by Galen Wolf
I blush. “No.”
Mercurius turns to Adele. “There’s not room on the raft for the three of us. If Gorrow and I go over will you look after the horses here? Once we’ve landed over there, I’ll get Gorrow to come back for you.”
“I have no skills in sailing,” I say.
He scratches his chin. “No. Okay. I’ll leave you on the island and come back myself.” As if to reassure Adele he says, “It’ll be a while before the werewolves respawn.”
She gives a thin smile. “I hope so.”
We set off across the choppy waters of the lake. The raft seems to be powered by some magical energy because I can’t see a sail or oars. I watch the land receding behind us where Adele waits with the three horses. I feel kind of honoured that he’s chosen me to go over with him. He stands fully armoured. My hero. He says, “You can have a go at the lake serpents to see if you can do them any damage.”
“Lake serpents?”
A sinuous tentacle emerges from water and wraps around the raft. “Get it before it tips us in. You won’t swim with that armour on.”
I won’t swim at all.
I slash at the tentacled arm.
I sigh.
“Never mind,” Mercurius says, dispatching the thing with one cut. But it’s not the last. All the way across the lake to the forested island, the serpents keep trying to tip the raft over. “I’ve done this quest before,” Mercurius says. “I always do it with new squires. But you’re the first one I’ve had with mining skills. When I saw your skills I thought of this quest immediately.”
I don’t know if he’s messing with me. “Why?” I ask. He pauses to cut another Lake Serpent in half then says, “Because I’ve heard there’s another quest on St Herbert’s Island. One that needs mining skills. I’ve never had the skills to trigger it before. So I’m wondering if you will.”
I look up. “We’re nearly at the island.”
“Just the ogre to deal with.”
The raft runs into the shingle.
We step off the raft. The lakeshore is pebbly but gives way to short grass and then low shrubs. I see the roof of a stone built chapel. A path leads to it through the undergrowth. “Which ogre?” I ask.
He points. “That one.”
There’s a thing the size of a small fairground attraction but really ugly, drooling with few teeth and bug eyes. It’s carrying a club with nails in, but the club is as big as a horse. I get ready. Mercurius laughs. “Soon you’ll be able to fight these guys. Remember, I’m Level 20.”
The thing lunges at Mercurius. He draws it into the clearing beside the chapel. Anxious monks emerge. This fight takes Mercurius longer than the werewolves and I can see by the concentration and effort he puts into his precise swordwork that the ogre is a serious opponent. It even lands a blow on him and I see Mercurius sip health potion. But he’s good. He jabs and feints and soon the thing is bleeding from many wounds. Then with a run and a backswing, Mercurius hacks its left hamstring and it falls onto one knee. Then, with great agility, he spins and buries his sword in its back. I see him withdraw the blade, dripping with black blood. Then he gives it the final coup de grace.
I feel a bit of a fraud for getting anything out of that fight at all.
With the ogre dead, Sir Mercurius bows to the monks.
“Thank you gentle knight,” they say. “You have freed us from the monster.”
“Once again!” Mercurius flips up his visor and winks at me.
I guess it will respawn too. Mercurius leads me round to the front of the ancient chapel. “Let’s go in.”
I take off my helmet as I step into the cool of the chapel. The place is dim and I smell incense and see the glow of candle flames. There are gold icons on the walls of Jesus and Mary. A gold cross glimmers on the altar and beside it, an ancient holy man in a simple white robe stands there.
“Welcome, my sons. In the name of our Lord, I bid you welcome.”
We approach and I kneel before the altar as does Sir Mercurius.
St Herbert takes our hands and makes us rise to our feet. “Is there any boon I can give you in thanks for defeating the monster?”
Sir Mercurius points to me. “Holy saint, I would be forever in your debt if you could bless the sword of my squire, young Gorrow here.”
St Herbert nods. “Of course. It’s the very least I can do. But remember it is not by my power, but the power of our Lord above.”
“Of course.”
St Herbert takes my iron longsword. He smiles and says, “I see you have visited my brother in the Lord, Ninian.”
I nod. “He too gave me his blessing.”
“As will I.” The saint bows his head and prays softly.
I look at Mercurius who says, “Congratulations.”
I’m grinning all over my face. “Sweet!”
“Yeah, but we’ve got more to do here. You wait while I go fetch Adele.”
13
The Quest of the Hidden Mine
“If you’ll excuse us.” Sir Mercurius bows to St Herbert who says, “Of course, my son,” and went back to his contemplations. The monks are very deferential, grateful to both of us for ridding them of the ogre, though I feel a bit of a fraud because I haven’t really contributed, but the monks make no difference between us, clapping us on our armoured shoulders as we walk past out of the chapel.
“Wait here while I go get Adele. She’ll be mad I’ve kept her waiting so long.”
“Do you want me to scout around the island?”
“For the secret mine?” He looks like he’s pondering my offer, but then he says, “Nah, just wait here. You don’t know what’s lurking around.”
I watch him leave. I have 100 skill points again. I’ve been so ashamed at not being able to hit anything, and more than being ashamed it’s dangerous. Who heard of a squire who can’t hit anything with a sword.
I put 5 points into Swordplay.
That’s actually a 10 point increase for 5 skill points. 5 only used to give me 5, but I’ve noticed that the mobs dodge and armour is scaling up fast so maybe this is the mechanic that allows me to hit the bigger mobs?
I put another 20 into Swordplay taking my to-hit up to 125. As I put a further 5 points in, I notice that now I’m getting 15 to-hit for 5 skill points. This is good.
I put a further 15 in and now I’m at 185 to hit with a 15% crit chance. I decide to go the whole hog and commit all my remaining 50 skill points into swordplay.
By the end, I’m getting a 25 to-hit increase from each 5 skill points spent and at the end of my 100 skill points I’m up to 390 to-hit (+10% of course) with a crit chance of 17%. Not too shabby at all.
I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself when Mercurius returns with Adele and the horses.
“Hey,” she says. “Been enjoying yourself?”
I nod. “Yup. Let me at ‘em!”
Mercurius looks around. “So, this island isn’t too big. About half a mile by quarter of a mile. There’s a secret quest here — the Hidden Mine. But —and this is where I’ve not been able to do it before— you need the Mining Skillset for it to trigger. You could walk right past it if you didn’t have high enough mining and not find it.” He smiles at me. “But, our friend Gorrow has mining!”
“Go Gorrow,” Adele says
, but without much enthusiasm. I’m not sure she approves of Mercurius’s new found fondness for me.
Mercurius comes up and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Anyway, Gorrow. You just levelled, right?”
I nod. Pleased as punch. “Thanks to you, sir. Absolutely thanks to you.”
“Don’t mention it. Glad to help. Anyway, you got a hundred skill points, did you?”
“Of course. Sure did. Thanks again.” My enthusiasm floods away as I see where this is going.
“So, to make our chance of triggering the Hidden Mine quest, better...”
“...He can put them into mining.” Even Adele seems pleased with the idea.
“Ah well...” I say.
At that moment, ten fox men appear at the bottom of the track, swords drawn. I’m really pleased to see them and I turn, scream my battle cry and rush in their direction.
< You damage fox-man for 174>
He goes down after two hits but the third seems to decimate him.
I turn to the next, this time, first hit I get a crit and pwn him for 552, one-shotting him.
Mercurius is watching, clapping me. He obviously sees I can handle this. There’s a fox sergeant there so I take him on. He’s better armoured and has got more health. He hits me for 60 so I sip health and go for him. One jab and I get him for 91. I hit him again for the same. He takes five hits to go down, but he does go down. The sergeants have around 450 health, I’m guessing, while the ordinary fox-joes have about 300.
That’s a lot of xp. I guess that’s because I did it all on my own and wasn’t getting power levelled. 8000 will take me to Level 6. It’s all looking great.
Then I get another message.
Mercurius comes over. “Well done, Gorrow. You handled yourself pretty well there. By the fact you were hitting them, I’m guessing you put some of your new skill points into swordplay, right?”
I shrug. “Well, yes. See, I was so bad. I really needed to up my game.”
Adele says, “Yes, you really did. Still credit where credit is due. You’ve improved a lot.”
“How many points did you put into Swordplay?” Mercurius asks.
I take off my helmet and scratch my head. It’s suddenly become really itchy. “Well...”
“50?”
“No.”
“Less than 50?”
Adele says, “He must have put in more. Did you see the improvement?”
I shake my head.
“So more than 50.” He studies me. “You put all of the hundred in, didn’t you?”
I nod. “Yup.”
He sighs. “Well, I hope you’ve got enough into Mining so you trigger the quest.”
“I’m not far from Level 7. We could just wander around getting some mobs. Maybe we could go on the raft and I could kill some serpents? I should be able to hit them now.”
He ponders what I’m saying chin in hand. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Adele looks bored. “Maybe he’s got enough in mining anyway. Let’s just take a look around.”
She’s probably speaking sense.
“Okay, good point. This way.” Sir Mercurius leads the way south down the path that the fox-men emerged from. We leave the horses near the chapel. On the way five more fox-men jump us but he kills them without raising a sweat. I get 50xp for that.
“Only 300 off Level 7,” I say, trying to sound encouraging.
We get to the southernmost tip of the island without anything triggering. He stands there looking back at the trees. “Nothing. You must have to have higher skills. Let’s go kill some serpents.”
“Why don’t we go up the west side?” Adele points to a narrower track that goes back up through the woods on the west side of the island. The lake water is still choppy and the mountains across the lake look forbidding.
“Sure, why not?” Mercurius says.
Me, I’d rather go killing bad dudes and get my level, but we’re in a party, and I’m a democrat.
I follow Adele and about halfway up I get a message.
“Hey! I’ve got it!”
“Oh, brilliant.” Sir Mercurius comes and gives me a high five. Our gauntlets clang off each other. “Where is it?”
Adele has found the mine entrance. She points to a tunnel that dives into the rock at about forty-five degrees. The entrance is propped up by some mouldy looking wood. “That must be it.”
We go to the entrance. “What’s in here, anyway?”
Mercurius says, “A special mineral. It’s an anti shifter, anti vampire metal.”
“Will I be able to mine it? I know that if there’s say, platinum in a mine and I haven’t got platinum skill, I simply can’t find it.”
“Yeah, but I read that if you can trigger the quest, you can dig the mineral. It like comes with the quest as a special.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Let’s go.”
Adele has already entered the mine. Obligingly there’s a miner’s lamp still lit, which I pick up. I feel at home in mines, even this one. It looks pretty much like my own mine. I see silver and iron in the walls and am tempted to mine them, but we’re heading on for this special mineral. The tunnel isn’t very long and we soon get to the end. I see a mineral glistering in the wall.
I wonder if I didn’t have mining and smithing whether I would have got the special skill? Who knows.
“I can’t see anything,” Adele says.
I smile. “That’s because I put all those points into Mining and Smithing.”
“Can you see it?” Mercurius is eager.
“Yes, there’s some here.”
“Go on then.”
I give him a salute and take out my pick. Within a few minutes I have a lump of star silver ore. I examine it.
The breaking DR for werewolves seems redundant given they will die instantly. Pity the vamps don’t die instantly too, but at least I’ll be able to damage them now.
I mine two more lumps. I give one to Adele and one to Mercurius.
“You’ll have to add this to our weapons,” Mercurius says. “We haven’t got the skills.”
“Sure. Of course. Mind if I mine a couple more?”
“Sure. Keep them too. It’s your reward.”
I bet these sell for a bomb. It’ll put me on my way to getting my tower.
“Is this a repeatable quest?” I ask.
“Don’t think so,” says Mercurius.
They watch as I sweat away and dig out another three lumps of star silver ore. I put them in my inventory.
Just then there’s a horrible bubbling noise. I turn to see a black mist coming down the tunnel.
“It’s a Mine Draugr,” Mercurius yells pulling out his sword.
The thing fastens onto Adele who screams in pain. The thing seems to be sucking health from her. I see flashes of healing but she’s taking too much damage and she dies. Her ghost shimmers into existence and whisks off to wherever she’s bound. Camelot I guess.
Mercurius is at the thing with his sword.
I can’t let him do it alone so I take out mine and rush the Mine Draugr.
The things got 400 Dodge, but with my improved Swordplay I scrape by and manage to hit it, but it’s got 500 armour so even with St Herbert’s new blessing of Fire Damage I don’t touch it.
He stands there panting, visor raised, wiping the sweat from his eyes.
“That thing had 10000 health.”
“I couldn’t damage it.”
As the monster breathes its last I get a message.
It’s enough to take me to Level 6.
I realise I don’t need to put my points into mining straight away. I’m going to put some into horse-riding that’s for sure.
“Sorry about Adele,” I say.
“She’ll be back at Camelot. We’ll head back there now. But first can you add the Star Silver to my sword?”
“Of course.”
We leave the mine and traipse back to St Herbert’s Chapel. Mercurius asks the monks if they have a forge, and it turns out they do. I guess it must be here just for this quest.
I stand and use my moulds to reforge his sword with the Star Silver. At first I’m anxious that I’ll break his sword but I don’t.
“Thanks, Gorrow. You’re a star. Listen, I’m going to head back to Camelot to see Adele. Come as soon as you can so you can add the Star Silver to Adele’s mace.”
“Sure I will. But won’t we be travelling together?”
“No, I’m going to have to leave you. You know at Level 10 you get the ability to fast travel from church or chapel to any other you’ve discovered in the whole land?”
I didn’t know that. That was a cool ability, trouble is I’m not Level 10.
“Thanks again, Gorrow. You’re proving yourself a great squire. You’ll soon be a knight.” With that he shimmers and vanishes.
That’s okay. I’ve got stuff to do. I put Star Silver on my sword. Spirit my stallion is nearby so I put some skill points into riding. For fifty I get the following
<+10% Mounted Attack>
That’s okay. I look at Spirit and he eyes me warily. I say, “We’re going to get on just fine, boy.” And then I mount into the saddle and it’s true I can ride stallions! I click my tongue and flick my reins. This is cool. I feel like a real knight, or at least a real squire. Then I get to the edge of the island where the raft is. I’m pleased the raft is back there.
