acknowledgment from the villagers. The greetings seemed more earnest than they did back home when people did it as a second thought or to appear polite.
“Keep your hood up,” Darcy whispered in a harsh hiss. “Those happy grins will turn into hisses and boos if they see you’re a half-elf.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Sally said sourly but gave her hood a sharp tug to ensure it was in place.
From the edge of the cowl, she noticed an unhappy look on Tom’s face. She assumed it was meant for her until he drew close, and she could see the regret lining his face.
“I hope to change how people perceive elves in the kingdom someday,” he said. “I want to make it safe for all people to live in these lands without fear of being assaulted without repercussions or driven from their homes. To make it safe for you, Sally.”
She looked away in shame. Was he the sort of person who’s really nice to the offender to make them feel like shit? God, if he was, then he was succeeding. She needed to apologize, but what would she say? Sorry, I was a bitch, and I didn’t mean what I said about your sister? That would be a good start. Okay, first, she needed to ask Darcy to give them some time. But before she could ask, Darcy spoke.
“Tom, could you give us some space? I need to speak with my sister for a minute or two,” Darcy said with a polite smile.
Tom gave her a scrutinizing look. “More secret talk?”
It was to Darcy’s credit that she didn’t react, but instead said sweetly, “Just personal family business.”
Tom acquiesce with a short sigh, “Very well, but one day you’re going to have to share your secrets with me. Especially since we’re traveling companions.”
Sally couldn’t prevent herself from wincing. He wouldn’t want to know the truth that his world and life were fiction written up by writers in a video game studio, that he was just a character animated by pixels and given voice by an actor. And he wasn’t even a character on the box cover of the game.
“Maybe,” Darcy said with the same polite smile. “We’ll only be a minute or two.”
With a playful bow, he trotted ahead with a hand on his shortsword to keep it from hitting his legs. Once he was several houses ahead of then, Darcy sidled close to Sally and whispered, “You must think I’m crazy in making us take this quest, but there’s a method to my madness.”
“I kinda figured there was something else going on than just the money,” Sally said sourly.
“The money will help, but I’m we need to level up as quickly as possible. Check your log. We’ve gained XP since Spring Bell.”
Sally brought up her character screen and swiped over to the log. It took a few scans, but three lines caught her attention.
50 XP for rescuing trapped villager
Successful Encounter: 30 XP
100 XP for Confronting Corrupt Innkeeper
Checking her leveling bar, Sally saw it had increased to 797 of 900. She was little more than 100 points away from leveling up.
“Darcy, I am so close to leveling up,” Sally said, suddenly so excited it was a struggle not to pump her fist.
Darcy gently took Sally’s arm to draw her closer and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “That’s good because we need to level up as much as possible before we get to Everguard. Players are not supposed to get there until level 5, and three of us are below that. Everguard is technically a safe place in the game, but some areas have random encounters. Now there’s no telling what’s waiting for us there.”
“Hopefully, more players who know what the hell is going on,” Sally muttered.
Darcy nodded and continued. “And I need to level up so I can learn third level spells. Then if somebody gets killed, I can resurrect them.”
Sally drew in a long breath, her eyes widening. “Do you think you’ll need it?”
“We almost needed it for Naomi couple of times,” Darcy grimaced at the memory of the girl nearly bleeding to death on a table. “If she had died, I doubted she would have resurrected at the graveyard.”
“We…We don’t know that,” Sally said weakly. “It’s possible…”
“I can still smell the blood and how warm it was on my hands,” Darcy said, raising a hand and stared at it as if was still stained. “When this was just an MMO, the dungeon would reset for the next group of players. Cut Throats would resume lurking in the halls, and McRando and Wolfe would be available for the next boss fights. If we went back there, they’d still be dead and rotting where we left them. I believe that if we die in the game, we won’t respawn in a graveyard. We’ll just be dead.”
“If you believe that, then what makes you think you can keep us from dying?” Talking about this was freaking Sally out, but she needed to know what Darcy believed.
“Because magic works in this world. I’ve healed almost everyone several times since this started. If this world follows the same rules of magic as the game does, then I’m pretty sure that it can bring back the dead.”
Exasperated, Sally flung out a hand towards the surrounding houses. “If it worked like that, then this world would have a huge overpopulation problem. If people just have to say an incantation and bring back poor dead mom and pop, then why are there graveyards? Why didn’t the Cut Throats have a mage bringing them back from the dead?”
Darcy shook her head with an amused smile. “It doesn’t work like you’re thinking. Only fifth level clerics of good alignment can cast resurrection spells and those only work within limits. The spell I can get at fifth level can only revive someone who’s been dead less than a minute per level and didn’t die of old age. And it can’t regrow lost limbs. So you can forget about it if that person died of decapitation. On top of it all, I can only cast it twice a day.”
“Oh, I guess that makes more sense now,” Sally admitted, but it disturbed her no less. “How much do you lack before you level up?”
“A lot, about two thousand more XP, but hopefully we can at least get you and Mina to level three by the end of the day,” Darcy said giving Sally a pat on the back. “You two will become stronger and the party will be a bit more balanced.”
“I think we’ve done okay so far,” Sally replied. They had managed to overcome bandits, werewolves, and asshole innkeepers together, so maybe they were ready for whatever was waiting for them in Everguard.
Then Sally’s confidence waned when she recalled the name Riker who was in Everguard and might have good reason to be unhappy with them. Then again, maybe gaining a level before arriving in Everguard might not be a bad idea.
Focusing on the quest at hand, Sally asked, “Darcy, do you have any idea why the wolves are so aggressive? Is there something that would make animals crazy?”
Shifting her weight on her boots with a hand on one hip, Darcy took on a thoughtful stance. “Yeah, there are a few things. Maybe a Druid got pissed off at the village, or maybe there’s a curse disturbing the wolves. We don’t have time to find the cause of the problem, but maybe killing enough of them will get the pack to leave the village alone.”
Sally glanced up at the noon sky and wondered if the skies back home were this bright blue. There was no pollution in this world; no factories pumping the air full of smog and chemicals; no planes crossing the sky; nor drones hovering overhead. Nor was it too hot either, not as she would have expected at home with climate change. Then again, who was she, a shut-in, to judge? She hated being outdoors in the cancerous sunlight and sweat-inducing heat. If it weren’t for going out to visit her parents, she would be content to live every day of her life indoors. Being outside now, however, in this world, wasn’t too bad at all.
“Tom’s waving at us,” Darcy murmured, breaking through her thoughts.
“Think he saw something?”
“Let’s go find out.”
At their approach, Tom led them to an overgrown bramble patch near a fence bordering a garden of tiny sprouts. He pointed at a clump of matted
fur caught in the bush. “Wolf hair. They came through here.” He pointed at the edge of the forest just yards away from the house. “Possibly two or more.”
Sally arched an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
Tom knelt onto the ground and pointed at obscure markings in the earth. “A few people come through here, but I can still make out the paw prints. One set is bigger than the other, so there was more than one.”
“They teach you how to hunt wolves as part of your princely duties?” Darcy inquired, eyeing the tracks herself.
“Why, yes,” Tom said blankly. “My family goes on regular hunting parties with the nobles. Mostly we hunt stags and boars, and the occasional wolf if we come across one.”
“Good work, Tom,” Darcy said with a slight nod. “You and Sally stay here. I’m going to check on Mina and Naomi and see if they found anything. I’ll bring them right back.”
Sally did not want to be left alone with Tom. It was true that she still had to apologize, and perhaps Darcy was giving her the chance to do so now. As much as she wanted to do so, to bring it up was a daunting prospect. What he if refused to accept her apology? What if he wanted to make a scene about it without Darcy here to intervene on her behalf?
No, she resolutely refused to address it until the wolf situation had been handled. She reasoned that they needed to be on guard. After what happened last night and from the stories they’d been hearing, the wolves were dangerous, and since Darcy didn’t have the means to resurrect anyone yet, then they had to be doubly careful. Though her logic was sound, she still felt guilty for yet again putting off what her conscience told her she should be doing.
Tom, however, didn’t seem to mind being alone with her. He gave Darcy an amused smile and nodded. “We’ll keep watch until you return.”
“Don’t have too much fun without me,” she said with a backward wave as she departed.
Once she well out of earshot, Tom turned to Sally and casually said, “I know I said this before, but your sister has unusual behavior for a cleric of Shantra.”
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