by Rick Scott
A hefty price tag. “We could probably work towards that, I guess.”
“We could also eliminate the main threat in the area,” Wilbur said. “The goblins have taken over some nearby mines. It’s why they keep raiding us. With you defeating their champion last night though, they’ve lost most of their strength. What’s left of them shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge for you. If you can clear them out we could even take back the mines again.”
New Quest Available: Remove the Goblin Horde
Reclaim the Brookrun Mines by defeating the Goblin Queen and her minions
Defeat Goblin commanders (5)
Defeat Goblin Champion (1) [Complete]
Defeat Goblin Queen
Rewards: 100,000 exp +200 Favor with Brookrun Village, control of Brookrun Mines
Holy cow!
My eyes widen as I read the details. A quest like this would be killing two birds with one stone! Maybe even three! “Wilbur. I think you just found yourself a goblin exterminator.”
* * *
You share the quest: Remove the Goblin Horde with your party.
“So what do you guys think?” I ask when I see the quest pop up onto their HUDs, their eyes glowing.
It’s mid-morning now and both Gilly and I have reached level 2 in favor by assisting with the rebuilding of the cabins and running a few small tasks for villagers here and there. Maxis and Rembrandt have returned from their scouting mission and we’re now back in the common hall, sat around a table and studying the quest details.
“What level is the dungeon?” Rembrandt asks.
I shrug. “Doesn’t say. But the goblins can’t be much tougher than the ones we fought last night. And with the champion defeated, Wilbur said the dungeon shouldn’t be too hard to beat at all.”
“He’s right,” Val Helena says. “I’ve cleared low level dungeons like this before. Once the champion is defeated it’s pretty much cake. It’ll probably be good exp for Gilly too.”
Maxis grimaces. “I supposed it’ll do. Let’s saddle up. Those mines are probable a good hour’s hike from here.”
“Hold on, handsome.” Val Helena rests a hand on his shoulder. “We can’t all go and clear it. The exp split will be too high.”
“Well I’m not letting them go by themselves.”
Val Helena laughs. “Gosh, you really are the overprotective big brother type aren’t you? That’s kind of sweet.”
Maxis mumbles something inaudible, but I’m pretty sure it’s a cuss.
“Can’t we just not party up or something?” Gilly asks.
“The XP won’t be split evenly if you’re not in a party,” Val Helena says. “The majority will go to whoever does the most damage. So you still wouldn’t be getting much.”
“Fine, I’ll just go with them then,” Maxis says. “Splitting three ways is better than five.”
The thought of just my brother coming with us has me suddenly feeling less enthused. The last thing I want is him bossing me around. Especially in front of Gilly. It must show on my face because Val Helena jumps right in to save me.
“Actually I could really use your help around here,” the giantess says. “I got a quest to chop down some trees for more wood. Sure wouldn’t mind the helping hand…” And then she winks at him.
Maxis furrows his brow. “You’re as strong as ten people. Why do you need my help?”
Val Helena lets out a goddess laugh. “Wow. You really are just like your brother.”
“What?” he says.
I turn a little red and know exactly what she means: Clueless.
“Oy, I don’t mind playing chaperone, mate,” Rembrandt says, clearly less clueless than my brother and I. “You go give the big lady a hand. I got the kids, don’t worry.”
My spirits lighten immediately. Going with Rembrandt is a much better option. Plus a ranged DPS like him will have us clearing that dungeon in no time.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Val Helena says. “Thank you for offering, Rembrandt.”
“Call me Rem, miss.” The cyberpunker tips his head in a bow.
Maxis still has a sour look on his face.
“We’ll be fine,” I say. “And if we find anything that’s more than the three of us can handle, we’ll just come back. Right, Rem?”
“Absolutely, mate.”
Maxis looks at us and then to Rembrandt. “All right. Just don’t take any chances with my little bro, man.”
“Or his girlfriend!” Gilly pipes up.
That gets a laugh out of everyone and even a stiff chuckle from my brother.
“Or his girlfriend,” Maxis echoes with a smirk. “All right we’ll see you guys when you come back. I want to start going over some ideas for where to head next. Gilly might be able to level in there, but she still needs scrolls.”
“I got that covered,” Gilly says.
Everyone looks at her.
“You do?” I ask.
“Yup.” Gilly beams. “And it’s on the way too. Let’s go.”
Chapter 7: Pitstop
I head out with Gilly and Rembrandt into the open forest, leaving the village of Brookrun, plus my brother and Val Helena behind. Gilly is the navigator, guiding us from what I assume is the map on her HUD. Rembrandt stays a few yards ahead of us and when we set off in the chosen direction, his mirror shades glance back and forth as he keeps an eye out for trouble.
“So where are we headed exactly?” I ask.
“We’re looking for a hermit,” Gilly says.
“A what?”
“An old gnome that lives by himself out here in the woods.” Gilly hikes up her mage’s robe a little as she trudges through the underbrush. “When I was talking to the villagers earlier, I asked them where I could maybe buy some magic scrolls. They said besides heading to a major city that this old dude named Blacktop would be my best bet. They said he’s a real packrat and likes to trade stuff.”
“What are we going to trade him?”
Gilly just shrugs. “Let’s just see if he has any scrolls first. Then maybe we can do him a favor or something.”
We travel through the forest for another twenty minutes when Gilly indicates that we should stop. When I look around I don’t see anything particularly different from the pine trees we’ve been trekking through for the last hour.
“You sure you got the right spot?” Rembrandt asks.
“Should be. I had the villager mark it on the map.”
I check the map myself and sure enough, we’re on the spot where Gilly had placed her waymark. “Maybe the villager had it wrong.”
“Or maybe the goblins got him,” Rembrandt says. “This area’s pretty out in the open.”
I focus my senses. If something is supposed to be here, then maybe it’s hidden. That means it has to be either up or down. Looking up all I can see are the branches of the pine trees, but there’s nothing in them. That leaves the latter. I look more closely at the ground that’s littered with pine needles. As I kick them about I hear a faint creak.
Your awareness increases by 0.3
“Guys, I think I found something.”
I kick away the needles and uncover a wooden door buried in the ground. It’s about three feet square and there’s no obvious handle or way to open it. But there is an eye slot embedded in the center of the door. “Did the villager say the place would be underground?”
Gilly just shrugs again and then her face light up with recollection. “Oh yes! They did say it was well hidden.”
I laugh as I roll my eyes. “Always so late with the details!”
She just grins. “Sorry!”
I stoop down and knock on the door. “Hello? Anyone home? Blacktop?”
We wait a few moments and I knock again.
The “eye slot” falls inwards, perhaps on a hinge and the business end of a double-barreled shotgun comes poking out.
“Bloody hell!” Rembrandt cries and he pulls his pistols.
“Don’t shoot!” I say raising my hands. What the hec
k? I totally didn’t expect a gun!
A gruff voice answers from the other side. “Who are you? And how did you find me?”
I’m at a loss for words as I stare down the twin barrels of death. “Um…!”
“We’re Shard Warriors!” Gilly says quickly with panic in her voice. “Villages from Brookrun said we could find you here. We just want to trade.”
“Trade what?”
“We need magic scrolls,” I say. “The healing type if you have. And would you mind lowering the gun, sir? We really don’t mean any harm.”
There’s a mutter I can’t comprehend and then the shotgun slowly withdraws, quickly replaced by two bloodshot eyes that squint in the sunlight. “From the Shards, eh? Which Shards?”
“The Crystal Shards,” I say. “My name is Reece and this is—”
“I didn’t ask your names,” the man Blacktop—I assume—says gruffly. “And I know what the shards are called. I asked “which” ones are you from.”
I look at Gilly puzzled. “Uh… Nasgar?”
“Nasgar?” Blacktop lets out a grunt. “Doubt you got anything I’d be too interested in then.”
“I’m from New London,” Rembrandt says.
The bloodshot eyes go wide. “Lemme get a look at you.”
I move to the side as Rembrandt crouches over the door.
A wheezing laugh comes from the other side. “Well I’ll be. All right, I’ll give you five minutes.”
I’m about to ask if he has any scrolls when the peep hole slams shut.
The mechanical workings of a latch come from behind the door and then the whole thing swings inwards revealing a ladder beneath. Blacktop is standing on it a few rungs from the top. If his name has anything to do with his hair, it must be ironic, because his is completely white, and thinning at the top. His full beard is much the same and is long enough to be a plaited at the bottom. His face is hardened with wrinkles and his skin pale from lack of sunlight, I presume. He lowers himself down the rest of the ladder and makes room for us to enter.
I head in first and when I reach the bottom I’m amazed at how big the underground home is. Although I still have to stoop slightly, it’s clearly build for averaged sized people. It makes me wonder if Blacktop, with his full four-foot frame, was the original owner or not. The room we enter into is about ten by ten and the walls are earth that’s been reinforced with wooden planks. When Gilly and Rembrandt enter, Blacktop climbs back up the ladder to seal the hatchway and then leads us down a corridor to an even bigger room.
Small lamps light the way and illuminate the larger room as well, which looks more like a garage full of junk than anywhere someone would actually live. Old furniture, rusted armor, weapons, anything you could think of is heaped into piles or scattered across the floor.
Blacktop plops himself down into a ratty looking easy chair as we tiptoe our way through the minefield of debris. “Let’s see what you got.”
I study the short little man and pull up his stats.
Name: Blacktop
Sex: Male
Race: Gnome
Class: Tinker
Level: 85
Guild: Everlast
What the heck?
Those don’t look like NPC stats to me. And I’ve definitely heard of a Shard called Everlast before. Could this mean? “Are you from the Shards too?”
Blacktop chuckles. “You must be new here.”
“Yeah, they’re first timers,” Rembrandt says. “How long you been here, mate?”
“Long enough to forget where I’m from,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing. You should try it sometime. Now what you got for trade? Any guns? They like guns here, even though they can barely use ‘em.”
“I can spare you one of these,” Rembrandt says and produces a sub machine pistol with a flash of nanodust. “Level 65 weapon. B class.”
“Not bad,” Blacktop says studying it from afar.
“Do you have any celestial magic scrolls?” Gilly asks. “I need a whole bunch.”
Blacktop looks at her a minute and I see his HUD light up within his eyes as he checks her stats. “That you do. You’re a brave one coming here at that level. Must have had one heck of party backing you up fighting the world boss.”
Gilly shrugs with a smile. “I guess. So do you have any?”
Blacktop eases off his chair and begins rummaging through a random junk pile, but amazingly in less than a minute he returns to his seat with a small chest. When he opens it, there are at least a dozen scrolls inside.
“Now,” Blacktop says. “I don’t really remember what’s in here, but I’ll give you the whole thing for that gun.”
“Can’t we look at them first?” I say.
“Nuh uh,” he says. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
Man this sucks. “What if there aren’t any scrolls we need in there?”
He shrugs. “The beauty of the bargain my boy.”
Some bargain, but what choice do we have?
He chuckles as he studies me and then a furrow creases on his brow. “You sure you’re a first timer? You look awfully familiar to me.”
“You might have met his brother, mate,” Rembrandt says and that totally makes sense to me. “He’s been here plenty of times. Maybe you’ve seen him. He goes by Maxis.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I’m not so good with names anyway. So you want the scrolls or not?”
I look to Rembrandt and shrug. “Pay you back when we get home?”
The cyberpunker laughs. “You can pay me back when we get to a tech world.”
Blacktops’ eyes light up. “You’re going to a tech world? Across the wilds?”
“You know where one is?” Rembrandt asks.
“I know the general direction. If you do, I could offer you a heck of a lot more if you bring me back something nice. Like a flamethrower.”
What the heck? This guy had to be some kind of nutcase.
“If you like that high tech stuff so much,” Gilly says. “Then why don’t you just live over there?”
Blacktop laughs. “You must have had an easy time getting here through the wilds. Most people never even make it out, much less cross them to get to different zones. But if you’re going to risk it, I’ll give you a shopping list.”
“And what could you offer?” Rembrandt asks.
He looks at me again. “You look like you could use this, my friend.”
He then gets off his stool and retrieves another wooden case. When he opens it I see a set of level 85 ninja weapons nestled inside.
Blacktop wishes to trade with you.
Blacktop offers you:
A Poison Kunai +5: +30 DEX +30 AGL +50 Poison Damage
A Lightning Kunai +5: +30 DEX +30 AGL +50 Lightning Damage
Blacktop cancels the trade. “Bring me back a flamethrower and these babies are yours.”
Those kunai are seriously sweet. I can’t use them yet, but they would be a massive upgrade to my level 75 Darksteel versions. Something strikes me as odd about them though. The combination of poison and lightning perhaps. I then remember the drops I got from the Goblin Champion. As I drag them from my inventory they materialize in my hands in a puff of nano dust just like Rembrandt’s machine gun. In a way it’s almost like items appearing in the Shards, but I do notice that when they materialize that one of my nano fragments gets converted to nanobits and goes down by 3000.
You have:
Nano Bits: 7000/10000
Nano Fragments: 7/1000
Nano Shards: 0/100
Nano Crystals: 0/10
Nano Cubes: 0/1
I guess even materializing stuff from your inventory costs nano.
“Any interest in these?” I ask showing him the plate armor and flaming bullwhip.
Blacktop frowns as he looks them over. “I won’t trade you these for that, but you want anything else?”
“How about some local currency?” Rembrandt says. “We could use some of that.”
“N
ow you’re talking,” Backtop says. “I’ll give you 5 gold pieces for the lot.”
“Gold?” Then I recall the currency mentioned in the town building screen. I can’t remember what a gold piece was worth, but I think it was a lot. “How about 10?”
He frowns. “7 max.”
“Deal.”
You have learned a new skill “Barter”
Your chances to positively influence a negotiation increases with this skill.
I hand over the armor and whip for the coins and Rembrandt trades the gun for the box of scrolls which he then gives to Gilly. We exchange pleasantries and then Blacktop leads us back toward the entryway.
“Do me favor,” he says. “Kick some leaves and stuff back over the top of the door for me before you go. Save me a trip out and around the back to do it.”
“No problem,” I say as we shake hands. An idea then pops into my head. Perhaps there are other things Blacktop might be able to offer us.
“Hey one more thing,” I say. “You’ve been here a long time, right?”
Blacktop pauses and looks up at me. “Yeah.”
“You ever hear mention of the location of Citadel?”
“You mean the city?”
“Yes, where we’re from.”
He just laughs. “Never thought about it, to be honest. Don’t know why you’d want to go looking for it, but if you did, I imagine it’s underground.”
“Yeah, we know that much, mate,” Rembrandt says with a grin. “Any idea where?”
“If you want to know about anything that’s buried then head to the Dwarven kingdom of Iron forge. It’s down under the Ice Peak Mountains.”
A new waymark lights up on my map as he says it. The mountains look to be at least a hundred miles from where we are now, toward the northeast.
“The dwarves have a charter of royal cartographers there,” he says. “If it’s buried, they’re likely to have come across it and mapped it. They’re a reclusive bunch though, so getting them to open up might be a challenge”
“Thanks,” Gilly says. “That’s a big help!”
