“You’re not a part of that gang, are you?” Reila asked weakly as Gerry and I squatted down beside him.
“No,” I replied, “we came across them just up the road, near Glenburrow. We defeated them.”
“Good…” Reila said with a smile, “Very good. What did I tell you father? I told you…”
“Reila?” I asked as I attempted to cast Touch of Life on him and failed, “Reila? Are you alright?”
“The treasure!” the wood elf exclaimed, “You must find the treasure!”
“What treasure?”
Reila scrambled through his bloodied tunic, leaving his stomach wound to spill out like a cracked skin of wine, before pulling out a scroll, “You must take this and find the treasure and take it to my father. The map has my home on it for when you need to return.”
Received Reila’s Map.
“You must find the treasure,” Reila repeated, the weaker side of his voice taking over again as his bleeding grew more intense after all the excitement, “you must…”
And that was the end for the wood elf, his eyes rolling into the back of his head the second he sat back against the tree, his body slumping forward soon after.
“That was… odd, was it not?” I joked, trying to get past the fact that I’d just watch some guy die in an uncomfortably realistic fashion.
“Perhaps not the word I’d use… Anyway, did you get a mission notification? Because I didn’t.”
I hadn’t even noticed that, instead focussing on the rest of what had happened, but after Gerry brought it up it became quite the burning question in my mind, “No… Maybe it’s glitched out? You reckon if we read the map we’ll get one?”
“Can’t hurt.”
Feeling just the slightest amount of hesitation at adding yet another quest to my long line of quests, I unrolled the scroll and… nothing.
There was a map, yes, but there was no excited little sound effect or mission update. Instead I was presented with a map that showed where a secret treasure was in the woods and where Reila’s house was.
“Was he… was he just a glorified chest?” Gerry asked as he looked back to the dead wood elf.
“I think he was. Do you really think that they’re gonna start going to this much effort for something as simple as a treasure hunt?”
“Maybe. They have been talking about making the world more immersive for a while, haven’t they? Maybe this is a step in that direction? Making the world a bit more living or whatever?”
“I guess so. But if there isn’t any XP up for grabs then there’s no bloody point, is there?”
“Agreed.”
Gerry and I stood there in awkward silence for a few seconds after that, me holding the map, Gerry staring at Reila’s body.
“…We should probably still do it though, right?” I finally asked.
“Yes, definitely. I mean, we shouldn’t restrict what we do just because we don’t get a reward. And chances are we’ll end up getting a tidy reward from this guy’s father anyway, yeah?”
“Oh yeah, wouldn’t make sense if we didn’t.”
I’m about ninety percent sure that the game was judging whether or not we were actually good people.
It felt weird.
Armelia: Chapter 15
After disregarding the idea that I was being watched by some behavioural scientist I became a bit more comfortable, opting to believe that we were simply doing a sort of Easter Egg quest that would unlock some weird new thing in the game.
“How close are we?” Gerry asked with just the slightest bit of irritation, “And don’t tell me that we’re almost there, because we’ve been ‘almost there’ for half-a-blood-hour.”
He was right, we had been wandering for a good long while, and without the aid of a quest marker or a GPS I’d had us meandering through the entire forest for what felt like hours.
“Well?”
“Well what? You told me not to tell you if we were almost there.”
That earned me a laugh from Gerry, which felt good because I was absolutely lost. I wasn’t even quite sure where the road was in relation to us.
“Seriously though, where are we? Surely we must be coming up on it soon.”
I looked up from the map and tried to get an idea where we were on the scroll despite the fact that I was completely lacking any sort of bird’s eye view, “You’d think that…”
“What’s that supp-oh my bollocks, we’re proper lost, ain’t we?”
“No, we aren’t lost, I just don’t know where the treasure is. I’m sure we’ll be able to track our way back.”
“Of course we’ll be able to track our way back,” Gerry replied in annoyance, “but you have no idea where the treasure is, do you?”
“Well it wouldn’t be hidden treasure if it were easy to find, would it?”
I was stalling, yes, but I was sure I’d eventually stumble across the… whatever it was as long as I kept talking.
“Found it.” Gerry said from a few metres behind where he’d stopped.
“What?” I snapped more defensively than I’d intended to.
To be fair though, I’d been looking for ages with the help of a map and he just so happened to find it during one of his moaning fits? Complete and utter bollocks.
“Yeah, it’s a book.” Gerry replied as I approached him, “Unless you reckon it’s not? In which case we can keep looking.”
He was just rubbing it in at that point, which I most definitely did not appreciate. He was also right though, the hefty tome that sat atop the conveniently placed stone couldn’t have been any more obvious that it was the item we’d been hunting for if it had a magic glow around it.
“Seem a bit conspicuous to you?” I asked in the hopes that there was something wrong with it.
“Not really, guessin’ it must’ve spawned when we got the map.” Gerry replied like the bloody know-it-all he was, “Go ahead, pick it up.”
“I ain’t touchin’ it. I got the gloves, remember?”
If I wasn’t gonna win the fight of who found the treasure, then I sure as Hel was gonna win the fight of who picked up the weird, oddly unguarded book.
“Ugh, fine.” Gerry finally conceded with an overdramatic eye roll, and picked up the book.
After that we stayed perfectly still for a few seconds, waiting for a massive boulder to roll over us or an undead army to rise from the dirt to devour us in a messy display of gore.
Didn’t happen though, everything stayed exactly as it was and I got to be all smug, because why not.
“See? Nothing to worry about.”
“Whatever,” Gerry said with the tone of a scorned teenage boy, “let’s just… Is that a lute?”
At first I thought he was simply trying to deflect from the fact that he’d been a great big sissy, but then I too started to hear the beautiful sound of the old instrument start to ring through the forest.
“You know what? I think it is.” I replied happily, “I kinda like it.”
“Well I don’t,” Gerry bit back like I’d insulted him, “whenever there’s lute music there’s-”
And that’s when they appeared. I shudder to remember the troupe of eight travelling bards that happened upon us with their horrifying music and their sickening dancing.
At that point I actually quite liked them, their frilly green and blue clothes and smiling faces making me feel all happy and dance-y as they slowly surrounded us in the same way that a shark circles a boat.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” I said with naïve jolliness, “I think they’re pretty cool.”
And then one hit me with his lute.
The attack did no damage whatsoever, but it did make me stumble forward into another waiting bard who hit me right in the chin with his lute.
“Alright…” I muttered as I rubbed my sore jaw, “they’re less cool now. What do we do?”
“Kill ‘em?” Gerry asked, giving me an odd sense of déjà vu.
“Sounds good.”
/> Equipped Sparky McStabby-Stab.
Not gonna lie, the complete lack of health bars, level indicators, and even simple identifiers made me more than a little concerned, but as I took that first swing I felt damn confident that we’d be able to handle the troupe of twits.
I was wrong.
My sword stopped mere inches from one of the bard’s heads, another one beside him having quickly pulled off one of the weird buffs that the irritating class could do.
“What now?” Gerry growled, the splinters that he’d gone to fire at one of the bards having turned into harmless worms.
I caught another lute to the back of my head and barely stopped myself from going face first into another, “The snakes.” I said bitterly, “Maybe this is something that only pets can fix.”
“I’m willing to try anything at this point.” Gerry practically shouted as the music started to grow in volume.
Summoned Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin.
The baby snakes appeared with a flash of blue and purple light, launching out of their dormant state like lightning bolts into the dancing circle, but their strikes had no effect on the bards.
Their small jaws latched onto the lute playing weirdos, which had little to no effect on them, before coiling in crushing whatever part of the body they could.
Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin levelled up!
Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin is now Level 2!
“At least they’re getting something out of this,” I said with a small amount of amusment as my snake leaped from one bard to another, latching onto his cheek like a puppy to a ball, “any other ideas?”
“Well, we can’t run, they just knock us back, and we can’t kill them because they just buff against everything we throw at them. What does that leave us with?”
“I..! Don’t know. What?”
“Damn, I thought that’d make you come up with something.”
“Why would that have worked!?”
“Well it works in films, dunnit?”
Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin levelled up!
Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin is now Level 3!
The music had reached deafening levels at that point, each twang of the medieval instrument rocking me to my core, but right when I was about to give up on ever being able to come to Tarthirious again a group of guards came running through the trees toward us.
The black armoured men had some kind of wool stuffed into their ears, and before long they’d strapped white glowing chains around each and every one of the bards’ wrists, as well as some kind of muzzle around their mouths.
“You caught them!” one of them shouted enthusiastically as he approached us, his ears still stuffed with wool, “We’ve been tracking them for days!”
“You may want to take that-”
“What!?” he yelled in my face.
“The wool!”
“Ah! Yes!” he laughed as he pulled out his makeshift earplugs, “Couldn’t be too careful. Name’s Turin, Edward Turin, and who do I owe thanks to for the capture of the most dangerous men in the forests of Tarthirious?”
“Armelia Fireheart and Grand Gerry the Good,” I said with a polite nod and a smile, “are they really as dangerous as all that?”
“Oh yes,” Turin said solemnly, “the only reason they escaped their cage is because they started singing. The guard on duty thought he’d go in and break it up, but they just screamed into his ears until he was deaf and mad.”
“Oh my, is he alright?”
“Afraid not, he tore off all his clothes and started molesting a bale of hay so we had to put him down. It was a damned shame… How did you draw them in?”
Gerry produced the book and handed it to the guard, “We found this and then they attacked, does it mean anything to you?”
The guard turned the book over a few times in his hand before shaking his head and handing it back, “Not that I know of, but I’d be careful with it from now on if I were you. The last thing you need is for it to bring on those fellows back your way. Anyway, I must be off, have to make sure that the bards get back to their cage.”
“Won’t they just get out again?”
Turin shook his head with a dark smile as he put the wool back in his ears, “This time they’re cage is going to be underwater. Good day.”
And then he was off, running after his fellow guard who’d already disappeared back into the forest with the most irritating people I’d ever met.
“Well… that’s a bit grim, innit?” Gerry said as our snakes returned to us, their bodies having grown significantly after their level ups, “Stickin’ them in a cage and drowning them?”
“Eh, they deserve it.” I said with an unintentional amount of contempt, “Come on, let’s get rid of that bloody book.”
Armelia: Chapter 16
After putting our snakes back into dormancy, fearing they’d get trampled by wild deer if we left them to roam about, we’d gotten right back to following the map.
Thankfully, it took significantly less time to get to Reila’s cabin than it did to find the book, but once we got there we encountered a new set of problems.
“He’s dead.”
“What?” I asked as I tried to peer through one of the cabin’s windows, “Where?”
“Right here.”
I rolled my eyes at the mild annoyance that was the process of literally walking the five feet around the corner to see Gerry standing over a pile of firewood.
“Gerry, that’s wood.”
“He’s under it, I keep getting the option to search him when I walk past. Plus you can see one of his hands. See.”
It was one of those things where you didn’t see it until you saw it, but when you finally did you couldn’t unsee it.
“Well… damn. What now?”
Gerry shrugged, “I dunno, I suppose we should just leave the book here, yeah?”
The idea of all that searching and being beaten up by a bunch of twats with crappy guitars being for nothing pissed me off to no end, a small part of my mind screaming that I should take the book and keep it as a trophy.
Then I remembered what had happened the last time someone new grabbed the thing.
“I guess it’s the only option.” I let out with a defeated sigh, “It’s a bit bloody annoying though, innit? All this time and we don’t get so much as a gold reward? Let alone any XP.”
“Well aren’t you due for a level up anyway?” Gerry asked as he phased the book through the wood pile and onto what I guessed was Reila’s father’s body, “You did level up before, didn’t you?”
“What? When?”
“Last night. I figured you were saving it up for later.”
I probably had no right to be as annoyed with Gerry as I was, but damn it, I’m allowed to be irrational.
“Why did you wait so long to tell me?” I snapped bitterly.
“You didn’t tell me to remind you, so why would I?”
“Well I don’t know, maybe because it would’ve been helpf… Ugh… It’s not your fault. Sorry.”
“It’s alright.” Gerry replied softly, ignoring the fact that I’d basically snarled the last few things I’d said, “Why don’t you go ahead and get started on levelling up and I’ll go tell the guards we’re ready for dinner?”
“Sounds good, love you.”
“Love you too.”
As Gerry vanished I couldn’t help but feel somewhat relieved, like the pleasure of having a bed to yourself for once after ages of sharing it. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing a bed as much as the next person, but sometimes it’s good to have that sort of freedom to just stretch out without hitting a person wall.
HP upgraded!
HP: 6500/6500.
Attributes upgraded!
49 Strength
49 Dexterity
49 Intelligence
60(+10) Wisdom
I really wanted to push my Strength, Dex, and Intelligence up over that brilliant fifty mark, mostly because it’d been so long since I’d actually seen the text for each of them, bu
t something was holding me back.
I can’t say with certainty what it was, but there was definitely this… something, that made me want to wait until I could do them all at the same time.
I disregarded it as probably being some sign of minor OCD, but the more likely scenario was that I simply didn’t want to have to deal with the idea of going on, which was also the likely reason I’d gotten Gerry and I stuck in those woods for so long.
Well, that and those damned bards.
Kylia: Chapter 10
By work of some kind of dark magic, it was night when I finally logged off, my bloodshot eyes practically screaming in a mix of agony and delight as I rubbed them.
“How..?” I groaned as I stretched out, my lower back cracking and shifting like a pile of poorly stacked pebbles.
“My first guess was magic.” Gerald laughed from the door as he came back inside, that simple statement somehow reaffirming my entire reason for being with him, “I told them that we wanted some pizza cake and rabbit food.”
I didn’t want to, but I did give him the confused look that he clearly desired.
“Lasagne and salad.” he said with a smile as he came over to hug me, “How you feeling?”
“Pretty good, surprisingly tired though. What time is it?”
Gerald thought on the question for a second, “Half four, I think. It was when I got off.”
I was confused as to why I felt so tired, it wasn’t as if I’d spent the day doing any kind of hard labour, but I quickly ended up shrugging it off as simply being a side-effect of immersion, as if that made any sense.
“What do you wanna do until food gets here?”
Gerald yawned and shook his head, “Dunno, I’d suggest something that’d probably kill a good deal of time, but I doubt that it’s something we’d really want to be doing.”
There was a moment of confusion that ended with a knowing “Ah,” and was followed with a disappointed, “yeah, no. Are there any board games here? I reckon I could faff about trying to set up a game of Monopoly or something before dinner.”
“Yeah, but then we’re committing to a game and that could take hours. Honestly? I reckon I’m about ready to pass out.”
Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection Page 48
