That wasn’t bad. All that was left was one more important thing.
“That guy isn’t your only competition,” I said as I stretched my legs, which had fallen asleep. “For example, there’s a necromancer in the East, and you wouldn’t believe the dead army he has. He’s just there in this palace, sitting on a pile of gold and commanding them.”
“In a palace?” The baron grinned. “How big is it?”
“The usual—a couple stories, dark, all the usual amenities, a sea view…”
“So, it’s on the sea,” Semadi replied, cracking his finger knuckles. The sound was sickening. “What’s in it for you?”
“Two or three things from his store of treasures,” I said quickly. “A bow, a quiver, a few other small things…”
“That’s already more than two or three. But, whatever, it’s fine—if you’re trying to get me to pay the necromancer a visit, I’m in. Let’s shake on it.”
I hoped that was a figure of speech, though the baron held out his yellow, bone fingers, and I shook them. Making deals with the dead is a bad move, but I couldn’t miss out on a chance to unleash the dead on the dead.
You concluded a bargain with Baron Semadi, lord of the dead. Be careful—if humans or any other intelligent creatures standing on the side of the Light die as a result of your agreement, your situation will become much more complicated.
There weren’t any intelligent creatures in Al Albain, just the dead. Nothing to be scared of there…
“So, when are we heading that way?” The baron was cheerful, the thrill of the upcoming fight having put him in a good mood. “How about right now? We can check it out, see what we think…”
“No, it’s not the right time, yet.” I was in no hurry to visit the oasis. With one battle already coming up, I didn’t want to jump into another big quest with a loose cannon. If everything happened the way I wanted it to, I wouldn’t have time to worry about the key. After all, getting the bow might trigger a quest that would force me to take it to Hassan as fast as I could. He’ll give me the order to go kill the genie in the caves, and that’ll be that. No, better wait a few days.
“Okay, then when?”
“In three or four days.” I had the battle on Friday, the ball would probably keep me out of the capsule on Saturday, and then, I thought, I might have a shot to jump in on Sunday night. The ball really was awkwardly scheduled—I would’ve liked to be playing that Saturday, and instead… Ah, whatever, I’ll figure it out in the morning. “Get your dead ready, since I don’t think they’re going to be meeting us with bread and salt.”
“Bread and salt?” the baron asked in surprise. “That’s a funny way of putting it. I hear you, though—I’ll put a small group together for our trip. And I’ll be expecting you where I live now. You know where that is, stop by whenever you’re ready.”
We parted ways very happy with each other. I’d found some interesting things out, even if they weren’t that important or specific, but most important was getting his help beating my quest. Even if that does go against the way most people think of the game. The baron, for his part, was already excited about his move to a comfortable palace with a sea view. I had the feeling he took the world as created for him alone, and that there was no such thing as a stronghold he couldn’t take.
***
There were more people in the square back in my home village. I had the feeling that we were going to have a new, little Moscow—the village that never sleeps. People came, people left. It was midnight, and things were just kicking into gear: the new clan mates were showing off what they’d gotten that day, and Tren-Bren was spinning tales for the trusting villagers about how she and her father “killed evil Klatornakh.” Apparently, I wouldn’t have had a chance without her. Tissa, who didn’t stop by that often, was explaining something to von Levenvald with a serious expression completely unlike the restless girl I’d met before we stormed Morrigot. And all of that was happening against the background of a roar of voices that might just have been singing. The Northerners, led by Flosi, were gathered around a barrel of ale and filling their cups with the brown liquid. Their party was enlivened with slow, Northern ballades that did justice to their homeland.
So, then he grabbed the axe
Yo, ho, ho!
And took off half their skulls.
Yo, ho, ho!
They all then went straight up
Yo, ho, ho!
To visit the sweet princess.
Five more couplets told the story of what the brave hero by the name of Svarthevdi did with the princess. Ah, those Northern warriors… All they did was fight and…well, dance.
“Hagen, finally!” Gunther said, coming over. “I realized what the five spots on the map have in common.”
“Really?” I certainly remembered what he’d said before I went through the portal, and I was very interested to hear what was on his mind.
“The places are all next to caves,” Gunther said triumphantly. “Look—this is Kadrans, and here are the old works and the entrance to the mines. They’re old, very deep mines. Remember how monsieur Martin told us about them?”
“Sure, I remember that. And what is this?”
“That’s Sailt-Sell, also old, dwarven mines. They were closed about two hundred years ago. Dwarves always live in mountains until the mines are exhausted, after which they up and find somewhere else.”
I jabbed a finger at another spot. “Okay, and what about this?”
“Torenvald,” Gunther said quickly. “It’s a bad place with huge caves, and nobody’s ever completely explored them. They say there are still remnants of old orc tribes left over from the Second War of Hatred.”
Oh, right. I’d read about them a long while before—there were a few rare players who played orcs, doing race quests. Okay, so the points are all caves. I wasn’t sure what that got me.
You completed a quest: Commonality.
Reward:
1000 experience
300 gold
There was my answer: it got me a completed quest. I may not have gotten the answer myself, though I was smart enough to slip the map to my friend the junior master.
You unlocked Into Darkness.
This is the fourth in the Knight Hunter series of quests.
Task: Head down into one of the caves or mines on the map and figure out what’s going on there.
Reward:
3000 experience
900 gold
A variable passive ability for your class
The next quest in the series
Note!
You will only get the ability if you remain alive until you complete the quest.
The reward was a big one, so I had to assume the quest was tricky. But, that was fine—I was used to that. Going underground again, though… I hate caves. I’d had enough of them, too.
I decided to put that quest off until the battle with the MacPratts was over. There was no point visiting the old inquisitor, either, even though I’d finished the quest. I really should just visit him… But no, that wasn’t the time.
“You did a fantastic job, my friend,” I said to the knight. “You have no idea how big of a help that is.”
“Really?” von Richter replied, flattered. “That’s great. It doesn’t really mean anything, though, not like tomorrow on the field of battle…”
“You won’t be on the field of battle tomorrow, my good knight,” Lane said as he walked over. MacSommers was chewing a chicken leg behind him. Krolina was there, too, looking serious and gloomy.
“Why is that?” von Richter asked in surprise. “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s a clan fight,” Lane explained. “It’s only for the clan, its kin, and the clans it’s allied with. We trust you, but that’s how we fight our wars, and we weren’t the ones who thought up the rules. There will be something for you to do, though. I believe the victory will be ours, though fate is a fickle mistress, and we will need someone to save the children if we die there. That will
be your job.”
He was no longer a mercenary; he was a statesman, two short leaps away from the throne.
“Friends,” Lossarnakh said, “let’s head into the house and talk things over. All that’s left to do, really, is wait, since everyone who’s going to fight under our banner will be here tomorrow evening. I’ll bring them here myself.”
“You’ll need scrolls,” I said. “I’ll buy you some.”
“No need,” Kro jumped in. “I already got him everything he needs. And hey, as soon as we win, we need to move to Lossarnakh’s castle; we can’t keep living without a clan storehouse. All we have here is a measly pantry…”
Great minds think alike.
“I finished reading the instructions,” Krolina said to me as we walked to the house. “The developers really went overboard.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain,” she said with a wave. “We need to dig into the settings and make sure everything’s good with everyone. Once the war’s over, we’ll figure all that out.”
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, sweetie. The war hadn’t even begun, not to mention finishing…
“Okay, so we’ll have seven clans fighting for us,” Lossarnakh said when we were scattered around the benches in the small hall. It wasn’t a big group—the king; Kro; a sullen Gunther; Lennox, who had found an enormous cucumber somewhere and was biting into it; Brother Herts, though I had no idea how he’d found out about our midnight council; and yours truly. Tren-Bren tried to get in, too, though we shamelessly had her go check the vicinity for intruders and shut the door behind her.
“Seven,” Lennox mumbled through a full mouth. “That isn’t much— a bunch of cowards.”
“That’s four hundred and fifty people,” Lossarnakh continued. “Not many at all. Glen will give us another hundred and fifty, however, and, from what I understood, they’re all battle-hardened veterans, so that will even the odds. Don’t forget that the MacPratts won’t have too many fighters—most of their people will be shepherds, farmers, and beekeepers. Gelts are all warriors, but shepherd gelts, no matter how strong they are, will never be a match for warrior gelts.”
“Agreed,” Lennox replied, already working on his second cucumber. “That’s the truth.”
“It’s still a pretty big imbalance,” I said sadly. “They’ll just overwhelm us, and that will be it.”
“Glen is giving us forty archers,” Lossarnakh replied. “If they’re anywhere near as good as Mistress Krolina, we’ll be able to do considerable damage before they get to our positions.”
“How do you know who Glen is sending us?” I asked.
“He and I discussed our plan of attack for about two hours today. We put together a strategy, laid out positions, and even visited Tuad Valley. He’s a good warrior and an excellent military leader. It will be good to fight side-by-side with him.”
Huh, so they met, visited, and decided. And I…
“Don’t be upset,” Lossarnakh said, correctly interpreting my silence. “Let’s be upfront about this—you’re a warrior, but you aren’t a commander. It’s not who you are, and you know that as well as I do. You’ll step back into the lead when it comes time for me to take what is mine. We’ll need more than just the sword for that, and you know how best to achieve the results we need by craft. But, for now, it’s time for war, and that isn’t your time; it’s for Glen and me.”
It sure doesn’t feel good to get something like that right to your face. And the only thing I could say was that I wasn’t nearly as crafty as he gave me credit for. If I’d said that, however, they would have had to question what I was doing in the leadership council in the first place, and I’d have been sent out with Tren-Bren to sing songs around the keg of ale with Flosi.
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” Kro smiled strangely as she looked at me. “Get over it—the gelts are awfully frank. If it makes you feel any better, I got quite a bit of that today.”
That was poor consolation…no consolation at all, really.
The plan wasn’t that complicated. We were going to use the terrain and an ambush set by Glen’s people that would be sprung when the MacPratts got stuck in along our lines. It was simple, but they didn’t have a Zhukov on the other side. It would be a quick rush aimed at cutting us down right at the start.
“So, that’s the plan,” Lossarnakh finished. “I didn’t want to do it that way, though Glen convinced me that this is the smart move. Really, it’s time to introduce some new strategies. New can often be better.”
Oh, that had to have been Krolina. He was definitely going to be king—he was starting to think on a larger scale. We just have to make sure he doesn’t lead the fight tomorrow in case it goes sideways. Or, maybe, in case it doesn’t.
“Tomorrow morning at eight, everyone needs to be here,” Lossarnakh continued. “We move out for Tuad Valley at eight-thirty.”
“What about Glen?” I asked.
“Glen will be there sooner so he can set up the ambush,” Lossarnakh explained. “Only his archers will be coming here.”
“Got it,” I nodded.
“The knights will stay here, in Erinbug, along with the Northerners, you, and your people,” Lossarnakh said to Brother Herts.
“Impossible,” Brother Herts replied. “I have strict orders to accompany Sire Hagen and yourself, and I have to follow them.”
“Brother Herts, let’s discuss that latter,” I said to him.
Brother Herts nodded, and Lossarnakh threw a grateful glance in my direction.
“If we’re defeated, we’ll send a messenger here,” the future king continued. “At that point, von Richter, your men will take the local population to Glenn-Strad. The Northerners will cover you—I’ll talk with their leader tomorrow. There are already quite a few of Hagen’s friends there, not to mention the knights you have stationed there, and that will be the rendezvous point for the survivors.”
“What then?” I asked. I was intrigued to hear what his thoughts were.
“There won’t be a ‘then’ for me,” he replied. “I will emerge victoriously or die fighting.”
It was a solid position, but… Who’s being sentimental, now? If I’d died for every cause I could find…
“Let’s not talk about that,” Krolina said. “The power of positive thinking, you know?”
“The mistress is right,” Lossarnakh replied. “Hagen, do you have anything to say?”
“No, you have it covered,” I shrugged.
Lossarnakh got up. “Okay, then let’s all get some sleep. Tomorrow, we have to sharpen our swords and check our equipment. I know you all—as soon as you get into the fight, you realize that your sword is dull and your chainmail is too short.”
***
“Don’t let him get to you,” Kro said when we got outside. “He’s just an NPC. It’s dumb when you get upset about a snack machine that eats your coin, right? It just happened that way, and that’s it.”
“Sure, I hear you. The problem is that he’s right about a lot. I have a clan, people, and responsibilities, and I’m barely ever here.”
“You have things you need to be out doing, right?” Krolina asked, placing her hand on my shoulder. “I’m no fool, if I can toot my own horn, and I’ve been playing a lot longer than you. You have a quest or quests on your plate that are really tough. I’m not going to ask you to tell me about them, but you can when they’re done. I won’t even ask how you got that odd-looking tattoo on your arm—there isn’t anything like it in Rattermark. I’m just going to wait.”
“What tattoo?”
Krolina laughed. “You changed your armor. The joint between your new piece and your couters doesn’t quite fit right, and I can sometimes see a wolf’s mouth set against some waves. Don’t worry, though—you can only really see it if you look hard enough. Then, I had to dig through the database until I figured out that none of the tattoo artists in Rattermark have anything like that.”
“You’re scary,” I sai
d to her with complete sincerity.
“That, I am. I told you—I’ll wait. But you remember this: the clan is going to grow, and you’re going to have to change something about yourself and about how you approach the game. Get used to it—you aren’t a lone wolf anymore.”
“Well, as long as we don’t get slaughtered tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow, I’d say. Days only happen after you sleep in my book.”
“Big difference,” I replied sarcastically.
“Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Nope,” I replied with a confident shake of my head. “I need to get some rest, and I think you should, too. We’ve been pushing ourselves hard, and we need to be ready for a tough day on Friday.”
“Agreed. The clan is all ready—I let them know. Oh, I did tell Tren-Bren that it starts at eleven like you asked me. She really shouldn’t have any part of it. She’s too young for that type of thing, and everybody else is aware of that, as well.”
“Excellent,” I nodded. “Although, she’s going to be furious…”
Krolina made a face. “We’ll live. Okay, see you on Friday.”
We said our goodbyes and logged out.
From the twelfth edition of the Fayroll Times:
From the editor
…how far the video game industry has come. What were once isometric, linear games at the end of the 19th century, now have immersive reality, complete with smells, tastes, and NPCs that behave like the people you meet in the real world. And then there are the situations that force you to make life-and-death decisions…
Update: Patch 16.12.443
We’re adding 25 new actions, 16 of which will be for destroying monsters, four will be for exploring the world, three will be for artistic achievements, and two will be for occupational achievements.
The Crown and the Key Page 13
