After a while I stop and consult my map. There’s a blinking icon not far off the path from where I’m at—a random quest giver. Intrigued, I go to check it out. After all, experience is experience and leveling is leveling. I just need to get to twenty. Maybe this way will be faster.
I wonder how they know at VR World when it’s time to unplug me from the system. Do they have a way of monitoring what’s going on for me? How far along I am in the quest chain? I have no idea how game time relates to real-life time, if it’s a one for one exchange or not.
I make my way through the giant trees along the side of the road. After several yards, they open up into a giant clearing, where several farmsteads are set up.
There’s a tiny man waving from the porch of the nearest one. “Yo, traveler. I’ve need of your aid.”
I cross the field to him. “How can I help?” Upon closer examination, I can tell that he’s a gnome. He about comes up to my knee. His farmhouse is equally quaint; there’s no way I could fit inside it, but it does look charming.
“It’s my wife. She’s in labor. I need you to fetch the midwife from the hut on the other side of the river.” The man gestures vaguely in a direction on the far side of the fields. “Please, hurry! My wife looks to be in great pain and this is her first bairn. You know how rare this is. I’ll pay you good money when you bring her to me.”
Quest offered: Get the Midwife!
Go and bring the midwife to the aid of Farmer Browne’s wife.
Reward: Experience points, 2 silver and 40 copper pieces.
Do you accept?
“Sure, I can help you with that,” I say. Sounds easy enough.
I follow the direction Farmer Browne pointed in and soon I come to a raging river. There are more of those river goblins hanging out at the safest crossing spot, but it looks like there’s a bunch of them clustered together. I don’t want to risk drawing a mob on me, so I shadow cloak and skirt around them and manage to cross over without garnering any unnecessary attention.
They gurgle amongst themselves as I pass, but their chattering doesn’t turn menacing and I cross the river without incident.
By and by I come to a little cottage cozied up against some large fir trees. It’s got a blossoming herb garden planted in regular rows out front. The chimney is puffing merrily, like the occupant is home cooking something. I get on my hands and knees and knock on the door. I push open the door and see a gnomish woman at the hearth.
“Excuse me, are you the midwife?” I say.
“Who’s asking?” She whirls and puts her hands on her hips, glaring at me. She’s a feisty little thing, and much younger than the crone I’d envisioned she’d be when I first saw her cottage.
“Well, I’m Leeroy Jenkinz, but it’s Farmer Browne who’s asking for you on behalf of his wife—”
“That ne’er-do-well!” She shouts and spits at the floor. “I’ll not help out the likes of him!”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s not him that’s in need of you so much as his wife.”
“Yes, but she’s the one he left me for, so tell me why I should help ...” She breaks off in the middle of her sentence and her countenance grows thoughtful. “I tell you what. You go back to that scoundrel Farmer Browne, and you tell that miscreant that I’ll come to his aide in exchange for his so-called wife’s wedding ring. The man owes me that much at least.”
I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
Quest offered: The One Ring
Return to the Midwife with Farmer Browne’s wife’s wedding ring.
Reward: Experience points, and 2 silver and 60 copper pieces.
Do you accept?
I don’t know what else I can do. It feels kind of awkward to be trapped in the middle of all of this drama. I have been on quest chains like this before, but they seemed more removed somehow. Here, the energy is raw. This woman really seems to feel wronged.
I guess there’s nothing for it. “I accept,” I say, and take off back across the river for the Farmer’s place.
He’s still standing on the porch, wringing his hands.
“Farmer Browne, the midwife will only come if you agree to give her your wife’s wedding ring. She won’t come until she has it.”
“That’s preposterous! Elfie’s just being ridiculous and jealous now. That woman has turned a few nights of tumbling into the world’s most epic betrayal story. You tell her to grow up and get over it. I never promised her anything. Better yet, take Bo and Luke from out there in the fields with you and you three drag that woman back this way. There’s a baby at stake!”
Quest offered: Get the Midwife! II
With the aid of Bo and Luke, bring Elfie the midwife back to Farmer Browne.
Reward: Experience points and 2 silver, 80 copper pieces
Do you accept?
“I accept,” I say and trudge out behind the house to the fields to find Bo and Luke. They’re easy enough to spot, wielding scythes for the harvest. They’re strapping young gnomes, too. I’m not entirely sure why Farmer Browne didn’t just send them in the first place.
Then I try talking with them and understand that conversation may not be their strong suit. In fact, it may not be in their arsenal at all. I’m lucky to get more than a grunt out of either of them. Fine by me. “This way, boys,” I say. “Farmer Browne needs us to retrieve the midwife.”
When we get to the river I realize we need a better way to cross. The farmer’s boys can’t hide in the shadows like I can, and I’m still not in the mood to deal with a mess of river goblins. “You boys know how to get across the river?”
“Bridge,” one of them croaks out. I don’t know which one’s Bo and which one’s Luke. I don’t really care either.
“Which way?”
Bo or Luke starts walking, so I follow. Sure enough a few minutes away there’s a substantial bridge offering safe passage over the torrential waters below. It takes the three of us a little longer to get there than it would if I were on my own, but in no time at all we’re back outside Elfie’s cottage.
“Fine, fine,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air. “If he’s going to be a snit about it I’ll come with you willingly.” Her eyes narrow and I see her looking at Luke and Bo appraisingly. “But first you’ll do something for me. Since Farmer Browne saw fit to send over such strong helping hands ... there’s a wild dog that keeps trampling my herb garden and killing my chickens. I need you to take care of it.”
Quest offered: Every Dog’s Got His Day
Find the wild dog that’s been trampling Elfie’s herb garden and kill it.
Reward: Experience points, 3 silver pieces, and Elfie’s agreement to visit Farmer Browne’s wife.
Do you accept?
This seems straightforward enough. “I accept. C’mon Bo and Luke.” We go out to the herb garden. No dog to be seen.
Elfie’s standing in the doorway of her cottage, watching us. “If he’s not in the garden, try about twenty yards behind the house. There’s a den where he sleeps.”
Not finding the dog in the garden, we go out to the forest and locate the den of the sleeping dog. I can hear it snoring. I tell Bo and Luke to wait back a bit, check to see that my daggers are all poisoned up, then I slip into the shadows and sneak into the den—more like a cave, really, or a very large hollowed out hole in the side of a hill—and see that this “dog” is really a dire wolf.
The beast is curled up on the floor. His hulking body takes up the entirety of the den, which smells of soil, stale urine, and blood. The floor is littered with pieces of bones from the myriad small critters the dire wolf has dined upon.
He looks like a mean bastard, too. Flecks of spittle and dried blood line his muzzle. He’s resting, but watchful. I slip back to where Bo and Luke are waiting for me.
Bo and Luke look like mighty useful bait—that is, like little tanks to me, so I tell them I need them to hold onto the “dog” and distract it so I can get the jump on it from behind. “I’ll slip in fir
st and when you see me disappear, follow me in on the count of five.”
Everything goes to plan until the dire wolf figures out what’s going on. He doesn’t take kindly to being held down. He snarls and drools and salivates all over my farmhand buddies. They start screaming and whacking at the wolf. One of them takes off running with an inarticulate “Aaaaaaaaaah!” The other actually dies when the wolf picks him up and swings him violently back and forth until his spine snaps. This is some wolf. I’ll need to stay away from that giant maw. I’ve been able to get his hit points down a little with my slash and stick’em, but now my rage points are up and it’s time to give fangstrike a try.
I call on the unleashing power and deal five times my normal damage with a fast-acting poison. The wolf whimpers and crumples to the floor with this. I almost feel bad for the fellow. I stick’em again, trying to end his misery. It works. He drops a wolf steak, and I leave it to disintegrate. I don’t like the stench of raw meat, and I haven’t picked up the cooking skill, so why bother?
Bo hasn’t resurrected yet, and Luke is nowhere to be seen (or maybe it’s the other way around), but I’m not waiting for this doggy to come back to life.
I head back to Elfie’s cottage.
“That was some dog you set us on.”
“Told you he’d been terrorizing me. You get the job done?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Every Dog’s Got His Day Quest Complete!
Congratulations! You have received
4,000 experience points, 3 silver, and Elfie’s agreement to visit Farmer Browne’s wife.
“Are you about ready to take me to Farmer Browne’s then? You know I can’t go there alone.”
Quest offered: Elfie’s Escort
Escort Elfie to Farmer Browne’s wife.
Reward: Experience and 3 silver and 20 copper pieces.
Do you accept?
This is a no-brainer. I already have two other open quests with this same end goal. “I accept.” There’s a lot riding on this now, better get ’er done.
In a flash, Elfie is ready to go. We head back toward the bridge.
As we draw within a few horse lengths of the bridge, Elfie says, “I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the neighbor I spoke of, the one that owned that dog? Well, he’s a troll and he lives under the bridge here.”
I stop and give Elfie my most baleful look. “Are you telling me that the dog was owned by a troll and now we have to cross that same troll’s bridge?”
“Yes, that’s about the long and short of it.”
“Fuck me.”
“Kind as that offer is, I don’t see as how it will help us out in this situation.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” This is so irritating. I glare at her. If it were just me, I could stealth across light as a feather and the troll need never be any the wiser. As it stands, I have to get another person across with me, and that means we’ll likely be fighting a troll in a few minutes. “No use waiting. Might as well cross.”
“You don’t want to even try to put out an offering?” she says.
“Like what?”
“Like porridge and milk!” she says, like I’m just about the stupidest person she’s ever met.
“I don’t happen to have any porridge and milk on my person at the moment, do you?”
“Nope. Can’t say as I do.”
“Back at the house?”
“Nope.”
I look at her. Her feisty little frame is wrapped up tight in a maroon-colored wool shawl. She’s actually quivering.
“You’re afraid to cross the bridge.”
“Maybe. A little.”
“Because I killed that dog.”
“Yup.”
“That dog that belongs to the troll that lives under this bridge.”
“Yup.”
“The dog that you asked me to kill.”
She nods.
“Fantastic.” I shake my head and take a deep breath. “Well, let me go first then.”
I check to make sure my knives are poisoned up and then I skirt my way out onto the bridge. Now I’m wishing I’d brought that stupid wolf steak with me. That would be a worthy offering. Unless he realized which wolf it was from. Maybe not such a good idea after all.
I get about halfway across the bridge when I hear a sound like sobbing coming from under the bridge. Is the troll crying? Can we maybe just keep on going? Maybe he won’t notice us? I move cautiously ahead a few feet.
“Who goes there?” the troll screams. Two massive, incredibly dirty hands grab the side of the bridge and in a moment the hideous creature launches himself up and over the railing and directly in our way. He’s easily twice my height, with saggy gray skin. His greasy, lanky shanks of hair drape his face in patches, as if length will make up for the thinning. He has yellowing, crooked, huge teeth that jut out from behind his fat lips. This is an old troll, and those are some well-oiled muscles under the flaps of skin hanging off his frame.
I figure bravado is my best course of action. “Why hello there. It’s me, Leeroy Jenkinz, and my friend Elfie is back there, here to cross the bridge.” We rogues are deadly, sure. But why fight when you can get the goods faster with a few smooth words or a walk in the shadows?
“And why should I let you?” The creature’s words come slowly, like they are words he enjoys saying and he doesn’t get to say them often enough.
“Because I’m saying pretty please?”
The troll lets out a roar that makes my sphincter clench. I guess pretty please isn’t going to cut it.
“How about you let us pass so that we can all avoid a little ugliness.” I draw my daggers and triple check that they’re all venomed up.
The troll actually appears to think about it. Then he opens his mouth and lets out a furious roar. I can smell the putrid stench of his breath from here. His eyes narrow at me. “I can smell doggy on you, human!”
So, we’ll be fighting. I take a breath and launch myself at the troll, hoping for some element of surprise, but he swings at me with the back of his hand—which takes up my entire midsection—and knocks me against the stone railing of the bridge.
Warning: You have taken ten points damage. 50/60 health points remaining.
Ouch. I shadow cloak and dart around to the troll’s backside. Elfie runs up to the fight and begins slapping the troll’s ankles. It’s rather ineffective from a damage perspective, knocking him down for one to three health points per slap, but it does occupy the misshapen creature’s attention.
I slash my rage points up and then fangstrike that bastard. I’m cutting at the back of his legs, because that’s about as high up as I can reach. Maybe I can hamstring him. His hand swats behind him to swipe at me, but I jump back out of the way. Elfie’s been quite adept at avoiding that backslap. Maybe he doesn’t want to hit a girl?
The troll spins and brings his fist down on me. I can’t get away from it. He’s too big. The blow knocks me back and rocks me to my core. I fall back, stunned.
Warning: You have taken twenty-five points damage. Critical hit. 25/60 health points remaining.
Damn! No wonder that hurt. I think I’ve made a healthy dent in this guy’s health points, though. I better hurry and finish him off before he can hit me again. I rush in to stick’em and slash at him in a flurry to build up my rage points. I jab him with fangstrike and do it all again. Slash, slash, stick’em, slash, stick’em, fangstrike.
Elfie lays one more slap on him and the big boy goes down. Thankfully he doesn’t fall on top of us. I rifle through his pockets, but don’t find anything worth keeping. Elfie turns away and races back to the side of the bridge that we started on.
“Elfie, where are you going?” I call out to her.
“Going to help Farmer Browne’s wench, of course,” she says nonchalantly as she casually walks back toward me on the bridge. It takes her a while to get to me.
“What are you standing around for?” she says to me when she finally catches up to me.
“There’s a baby being born.” Then she takes off in a run.
I shake my head. Fucking escort quests. I take off after her.
In short order we arrive back at the Browne’s farmstead. By the time we arrive, my health points are back up to full. I check, just in case there’s something special waiting for us here.
“Thank you for coming,” Farmer Browne says. At least he has the good sense not to be rude to Elfie. “My Miranda’s back here. She’s in a bad way.” He takes Elfie’s hand.
My vision fills up with messages.
Get the Midwife! Quest Complete!
Congratulations! You have received
2 silver, 40 copper pieces and 2,000 experience points.
Get the Midwife! II Quest Complete!
Congratulations! You have received
2 silver, 80 copper and 4,000 experience points
Elfie’s Escort Quest Complete!
Congratulations! You have received
3 silver, 20 copper pieces and 4,000 Experience points
Congratulations! You have reached Level Eleven!
Warning: You have five minutes to distribute two talent points.
Congratulations! You have reached Level Twelve!
Warning: You have five minutes to distribute two talent points.
The laboring woman’s screams interrupt my reverie and Farmer Browne and Elfie go inside. I sit on the porch and distribute my talent points.
LEVEL 12 CHARACTER STATS
NAME Leeroy Jenkinz, CLASS Rogue, RACE Human EXPERIENCE (EXP)—28,967/26,700
Next level achieved at 43,200 experience points.
CORE ATTRIBUTES
11 + 12 (modifiers) AGILITY (AGI) = +23% to dodge and critical hit
1 SPELLPOWER (SP) = 10 spell points
6 + 1 FORTITUDE (FORT) = 70 health points
9 POWER (PWR) = +90 damage
ARMOR/ENHANCEMENTS
Arcadia Unlocked: A LitRPG Novel (Arcadia LitRPG Book 1) Page 8
