“You’re welcome to use it. But about us, you can just say that you grabbed us with your spell. We came here, thanked you, and ran off into the forest. Don’t worry, you can tell them about this spot. Okay?”
“Gotsh it.”
“Oh, hey, by the way, how can I find you? I mean, when it comes time for me to keep my word.”
Shursh suddenly reached out and quickly nicked the skin on my hand. Then, he took the drop of blood that appeared and whispered something over it.
“There you go,” he said. “Nowsh, you can go to any swampsh andsh justsh whisper, ‘Shursh, come here.’ I’ll hearsh you.”
You received a spell you can use to summon Shursh, the immortal poet cursed by the light Goddess Mesmerta.
Note! It does not cost you mana to summon Shursh.
“Boys, come on,” Elmilora burst out. “I’m right here! Why aren’t you paying any attention to me?”
She froze in midair, lips pouting and arms crossed over her chest.
“We don’t dare,” I replied quickly, backing away in the direction of the forest. “We’re unworthy to look on such beauty; I’m married, and he’s a beaver.”
“It’s true,” Shursh said before diving into the water. The guy’s instincts, honed over hundreds of years, were right on the money.
“I’m not like that,” Elmilora said, flying lower. “I’m kind, faithful…and do you know what kind of housewife I am?”
“Oh, I do,” I had to say. “But, unfortunately, I just can’t do anything about that.”
***
Feeling branches at my back, I realized that I’d gotten to the forest.
“What about you?” The vila stared at Flosi and ran her tongue across her lips. “You look so menacing!”
Flosi was about to give her a dignified response, though a kick in the pants from me sent him tumbling into the bushes.
“Not menacing; wrinkled,” I said. “That guy isn’t right for marriage. He drinks, so he has other priorities.”
A thoughtful look flashed across Elmilora’s face, and then her gaze fixed on me.
She flew down right next to me. “Well, why don’t we get better acquainted?”
“He’s taken,” Abigail said, grabbing me with a firm, small hand. “He’s engaged to marry a friend of mine, Rosie MacTrevis.”
“So, are you engaged or married?” Elmilora said, her forehead scrunching up. That bought us a second, and I felt myself being yanked into the woods.
Oh, how we sprinted through the forest…
Your relationship with the Supreme Vila took a bit of a hit, as she is currently distrustful of you. You can get her to trust you or further spoil your relationship by getting her to dislike you.
She must have taken Hilda captive, then. That sounded good to me—I figured I might try to rebuild my reputation with the flying Mussolini, though not with Hilda. I didn’t think the other dryads would hurt me until I brought their mother back, too. At least, I hadn’t gotten a message about how we weren’t friends anymore. Later, though… Who knows?
“I. Can’t. Go. Any. Further,” Abby said. She plopped down on the grass.
I opened my map. “And you don’t have to.”
Yes, I was right—everything was familiar. Mettan was over in one direction, the robber brothers were in another, and Marion the herbalist’s hut wasn’t far from where we were.
Kro, have you been to Mettan?
Of course. What are you doing there?
I’m not in Mettan itself. Have you been to the herbalist’s hut?
No. I hate quests like that—collect five herbs, collect six acorns… I turned it down as soon as I heard what it was.
Ask the guys if any of them have been there.
Snuff has.
Okay, send him to the hut with a portal scroll. We’ll be there in twenty.
“Abby, we just need to go a little farther,” I said to her gently, if unyieldingly. “We’ll get to an herbalist’s house where you can get something to drink and catch your breath, and Snuff will pick us up there.”
“What’s with your names?” Abby asked as she picked herself up off the ground with a groan. “Snuff… Where is he from?”
“I have no idea. We can ask him when we get there.”
***
We got to Marion’s hut a lot faster than I thought we would—ten minutes, and we were there.
Nothing had changed. There was the same still, the same bunches of herbs, the same small house popping up out of the ground, and the same…
There were five orcs walking out of her house carrying bags.
“Tell him I’ll be expecting him,” I heard the herbalist call. One of the orcs snarled an acknowledgment.
“Oh, wow, greenfaces!” Flosi’s reflexes kicked in before I could tell him to stand down. He roared like a wounded boar, threw his sack on the ground, pulled out his axe, and dashed off toward the beasts in their leather armor. They pulled out curved sabers just as quickly, baring fangs and taking up fighting stances.
God, what did orcs ever do to him?
Flosi’s axe crashed into the saber of the orc who’d been talking with Marion.
“Damn it!” I sent my wolf after an orc who’d gotten around Flosi, catching two swords with my shield at once. “Could you have picked a worse time?”
“In-Trang, you have to kill them,” Marion shrieked. “They could tell the guards they saw you!”
“Yes, miss,” a tall orc called back as he threw his bag off his shoulder.
Note!
You saw something you weren’t supposed to see. You’ll have to figure out what that was, though.
If you can figure out what’s going on, there’s a good chance you’ll get a hidden quest.
Yes, you don’t have to be Copernicus to figure that out. Although, if another player saw it, one who hadn’t chatted with the variety of characters I’d been spending time with lately, he might not have understood the significance.
I spun in place, knocking one orc sword away with my shield and blocking the other with my sword.
“Abby, run—hide in the forest!”
A flash of déjà vu hit me. What a day! It was a game of everyone running off into the forest and making me find them. Even that would have been okay if I’d just had to find them—the problem was that they weren’t all I was finding.
“Ah-h,” Flosi hissed. Judging by the triumphant laugh of an orc, one of them had taken a piece out of him.
I was knocking away the blows raining down on me from two sides, and that was why I missed it—something slammed down on my head. I tumbled across the grass, noticing that the something had taken off 70% of my health with one blow. What was that?
“Well, that’s that, human,” the orc Marion had called In-Trang said as he moved toward me. “Time to die.”
What about the, “You have our master’s mark??” Is that not going to happen?
His blade was terrifying. Sparks ran up and down its long, black serrated edge. Probably worth a pretty penny.
“Song, Ffyrg, find the girl in the woods and kill her,” he said to two of his companions as he raised his saber above me.
Flosi was still alive—I heard his racy cursing and the ringing of steel. What am I doing lying here like a sheep at the slaughter? I must have gotten used to my near-immortality and the fact that nobody wanted to kill me thanks to the marks I had all over me.
The orc’s sword bit deep into the earth as I rolled away and leaped to my feet (although, I more groaned than leaped).
“You fool!” the orc said, twirling his saber around. “Now, you’re going to die slower.”
“No worries,” I replied. “I’d rather die slower if it means it’s a better death. Believe me, I don’t go down easily.”
Where is that Snuff? Am I going to have to run? Flosi wasn’t yelling as loudly, either…
“The hell?” A portal flashed, and Snuff dashed out. He wasn’t alone—Slav, Kale, Freya, and someone else was with him for a total of si
x. It was a rescue squad, and not a moment too soon.
“Help Flosi,” I yelled. “Abigail’s in the woods, and they sent two orcs after her!”
“In-Trang, get over here,” Marion shrieked deafeningly. The orc obeyed instantly, grabbing the bags lying on the ground and dashing toward the house. I wonder, what’s in those?
Snuff and Slav took on the two orcs who hadn’t been able to finish Flosi off. He was lying on the ground, but he was moving. Judging by the red spots on the ground, they’d gotten him pretty good. It’s going to be boring if we lose him.
I heard a noise as Freya cast some kind of major health spell on me. My hit points jumped out of the dangerous red sector. He really did a number on me.
“Help the one with the beard, babe,” I said to her.
“He stinks! So bad…”
“I know, but it’s more fun having him around.”
The healer girl headed over to the Northerner, who was lying prone, and I dashed off toward the sounds of battle in the forest.
Three of my clan mates were locked in combat with the orcs, who were in no hurry to die. They snarled, growled something threatening in their language, and slashed deftly with their sabers.
What goes around comes around. I’d gotten plunked on the head, and then it was their turn. Orcs aren’t knights, so there was no sense trying to ensure that it was a fair fight.
The four of us finished off the green beasts, though, to be fair to them, they fought to the end and didn’t ask for quarter.
“Abigail, come on out,” I yelled, bending over the body of the orc I’d personally killed. “Time to go home.”
The orcs weren’t all that wealthy. That one just had some bones, two copper coins, and an old, beat-up shield the last munchkin wouldn’t even have taken. But then, there was an amulet.
Dark Thousand Swordsman Amulet
To see this item’s attributes, complete the Clouds Above Rattermark series of quests.
“Huh, I wonder where you get Clouds Above Rattermark,” asked Torvald, a warrior we’d just accepted into the clan the day before. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Same,” I replied. “It’s weird that the amulet isn’t a quest starter.”
I knew where the orcs had come from, and I knew what the clouds gathering above Rattermark were, too. I just didn’t know who gave the quest.
“Abby, come on!” I was starting to get worried—it wasn’t a given that I’d make it through another round of hide and seek.
“I’m here,” the haggard girl muttered as she crawled out of the bushes. “Is this ever going to end?”
“I’m starting to wonder,” I replied. I was tired, too, and I still needed to go take on the main orc. I wanted him alive—there was a whole lot up in his head that I wanted to hear.
“Guys, take her to the herbalist’s farm,” I said to my warriors. They were looking over Torvald’s amulet, so I left them and hurried toward the house.
“They left,” Snuff said when I got there, an identical amulet in his hand. “There’s a cellar in the house and a secret passage in the cellar. We tried to follow them, but they collapsed the tunnel.”
That was a shame. Marion was quite the character, and I’d slipped up. I had completely forgotten about her—she’d taken me for Wanderer and asked about the crown the odd skeleton had. Ah, well, she got away, and that’s that. I figured she’d be back sooner or later. A few days, and I could stop back in to see. As long as I don’t forget.
***
Soon, we were all gathered outside the herbalist’s house. Freya had healed Flosi, and he’d dug through the cellar in hopes of finding something alcoholic. Sadly, there was nothing there, which was why he was complaining about how his nerves were shot. Abigail was sitting on a log with the last, lonely sack on her lap looking like a bum in a Moscow train station. She was filthy, her dress was torn, her knees were caked with dirt, and her hair looked like a bird’s nest, what with all the branches and even grass in it.
Suddenly, I found myself feeling very sorry for her. That made sense, too—the poor girl had been through a lot.
“Well, ready to head out?” Snuff walked out of the house, which he’d searched from top to bottom. “There’s nothing interesting in there.”
“Go ahead, open the portal,” I replied. I got up from the stump I’d been sitting on with a groan. “It’s getting dark, already.”
I really just wanted to get as far away from there as fast as I could. There was no way of knowing what my ex-vila had in mind or how far away from the swamp she could fly.
A strange thought hit me right then. If they take Hilda out, who’s going to summon Mesmerta back from the great Nothingness? The dryads wouldn’t all be there, and that could mean the Goddess would be out of luck.
On the other hand, they probably weren’t really needed. Old Ort had said something about breaking the seals and summoning whomever I wanted to. Maybe, the dryads don’t have anything to do with it. That could have all been a moot point, too—Hilda was a goner, and Regina was going to be worse than Pinochet. The latter had some kind of opposition, at least, while she had neither opposition nor a head on her shoulders.
***
The portal flashed, and I found myself back home in the Borderlands. I took a deep breath. Sure, I’d never been to that village, but it was still home.
The first thing that caught my eye was how packed it was. The villagers had barricaded themselves in their homes and were just peeking out the windows at the army of visitors.
There weren’t many buildings in the village—maybe, twenty. The fence ringing it wasn’t built out of posts, either; it was a natural barrier of prickly bushes. It didn’t look like it would have put up much of a resistance against anything larger than a hedgehog.
Some of the barrier was missing, too. The dozens of inquisitors coming to the village had added up to so many, at least, a hundred, that they weren’t even asking me for portal scrolls anymore. They had found some kind of internal resource, and they’d put in a lot of work cutting out part of the barrier and expanding the village. Some very nice earthen huts littered a large area, while Martin, presumably, lived in a home they’d erected. The village was growing. A little more, and we would have had to start thinking about calling it a town. There were enough people, certainly, and a solid number of players. Oh, and there’s the mailbox. That meant the admin had given it their blessing. Unless it’s always been there.
Besides the inquisitors, the Northerners, sober and glowering, had settled a bit farther out of the city. I assumed they were glowering because they were sober. We hadn’t taken them to fight with us, either, which was worse than going without beer.
On the other side of the village, trees were crashing down—the refugees from Erinbug were probably starting to move in. NPCs didn’t think long or wait around. When they were kicked out of one place, they found another.
I liked it there better than in Erinbug, actually. We were surrounded by a beautiful forest, and the pines whispered in the wind.
“Where have you been?” Kro asked, running up and looking wonderingly at my rumpled appearance.
“You should ask where I haven’t been,” I replied wearily before grabbing a village girl running by to give her an order. “Find a place for Lady Abigail—she’s been through more than a lot of warriors can take. Hurry, sweetie. She’s tired and dirty.”
“You didn’t have to say that,” Abby said as the comely village girl led her away in the direction of the nearest house. Kro’s face told me she agreed, if only for womanly solidarity, regardless of the fact that she was real and Abigail was digital.
You completed a quest: Save Your Sister.
Reward:
1000 experience
The gratitude of Abigail MacLynn (reputational bonus)
Abigail MacLynn will now think of you as her rightful brother, without pretense or simple politeness.
The gratitude of Lossarnakh MacMagnus (reputational bonus)
Hillmen never forget good or evil, repaying each in equal measure. Lossarnakh MacMagnus now owes you something little, like giving his life to save yours.
That was something, at least. I didn’t have to worry about my sister giving orders to take my head off.
“Has Glen been back?” I asked Kro as I massaged my temples. My head had started hurting out of the blue.
“No, not since he was here the first time.”
“And where’s Lossarnakh?”
“Over there.” Krolina pointed toward the other side of the village, where they were cutting down trees. “I think, he’s calmer now, and thinking about what he needs to do next.”
“So, they think now,” I said sarcastically. “How serious do you think they are?”
“Are you an idiot?” She twirled a finger around her temple. “He’s coming up with a strategy, him and everyone else over there—Herts, a pair of ours, the Northern jarl, even the old inquisitor.”
“Wait, what? What are they doing?”
“As soon as our king got here, he stood for a while and then started bellowing about how his brother was right about everything.”
“Really? And then what?” I was touched.
“Then, he went off and made the acquaintance of old Martin before summoning everyone to the top of the hill for a war council. They asked me to come, too.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
Krolina waved a hand. “Eh, I sent Dorn. He and I have an understanding we talked about back in that Selgar tavern. Oh, right—the survivors from the other clans started to show up.”
“Why so fast? That’s not very realistic.”
“Who cares? They’re warriors. And, you know what? They didn’t hold anything against our king. To the contrary, their leaders all died in the battle, so they swore allegiance to him.”
“Really?” I rubbed my hands together. “Hey, what about Tren-Bren? Has she shown up?”
“That’s a separate conversation,” Kro said, perking up. “That little—”
The Crown and the Key Page 20
