Twilight Templar (The Eternal Journey Book 1)

by C. J. Carella

 

  I was sleeping.

 

  The sword’s relentless complaints would have annoyed Hawke more if the barking hadn’t sounded like it was getting closer. He looked around. It was still dark out, but the sky had that pale color you get in the wee hours of the morning. He’d gotten a night’s sleep and dawn was close. He was cold and stiff – and ravenous – but he all his energy pools were full. He would have felt better if it didn’t sound like he had woken up in the middle of a fox hunt or maybe a chain gang escape in progress.

  You hear that? Hawke told his sword. We’re about to have company.

 

  That was good to know. Just to be on the safe side, Hawke summoned his armor and shield, which was barely holding together (it had three points of Durability left) but was better than nothing. Sword in hand, he scrambled up the shallow slope where he’d spent the night before. He soon reached an old-growth forest; large trees had shaded out most of the underbrush and young saplings, so there was a great deal of open space under their thick canopies. It was a lot darker there than by the riverside, but his Dark Vision let him see what was going on.

  A young woman, wearing only rags, was being chased by a pair of hunters – male and female – and a pack of dogs.

  The female hunter wore a leather outfit and wielded a longbow in her hands, an arrow nocked on its string, ready to be loosed. Her long brown hair was bound in a ponytail, and her large green eyes were bright with anger and utterly focused on her prey. She was knockout gorgeous; despite the circumstances, Hawke actually gawked at her for a second. A quiver of arrows hung from a belt by her side, rather than behind her back, as Hawke would have expected. The man was shorter, clad in a fur-covered jacket over woolen pants, and held a staff with little branches and leaves still growing from its upper end. As Hawke watched, the archer loosed an arrow. The girl in rags dropped to the ground just in time to avoid getting shot in the back; the shaft flew past her and ended up stuck quivering on the side of a tree.

  “Oh no you didn’t!” Hawke said. He had been casting his protective and healing buffs on himself while he watched the chase; when he saw the archer shoot, he started running towards them, sword in hand.

 

  “What? A serf? Escaped slave? Screw that.”

  Both hunters and hunted noticed his arrival, not surprisingly since he was glowing in the forest gloom. The dogs’ barking became even louder and angrier; the guy with the staff had to work hard to hold their leashes; the hand with the staff was moving in a rhythmic fashion and he was saying something. A spellcaster? Hawke didn’t care.

  “Stop!” Hawke shouted. The sexy archer turned toward him, another arrow nocked and ready to go. The guy with a staff moved himself and the dogs off to one side to give her a clean shot. He noticed that the guy was young – late teens, maybe – and both of them looked shocked and a bit scared at his arrival.

  The girl in rags, still on her hands and knees, crawled towards him. He moved to interpose himself between her and the hunters.

  “You better aim that bow somewhere else or I’m going to feed you that arrow,” Hawke told the woman in his best ‘I’m Batman’ voice. As it turned out, his new set of vocal cords could do a damn good Batman.

 

  “Shut up,” he growled, tired of getting insulted by his talking cutlery.

  “I didn’t say anything,” the huntress said.

  “I didn’t mean you. Whatever. Who the hell do you think you are, hunting down some defenseless girl?”

  Before either of the hunters could answer him, the defenseless girl bit him in the leg.

  A red ‘3’ flashed by his eyes as sharp teeth pierced his leather armor and sank into his calf. The girl he’d been trying to save screeched in pain a moment later, released her jaws, and skittered away. He turned around, and saw long fangs protruding out of her mouth; her face was twisted in an inhuman scowl and her mouth was smoldering and burned. Both of her hands had grown four-inch talons. She’d bitten him and gotten zapped by his Aura of Light. She moved backwards like an animal.

  < – is Undead. The girl is Undead, is what I was saying. Master.>

  In his hurry to play the hero, he hadn’t used his True Sight. He did so now:

  Minor Vampire (Undead)

  Level 3 Minion

  Health 52/60 Mana 19/60 Endurance 17/60

  The Undead girl snarled at him as the burns around her mouth faded and her Health increased by four points. Her mouth opened wider, revealing lots of needle-pointed teeth. She pounced on him like a cat, talons ready to rip his face off. She was fast!

  An arrow appeared on her chest as if by magic and a red 9 flashed up from the wound, but no blood. Her leap turned into a clumsy stumble and Hawke slashed at her in a half-panicked move, like the way he would have slapped a scorpion crawling on his leg. Saturnyx cut her open – 21 points this time – but once again the wound was bloodless.

  She wasn’t done, however. Moving on all fours like a humanoid insect, she bounced back and charged him again. A second arrow missed her and hit the ground twenty feet behind the intended target. Hawke swung his blade at her neck; he didn’t miss. The critical hit inflicted 30 points of damage and severed her head clean off her shoulders.

  You have earned 60 XP. Current XP/Next Level: 195/250

  The girl’s body crumpled to the ground; Hawke turned away from the sight and threw up.

  As far as first impressions went, it could have gone better.

  * * *

  “My name’s Hawke Lightseeker,” he said after rinsing his mouth with one of his water bottles. “I am a Paladin of Lumina.”

  The two hunters exchanged a look. Neither of them had gotten close to him. The guy shrugged at the woman.

  “I am Tava Kintes,” she said. “This is my brother Gosto.”

  Hawke noticed nobody was speaking English, himself included. The language he was using to communicate was clearly descended from Latin – something like Spanish or Italian – except it had been streamlined and simplified. That indicated that whoever was in charge here had been abducting humans for a long time.

  “That’s cool. Good, I mean,” he added when they both frowned at the unfamiliar idiom. “Ah, sorry about that,” he said, gesturing at the corpse of the Undead girl, which was turning into dust. He’d been trying to protect somebody and made a fool of himself. Having the wisdom to tell the guilty from the innocent was turning out to be more difficult than he’d thought.

 

  My bad. When he’d confronted hostile creatures, their status bar had appeared automatically as soon as he got close enough. He hadn’t been looking at the girl directly when she entered his True Sight range, so he had missed her stats. He looked at the pile of dust on the ground and saw her status box was still there, except her numbers were all zeroed out. There was also a floating purse above her head. Hawke accessed it and found himself richer by one silver coin. He turned towards the hunters and scanned them as well:

  Tava Kintes (Human)

  Level 3 Ranger

  Health 35 Mana 21/33 Endurance 20/35

  Gosto Kintes (Human)

  Level 1 Druid

  Health 16 Mana 29 Endurance 12/19

  Hounds

  Level 2 Beasts

  Health 18 Mana 10 Endurance 20/24

  A message prompt let him know just how badly he’d screwed up:

  You have gained -20 Reputation (Base -50, +60% from Charisma Bonus) with Tava and Gosto. Current Reputation: -20 (Distrusted)

  “I apologize again. I thought…”

  “We know what you thought,
” Tava interrupted him.

  “I am a stranger to these parts,” he added.

  “You thought we were chasing a helpless girl,” the huntress said. “Understandable, but a Paladin should have known better.”

  Hawke bit back the first angry words that came to mind. Cursing out the first humans he’d run into wasn’t the smart thing to do. He needed to fit in; from the looks of it, he was going to be in this insane world for a good while.

  “My apologies,” he said for the third time.

  The girl’s expression softened a little, and Hawke realized she was sad as well as angry.

  “She was my friend,” Tava said. “Her name was Kora. She had gone missing for several days. Late last night, she tried to kill me at my home. My brother and I chased her here.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Hawke said.

  Tava nodded, one hand absently wiping at her eyes before going on:

  “This is all Domort’s doing, I know it is. The Necromancer from the Sunset Range.”

  She pointed to the mountains to the west. The area Hawke had barely escaped from.

  “Prefect Felix may kiss that rotten bastard’s backside, but my brother and I will not have the dead roaming in our lands!”

  Hawke nodded. “Small world. I had a run-in with the Necromancer, too. Unless you have more than one of those.”

  “Only him, may Cerunnos smite his withered corpse,” Gosto said, spitting on the ground for emphasis.

  The name Domort roughly translated to Lord of the Dead in the bastardized Latin they were all speaking.

  You have gained +16 (Base +10, +60% by Charisma Bonus) Reputation with Tava. Total Reputation: -4 (Neutral)

  Tava’s expression brightened up a little. “You oppose him, then, as is your gods-sworn duty as a Paladin.”

  “Well, sure. Does that surprise you?”

  “Our town’s Priest serves Shining Father, but instead of leading the people to make war on Domort, he calls for calm and peacefulness.”

  “He says fighting Domort is suicide,” Gosto added before spitting again. “We must keep the peace, he says.”

  I smell a whole quest chain coming up. But I’m not accepting anything until I know more about the lay of the land. And set up a new respawn point; otherwise, if I get killed, I’ll spawn back with all the dead players.

  “Listen,” he told the siblings. “I have something I need to do first, but if you tell me where to find your town, I’ll come visit and see what I can do. Later today if I can, tomorrow otherwise.”

  “You mean to help us against Domort?” Gosto said.

  “Such offers should not be made – or accepted – lightly,” Tava said, but there was new respect in her eyes. And maybe something else; Hawke was pretty sure she was checking him out. Having a good Charisma and physique was paying dividends.

  “You got that right,” Hawke replied. “Which is why I only offer to come to your town and learn more. I probably should speak to the Priest and the Prefect before I make any decisions.”

  You have gained +24 (Base +15, improved by 60% by Charisma Bonus) Reputation with Tava. Total Reputation: +20 (Neutral)

  They gave him directions – they lived half a day’s walk away, at the end of the forest – and a Map-shaped icon lit up in front of Hawke’s eyes. His Eternal package included a map app (also a clock/timer and calendar, he quickly discovered). He opened the icon and a grid-square overview of the area appeared before his eyes. Mountains to the west – the Sunset Range – and another chain – the Dragonback Mountains – far to the east, with the two sets of mountains coming together near the edge of the map, on the north side. The river where he’d almost drowned was called the Auric; it started as a set of waterfalls in the northwest and ran south all the way out of the map. The town of Orom showed up as an icon shaped like a fort, indicating a walled community. In the local language, Orom meant something like ‘golden village.’ Or Golden Shire, even, which brought a smile to his face. A handful of villages – their icons had no walls – dotted the countryside, sandwiched between massive forests on both sides that filled most of the valley.

  He and the hunters exchanged goodbyes. Gosto even let him offer his hand to the dogs to sniff; the pooches were friendly enough. Maybe at some point he could get a pet. Or even a Pet. Having the local version of a pocket monster to help him fight would go a long way toward keeping him alive.

  Tava smiled at him. “I hope to see you soon, Hawke Lightseeker.”

  So did he, and for more than one reason. He waved at them and watched them – well, mostly her – until they walked out of sight.

  He turned to his sword. “All right, Saturnyx. Let’s find a respawn point.”

  Thirteen

 

  “Figured talking swords aren’t all that common. Best not to lead anyone into temptation.”

 

  “Anyway. Respawning points.”

 

  “Mana Node?”

 

  “Got it. Hallowed ground is like a church or chapel, right?”

  “Any place blessed by the gods. A cemetery would do, for example. However, a good Reincarnation site should also be secluded, so it does not become known to the Eternal’s enemies.>

  “Yeah, I know about spawn camping. That leaves out Orom, then.”

 

  “Any ideas?”

  “This forest was controlled by the Fae until the Onyx Empire claimed dominion over it. They left behind a number of Faerie Rings, cleared areas marked by a circle of empowered stones. They were both holy places and Mana Nodes. When my last master and his companions came to this land, they found three such Rings not too far from here.>

  Hey, that’s awesome.

 

  Less awesome.

 

  The Laughing Man again. Hawke told Saturnyx about the game company that had designed Eternal Journey Online and somehow abducted him and who knew how many others. Last he’d heard there had been seven million people lined up to play on launch day. For all he knew, everyone had been taken to this world.

 

  “And he brought us here. To cause trouble, I guess.”

 

  “I’m supposed to help,” Hawke said. He told Saturnyx about the Triune Goddesses’ quest.

 

  “You are actually beginning to grow on me,” Hawke said. “Like eczema. Or maybe leprosy.”

 

  “You insulted me first.”

  .>

  Hawke shook his head. “Anyway, you were telling me about all those Faerie Rings that I can’t use, on account your previous end user destroyed them all.”

 

  “Can you add the locations to my map?”

 

  “Do it. And stop calling me ‘master.’ It’s annoying.”

  Saturnyx said sweetly.

  I’ll get used to this, Hawke told himself. Eventually. Or die trying.

  * * *

  The closest Faerie Ring was a mere half mile away, on top of a shallow hill that was suspiciously bare of trees.

 

  “Yes,” Hawke said. As he began to hike up the slope, a tingling current ran from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. It felt a bit like the moment he bonded to Saturnyx. This was a place of power. Probably full of bennies for whoever owned it. When he was close to the top of the hill, something began to shimmer. Something shaped a bit like a gate. He headed towards it.

  Saturnyx said.

  He stopped.

 

  “If you say so. Although if it’s sleeping, maybe we can sneak in and stab it in the eye.”

  None of the rules he’d agreed to forbid him from using trickery. On the other hand, he was casually talking about killing someone for no good reason. Just invade someone’s home and take it by force. That was murder hobo thinking, and definitely not how you protected the innocent. He shook his head.