by Troy Osgood
SLAIN: Blood Cry Patroller
+30 Experience
SLAIN: Blood Cry Patroller
+10 Experience
Skill Gain!
Small Blades Rank 2 +.3
Skill Gain!
Light Armor Rank 2 +.1
Hall glanced at the prompt, surprised at the extra ten experience. From Pike’s assist to the women? With a shrug, not really caring just happy that he got the extra experience, he mentally closed the prompts. He had always kept the combat prompts hidden. The constant stream of damage taken and dealt along with the skill gain and experience notifications, were distracting during the game. It was no different now. Even pulling the monsters stat bars was distracting. He didn’t need to see their health going down, he was too busy making it go down.
He knew he had to do a better job of tracking his gains in stats, skills, and experience. There had always been a little downtime after a fight to do that but now there didn’t seem to be that kind of extra time. Now they were constantly moving. Even when stopping at night, there didn’t seem to be time to do all the character maintenance that he needed to do. And there was a lot he needed to do.
“Everyone okay?” he asked.
The whole fight had only taken a minute, maybe two.
Roxhard was holding his head, looking a little unsteady. The women indicated they were fine. Leigh walked over to Roxhard, the only one wounded, and cast Nature’s Touch. The spell healed the Health he was down but could do nothing for the Vitality loss or the shaky head.
“Got a Concussion debuff,” he muttered. “Five minutes.”
Hall nodded. A kick in the head by a Centaur would do that. The Concussion debuff caused a loss of Vitality, Agility, and Intelligence for a time.
Leaning down, Hall ran his fingers over the blade of a Centaur’s sword. The weapon was well crafted, expertly made. Plain steel, unadorned hilt. A functional but well cared for weapon. It was also huge. Much bigger than Hall could easily handle. Roxhard could lift it, but it was just too big physically for the Dwarf. Checking his inventory to see if he could bring one of the swords back to sell, he found that he was getting pretty close to full.
They had the extra travel packs, but something like the sword would have to go into the magical pouch so the weight wouldn’t encumber his movements. Each character could only carry so much weight.
The coins took up one slot for all of them, and the bag automatically sorted for him. Each type of herb and skin he had been collecting was a slot as well, and those took up most of the space. He had put the potion holder on his belt, which freed up some space in the inventory but not enough. There were still some items left from the smugglers stash. They had sold as much as they could at River’s Side but still had more to sell. It all amounted to not enough space.
He looked down at the heavy sword, trying to remember how much a shopkeep would buy the weapon for. He didn’t think it was much, not enough to make it worth carrying all the way to Land’s Edge Port. He wanted to make sure there was plenty of space for whatever this treasure map led to, and they were weeks away from the city, and there were no towns or villages along the way that he knew of.
The sword would have to stay.
Same with the spears. He badly wanted to replace his but the Centaurs' were too long. They were pike length for a Human. Not worth taking.
He started the gruesome job of searching the bodies for anything worth taking. The game mechanic of doing it for the player was so much easier, he thought as he tried to move one of the heavy bodies to get at what looked like a belt pouch. He tried not to get any of the dried blood on him and just managed to get the body moved enough to grab the pouch.
Inside he found some herbs, Greenroot and Purple Thistle, along with some jerky. There was nothing else of value. The other Centaurs were the same. Nothing of value.
“I miss humanoid mobs always dropping coin,” he said, adding the few items to his bag and tossing the Centaurs pouch. “Let’s get out of here.”
The next five days passed relatively uneventfully.
Hall had Pike fly a circular pattern, keeping watch in all directions. They encountered no more patrols, the dragonhawk spotting two villages in the distance that they were able to avoid. He thought one to be a Centaur village based on the style of the tents, round with sides and a canvas cap held up in the middle by a pole. The other could have been Boarin but he wasn’t sure. There were Goblins and others living in the plains.
It may have been uneventful, but it was cold. They didn’t risk a fire any of the days they were in the open plains. The chance of any of the inhabitants seeing it was too great. They sheltered in groves of trees when possible, at rock outcroppings, and for two miserable nights they had to camp in the open with no break from the constant wind. Each of those nights their Vitality took a small hit.
The land started rising as they reached the foothills. The mountains had been coming closer, getting larger and larger with each hour. Now the mountains were immense walls of stone rising as high as they could see, touching the cloud layer that hovered over Cumberland. Gray and black stone, sheer cliffs. Not inviting.
Throughout the trek, Hall checked the two maps, getting Cartography gains each time. He kept them on course, approaching the mountains at what he thought was the right place. As more of the land was revealed, he had been able to finetune the alignment and got them to what he thought was the start of the map’s path through the mountains.
“We’re looking for two round boulders with a flat slab of rock over the top. The trail starts on the other side,” he said, taking the map out of his pouch. He unrolled it and held it up, pulling up the internal map to align the two. They were in line with where the trail started, which meant it could be a mile or two in either direction.
“That narrows it down,” Sabine said with a sigh, looking at the imposing walls of stone before them. “Hope this treasure is worth it.”
Hall shrugged. He had no idea and had told her that a couple times before. This was a risk in a way he knew. It could prove worthwhile or it could prove to be a colossal waste of time. There had never been treasure maps in the game before. But what else did they have to do? Leigh was in no hurry to get to her Grove and the Branch that was there. She was trying to put it off as long as she could.
During one of the nights, she had given a reason on her hesitation. She had said that once a Druid claimed a Grove, they were bound to it and the Grove to them. They were the caretakers and had the responsibility to keep the Branch alive and healthy. Harm to the Grove was harm to the Druid and the opposite, harm to the Druid was harm to the Grove. She was not sure she wanted or was ready for that responsibility.
“Treasure Maps usually are,” Leigh said, responding to Sabine’s comment.
“What exactly is a Treasure Map?” Sabine asked. “I mean I get the idea but…” she paused and just shrugged.
“They’re magical,” Leigh answered. “It’s also kind of a general title,” she added. “They don’t necessarily have to go to a physical treasure, but because of the cost involved in making one, they always lead to something valuable.” She paused collecting her thoughts. “Think of them as a key. Someone has a map made and makes copies. Only someone with that map and a way to break the code can use it to find and open the treasure.”
“That sounds complicated,” Sabine said after a couple minutes of digesting the information. “Why not just use a safe?”
“No physical lock is truly safe,” Hall replied. “Not with the Lock Pick and Disarm Traps skills.”
“Still sounds complicated,” Sabine said with a sigh.
She was right, but to Hall, it made some sense. They lived in a world of magic, so maps that were keys didn’t seem that odd.
“That’s why whatever they hide is almost always valuable,” Leigh said.
“Have you ever gotten a treasure?” Roxhard asked, looking up at Leigh. “You know an awful lot about them.”
If Sabine had asked the quest
ion, Hall would have suspected her of trying to discredit Leigh, to show that the Druid wasn’t to be fully trusted and did not know everything. A lot of their revised knowledge was coming from Leigh, and Sabine didn’t seem to like that. Hall didn’t think that Sabine was intentionally doing it because of disliking Leigh; he thought it was more that Sabine was starting to feel out of her element. Sabine needed some solid foundation to stand on, and Leigh represented the object that was putting cracks in the foundation of what Sabine thought she knew. For her part, Leigh didn’t seem to care or notice.
But Roxhard had asked, which meant he was trying to flirt with Leigh. He was trying to stroke her ego.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling down at him. “But I never have. Always wanted to. Everyone knows about Treasure Maps but they are very rare. It’s one of those fantasies that village kids always play out.”
They were walking deeper into the foothills, the going steeper.
“How is Hall able to read that one but we can’t?” Sabine asked after a while.
He had given each of them the map to try to read, to help narrow down the spot and make some sense of it. None of the others had been able to decipher any of the notations. It had been a surprise. He had opened it and gotten the Cartography skill. They did not.
“No idea,” Leigh answered, stepping around a large rock outcropping, Angus trotting along happily at her side. “He shouldn’t have been able to. Not without training. Cartographers are very rare and jealously guard the secret to map making and decoding. Anyone can make a rough map but only Cartographers can make true maps.”
They spent the night in the foothills, nestled in a small valley downslope of one. Another cold night with no fire or warm food. Hall, during his time on watch, heard the thunder of hooves in the middle of the night, down on the flat plains but nothing disturbed them. Which was the way he preferred it. Nice and quiet.
Each had a minor Vitality loss from the restless sleep and cold food. Only a point or two, but it was starting to add up. Each night like this added another point and lowered their overall effectiveness. Each was able to get an increase in Survival skill though. Even Leigh.
It was mid-afternoon when they came to the mountains. The land rose to the sheer cliff of granite. Gray and white stone rose high into the sky, impassable and imposing. Checking the maps, Hall estimated they were a mile or two off in either direction. He studied the mountain, leading the group a half mile back to get a better look. All he could see was cliffs in both directions, no breaks. Almost straight up, unclimbable.
Birds could be seen flying around the cliffs, large ones. Pike sat on Hall’s shoulder, eyes watching the birds, a low growling sound coming from his throat. Hall reached up and petted the dragonhawk, trying to calm him.
“Pick a direction?” Sabine asked.
Hall shook his head. He wasn’t ready to leave it to chance. Not yet.
He studied the mountains, studied the map. There had to be something to help narrow it down. Whoever drew the map would want to make it somewhat easy to find the right spot if you knew what to look for. The mountains on the map were not detailed, roughly drawn triangles next to each other. The common indication for mountains. The trailhead, the two boulders with the flat slab, were drawn bigger; exaggerated and enlarged. There had to be something he was missing. He looked closer at the mountains around the trailhead. There was something a little different about them.
Skill Gain!
Cartography Rank 2 +.2
Smiling, Hall looked up at the mountains. Off to the east, he saw it. The map indicated a mountain with a cliff that jutted out over the plain. The real thing was a half mile to the side, maybe a mile, and about halfway up the sheer face there was an outcropping that leaned out over the foothills.
“There,” he said and started them in that direction.
An hour later, they saw the boulders. There was a crack in the cliff, hidden from view except from the east direction. The boulders were about five feet high, almost that in width. Decent sized, rough cut, made of a white stone. The slab was a large piece of the cliff that had fallen from the crack, landing by chance on the two boulders that were somewhat side by side. The crack itself was about eight feet wide, almost smooth on the sides. It was like an earthquake had split the mountain in two. It began behind the boulders, having to move around them to see it. Few pieces of rock or boulders littered the path through the crack.
The passage was in shadow, dark.
“Looks inviting,” Sabine said. “How far do we have to go?”
Hall shrugged. “The mountains are thin here, not that deep until get to the island’s edge. Shouldn’t be more than a couple hours walk.”
The map showed the ‘X’ they were looking for to be on the side of the mountains overlooking the sky and the nothingness below the island.
They started walking, Hall in the lead. The temperature dropped considerably once they were out of direct sunlight. There was some ambient light, enough to see by. Hall led, wishing there they had some thief skills among them or the Perception skill. With the lessened light, he was afraid he would miss something, a marker, or at worse, a trip wire.
There was no true thief class in the game. A Duelist was close, having some stealth and hiding abilities but did not have the Detect/Remove Trap or Lock Pick skills as part of the class. The Duelist class concentrated on the sneaking aspects of a standard thief class from almost any game and not the actual thieving skills. Any Class could train in those skills if they wanted to. Not many did as they were not truly necessary.
For the most part, the passage led straight and true, slowly sloping up. They came upon only one intersection with the path splitting. Hall consulted the map and saw a notation that only read ‘continue in the direction of the cliff.’ Taking that to mean the cliff overlooking the plains, he took the path that led east.
It continued straight, rising steeper, the going becoming harder. More and more rocks and boulders appeared in the path, forcing them to climb over some. Angus somehow managed to keep up, working his way with a little pushing from Roxhard over the rocks. The cow didn’t seem to even complain, just mooing contentedly, apparently enjoying himself. Pike rode on Hall’s shoulder, constantly shifting position which made it hard for Hall to keep his balance.
The wind blew through the passage, the rock walls funneling and channeling it, blowing it into their faces. The temperature was already cold from the lack of sun, the wind adding to the chill. They all pulled their cloaks tighter, the ends flapping.
The sun started to appear farther up, a light at the end of the passage. They had gotten used to the darker shadow of the continuing passage, the tight turns, but each picked up their pace with the light now visible. The passage got steeper, light visible on the sides and not just the end. The mountain angled back toward them, the passage appearing to turn to the east.
They emerged onto a flat shelf, the passage coming out on the western edge. The mountain on that side angled back steeper, creating a cliff overlooking the nothingness below. On the eastern side the mountain curved around to create the walls of the shelf. Only about twenty feet deep and that long, the shelf was worn smooth from constant exposure to the wind and elements.
Holding themselves to the eastern side, away from the edge, practically hugging the wall, they stepped out of the passage and onto the shelf. The wind was harder, physically pushing against them. Hall grimaced as Pike’s talons dug deeper into his shoulder, the wind pushing the dragonhawk and trying to lift him up. He extended to his full height, wings flapping to try to hold steady.
Hall saw the cave right away. On the far side of the shelf, close to the edge, was a dark opening into the side of the mountain. Laying outside the opening was a pile of white.
Bones.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They approached the cave cautiously, staying near the mountainside. The wind blew every which way, pushing and pulling. It came in off the sky around the island, slamming into the sloped side
s of the mountain.
The bones were half in and half out of the cave, pushed against the side by the wind, a jumbled mess. Judging by the bones Hall could identify, it had not been Human or Elf. Definitely not a Firbolg. Dwarf, or Bodin then. Stepping away from the edge, he looked into the cave, not able to see far inside. It appeared to only be about ten feet deep, a dark shadow possibly indicating a tunnel.
Stepping into the cave, Hall let his eyes adjust. His Racial Ability let him see more definition of the shadows within the dark cave. It wasn’t large, the ceiling only a couple feet above his head. The insides were smooth as if the wind had scoured it clean. More bones were scattered in the corners, pushed by the wind.
He saw the skull and bent down to pick it up. It was small, relatively, in size but larger than it should have been. A Dwarf skull with a large crack down the center. The Dwarf had most likely been caught by the wind and slammed against the side of the mountain. He tossed it back against the wall and stepped over to the darker opening that was a tunnel.
Only about five feet wide, eight feet tall, it led deeper into the depths of the mountain.
“Come on,” Hall called back watching as the others carefully made their way around the bones and into the cave.
The small space seemed crowded. Angus walked over to the side out of the wind and curled up on the ground. In seconds, the cow was asleep. Pike jumped off Hall’s shoulder and landed on a boulder near the cow. The dragonhawk’s eyes watched the party.
“I think they want to stay here,” Leigh said with a chuckle.
“Don’t blame them,” Sabine complained.
Hall leaned his spear against the wall. It was too long to use in the cramped tunnel.
