The whole thing was a bloody nightmare to say the least, and seeing as we were still struggling to figure out exactly where we’d ended up in our long journey it was nigh impossible to just lie down and go to sleep.
“What’s happening to us?” Gerald asked as he plopped down on the bed, “Everything was going so well and no we’re… we’re…”
“Lost, yeah.” I groaned as I rolled onto my arse and slid out from under the desk, “I don’t know, but this chick-flick, daytime soap opera, ‘I can’t believe our lives are falling apart’ bollocks is starting to get kind of annoying.”
Gerald smiled at that before letting out an overly lengthy yawn, “I s’pose you’re right. But what are we meant to do in the meantime? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but moping when things get tough is a big part of my charm.”
I shrugged and got up to my feet with a big stretch, “I reckon we just try to get some sleep, you know? Start up again tomorrow.”
A smile played across Gerald’s face and he took another quick glance at our temporary sleeping quarters, “I think I could do that. It’s pretty cool actually, not the dilapidated cottage or the fact that we have to be under constant guard or anything. I just mean… heh, honestly, when was the last time either of us took an actual holiday?”
“It’s… uh… heh, I suppose it has been a while. But it’s not exactly Paris, is it?”
“No, but there’s snow, and like the Sergeant said, there’s guards all over the place. I bet that that means we can go build snowmen and have a snowball fight.”
His enthusiasm turned out to be contagious, or the mould had started to set in our brains and was slowly making us regress to a child-like state. Either way, playing outside in the snow did sound like fun.
“I agree, but first we have to get some sleep, you think that we have anything warm enough?”
Gerald thought on it for a second before walking over to the closet and checking through the clothes that other MPs had brought over, “Not that I can see. I’ll check if the MPs can go get some.”
“Right away sir.” came one of the guard’s voices before he went quick marching through the snow.
With that uncomfortable reaffirmation that we were most definitely not alone, we both silently agreed that it was time for us to head to bed without bothering to get changed.
You try getting dressed with the knowledge that at any point someone could come barging in with an armful of wood…
Heh, at least it’d be better than a handful of wood, am I right? Right..?
Kylia: Chapter 4
The next day started with us waking up to a roaring fire followed shortly by one of our guards showing up with drive-through pancakes and coffee.
“Thanks…” I said, trying my very best to hide my morning breath as I took the bag of food and cardboard cup holder from his hands.
It was hard to tell through the balaclava, but I was pretty sure he smiled, “Not a problem. Oh, and just so you know there’ll be a guard changeover in an hour or so.”
“Oh… well, it was good to have you here.”
“Glad to be of service.”
We stood there awkwardly for a while, me not wanting to simply shut the door in his face, him not wanting to… actually, I’m not entirely sure why he lingered for so long.
“Well, I better get back to my post.” he said before spinning on the balls of his heels and walking the two feet back to his side of the door.
I pretended not to hear him talking to his fellow guard about how I seemed well nicer than I was on TV as I walked over to the table and plopped the bag down on it.
“You think you’re up for a gaming sesh today?” Gerald asked as he voraciously dug into the bag and pulled out his pancakes, “I reckon it’d be a great way to get our mind off things.”
“What about going outside, playing in the snow, looking at trees… We’re like the most childish old people in the world, you realise that, right?”
Gerald chuckled at that between mouthfuls of food, “Yeah, so what? I look forward to being all old and grey, don’t you?”
“Eh,” I replied with a shrug as I finally took my seat and started eating, “I kinda like being young. My joints don’t hurt, everything works like it’s s’posed to. Don’t get me wrong, I see the appeal, but I also kind of enjoy how things are now. Anyway, yeah, I reckon I could go a few hours of questing. But I definitely need a bath first, did you see if they brought any toiletries?”
“You’re gonna go in the pit? Heh, you’re brave.” Gerald laughed as he finished up and started on the coffee, “I think that the guys brought some stuff though, it was all in a green backpack.”
“Did you see where they put it?”
“Mmhm, on the table, then I moved it.”
I raised my eyebrow in slight irritation, “And where did you move it?”
“You know what? I can’t for the life of me remember. I know that it was… somewhere.”
I bit my lip and shook my head, “I swear to God if you’ve lost my toothbrush I am going to kill you.”
Gerald smiled, his cheeks full of coffee making him look like an adorable, glasses wearing chipmunk, “No you won’t, you love me too much.”
“Oooh,” I let out as I shot him a fake scowl, “you’re so lucky that you’re right. Now seriously, where’s my toothbrush.”
“Heh, I knew it,” Gerald replied as he swallowed his mouthful of coffee, slightly flinching as the hot broth rushed down his throat, “I’m pretty sure I put it under the bed.”
“You better have.” I joked.
From there I finished my breakfast, downed my coffee like a shot of tequila, found the bag, and went down into the pit.
It actually wasn’t all that bad. Granted the light was one of those bulbs that dangled from the roof like a serial killer’s dungeon, and the brass, claw footed tub reminded me of one from a horror film I’d seen where the bath ate people, but other than those few things I’d have to say it was certainly liveable.
I did spend the entire time I was cleaning myself looking up through the open hatch waiting for it to slam shut so I could be brutally murdered by a ghost, but I did eventually finish up and get back upstairs without dying once.
“Nice bath?”
Without stopping to smile and nod, I started pulling on my clothes as fast as possible, “Wasn’t b-bad. Bit nippy now though.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, mind if I go scrub up before we get into it?”
“Not at all.” I replied with a new warm vigour, my heavy woollen jumper doing its job faster than I could’ve expected even though the only other item of clothing I was wearing was a pair of black pants, “But I’d take some clothes down there with you.”
“Good call,” he said before grabbing out some warm looking trousers and a jumper from the closet and smacking me on the arse, “see you in a bit.”
I gave him a quick kiss, silently hoping that he’d slap me again so that some more blood would rush to my fast freezing butt cheek.
Bastard respected me too much though, or he figured another would get him a sock in the mouth, either way I was left to hurriedly pull on some grey fleece trousers and sit by the fire until he came back.
As I stared into the fire I started to imagine that we were in a zombie apocalypse, Gerald and I being the last few survivors on the planet before we’d taken north to settle in the freezing climates where the undead couldn’t reach us.
I crossed my arms tighter and buried my face into my knees for warmth as a smile came over me, the thought of it just being Gerald and I against the world making me feel a whole lot happier as the memory of the past day started to fade away, replaced instead with little hopes and dreams for the days to come.
Shut up, I can be cute.
Armelia: Chapter 5
We’d been travelling for a solid twenty minutes before Gerry got me to stop, insisting that he saw something just over a hill to our east.
“What is it?”
“I’m n
ot sure…” he trailed over off as we dismounted and he peered toward the direction of what had caught his attention, “but whatever it was, it was big.”
“Big snake big?”
Gerry shook his head, “More like some kind of tower. Did you really not see it?”
“What do I gain from lying to you?” I asked as I finally hopped down and went to stand with him.
“Dunno, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Come on, let’s go check it out.”
It was hard for me not to get shitty with him about inferring I was a liar, but I got past it pretty quickly once we were crouched and slowly making our way up the hill, the sight of it alone giving everything a sort of goofy machinima vibe.
“There!” Gerry cried out quietly as something flickered and disappeared right before our eyes, “Did you see it that time?”
“I… think so?” I said as I looked over the empty green field with confusion, “Any idea on what it might be?”
Gerry shrugged and rose to full height, “Faerie magic gone wrong? Dwarven teleportation screw up? Rip in the time-space continuum?”
“Hey, don’t even joke about that, those things are dangerous.”
“Sure thing,” Gerry laughed as he rolled his eyes at my mock concern, “seriously though, isn’t that awesome?”
“Awesome to look at? Yes. But there ain’t a chance in Hel that I’m going to go anywhere near that thing.”
“Why not? Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Hiding behind my sense of ‘If you step on that thing you’re gonna become morphed with a wall or get launched into the stratosphere’.”
Gerry giggled and looked over to me, “M. Night should do a sequel to Sixth Sense with that.”
“Yeah… something tells me that Haley Joel Osment wouldn’t be interested in something like that.”
“Shh! It’s starting again.”
My eyes locked onto the flickering that time around, determined to figure out exactly what it was that was trying to get into our world.
It was a tower, blood red and black in colour, and covered in skulls of various races.
Narthgal Tower discovered.
Journal entry made.
“What… the Hel… is that?”
The tower’s presence in our plane had appeared to settle as the flickering eased to the point where it was hardly noticeable.
“Wanna find out?”
“Hel yeah.”
Suddenly it’d become a race between the two of us as we both bolted toward the massive doors at the base of the tower, the snarling stone dragon heads built into its façade doing nothing to ease our eagerness.
“Beat you!” I exclaimed happily as I jumped up and down on the spot.
“Really? I didn’t know we were racing.” Gerry lied lyingly before approaching the door and putting his hands on it, “Huh. It’s asking if we’re sure we want to open it.”
My gut said no, but my adrenal gland screamed yes, “Go ahead, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen?”
Heh, tempting fate is funny.
Mission Started: The Narthgal Tower.
Objective added: Survive.
Armelia: Chapter 6
The first room we found ourselves in was like something out of a moody teenager’s dream of Dracula’s castle, red banners hung on the walls which were covered in black spikes, while a single, huge, terrifying chandelier hung above the massive room’s centremost point.
“Alright…” Gerry trailed off as we both looked around the gothic scenery, “I get the feeling that we’re going to come to regret this.”
At that exact moment the doors slammed behind us, filling the room with a cacophonous crash as something started to come through the walls.
“Ya think!?” I growled as I shot for the door and pushed it open, an action that made me hopeful for all of two seconds before I realised we weren’t in Tarthirious, but instead atop a mountain in a fiery world, a horde, and I mean a real horde, of skeletons and zombies charged toward the tower.
“So outside isn’t an option,” I said as I pulled the doors back shut and hoped that they’d stay that way, “you’ve got any ideas?”
Armelia Fireheart and Grand Gerry the Good have issued a challenge in the Narthgal Tower. An Orc Warrior answers the challenge.
Level 30 Orc Warrior, HP: 15000/15000.
“There we go! We just wait until he shows up and bolt out the way he comes in. Easy.”
Yeah… turns out that in the Narthgal Tower people arrive via teleportation.
Covered in blood and tattoos.
Wielding dual, double-edged, serrated hand axes.
I’m not gonna lie, that first combatant gave me the same level of discomfort as that one time I went past a group of skinheads.
“Maybe we could try and convince him that we’re friendly?” Gerry said hopefully, followed quickly by an unearthly roar coming from our opponent.
“I will destroy you!” the bloody, green warrior growled as he charged us.
“You know what? I don’t think diplomacy’s gonna work here.” I said as I drew my bow and got to work sending out a volley of arrows so quickly the game could barely keep up.
Equipped Armelia’s Long Bow.
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 15/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 1280/5000.
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 16/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 1290/5000.
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 17/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 1300/5000.
The barrage did little to slow the raging warrior though, but luckily for me he’d decided that the Oak Flesh-upped Gerry was the more interesting challenger.
Gerry, being as fast as he was, was deflecting and blocking each of the berserker’s attacks with his forearms, occasionally jumping backwards to allow himself to recast his spell and coating him with more thick wood.
“Keep him distracted!” I shouted as I continued to fire my arrows into our attacker’s back to the point where he was quickly starting to look like an echidna.
Critical Hit!
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 18/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 1310/5000.
Don’t get me wrong, it was good to start building my archery skill up again, but watching each of my arrows disappear was starting to make me feel like I was being a tad wasteful.
Unequipped Armelia’s Long Bow.
“What’re you doing!?” Gerry snapped as he was finally backed into a corner, “He’s barely down halfway!”
“I know! Just give me a second!”
Equipped Sparky McStabby-Stab.
It meant getting close to a guy who could potentially spin around and start carving into me like a Christmas dinner, sure, but I was confident that it was probably the only way I was going to be able to land an attack worth anything on him.
With no small amount of emotional self-reassurance, I ran full ball toward the back of the still slicing and dicing orc, and landed five good hits on him, splintering arrows and leaving sparking wounds all over his back.
+1 Singlehanded Blade Skill.
Progress: 30/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 1320/5000.
And that’s when he turned to face me, his eyes fiery with rage as he rose his axes above his head, but, right as he was about to bring them down, I drove my sword deep into his belly.
Critical Hit!
I wasn’t done though, and as the defeated warrior fell to his knees I let my blade get pulled out, spinning on my feet as it did so, and sliced his head clean off.
I stood there heaving for a few seconds, my robes coated in a thick layer of gooey blood as Gerry looked between me and the fresh corpse on the ground.
“S’pose I should grab those arrows for you, huh?”
Gerry didn’t even get to finish his helpful request before we were both suddenly
surrounded by a shroud of red that disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving us in a slightly different room with no sparky body to join us.
An involuntary groan escaped me as I realised that it was unlikely I would ever see those arrows again.
“My suggestion?” Gerry said as he layered on a new coat of Oak Flesh and spawned an earthy looking sword, “Use magic.”
Armelia: Chapter 7
Armelia Fireheart and Grand Gerry the Good have issued a challenge in the Narthgal Tower. A Flock of Ranirds answers the challenge.
15x Level 20 Ranirds, HP: 7500/7500.
Ranirds discovered.
Journal entry made.
As with the warrior on the previous level of the tower, the blood thirsty bat-monkey hybrids appeared with teleportation and immediately set upon us like a gaggle of geese on a loaf of bread.
Luckily I’d switched over to my lightning spell by the time the creepy little beasts appeared, and right as they reached the ten foot mark I launched a Sith-esque blast of electricity that arced between them all, the powers of the Hel we were in having the opposite effect of the strange plane of existence with the High Lord Faerie, making our magic at least five times more powerful.
It was a brilliant feeling, burning through the entire flock alongside Gerry with his barrage of fiery thorns, but what was our benefit quickly became our struggle as we defeated the ranirds and suddenly appeared in a new room.
Armelia Fireheart and Grand Gerry the Good have issued a challenge in the Narthgal Tower. The Brothers of Darkness answers the challenge.
2x Level 35 Battlemages, HP: 22500/22500.
“Ideas?” I asked as I got ready to ward myself against whatever the black robe wearing brothers were about to throw at us.
“Take out one at a time.”
It was a solid plan on Gerry’s behalf, but as I successfully deflected a screaming ball of blackness and dropped my shield just in time to have to narrowly avoid a flying skull I realised that that was going to be easier said than done.
Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection Page 43
