“Oh, wow. Some bad guys for sure.”
“Yep. But here’s what’s strange: they only attack ships with small crews and large cargos. And they always know ahead of time. A couple times, we’ve sent out trap ships loaded with the Royal Guard instead of cargo, and nobody’s ever attacked them. That means—”
“You have a rat,” I broke in with the tone of an expert. “They’re passing information on to the pirates about the ships that are coming and going. And it has to be someone local.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, too. In fact, I’d say I’m positive. A little while back, I started to suspect those flesh-eating Thatchers. They were always the poorest of the poor, but then suddenly they came into some money.”
“Sure sounds suspicious to me.”
“Exactly. Okay, bring those little squids over here so we can interrogate them. Where are they now?”
“Um-m, that’s going to be a bit difficult. I left them in the clearing.”
“What do you mean, difficult? What clearing?”
“Just that. I left them in the forest clearing. Dead. Long story short, I killed them. Completely.”
“Whew boy. Not that I care—dogs deserve a dog’s death. I’d have killed them myself when we were done. But that way, we’d have been able to find everything out from them. Now, though…”
Holgerrson looked at the map one more time.
“Hey, why don’t you head over there? Judging by the map, it isn’t far. You can do it—you’re smart, and you like taking risks. And I’d give you something nice in return, buccaneers and booty. Over there—I’d give you a cutlass from my collection,” he said, pointing to a wall that was covered in different kinds of cutlasses.
You have a new quest offer: Quieter than Grass.
Task: Scout out the pirates’ lair and see how many there are.
Reward:
400 experience
Additional reward: A cutlass from Neils Holgerrson’s collection.
Accept?
“Done,” I said. And why not? It was a piece of cake, and, even if I couldn’t get there by road, it still wasn’t that far. Like Mark Twain said, “Hurry to do good deeds, especially when they aren’t a threat to your wallet.”
Chapter Twenty-One
On the Shores of the Great River (Part Two)
I left the city gate, confidently headed toward the clearing, having decided to start with a visit to the herbalist. That was my primary quest at the moment, after all. I wasn’t sure I’d end up taking a boat down the river, but who knew where the rich tapestry of life would lead? All I could do was work on the quests that cost the least and earned the most. And I was set up to save quite a bit on the river passage. Plodding along from city to city would take forever. Plus, I just wasn’t in the mood…
As I walked, I thought back to the old instructor and wondered if I’d picked the right abilities. My conclusion was that I had. Last Chance was a passive ability, meaning that I didn’t have to worry about it kicking in when it was most needed. I’d have the opportunity to come back from the dead, so to speak. As far as In Passing was concerned, my logic was simple. Thanks to what I was carrying, the 40 percent chance of landing a critical hit gave me the same chance of getting more health from my opponents, and that was highly valuable.
The other two abilities weren’t quite as effective. Wind Power didn’t do any damage whatsoever. Wake Up was very tempting for the time being, but it wouldn’t amount to much later on. What was 400 health at, for example, Level 60? At that point, I’d have 3000 basic health, not to mention what my inventory would add. I figured I’d made the right decision.
By the time I’d run through all that in my head, I had made it through the grove I’d grown to know so well, crossed the clearing, and walked out onto an enormous field with an enormous tree in it. Under the tree was a neat little house with black smoke wisping out of the chimney.
“Looks like she’s brewing a potion,” I said aloud as I walked toward the front door.
There wasn’t a fence of any kind. Instead, there was a small yard with chickens and ducks running around a cooking stand set on a tripod. I was obviously where I was supposed to be.
I walked up onto a small porch and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” asked a deep, but lovely voice. Well, perhaps not girlish; maybe even womanly. As we all know, there are two things about women that don’t change with time: their voice and their earlobes. Therefore, I had no way of knowing how old the girl or woman behind the door was, though, given her profession and the timbre of her voice, I pictured a tall, slender, red-haired beauty with green eyes. She had pearly teeth and dimpled cheeks, and she was wearing well-fitting clothes that showed off every curve of her body.
“A wanderer,” I answered.
“Hold on, I’ll be right there.” The voice added emotion to become even richer. It appeared travelers were welcomed and respected at this home. The mayor had been awfully critical, but there was nothing wrong with her at all.
The door swung wide with a creak of its hinges. On the threshold, stood a young lady who looked nothing like what I’d imagined. She was a girl, young and tiny, with fairly sharp, even coarse facial features. She was wearing a man’s shirt and woven pants, I couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, and she had a wet, mousy ponytail tied back with a colored thread.
“You aren’t a wanderer,” she said somewhat nervously as she looked me in the eye. “I don’t know you. Who are you? Where’s the wanderer?”
“That’s me,” I said. “I walk around cities and villages looking for people to help.”
The girl smiled. “Got it. And here I was wondering what you meant. What do you need?”
“Nothing much, really. Mayor Glopkins said that you were the last one to see Captain Gul and his sailors. I’m looking for them. So, Marion, is it true that you saw them?”
“You know my name? Have we met before?” The girl looked closely at me.
“No, the mayor told me about you. That’s how I know. So, what about the captain?”
“Oh, the fine captain and his people. Yes, they were here.” She laughed, and it struck me that there was something off about her laugh.
“Where did they go?”
“Into the forest. And don’t look for them—you won’t find them.”
“What do you mean?” I liked this conversation less and less.
“Rarely do you find the people I send into the forest.”
“So why did you send the sea wolves there?”
The girl grinned, baring her small, sharp teeth. “That’s just how it happened. Your fine young men somehow concluded that I needed some male companionship and decided to solve my loneliness by all joining me here at once.”
“Sure sounds like sailors,” I said. “Straight and to the point. Heave ho, and all.”
“I don’t know what ‘heave ho’ means, but I’d have been in a pickle if I hadn’t thrown some Livitsitis Tsulendarius powder at them.” The herbalist’s smile was more reminiscent of a snarl.
“What kind of powder?”
“Just a normal magic powder. If you smell it, you think you hear voices calling you.”
“Calling you where?”
“Just calling you. ‘Come here,’ ‘Hurry over.’ The voice is sensual and usually belongs to the opposite gender.”
“Got it. So did they follow it?” The whole situation was starting to go south.
“Of course. What else could they do?”
“All four of them?”
“Certainly, and each in separate directions. The captain, for example, went that way.” The little herbalist’s finger pointed in the direction of some spruces growing on the edge of the field behind the house.
“Phew boy.” I scratched the nape of my neck. “This isn’t good.”
“Are you going go to find them?” Her eyes met mine.
“There’s nothing else for it. I promised the port master.” I nodded. “Why? Do you need something?”
“What do you think a herbalist would need?” Marion smiled, this time normally. “You can gather herbs for me. If you do that, I’ll tell you where your sailors might be. Well, that is, if they’re still alive.”
You have a new quest offer: Herbs for Marion.
Task: Collect herbs for Marion.
Royal hawthorn - 5 branches
Montevina celeia - 5 buds
Black crabon - 1 ovary
Reward:
500 experience
Strength potion (variable)
+10% to your reputation with Marion
Accept?
So that reputation bump came with the quest. I’d have never agreed to collect herbs except that I desperately needed that little monster to like me. A better reputation meant a chance at her telling me where the poor sailors were exactly.
“Certainly, I’ll go get everything for you,” I said.
“Be careful,” she said almost amiably. “The celeia and hawthorn are easy to find since they grow pretty much everywhere, but the crabon is a much rarer plant. The undead like hanging around them, too, since they say a crabon ovary once gave life to a leech. Those walkers don’t have any brains, though their instincts are much better. They even have some of their memories still. So be careful when you’re looking for the crabon. Remember, you can only find it around ruins, and the only ruins in these parts are near the old pond.”
“What’s by the old pond?” I asked to clarify.
“There used to be a castle there belonging to one of our first landlords, but he was killed, and his castle was torn down. He was tortured for a while before he was killed, and they say he still comes back to his castle, or rather what remains of it, because of that. If he finds anyone there alive, he does what he used to do back when he was the landlord.”
“What does he do?” I knew the answer but asked anyway.
“Judge, jury, and executioner,” the herbalist answered casually. “All in one.”
I pulled up my map. The first two herbs were everywhere. The crabon, on the other hand, was about three leagues away, near a place with the poetic name of Ainville. Happily, it was a stone’s throw away from the pirates’ lair.
“You’re talking about Ainville, right?”
“Yes. Be careful.”
“All right, I’m off,” I said to the herbalist. “I should be back soon.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she answered calmly. “The forest only appears safe; it really isn’t. Anyway, give it a try. If you’re lucky, we’ll see each other again.”
I trudged into the spruce grove and started walking in the direction of the old pond.
A couple minutes later, I noticed a bush right ahead of me that shimmered all the different colors of the rainbow. I almost logged out of the game, thinking it was telling me I was tired and couldn’t think straight but I realized that the shimmering bushes were the ones I needed to collect.
I walked over to the bush, crouched down next to it, and looked at it closely. One branch was obviously shining brighter than the rest, so I reached out and broke it off.
You found an object for the Herbs for Marion quest.
Royal hawthorn - 1 branch. You need to find 4 more.
Got it. So this is what it’s like to care about preserving nature—break off four more branches.
I walked around the forest craning my neck to find more of the colorful glimmers. Ultimately, by the time I got to Ainville, I’d broken off three more branches and found three buds—tough berry bushes that looked like…how can I describe them? Something like chokeberries.
The spruce forest ended, and right beyond it, I saw ruins on the bank of a small pond covered in duckweed and surrounded by bushes. The spot had clearly been a small fortified manor once, though it was now nothing more than a collection of picturesque rubble. One of the boulders somehow stood out from the rest, so I squinted to see it better. Yep. Something shimmered on it. Definitely crabon. I walked out of the forest and toward the ruins.
As I got closer and walked into the small square in the center, I had a chance to look over the rubble once more and realized I’d have to do some climbing. The boulders hadn’t looked so big from the forest. Luckily, time and rain had eaten away at them to create footholds I could use to climb.
I spat on my hands and started up the boulder with the crabon. It was enormous, its top something like two or three stories high. At some point, it must have been part of the castle’s foundations. Maybe it hadn’t been so small after all.
I’m getting too old for this, I thought as I clambered higher up the rough, sun-warmed side of the boulder. There wasn’t much to hold onto closer to the top, and I started getting some butterflies in my stomach. There was no one around to collect my bones if I fell.
I finally got to the top and pulled myself up one onto a fairly large, flat area, where I sat down, panting hard.
“This is what mountain-climbers do all day long?” I asked no one in particular.
I looked around and noticed the plant I was there to find. It was a small bush covered in berries and some kind of pods. One of the pods shone brighter than the rest, so I quickly plucked it.
You found an object for the Herbs for Marion quest.
Black crabon - 1 ovary.
Note: This plant is highly magical so your decision to harvest it may have unpredictable consequences.
“Wow, a little scarlet flower right here in my hand. Now some kind of hideous monster is going to crawl out.” I chuckled, preparing to climb back down. Before doing so, however, I looked down at the ground, which was pretty far away from where I was, and froze.
The courtyard was surrounded by a circle of boulders and had been empty five minutes before. Now, a hefty skeleton paced around with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. In contrast to all of the other skeletons I had seen in the game and their naked bones, this one was dressed. On his head was a crown, on his left leg was a knee pad, and he had a bright blue belt with gold embroidery tied around his waist.
“Where are you off to, looking so fine?” I asked him with surprise. “Going out clubbing?”
That probably wasn’t the smartest question to ask, but I really was stunned. Where could he have come from? Then things got even curiouser. He stopped, turned his skull in my direction, and looked at me with the dark blue balls of lightning in his eye sockets.
“The flower. You picked my flower,” he rasped in a mechanical voice.
“So what?” I responded, picking my own jaw up off the top of the boulder. What did you expect? Some kind of skeleton came out of nowhere and started talking. How was that possible without a tongue?
“Give me the flower, climb down here, kneel before me, and prepare to receive your sentence,” the resurrected dead man continued.
“But what’s the sentence? For example, if I’m supposed to give you my youngest daughter, I’ll have to turn you down. I don’t have a youngest daughter. I don’t have an oldest daughter either. I’m not even married,” I told the skeleton.
“Your sentence will be just and swift. I, the lord of these lands, don’t have time to give every thief a long trial.”
Now, everything made sense. I’d picked the crabon ovary and triggered the quest mechanism. The herbalist had mentioned how the dead like to hang out around the flower, and the fellow in the crown was the dead landlord. As I’d been told, he played judge and executioner for his lawful lands. Wow, for a second, I was actually scared.
“I don’t need your daughters. Come here and accept the punishment for stealing in my castle,” the landlord continued drolly.
“Why just me? What about the rain that washed away the foundation of your castle, the birds that pooped on it, and the bugs that crawl all over it…”
“Are you coming down or not?” The skeleton’s voice betrayed his annoyance.
“No.”
“What right do you have not to submit to my will?” He was really getting angry. “I am the lord of these lands, and all
living and unliving creatures must bow to me!”
“But not me. I’m a free man, and I don’t bow to anyone.”
The skeleton ran a lap around the courtyard before again stopping to stare up at me.
“So what’s the plan?” I looked at him amiably. “If I’m not coming down to you, why don’t you come up to me? It’s great up here! The sun, the breeze…”
“Come down on your own,” the skeleton hissed, “or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Come down!” The skeleton stomped his foot, which made the knee pad slide down to his shin. He pulled it back up like a woman pulling on a stocking, and I broke out laughing.
He kept going, which I found even funnier. “I don’t see anything funny!”
I rolled around, holding onto the top of the boulder with two hands to make sure I didn’t fall off. The skeleton stared at me, utterly clueless as to why I was laughing at him instead of being afraid. He scratched the back of his vertebrae, which pushed his crown down onto his forehead. That made me laugh even harder, and I started to worry that I might slip into hysterics.
“Stop, please, don’t do anything else,” I choked out between shrieks of mirth. “I don’t want to die of laughter up here!”
“Are you coming down?” the skeleton asked trustingly and hopefully.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” I answered. “Just stand there quietly for a few minutes without doing anything. I’m begging you. Please!”
“Don’t give me orders, commoner!” He shook his head, which sent his crown back down onto his forehead and sent me back into fits of laughter.
“What’s with these people?” The skeleton was indignant. “The landlord gives them an order, and they just laugh. You come down here!”
“I’m coming already,” I told him, wiping away tears, and started down.
Going down was much easier than coming up, and soon I was on the ground. I shook myself off and looked at the skeleton, who stood ten strides away from me.
“Well, what did you want? Here I am.”
“Come closer and get down on your knees,” he said grandly, pointing at the ground in front of him with the point of his somewhat rusty sword. That was apparently where I was supposed to kneel and, presumably, lose my head.
More Than a Game Page 28
