Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  I thought I’d at least get a moment to compose myself, but Lio was on me in an instant, swinging so quickly that my eyes could barely track the movement.

  They didn’t need to though, my hands knew what they were doing, and before any of the numerous times Lio’s fists got anywhere near close to me, my sword blocked him, sending sparks and embers flying everywhere.

  That being said, Lio was clever, and before long he’d figured out my tactic of simply blocking him and hoping for the best, and decided to change up his attack plan.

  It was quick, but I knew what he was going to do when he leaped backwards, and was able to pre-emptively roll out of the way before the roaring fireball smashed into the wall behind where I’d been.

  I took the opportunity of his staggered state to take a dash for him, running his stomach through with Sparky and causing him to double over in pain.

  Critical Hit!

  +1 Singlehanded Blade Skill.

  Progress: 38/100.

  +10 XP.

  Progress: 7130/7500.

  My victory was short-lived though, and, before I could prepare myself, Lio shot me another evil grin and took a mighty, fiery swing.

  Lio Likbrog cast Fire Punch.

  Head injured.

  300 damage inflicted.

  HP: 7200/7500.

  The blast from Lio’s punch was enough to throw me across the tavern, where I landed in a mess of arms and legs in a group of the watching gang members, and I cursed under my breath as I realised my vision had been affected by the attack.

  “What’s wrong?” Lio mocked, “Can’t handle a bit of heat?”

  Unequipped Sparky McStabby-Stab.

  Equipped Mysterious Blacksmith Gloves.

  “Time to find out what these do.” I growled as the gloves vibrated on my hands, “Hey, Lio, come here. I wanna show you something.”

  Obviously the gang leader couldn’t hear me, but as I stomped my way towards him I couldn’t help but feel like he was just a little bit scared.

  Eh, probably just some wishful thinking.

  Anyway, the fuzzy, burning line that I was pretty sure was Lio started making a move for me once I was within a few feet, but I was able to quickly deflect his swing with my forearm, glancing him off harmlessly toward the people behind me.

  “C’mon, stop tryin’ to hit me, and hit me!” I laughed as I spun to face Lio, my fists up in front of me in a boxing stance as he decided to take another run for me.

  I wasn’t in the mood for blocking anymore though, and as Lio took his swing I ducked and went in for an uppercut, my whole body shuddering with excitement as I prepared myself for the reveal of the gloves’ power.

  Tell you what, I never would have guessed what they did, not in a million years.

  My fist connected with Lio’s waiting jaw, the strength behind my punch causing it to crack, while the glove, with its brilliant red glow, went to work wrapping everyone in the building except me in strange red runes that I could only half-see, courteous of Lio standing so close.

  And then it happened, a few flashes of semi-blinding red light, followed by a generous plume of crimson smoke, and they all changed into something I truly hadn’t expected.

  Little.

  Fluffy.

  Yellow.

  Ducklings.

  My vision still wasn’t quite what I’d label as ‘good’, but even I could tell what they were once I crouched down next to the one that was once Lio.

  “Would you look at that?” I laughed, “Not so powerful now, huh?”

  Unequipped Mysterious Blacksmith Gloves.

  “And to think there was actually a moment there where I thought I was going to have an actual fight,” I mocked before finding and touching the bloody side of my head, “not to say you didn’t hold up for a while there.”

  “Quack.” Lio replied with a strange level of boldness.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you decide to mess with the Grand Master… slash Supreme Necromancer. Man, you guys really screwed up.”

  Cast Touch of Life on self.

  300 health restored.

  All debuffs removed.

  HP: 7500/7500.

  “Maybe I had a bit of help,” I said as I looked over the gloves in my knapsack, “but, to be fair, you did give me a concussion, and you tried to set my head on fire.”

  “Quack.” Lio repeated before losing interest in me, pooping, and waddling over to a group of his fellow ducklings.

  “Yeah, you better run!” I chuckled as I checked over my objectives and saw that I was still tasked with killing the Likbrog gang.

  Now, I might’ve been leaning toward the more evil side of things, but there’s leaning toward the dark side, and then there’s killing two dozen ducklings.

  Although, if there were someone else, something else that just needed to eat to survive, well, what was the worse act? Feeding something that needed to eat, or allowing the Likbrog Gang to continue to terrorise the world?

  Summoned Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin.

  “Dig in,” I ordered as Fluffy plopped down in the centre of the tavern, “it’s smorgasbord time.”

  Custom Journal altered.

  Learn magic.

  Go to the MoDA.

  Work on increasing:

  Archery (22/50)

  Singlehanded Blade (38/50)

  Speech (15/50)

  Enchanting (1/50)

  Smithing (51/100)

  Armelia: Chapter 21

  Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin levelled up!

  Miss Fluffy-Scaleskin is now Level 9!

  Mission Completed: The Likbrog Gang.

  +500 XP.

  Level 20 Completed!

  Level Up!

  Level 21 Progress: 130/8000.

  5 Skill Points awarded.

  HP upgraded!

  HP: 8000/8000.

  Attributes upgraded!

  53 Strength

  52 Dexterity

  53 Intelligence

  64(+10) Wisdom

  Not going to lie, I was a bit peeved that I hadn’t gotten an EoC report, but given that I technically didn’t defeat anyone, I just accepted that I was lucky that Fluffy had been able to get herself up a few levels, and a few feet.

  “That was a lame pay-out, huh?” I asked the plump, car-length snake before realising what I’d asked, “Oh, s’pose you wouldn’t think so, huh? Good eating?”

  I took Fluffy slithering over to me with a purr to indicate a firm ‘Yes.’

  “And you’re sure you haven’t made yourself sick? I mean, you ate a lot of ducklings.”

  Again, Fluffy purred, and started brushing herself against my legs happily.

  “Heh, alright, alright, back to sleep you go.” I said before sending her back into her little realm of dormancy.

  I’m not going to lie, I felt kind of cheated by the gloves, but at the same time the fight had helped me to realise something.

  I was tired as shit.

  Not that I was about to give up or anything like that, no, but I was certainly starting to feel the effects of hours upon hours of nonstop gaming.

  My eyes hurt, my back ached, and I kept having this random sort of twitch in my right thigh.

  But still, I was going to press on.

  I stepped out of the tavern and circled around it to Shadow-Stal, my fingers slipping off the ‘W’ key about five times in the short distance as my fingers struggled to maintain my commands.

  And then I heard something.

  A slamming, off in the distance.

  At first I assumed it was something coming to attack, but when I saw that neither Fluffy, nor Shadow-Stal, nor any of the players or NPCs in my immediate vicinity react, I realised what it was.

  Someone was knocking on my door.

  Kylia: Chapter 1

  My breath tasted raw and foul in my mouth, warm, dry air clinging to my throat like paint as I shakily got to my feet and shambled out of the Rig Room.

  I had no idea just how weak I was until I started
that hard walk toward my front door, and as I raised my creaky arm to turn the knob I received a first class ticket on the stink train.

  “What do you want?” I grumbled, the sentence forming into a single word as my jaw cracked with the unfamiliar movement of speech.

  Griegs was waiting for me at the door, all armoured up except for his helmet, which was nowhere to be seen and allowed me to see the sorry mix of pity and annoyance that was plastered across his face.

  “What are you doin’ to yourself Kylia?” he asked as he shook his head and walked into my flat, pushing me aside as he did so.

  “Nothin’ much,” I replied as bitterly as I could before shutting the door and shuffling after Griegs, “how ‘bout you? Anythin’ interestin’ happenin’ in your life?”

  Yeah, it seemed that I’d gotten to a point of exhaustion where I was dropping the ‘g’s off wherever I could, but to be fair I wasn’t exactly having an easy time of it.

  “You’ve been locked up here for six bloody days,” Griegs said coarsely, ignoring my question as he kicked a pizza box aside, sending the cans that were stacked on top of it all over the floor, “have you been doing anything?”

  I thought on that for a second then shrugged before walking into the kitchen and getting a glass from the bench, “I started playin’ Tarthirious this mornin’, so there’s that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, great job.” Griegs mocked before turning to face me and instantly becoming sympathetic, “I get that what happened was rough, I really do, but yo-”

  “I don’t think you do get it,” I snapped, forcing more emotion than I was comfortable with so that I could get my point across, “a week ago I was kidnapped, nearly murdered, and oh yeah, my fiancé was killed in front of me not three seconds after proposing. So, I’m sorry if I’m not quite ready to jump back into the world yet.”

  That one sentence at the end there was perhaps more words than I’d used in the entire past week, but I suppose that’s to be expected when you sit in your house all alone and make no effort to do anything.

  “I do get it, alright? I really do,” Griegs replied in a somewhat more sombre tone than he’d been using, “Will was one of my closest friends, and finding him like I did… Life is hard, that’s a fact, but that doesn’t mean you get to just shut down and disappear. We brought you back here because we thought it’d be better for you to be somewhere familiar, somewhere where you could put your life back together.”

  “Really? ‘Cause I was under the impression that it was because you discovered that you couldn’t defend me regardless of where I was, and it was just easier and cheaper to keep me at my place.”

  “That’s not fair,” Griegs bit back, some of his anger returning as he looked at me drinking my glass of water in an act of quasi-defiance, “we’ve got MPs all over this building and two posted at your door every damn second of every damn day. This place is more secure than most government buildings, and you’re using the guards like they’re your servants.”

  I let out a scoff in response, tried to anyway, came out as more of a broken cough, “No I’m not.”

  “Getting your food, taking your clothes to the laundry, Hell, I’d say they were bathing you if it weren’t so obvious you haven’t brushed your teeth in at least three days.”

  “That’s just ‘cause I don’t let them in my flat.”

  “You don’t let anyone in your flat!” Griegs snapped, “A dozen visitors have been cleared by me and mine, and you’ve turned them all away!”

  “A smart man would stop sending people.”

  “A..! Ugh… Look, you need to have at least some human interaction, else you’re gonna end up some poor old bat locked away up here with your million-and-one dead cats.”

  Despite my body’s inability to do most things, I still managed to gesture around the flat and raise my eyebrow in confusion, “You see any cats in ‘ere? No, just a bunch of food and me, the way it should be.”

  Griegs rubbed his brow at that, a heavy sigh escaping him as he followed my gesturing with his eyes, “This isn’t negotiable. If you don’t start accepting some guests, I’m going to have to arrange a therapist to come visit you.”

  “No you bloody won’t,” I growled with more emotion than I thought I had left, “you wouldn’t dare.”

  “I bloody well would, and I bloody well will if you don’t get your act together and start having folks over for tea and biscuits.”

  Again, I gestured around the flat, “Where do you think I’m hiding biscuits, hmm? Same place as all the cats?”

  “Oh for… I’ll buy you some, alright? If you accept just one guest, then I’ll leave you alone ‘til this is all over, and you can use that time to get morbidly obese and die of a heart attack for all I care, but I’ll leave knowing I did my job.”

  Against all odds, a small smile spread across my face, “Puh-lease, there’s no way you’ll ever leave me alone.”

  Griegs’ brow furrowed, then quickly relaxed as he too grew a smile, “Just accept a guest, alright? That’s all I ask.”

  I stared him down for a while in the hopes that it’d make him go away without me having to answer, but then I resigned myself to his persistent staring and let out a sigh and shrugged, “Fine, just… just give me ‘til tomorrow, alright? Let me become a bit more… presentable.”

  At first Griegs didn’t seem so sure about that, but once he apparently got it into his head that there wasn’t much I could do to prevent his return the next day, he gave me a nod and a semi-proper grin, “Alright then, see you tomorrow. Let us know if you need any help cleaning up before then, preferably with some notice. I reckon we’ll need an entire council crew to get this place ready by tomorrow.”

  “Piss off.” I replied with a quiet chuckle that successfully used up the last of my emotional energy, “See you later.”

  “See you.”

  After he’d left I was faced with a dilemma.

  “Clean the flat,” I mumbled, “or clean me…”

  I focused on that question a while, my brain struggling to think of much else as I jumped between smelling my clothes and smelling the stacks of pizza boxes, both of which were equally unpleasant.

  “I think… Tarthirious.” I said to myself once I realised the only obvious option was to keep procrastinating, “Yeah, yeah, I reckon Tarthirious’ll do nicely.”

  Armelia: Chapter 22

  Understandably, I was still pretty tired, but Griegs showing up had given me this weird sort of second wind, nothing too amazing, though still enough that I could handle the process of logging on.

  “Hey,” I droned sleepily to Shadow-Stal as I climbed up into the saddle, “what do you say we do some brainless stuff for a while, eh?”

  I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if Shadow-Stal was happy with the idea, but he didn’t seem completely opposed to it.

  “Alright then, what do we do then?” I asked as I got Shadow-Stal pointed toward Underburg’s main gate, “Oh! We could boost those stats up?”

  Again, Shadow-Stal didn’t seem entirely opposed to that idea.

  “Excellent, I’ll just look up…” I trailed off as I opened an in-game browser and started looking for an article on how to level some skills up quickly.

  Hey, it’s not cheating if I’m not getting some kind of financial recompense, it’s just… aiding in the discovery of bugs and glitches.

  “Aha!” I exclaimed after finding one of the few walkthroughs that hadn’t been patched out, “There’s a guy in a prison a few miles south from here, shouldn’t take long to reach him.”

  The gate started to rise while Bito eyed me off cautiously, before Shadow-Stal stomped the ground a few times and I knew that he agreed with me that it was a good idea to exploit the system.

  I was tired, alright? I needed something to do that wasn’t going to take up too much brain power.

  That may sound lazy, and perhaps even like I probably shouldn’t have been playing at all, but if you think that then you’ve clearly never played a game like
Legends.

  One does not simply stop playing Legends of Tarthirious.

  Armelia: Chapter 23

  After a good deal of wandering around and getting lost, I came across the prison, which was actually more like a penal colony with little huts on a tiny island in the middle of a lake.

  Bleak Island Prison discovered.

  Journal entry made.

  “How many people do you reckon would fit on there?” I asked as I dismounted Shadow-Stal and looked across the water, “Fifty? A hundred?”

  Shadow-Stal hoofed the ground a few times while eyeing off the water with no small amount of fear.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna make you come with me,” I said as comfortingly as I could, “and if I run into any trouble, Fluffy’s right there and can be summoned in an instant.”

  My horse appeared to be somewhat eased by my words, but still was clearly uncomfortable being as close to the water as we were.

  “Okay,” I sighed after looking around and seeing no boats, “looks like I’m swimming. Great.”

  Don’t get me wrong, swimming wasn’t too bad, but I wasn’t exactly confident that the water I was slowly wading into was clear of meat-eating creatures that would sooner strip my bones than let me get to the island.

  Didn’t stop me though, and before long I was halfway across the mile of water, having occasionally ducked my head underwater in search of evil critters and looking back to ensure Shadow-Stal was okay where I’d left him.

  “How lucky am I to have gotten a horse like that?” I asked the pale sediment as I reached the island’s shore and took note of the stunned expressions of the prisoners that surrounded me.

  “You there!” someone shouted from one of the huts as he struggled to get out, “How did you reach this place?”

  “Swam,” I replied as I approached the hut, ignoring the eyes that were boring into my soul as I did, “makes me wonder why none of these fine chaps haven’t done the same yet.”

  “Because the lake is filled with vicious piranhas.” the man, named Davyk Lonnel, said sternly as I entered the hut, revealing that he wasn’t one of the prisoners, but was instead one of the few heavily armed and armoured guards, “Supposed to be anyway.”