A glow surrounded us, and we were all given the quest. I quickly examined the details to ensure we didn’t miss anything like additional players for a mini-raid, a mistake we had made in the past when we were given the Bandit raid from Port Town, and that I did not in any way want to repeat. As I looked at my mates, I confirmed that we had all received the quest “Restoration of House Lancaster – Part I,” and that the details provided by Lady Tessa were echoed in the quest’s description. The reward for completing this quest was listed as “Unknown.” With the Wanderer’s conversation in my head, I had visions of the most epic of loot befalling us.
I looked at my map and there was an icon inside Kich’s Keep that corresponded to the quest we just received. This was likely the location where we would find this Old Lady Madsie.
We nodded our heads at Lady Tessa again and began to make our way out of the forest. Before we had made it more than several meters, Lady Tessa called out to us.
“If it isn’t too much to ask…” she said, and then paused.
Before I could react, Wayne approached Lady Tessa and, in the kindest words, said, “If there is anything we can do, Lady, you need only ask.”
I didn’t think she would respond to Wayne, as he wasn’t the group leader. To my surprise, she looked up into Wayne’s eyes. After holding him there for a second, Lady Tessa said, “If you find my brother, please, give him a proper burial.”
Wayne took one knee to the ground and said, “On my honor as a warrior, I, Naugha Hyde, will see your brother buried properly, or I will die trying.” Nobody sold the warrior like our boy Wayne.
Lady Tessa reached her hand out to Wayne and placed it on his forehead. After several seconds, her hand began to glow with a golden hue, and Wayne’s body was covered in light. Despite not being touched by Lady Tessa, the same happened to everyone in the group.
With looks of astonishment on our faces, Lady Tessa once more addressed us, “My father was a warrior, as were my brothers. I am something else. I am the last member of my family. I am the Lady Lancaster. As such, it is within my rights to offer a boon to any I deem worthy.” She then helped Wayne to his feet.
“Thank you for your sincere words Naugha. You spoke truth in your oath. Go with the blessing of my station.”
With that, we started walking out of the forest to an area where we could summon our horses. As we walked, I looked at my character, and there was a new subset of information. Under “Titles” there was a new heading: “Gifts.” According to my character screen, I now had the “Gift of the Lady Lancaster,” which gave a +5 to all stats and resistances. I let out a mighty whoop that caught all of my companions off guard.
I explained to them what I found, and they all checked their characters as well. To a man, we had all received the “Gift” from Lady Tessa.
The Wanderer hadn’t lied. His intervention was already paying dividends.
Chapter 2
We traveled in silence for the next several minutes. I didn’t want to be the first to discuss the quest, but I knew everyone was thinking about it. Wayne would remain stoic, as was normal for him except when he was in battle. Jason was likely having a hell of a conversation, only internally. And Dan, well no one ever really knew what was going on in Dan’s head.
When we arrived at the entrance to the Capitol we banished our mounts and began walking through the gates. Since no one had said anything, I began to head in the direction of the marker on my map. I figured we might as well get the first part of this quest over, but Jason stopped us with a signal.
“I don’t think we should start this new quest yet, guys.”
“Seriously?” Dan asked. “Why not, man? This thing sounds awesome.”
“Well, we know it isn’t a timed quest, so we have all the time in the world to start it. We also know from what the NPC told us that the level will likely be very difficult. We’ve already seen what a bear in these woods can do to us. I’m not one for just running out and getting ourselves killed. Besides, we have something else to consider.”
“When the bar opens?”
Jason just shook his head at Dan. “No. We have another quest to get from Sir Arthur.”
“That’s right!” Wayne exclaimed. “We could be looking at two very diverging quests that we need to do.” Wayne thought about it some more and then nodded his head toward Jason. “I’m with Allister. I think we need to wait on starting this quest until we have at least spoken with Sir Arthur. Maybe we get lucky and the two are in the same direction, but even I don’t think we are that lucky.”
“Alex is, but I doubt his luck will have anything to do with this.” Dan said, looking at me a little suspiciously.
In response to the back and forth, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I’ll follow wherever you guys decide to go. I’m not sold on starting Lady Tessa’s quest straight away either.”
With that response, Dan nodded his head and agreed with Jason and Wayne. With our new destination, we traveled through the interior of the city, mapping out the different stores and locales as we traveled. And by mapping out, I mean I kept shouting out, “Dan, remember that place!”
It wasn’t long before we were back in the city square and approaching Sir Arthur. Despite my earlier comments, mostly to get Dan to stop looking at me with suspicion, I wasn’t totally sold on this idea. I did agree with Jason’s assessment, however. Our gear was rather weak and we would probably get slaughtered if we headed out straight away for the special quest.
Once I was in front of Sir Arthur, I said the words to trigger the NPC’s dialogue. “We are ready to answer the call.”
Sir Arthur regarded my group with an air of confidence and stated, “Ah, brave travelers! You have come at an opportune time. The King is in desperate need for fighters of your caliber to assist in the struggle against the Children of Loust. The front lines have taken a beating, and we are struggling to hold our positions.”
“I’m not going to be cannon fodder, Alex,” Dan said. “If that is the next quest, I’m done with this thing.”
Jason and Wayne nodded their heads, but I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Sir Arthur that might come across as accepting the quest.
However, Sir Arthur wasn’t done speaking. “To compound the problem, the main route to the front lines has been disrupted by a clan of trolls that continuously destroys the bridges we have built to cross the Danning River. As you know, trolls consider bridges their domain, as the tolls they extract from them are their main source of income. The King does not recognize their claim and has repeatedly stated his refusal to pay a toll in his own lands. Many thought the trolls would attempt to back up their demands with a fight. Instead, these crafty buggers have destroyed each bridge we build, trying to force the King’s hand.
“Our Kingdom needs those men on that front line. Will you assist in eradicating the troll menace that is plaguing our military’s progress?”
It was Wayne who spoke up this time with excitement. “Now that we can do!”
Everyone was in agreement. I responded to Sir Arthur with, “We will eradicate the troll menace.”
Our characters were surrounded by the golden glow of yet another quest, and we received “The Troll Menace” information in our logs, including the amount of gold and experience for the reward. A quick look confirmed that this was neither a raid quest nor on a timer. We had the freedom to choose our next move.
And since we had no idea what lay before us in either the Troll mission, or Lady Tessa’s quest, we had some serious discussion ahead of us. While I wanted to jump in head first to Lady Tessa’s, and Wayne likely wanted to immediately go kick some Troll ass, we were in this for the long run and couldn’t take the next steps lightly.
Our armor was terribly weak. This had become evident when we were fighting the bears in the forest that were only one or two levels higher than us. Our damage output was fine, but if we couldn’t keep our people alive, no amount of damage per second ratio, or DPS, was
going to make a difference.
Our real problem, though, was money. We didn’t really have much. I checked our funds again and saw we were just over 50 gold. The skills and spells we had purchased upon arriving here had tapped us out. We needed a money tree, like the area where we previously found the undead and every corpse gave up almost a full gold. That option was out, though, as we had already cued our teammates to that area. We couldn’t take their loots while they were still farming it.
Of course, where we ended up getting our funds was contingent on how expensive our gear would be. The first step was finding out how much money we needed to raise.
“Ok, guys, I have a plan,” I said.
Wayne took an involuntary step back. I laughed at his reaction.
“A plan, Wayne, not an experiment. Nobody is going to die.”
“You scare me, Alex. Just saying.”
“We need new armor. Everyone is in agreement there?”
They all nodded their heads.
“Then I think the first step is to determine just how much we will need in order to upgrade Dan and I from the merchants here in the Keep.”
“Why just you guys?” Jason asked.
“Because Allister, in order to get your and Wayne’s gear, we need to take a trip to see our friends and our kin,” I said with a smile.
*
“It’s bloody robbery is what it is!” Dan exclaimed.
Dan was not the least bit happy at what we found while investigating the prices for our new armor. The stuff we were currently wearing was Worn Leather equipment. The next level above ours was Common Leather. It wasn’t a large jump between the Worn and the Common. Not wanting to waste money on a minimal upgrade, we searched out the next level above the Common gear. What we found was Fine Leather Armor. It must have been really fine, because the price was insane.
“Seriously though, that is a crazy jump from Worn to Fine armor. Twenty gold for each of the smaller pieces, 40 gold for the leggings, and 50 gold for the top? That’s a whole lot of platinum for you and me to get new gear. And we haven’t even looked for Wayne and Allitater.”
“Allitater?” Jason asked.
“I ran out of words. I’m just making things up now.”
“How about just calling me Allister?”
Dan looked at Jason like he had never met the man before and was in total confusion as to how this man knew him. Jason sighed noisily.
“The Plate stuff is probably going to be even more expensive than our Leather, Dan. So just get ready for that.”
On a suggestion from Jason, we checked out the prices for the Plate in the Capitol. And it definitely was more expensive than our Leather. But we had no clue what kind of discount we would get for our friendly disposition with the dwarves. We just hoped it would be way less than what the merchants were trying to pass off.
The first stop, however, had to be to our kin from the East Range Mountain Dwarf Clan. Dan needed more arrowheads for his upgraded arrows, and he wanted to harvest some more wood from the Elder Elven tree located close to our kin’s mine—the one we had liberated of Orckin for the Dwarves.
I was also keen to begin a dialogue with our friend Tibble, the head of the Clan and the dwarf Wayne first encountered that started this whole endeavor with the dwarves. I was hoping to talk about possible profit sharing on the Fermium Ore that the Dwarves were extracting. I wasn’t clear on the price that Fermium was going for, but based on the extra damage Dan was getting from his new arrows, I imagined the metal would sell very well. It wasn’t a money tree, but it could be a steady stream of income for us. I just had to keep Wayne from losing his shit when I brought the topic up. We were all fond of the Dwarves, but the giant barbarian looked at all of them as little brothers who needed his protection. Even from us. And my conniving ways especially.
Finally, none of us actually knew how to get to the dwarves that resided under the mountain. We needed to lean on Tibble and our kin for a guide to the area.
We were about a half mile away from the mine when I saw an arrow fly through the air. It wasn’t headed in our direction, but going back toward the mine. Attached to the arrow was a green streamer. Everyone else made note of the arrow and I leaned over to Wayne, “Your idea?”
“Nope. They came up with this one on their own. I am wondering where they got the idea though.”
We continued to ride toward the mine and were greeted by a number of dwarves when we arrived. Tibble was in front of everyone with a big smile.
“Our kin!” he yelled.
“Huzzah!” answered all of the Dwarves surrounding him.
Wayne dismounted from his summoned horse, and Tibble immediately approached and clasped his wrists to his own. “I did not think I would be seeing ya lads for many a fortnight when I heard ya was heading to Kich’s Keep. It is not a short distance from here. And I know there be adventures a plenty for a Warrior like you, Naugha!”
“Any time is too long when we are away from our brothers, Tibble. But this trip was born out of necessity. There are indeed great adventures to be had and beasts fierce with which to contend. But we find that our armor is not on par with the dangers we will face,” I said as I approached Tibble. The language read like a script, but I was playing the character of the leader, and I wanted to get our needs out quickly so as not to waste time on celebrations and the like. Besides, we hadn’t brought any beer with us.
“Aye, Alex, I had heard much of the same from those Dwarves who have braved them lands. It may be that you can find what you need with our brothers under the mountain. At least for Naugha here and the Blessed One.”
Tibble and the other Dwarves referred to Jason as the “Blessed One” ever since they learned of his Legendary shoulders, crafted by the greatest dwarf Smith to ever live, Grumblewat TwoHammers.
“We ain’t much for stitchin’ and the like. If it can’t be made with fire and a hammer, you ain’t going to find a dwarf making it!” Tibble exclaimed.
“There is truth to your words, Tibble. We will look to the merchants in the Keep for our leather gear, just like we wouldn’t look anywhere but the dwarves for our plate. Despite being friends to the Dwarves, however, not a one of us knows how to make that journey.”
Tibble laughed deep from his belly. “Of course ye don’t! Your first journey to our home will be by the hands of an East Range Mountain Dwarf, this I promise ya!”
I looked around and saw Dan was engaging with Tibble’s best smith, Thaddeus, about his arrows. A group of dwarves were playing with Dan’s pet dire wolf, Broham. Jason was happily showing another group of dwarves the legendary shoulders of Grumblewat. Wayne was hovering nearby, listening to the exchange I was having with Tibble, likely making sure I didn’t try to fleece our friends. If it weren’t for the times they had seen me done this very thing to other players, I would have called him a damn untrusting warrior, what with their oaths and honor.
I looked over at Wayne and got him engaged in the conversation, asking about the arrow we had seen on the way in.
“Right. That was something new, Tibble. I can guess at what it means, but tell me so I can see if I was right,” Wayne said.
“Ahh, the green arrow ya saw. That mean there be friendlies approaching. “
“So you have three different colors. Friendly, Unknown, and Enemy?” Wayne asked.
“Five lad. The three you said, but two more also. Green for friendly, yellow for unknown, yellow with black stripe for unknown on horse, red for unfriendly, and red with black stripe for unfriendly on horse. This way we have different contingencies for preparing a defense.”
“That’s brilliant, Tibble! I want to meet the East Range Dwarf who came up with that! I’ll personally train him!”
Tibble chuckled at Wayne, “That would be a she lad. I took Alex’s advice and hired a healer from the King’s own. It ain’t been cheap, but none of our hunting parties have fallen with her around. And she has fought in more campaigns than any member of this clan,” he said while laughing
again.
“She commented on this tactic used by the King when he sets up camp, and we took it immediately. As you can see, we find it useful. She has told us about a fair number of other defenses she wants us to build once we have the funds. I would appreciate if ya would talk with her about them, Naugha. We are taking ya directions seriously about defending this mine and improving our abilities. This be just a small part of it, I am sure.”
“Have you had anyone encroach on your mine?” I asked, focusing in on the part where the tactic was beneficial for alerting the Clan before visitors arrived.
“Our mine, Alex. You be a part of this Clan too lad. And only the random adventurers like yourselves. When they see a group of armored dwarves with battle axes though, they run the other way they do!”
A group of Dwarves must have been listening in on our conversation, because there was a loud “Huzzah” just as Tibble finished speaking.
“Where is this awesome battle cleric you spoke of, Tibble? I want to meet her!” Wayne said.
“Behind ya, lad. Your brother Allister is trying to convince her she doesn’t need to kneel in his presence.”
We three looked over, and indeed Tibble was right. The female Dwarf was kneeling in front of Jason. And Jason was begging her to stand up. Those damn Shoulders again.
Wayne walked over to Jason, hoping to save him, and I got back to the discussion with Tibble.
As I turned back around, Tibble had a knowing smirk on his face. “Ye ready to talk business now, lad, what with Naugha no longer here.”
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 4
