by Eric Nylund
She called back, “It’s a race, you twonks. Loser buys dinner.”
Elmac and I looked at each other.
I had no idea how to “spur” a mount this size into action, especially one with so thick a hide, and me technically not having “spurs” on my troll-skin boots.
Our buffalo, however, seemed to understand what was going on because they started to trot, then run after Morgana.
The rest of the tiny herd caught the spirit of the thing and they ran with us.
I had to hold on with both hands or get jostled off.
Morgana had a big head start.
I didn’t mind. I’d settle racing Elmac for second place.
We ran side-by-side, neck and neck.
Elmac laughed and whooped.
Our small stampede of six thundered over the grassland and birds took flight before us.
I shouted encouragements to Auntie Brown. She doubled her efforts and we pulled a body length ahead of Elmac.
Elmac then gave some ancient dwarven battle cry and his buffalo leapt forward, caught—then passed me by a nose.
We ran by where Morgana waited.
And crossed the Game boundary.
Alerts chimed and windows popped open, so many I could barely see ahead.
These were all the Drunken Monkey quest parts we’d unlocked, then cleared, in the last two days. It was neat to see the whole thing unrolled at once.
QUEST ALERT!
“A THOUSAND DRUNKEN MONKEYS”—PART I
COMPLETED
You have found Master Cho among the Far Field barbarian tribes.
Reward(s): Bonus Experience.
Special Hidden Reward: You have impressed Master Cho with your abilities and cunning and have unlocked the prerequisite to earn new abilities.
and
QUEST UNLOCKED:
A THOUSAND DRUNKEN MONKEYS”—PART II
(“WRITE DRUNK, EDIT SOBER”)
Gain insights into Drunken Monkey Boxing and obtain the means for further study of this martial art.
Reward(s): Bonus Experience and a new skill for martial artists in the party.
Suggested Party: N/A
and
QUEST ALERT!
“A THOUSAND DRUNKEN MONKEYS”—PART II
(“WRITE DRUNK, EDIT SOBER”)
COMPLETED
You have gained insights into Drunken Monkey Boxing and obtained the means for further study of this martial art.
Reward(s): Bonus Experience and martial artists in the party acquire Drunken Monkey Boxing (Tier 1; Rank: Pilsner Sash).
and, still more…
QUEST UNLOCKED:
A THOUSAND DRUNKEN MONKEYS”—PART III
(“SOBRIETY SMACKDOWN”)
Defeat or otherwise beat Master Cho in a challenge bout (and do so in a way that does not end in your death).
Reward(s): Bonus Experience and the party’s freedom.
and
QUEST ALERT!
“A THOUSAND DRUNKEN MONKEYS”—PART III
(“SOBRIETY SMACKDOWN”)
COMPLETED
You have defeated Master Cho in a challenge bout and lived!
Reward(s): Bonus Experience.
and then finally
ALERT!
EXTRA HIDDEN BONUSES
For completing the Drunken Monkey quest line without killing any inhabitant of the Valley of the Drunken Monkey God, Dà Xiào Hóu has blessed you with the boon “First Round’s On Me.”
All martial artists have their Drunken Monkey Boxing skill upgraded to the next tier, Rank: Mojito Sash.
All party members receive a new passive ability: Drunken Resistance (tier 2).
There were special hidden rewards? Interesting. Compensation for playing outside the boundaries of the Game perhaps? Not having hints from the quest text certainly upped the difficulty. More risk, more reward.
I checked out the new skills and abilities.
Drunken Monkey Boxing (tier 2; Rank: Mojito Sash)
Proportional to your level of inebriation, you become harder to hit and grapple, have increased damage resistance, and may sporadically use a random basic special technique, including, but not limited to: Chasing Swarm of Moths, Chair with Two Legs, Dance of Endless Firecrackers, No Personal Space, and Sticky Face Sticky Hands.
NOTE: Your effectiveness rapidly declines when you are too drunk to stand.
and
Drunken Resistance (tier 2)
While you still are subject to the state of inebriation appropriate for your stats, race, and degree of liver degradation—your ability to drink more, remain conscious longer, and hangover recovery time are improved by 40%.
Nice.
I checked my experience bar. It was 80% filled with sterling silver pips, although I also noticed the ghost of a second, longer indicator superimposed over the first.
I went to the CHARACTER section of my interface.
Yes—I was close to becoming a fifth-level Spirit Warrior, but if I spent the same experience on my Mage of the Line class, I’d only be about halfway to the next level. An expensive class, but maybe justifiably so, given the power of even its beginning abilities.
Elmac jumped off his buffalo and danced a little jig.
I couldn’t tell if this was due to the new Drunken Resistance ability or because his placard now read:
Melmak Argenté-Wolfram
WIZARD / LEVEL 3
Heroes of Thera
Cool. I wonder if he’d pick a new second class, start down a wizard specialization path, or like me build up his core abilities first?
Morgana slid off her buffalo. “I think it’s time we let our lady friends go about their business, yeah?”
Elmac and I likewise dismounted.
Elmac bowed to his wooly steed. “Fare thee well, grand beastie.”
She lowered her head. Elmac scratched under her chin.
“I’ll just leave them with a bit of supper then,” Morgana said. “Come on, girls. Corn and honeysuckle’s on the menu.” She clucked her tongue and marched toward a sandy patch among the tall grass.
The buffalo were so excited they followed her with the bison equivalent of the flashy tall-gaited “park trot” common among show horses.
Auntie Brown, however, remained and nudged my shoulder.
I turned and stared into her bottomless brown eyes.
I patted her neck one last time and gave her a hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
She snorted, and maybe it was my imagination, but it looked like she wanted to say, “You’re very welcome, my adopted elf-calf.” She then joined the rest of her kind.
I was going to miss these majestic, gentle, and terrifying creatures.
Morgana left the sandy spot. Behind her, corn stalks sprouted and honeysuckle vines twined about them.
“I’m confused,” she said to me. “How’d we complete the quest? The objective was to learn, or I guess more accurately find the means to learn, Drunken Monkey techniques. You couldn’t have learned anything in the day we were there.”
“Oh,” I said and sighed. “Yeah, Master Cho did promise to make a gift of a few of his instructional scrolls if I won our match. Funny thing, he conveniently forgot about that little detail afterward, and to tell you the truth, I just wanted to get out of there, so I didn’t press the issue.”
“…And?” Morgana said.
“And, I’m not especially proud of this, but…” I opened my inventory and removed a scroll, then another, and then six more. “I borrowed a few select topics from Master Cho’s library before the match.”
“Well, well, well,” Morgana murmured and looked me over appreciatively. “Might make a decent thief of you yet.”
“Maybe,” I replied, then changed the subject. “So, dinner?” I nodded toward the Waypoint Inn.
“Brilliant,” she said and started marching.
Elmac fell in line with her and muttered, “Aye, dinner be fine, but what be the point without a few S
ilvercrest Ales to wash it all down?”
She gave him a fake pout and ruffled his hair. “But you made a cute little orangutan. Pongo tapanuliensis, if I’m not mistaken. Don’t worry, though, love. You fall off the wagon, I’ll keep you as my pet.”
CHAPTER 35
We grabbed a few menus and seated ourselves in the far corner booth. It was a good spot as no one was within earshot and we had a commanding view of the entire room.
The place wasn’t as crowded as it had been last time. I counted eight customers eating, no one at the trade tables, and only two waitstaff.
Elmac had just gotten his prosthetic arm back on. He gave it one more shoulder roll and hand flex and then seemed to be satisfied with the fit.
“This place has the best food,” I told him.
“As long as there be lots ’o it,” he replied and looked at his menu. He flipped to the drink selections at the end, sighed, and flipped back.
A crowd of travelers then entered wearing heavy pewter-colored cloaks with silver-star clasps. They were an odd collection: a few humans; I spotted a dark elf in sunglasses; a hobbit or two; and three individuals that looked over seven feet tall, but I couldn’t tell what they were as they kept their hoods up.
Elmac followed my gaze.
“Guild ’o the Empyrean,” he murmured. “Elite merchants. Best steer clear ’o that lot.”
“Dangerous?” Morgana asked.
“To your money pouch,” he said. “The Empyreans have routes between a few well-hidden gates. They be known for procuring rare and exotic fare, but only for equally rare and exotic prices.”
Morgana studied them as they sat at a long table on the trade side of the room. “Think I ought to give my upgraded pickpocket skill a whirl?”
I tapped the table to get her attention. “Really?”
She turned back, all dimples. “Just kidding, mate. Don’t get your new ‘Mojito’-colored sash in a bind.”
I snorted.
But I wasn’t convinced she had been entirely kidding.
I wondered if her player and real personas were mixing too? Morgana, the ex-high school teacher, might be part light-fingered trickster now as well.
“Let’s look at the assassin’s note,” I whispered. “The people on that hit list have to have something in common.”
Elmac and Morgana nodded, and from their subsequent stares at nothing, I figured they’d opened their interfaces and were reading the text I’d previously deciphered.
Yamina,
As prescribed by shadow and blade, herein are thine orders, not to be circumvented by blood nor bane nor broken heart: terminate these unfortunate walking dead with extreme prejudice. With regards to the last six, use Summa protocols, and even then additional precautions may be warranted.
Good hunting.
“When I looked at this before using Azramath’s headband” —I tapped the silver silk tied about my forehead— “I got a lot more than the translation. I also learned the note was written by the blind master assassin, Gashton Grex, and given to one first lieutenant, Yamina Sussara, aka the Serene Knife, aka The Whispering Blade, and a bunch of other noms de guerre. Heard of them?”
They shook their heads.
“Maybe you should be taking another gander with that headband,” Elmac said.
“I don’t think so. I got all I could—just before the magic overloaded my optic nerves and blew my brains out.”
This fell under the category of even your magic items could kill you in Thera.
“Right,” Morgana said. “Then back to these names on the hit list.”
My gaze lingered upon the people I knew among those marked for death:
Duke Reginald Opinicus
Sister Rada Borovkova
Colonel Sabella Delacroix
General (retired) Elmac Arguson
Captain (?) Pendric Ragnivald
Hektor Saint-Savage
Morgana Nox
“Elmac,” I said, “you told me you knew some of these others… uh, Padre John Adam-Smith, Dame Rose Beckonsail, Niblen Chatters?”
“Sure,” he replied. “John be a padre; Rose a captain in the Duchy’s Gryphon Cavalry, and that last fellow be a court scribe or some such.”
“Besides the cleric,” Morgana asked, “they’re all connected to the Duke, yeah?”
“That be a fair assumption.” Elmac frowned at the list. “But he employs hundreds ’o folk, so that’s not giving us much.”
“Are any of these other names familiar?” I asked.
Elmac rubbed his temple. “Well, this fellow be a guard, I think. This one, ugh… ’twould be much easier with a tankard or two to grease my thinking.”
“Let’s simplify this,” Morgana said. “Don’t try to connect all the dots on the list. Can we connect any dots? Start with Pendric and Delacroix. We fought with them to save High Hill. Is anyone else on this list connected to us five?”
“The Duke,” Elmac remarked. “He sent us to you after he interrogated us ’bout connections between the ghosts in the deserted part ’o High Hill and that zombie invasion…” His words trailed off.
“Sister Rada was in on that discussion,” I said. “In the Duke’s high-security meeting chamber.”
“So was Padre John, Captain Beckonsail, and the scribe,” Elmac said, tugging on his beard as he thought. “Pendric, me and Hektor, Colonel Delacroix, and ’o course the Duke were all there too.”
“Where the others on the list there?” Morgana asked.
“Maybe,” Elmac whispered. “’Twas a tad hungover, but they all could have been there. ’Cept you, Mor—” He looked up.
The waitress who’d served us last time walked up to our table. Sadie, if I was not mistaken. Her caramel hair was pinned up and she wore perfume—a whisper of lilac, citrus, and something wondrously unidentifiable.
“Why it’s the dueling gypsy elf,” she cooed and beamed at me. “I didn’t get your name last time.”
This was… uh, strange. Why was she so happy to see me? I looked and smelled like you’d expect after wrestling several dozen monkeys and riding a buffalo all day.
But of course, this obviously wasn’t about me. Hair up? Perfume? Most likely she had a date after her shift. Lucky guy. Or girl. Or whatever.
“I’m Hektor Saint-Savage.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, “again. Are you folks ready to order?”
“I’ll take the coniglio pasto completo,” Morgana said before I could jump in and ask for a few more minutes. I hadn’t even cracked the menu.
“Of course, ma’am.” She turned to Elmac. “Sir?”
“I be having the Donn Cúailnge porterhouse. Rare. And a ruddy cup ’o coffee.”
“And you, Mister Saint-Savage?”
“Does the house have a specialty this evening, mademoiselle?”
“Trois choix fantastiques, monsieur,” she replied.
Her French was flawless but had an accent I couldn’t place. Vietnamese? No, that wasn’t quite right. Odd.
“Très bon,” I said. “Would you mind picking the best of the lot for me?”
One of her eyebrows arched, and she nodded as she scribbled on her notepad.
The waitstaff usually knew what was good (although I was taking a bit of a gamble that Sadie would pick the best dish, not necessarily the most expensive one).
I almost asked her to add a frosty Silvercrest Ale to my order but had pity on Elmac. “And a small pot of green tea,” I added. “Thanks.”
“I’ll have everything ready as soon as possible,” she told us, then took our menus, and flounced off.
Once Sadie had gone into the kitchen, I said, “So, the people on this hit list, minus you, Morgana, were at that meeting. At the time, we suspected there was a plot against High Hill. Our clues pointed us to the druids at the Grove of the Thirteen Ancients. We found you there, battled that shadow demigod, and picked up the last part of the quest to save the city.”
“So what be the reason to kill those on this li
st?” Elmac asked.
“Revenge for the demon army we stopped?” I suggested.
“Then why the rest ’o these people?” Elmac said. “Why not just us, Pendric, and Delacroix? We be the ones that stopped them.”
“Hang on a tick,” Morgana said, leaned forward, and furrowed her brow at me. “You’re not still on about the Lords of the bloody Abyss arranging this sanction? If they could have done that, wouldn’t they have done it before they invaded? Off the city’s leaders all in one go? Would have made things ten times easier for them, yeah?”
“Makes sense,” I muttered, irritated that my theory had another hole in it beside the Abyssal Lords being forbidden from direct involvement in the Game.
We pondered this for a few minutes.
No new insights… or hunches… or even wild guesses came.
Sadie returned, wheeling a cart, and proceeded to unpack our feast.
Elmac’s steak barely fit on its three-foot platter. The slab of sizzling meat had to be four pounds and was blackened and crusted with spices and seasonings. A sprig of parsley had been arranged next to it, the only greenery on the plate. I assume put there for irony.
Sadie set Morgana’s dishes out. “Your coniglio pasto completo” —she pointed to each plate— “rabbit cacciatore, caprice salad, and rolls just out of the oven, smothered with buffalo butter and crushed elephant garlic. Your tiramisu will be ready soon, ma’am.”
Morgana cut into the rabbit and stuffed her face like a starving panther (which may have not been far from the truth), and made a ravenous growl of approval.
Elmac ignored the silver steak knife and pulled one of his ivory-handled daggers from his belt. He cut into the meat and grinned at the bloody interior. “’Tis perfection,” he said.
“And for you.” Sadie placed a platter before me and removed the cover. “Salmon en Cruote del Rey.”
A croissant the size of a loaf of bread sat steaming on a slab of obsidian. Green pesto sauce had been drizzled hither and yon. Smells of salmon and rosemary and sage made my mouth water.
