“That makes sense,” Ash said.
“But, Dean, I’m afraid you won’t see much difference between level one and level two. Sure, you get a little boost in your stats, which is always a good thing, but no new equipment or skills are added until level three.” One look at his crestfallen face and she made a point of brightening. “But we should have earned some gold for our monster slaying, and you can use your share to buy more arrows.”
He sighed. “I guess that will have to do.” Then he stopped and stared at the town for a minute. “Please tell me there’s a bar or tavern somewhere in there. I need a drink in the worst way.”
“That seems to be a priority to a lot of people when re-establishing a town, so I’m sure there will be,” Nika said. She hesitated briefly. “Once we are in the town, we’ll turn the quest in and get our rewards and gold. Then we can hit the market and buy what we need to continue in the game. After that, I’ll probably leave you two for a while so I can take care of something.”
“Will there be monsters in the town?” Dean asked, sounding worried.
“Did you even play the game at all?” Ash asked. “Towns, villages, and cities are safe points. Too many people for the monsters to try to take over.”
“Sounds good to me,” Dean said, totally bypassing the question about his game playing time.
It wasn’t like he really had to answer it, anyway. Nika was pretty sure the party would be a lot better off if it were Dean’s kid brother here with them. But it was too late to change that now.
Other things, however, could still be dealt with.
Their first stop was the newly erected medical clinic. The doctor seemed pleased to get his supplies back, and they each received a shiny new health potion, ten gold pieces, and best of all a level up.
“Congratulations,” the soft voice whispered into Nika’s ear. “You have reached level two. Your health pool has increased by ten, and your mana by five. You need seven hundred additional experience points to reach your next level. Good luck.”
She glanced briefly at the other’s stats as well, an option only for the party leader. Ash had gained an additional ten mana and five health, and Dean had gained twelve health and three mana. Not much of a gain, but it was a start. And seven hundred points should be pretty easy to gain.
“Yeah, we leveled,” Dean said sarcastically. “A whopping fifteen stat points, oh boy!”
Nika glared at him. “We’ve only been at this a few hours, you know. That’s really not bad when you look at it. We’ll reach level three tomorrow for sure.”
He gave her a look that had her worried but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to the doctor. “So do you all have a bar or tavern hidden in here somewhere?” he asked.
The man nodded. “Sure. It looks a bit rough and there aren’t any walls yet, but just a few yards past the Mayor's house, the local brewer has something set up. Doing a bang up business too as far as I can tell.”
Dean nodded and ambled off in that direction without a word.
Nika met Ash’s gaze.
“So are we waiting until tomorrow to head back out?” Ash asked.
“That’s my plan if it’s okay with you. I really do have some things to handle and I have to leave the game for that. It shouldn’t take me long and I’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning.” She glanced over at Dean’s back as he walked away. “We may have a bit of a problem with that one.”
“Ah, so you have noticed,” Ash said, her smile a bit on the rueful side. “Where are we supposed to sleep tonight? I think I could go for a nap right about now.”
“There should be a room made up for us in the attic of the Mayor’s house.” She grimaced. “We’ll be bunking with Dean, unfortunately. Unless he finds another place to crash, which is entirely possible.”
“That would be fine by me,” Ash said, turning. “See you later?”
“You bet.”
Nika waited until Ash had entered the Mayor’s house before turning to the doctor. “Okay, where is the town’s communication station?”
The game designer’s intention was never to abandon the players while in-game. To facilitate communication between the real world and the virtual counterpart, stations had been set up in each and every town. By going to one, a player could use a terminal that gave access to news and messages from the outside, and could even send missives to friends and family members. It was hoped to alleviate a bit of the culture shock most players would feel here.
But now, to her dismay, the doctor was shaking his head at her. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “We don’t have one set up just yet. The nearest station is in the next town over, Riser’s Creek. It’s a good ten-mile hike to get there, though.” He swallowed. “And through a lot of forest too.” His voice lowered. “I heard there were monsters out there. Is that true?”
Nika nodded absently, her mind consumed with her fury. “Oh yes, there are most definitely monsters.” Her blood felt like it was reaching the boiling stage. “Is there any way here that you have to communicate with other towns?”
He nodded and Nika brightened. “Sure, we send out a runner every day. It generally takes three days for them to get to Riser’s Creek and back though.” He gave another swallow. “At least the ones that come back, that is.”
Nika’s fists clenched as she started to realize just what a manipulative son of a bitch her husband truly was. How dare he do this to her?
She wasn’t sure how she had managed to get through the day dressed in this outrageous get up, but she sure as hell didn’t want to go through another wearing it. Gritting her teeth, she asked one more question. “So where is your market? Please tell me you have a market?”
The NPC grinned at her. “Of course! We set it up in a stall at the end of the road.” He pointed in the opposite direction from which they had entered the town. “It’s the one with the bright green roof. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” Nika said, and turned to go. She only made it a few steps before she hesitated and then changed directions. All of a sudden, a drink seemed to be of the utmost importance. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere anyway.
The tavern set up wasn’t much, but the doctor was right when he said it was bustling. The brewer must be making a small fortune. Everyone wanted to drown their troubles in the stiffest drink they could find.
There was a thatched roof, held up by an assortment of large sticks and pieces that had been salvaged from destroyed buildings. Under the roof, there was a mishmash of tables, benches, and chairs. One long bar must have been salvaged from the town’s original tavern, and it looked like the alcohol supply behind it was hefty. Good thing, too, with the number of people guzzling it down like water.
One step under the thatch and she felt a man’s hand on her right ass cheek. In a single fluid movement, her hand-blade was resting against the man’s wrist.
His eyes widened as he stuttered. “Sorry, Miss. It won’t happen again.”
She waited until he had removed his hand before holstering her blade. “If it does, you’ll lose that hand.”
He nodded. “Understood.”
Nika was unmolested the remaining way to the bar. Hopefully, she had gotten her message across. The outfit definitely didn’t define this girl. And she hadn’t been joking about the losing the hand thing either.
After she ordered her drink, she let her gaze travel over the other customers. She finally found Dean sitting at a table with a gorgeous young woman wearing even less than Nika. Up until now, Nika would have sworn that wasn’t possible.
Not wanting to interrupt them, she simply took her drink and stood there at the bar. Smiling, she realized that Dean was very likely going to be disappointed before the night ended. They had ended up each earning one gold for every monster they had dispatched. Excluding the Queen, which probably would have paid out more. But that kill had rightfully belonged to the tiger, not to them.
That meant that right now, they each had nineteen gold in their
inventory. When ordering your first drink here, they took one gold and then gave you your drink plus nine drink vouchers that could be used at any tavern in the game. It saved on the whole making change thing which would be far more trouble than it would be worth.
Stealing another quick look at Dean’s current companion, she figured she would cost way more than Dean had in his virtual pocket. At least she hoped so, she thought, frowning. She would be royally pissed if he showed up tomorrow with no gold and a big grin. If he wanted more arrows, he’d damn well be buying them himself.
She downed her drink while watching the town’s people and making mental notes to herself. The programmers had done a great job. No two people that she saw looked the same. That couldn’t have been all that easy with this many people. Perhaps a raise might be in order when she got back.
Which brought her mind back to her next task. If she wasn’t going to be able to communicate with the outer world until they reached the next town, then she definitely wanted to check out the market for any additional items of clothing they might have for an Amazon such as herself.
Lifting her drink again only to find it empty, she placed the glass back on the counter and walked out.
The market, like the tavern, wasn’t much. The green roof was someone’s beginner attempt at painting the thatch to make their structure stand out among the others. It worked, but sometimes standing out for being ugly might not be such a great idea. Still, it let people know that this wasn’t your standard dwelling.
She walked under the roof and looked about for the shop keeper. It took her a moment to spot him. He was a very short man, almost hidden behind the table he was standing at.
“Welcome to the Barter House,” he said, his eyes traveling from her chest to her hips and back again. She noticed they never quite made it to her eyes. “Are you here to buy or to sell?”
“To buy,” she said. “If you have anything I need.”
The small man grinned. “Oh, I have everything you need, My Lady.” It might not have been quite so creepy if he hadn’t said it with such a leachy expression on his face.
“What do you have in the way of Amazon Wardrobe Items?”
His grin vanished, and he sighed. “Well, it seems I may have been mistaken in my previous statement. I’m afraid the best I can offer you is an assortment of multi-class accessories. Our Amazon stock is currently completely sold out.”
Of course it was, she thought. Oh, Blake, you are going to pay so very dearly for all of this. Just wait until I get to Riser’s Creek.
“Unless you have an accessory that will cover a good amount of skin, I think I might be more interested in your health and mana potions.”
His face brightened. “Oh, those we have plenty of.” He motioned to a case at the center of the structure and waddled over to it to meet her. “One gold apiece, they are.”
Nika nodded. “I don’t suppose you have any level two weapons?” To her knowledge level two weapons didn’t exist, but as many things as had changed, she wanted to be sure. At his head shake, she went on. “Any Amazon level one weapons?” Maybe he had something that would give her a bit more reach than her current blade. But again, he shook his head.
“I’m truly most sorry, Miss, but our Amazon stock is currently sold out.”
“Yeah, I hear that’s going around,” Nika said.
She split a portion of her gold between health and mana potions, buying six of the health and four of the mana. The mana wouldn’t really be of any use to her, but Ash had turned out to be a hell of an ally and she wanted to do something nice for her. Dean got nothing. That left her eight gold which she was holding onto. You just never knew when you would need a little coin.
Since her plan of putting things straight had been thwarted, she decided to call it an early night. They had programmed the game to be as realistic as possible, so if you over indulged with alcohol the night before you were pretty assured of waking with a bit of a hangover in the morning. After all, your brain expected the side effects.
She made her way to the Mayor’s house, checking in with him about the communication station just in case the other NPC had been programmed with a faulty information update. No such luck. She was stuck until she reached Riser’s Creek.
You’d better be enjoying the hell out of this, Blake, she thought, because you are going to have to do a lot of ass kissing if you want to keep me as a wife. Of course, ironically she was wearing the perfect outfit for just that.
The downstairs of the Mayor’s house was filled with people, and there were two tables set up and loaded down with food of all sorts. Grabbing a plate, she piled on a few thick slices of roast beef, a couple of rolls, and two baked potatoes. For dessert, or maybe breakfast the following day, she grabbed a couple of apples. Once again, she figured Dean could fend for himself. But she had more than enough to share with Ash.
Once upstairs, she saw that they’d been given the entire attic, such as it was. There were three single beds, each lined up on a different wall. A quick check saw Ash already conked out on the bed closest to the stairs.
Nika explored their lodgings and found to her delight that the indoor plumbing still worked. She locked herself in the bathroom, took off her ridiculous outfit, and stepped into a cool shower. Very cool, actually, which made sense as the electricity had been disrupted by the trees sprouting from the ground. She was just thankful that the water was still working. It probably shouldn’t have been when you stopped to think about all those trees’ root systems, but some things were just better to roll with.
They were going to have a lot of people vacationing here and while they might be okay with taking a shower that was quite a bit cooler than usual, she didn’t think they would go along with using a smelly outhouse for any extended length of time.
As she climbed out, dried off, and reluctantly redressed, she thought about how long it would take to reach Riser’s Creek. If she could get the others on board with a straight through hike, they should be able to make it in one day. Possibly even in a single morning if they stuck to the trail.
Of course, that really depended on two major things. One was them being able to rouse Dean at a reasonable hour, and the other was how many monsters they encountered between here and there. She was really hoping there was only a battle or two facing them. Enough to level up to three would be nice, but more than that would simply delay them without any real payoff.
The real concern was making it to Riser’s Creek by nightfall when the nastier creatures came out. And of course, thinking about the nastier creatures lead her to think about the great black and white tiger they had encountered. He had certainly seemed more of an ally than an enemy, but that still didn’t make a lot of sense to Nika. She wondered if it really was just because he had already eaten and wasn’t hungry. If so, they really needed to be on the lookout for him tomorrow. She’d hate to have to use all her potions in just one short-lived battle.
If they had to camp... no she wasn’t even going to entertain that possibility. She didn’t have enough gold to buy a tent or other supplies, and she wasn’t willing to wait an additional day while they killed more spiders to pay for them. Reaching Riser’s Creek had become her number one goal in life.
Ash rolled over and opened her eyes as Nika came out of the bathroom. Lazily, she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked. Then she sniffed and Nika could hear her stomach rumble all the way across the room. “And more importantly, what is that heavenly smell and is there any for me?”
“Hey, I wouldn’t let you starve,” Nika said, smiling.
Ash grinned as she pushed off the top sheet covering her and swung her legs off the bed. “Did you bring anything for Dean?”
“An apple for tomorrow morning. I’m pretty sure Dean is taking care of himself right about now. If he’s hungry, he’ll eat.”
There was a small table in the center of the room with three tall back chairs. They sat down and took their first bite of virtual food. After
not eating all day in the excitement, they were starving.
“Oh my God,” Ash said, spitting out the bite of roast beef she had taken. “What the hell is that?”
Nika had started with the potato which wasn’t half bad, if a tad bit more buttery than she normally liked. “Is it bad?”
Ash nodded furiously. “I can’t eat it. It’s too... well, try it for yourself. But start small, I warn you.”
Nika took her advice and gathered a small sliver of the beef and stuck it in her mouth. She didn’t even have to chew before all of her tastes buds starting screaming. She spit it out.
“Wow. I think maybe Dad and I didn’t take into consideration that the sensations were going straight into the brain. No way could people have eaten this in the past.” She paused. “Could they?”
“Maybe we’ve just grown accustomed to dull, bland flavors in the past few decades.” Ash pointed to the plate. “But I’ll take dull and bland over that any day.”
She had sounded disappointed. Nika knew that Ash didn’t have a lot of money in the real world, and she had most likely been looking forward to the variety of food she would get while in the game.
“Well, the potato isn’t bad, if you like butter well enough.”
Ash took a bite, a much smaller one than before and her face split into a wide grin. “Now that’s more like it!”
They were silent for the next few minutes as they devoured their potatoes and rolls, which turned out to be tasty enough to almost make up for the beef.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Ash asked.
“Not really, though time should be the same as the real world. It’s getting dark outside though, so I’d say maybe nine-thirty or ten?
Ash yawned and stretched. “Good, then I won’t be a total lazy bum if I go to bed then?”
“Actually, that was my plan, too. It turns out there isn’t a communication station available until we reach Riser’s Creek. I’d really like to get an early start tomorrow so we could try to make it there in one day.”
Forest (Gaia's Rebirth Book 1) Page 5
