The group logged on again at 6PM, giving everyone time to eat and finish homework. When Patrick and Grey returned to the game, they found themselves at the same table they’d left the game at, although a lot more players were milling about at this time. They also noticed James and Amelia weren’t there. Patrick checked to see if they were online and sighed.
“They’ve spawned in a different place, haven’t they?” Grey asked.
Patrick nodded and called over to the barmaid.
“Two meads!” He shouted. One of the barmaids, a blonde elf lady, swiftly brought them their drinks. Patrick took a sip, wincing slightly from the taste. He looked over at the menu again, only to find a drop down list of card games. Some of them were familiar to him: Solitaire, Poker, and the like. But a few were completely unique to the game. The unique ones were marked with a different kind of playing card he’d never seen before.
“So these were what you were playing with Delarius?” Patrick asked.
Grey nodded. “I think we were playing Falconeer. Sable has it’s own weird brand of playing cards. Six suits, eight cards each, and 12 unique cards representing gods, abstract concepts and other weird stuff, almost like tarot cards. Falconeer revolved around having one of the unique cards as your main suit and that dictated turn order or win condition or…something? Honestly, I won through beginner’s luck.”
“Why would you worldbuild a unique suit if playing cards into your video game?”
“Because every RPG with it’s own card game is awesome.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say all of them…”
Patrick took another sip of his mead, which tasted mildly better than the last one. Grey was examining his drink with surprising intensity, psyching himself up to finally take a swig.
“You know hackers right?” Grey asked before taking a long chug of the drink. Patrick almost spat his out in response.
“They call themselves pre-emptive video game preservationists, but yes,” he replied. “Why’d you ask?”
“Can I ask them a favour? I want to see if they found anything weird about this game. Absolutely anything at all.”
“Sure.” Patrick brought up the menu and started sending out text messages. “Is this because of James’ ranting?”
“A little. Something is definitely off with this game, and I want to see if that extends to the technical side.”
“Alright, I’ll help with your little conspiracy theories.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Hopefully I’ll get something back by the end of the session.”
It was a long, long wait before Amelia and James burst into the tavern, staggered over to the table, and collapsed next to them. By the time they arrived Patrick and Grey were deep into a game of
“If you want drinks, you’re gonna have to get them yourselves,” Patrick said smugly. That attitude vanished as soon as he checked their stats. “What the hell? How did you guys get to Level 5?”
“That’s what staying up late gets you,” Amelia smirked.
“We…we went back to the goblin cave,” James huffed. “Met some other players who wanted to work with us. You get new skills at this level, you know.”
“Pretty impressive,” Grey remarked. “I’m sure we’ll all catch up with you pretty quickly, though.”
“Please don’t say that, we’ve been running for over half an hour,” Amelia muttered. “And then the scarecrows chased us back here.”
“Scarecrows?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I guess we should go talk to Delarius and continue the story?” Patrick interjected.
“Could you…just let us rest a minute?” James asked.
“You should have known we would respawn in different places. We’re going. You’d better try to keep up.”
Grey and Patrick walked up to Delarius’ room in the tavern, while Amelia and James staggered there instead. They opened the door to find the pilot sitting on the bed with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Welcome back,” He said “In your absence, I have contacted the city authorities about the garrison takeover and have managed to secure a private cart. We should be able to travel onwards much faster now.”
“So we’re just heading to the capital now?” James asked.
“Not quite. I managed to find the base of the Haelshire Riders.”
“That’s surprisingly brave of you.”
“Well, they were all dead, so it was easy to get in.”
“How did you know where it was?” Grey asked. “And didn’t James leave one alive? Where did he go?”
Delarius completely ignored the question and kept going. “There was a letter from a person called ‘the baroness’ paying them for killing the Haelshire Garrison and luring you into a trap.”
“So is this a literal baroness or just a title for a crime lord?” Grey asked.
“It was sent with a royal seal and the reward was quite sizeable, so I am assuming it is a real baroness.”
“But what if someone’s framing her?”
Delarius held up a vial with a green liquid in it. “This is a herbal drug called Vale, causing euphoria in those who ingest it. It was only made by the royal botanists before it was destroyed due to how dangerous it could be. Whoever used it must have access to the castle. Hence, I think the letter isn’t a forgery.”
“Nice of her to leave a trail leading right to her. So how many baronesses are there in Corinth?”
“Every province of Corinth has a baron or baroness,” Delarius explained, “and there are currently two baronesses in the kingdom. The first one is the Baroness of the Kries region, Baroness Kiula Web.”
“I’m sorry, Kiula Web?” Amelia repeated. “You could not come up with a better name for a traitorous baroness?”
“Of course, there is also the Baroness of Vagenrath, Lillian Lightbreaker.”
“I think this is a bait and switch,” Patrick said to Amelia. “That name sounds too much like a good guy and the other woman’s name sounds too evil. The light woman is 100% the traitor.”
Amelia folded her arms. “Alright, you’ve got a new bet.”
“Either way, the King’s gotta be dead for sure,” James chimed in. Grey ignored the rest of his party and continued the discussion with Delarius by asking, “Where are these regions?
“We are travelling through Kries on the way to the capital. We can stop by the Baroness’ estate on the way there,” He stood up and walked out of his room. “Onwards, my friends, to the capital!”
“Maybe we’ll get there in another five play sessions or so,” Patrick sighed as the group followed the aeronaut out of the tavern. A thick fog had fallen over the city at this time, likely due to the smoke from its infamous machines. Delarius led them back through the crowded streets of Haelshire, taking them through grim backstreets to move faster. Patrick lit a fire in his hand to help them see through the fog and took point alongside Delarius.
While they were walking, Grey turned to Amelia and said, “You didn’t come to school today.”
“Not all of us have a stick up our ass like you do,” She snarled.
“I’m sorry if I hit a nerve, we just wanted to make sure everything was ok.”
“And what? You’re going to tell on me?”
“No, but you wouldn’t be this snappy if everything was ok.”
Delarius broke up the conversation with a typically grandiose announcement. “We have arrived!”
They had arrived at one of Haelshire’s massive gates, the gears and chains used to pull up the portcullis clearly visible. Delarius pointed at a nearby stable house, where a rickety old cart was parked. Two large horses were attached to the reins and were glaring at Delarius.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“This will be how we shall travel to the capital!” He exclaimed proudly.
Fast Travel Unlocked
You can now fast travel to settlements you’ve previously visited.
----
Unlocked Fast Travel Locations:
Heartily Village, Vagrant Company: Heartily, Haelshire
“You’re kidding me,” James sighed. “After all that running we were five minutes away from unlocking fast travel.”
“Ignoring that,” Patrick said, “that thing doesn’t look like it will take us outside the gate, let alone across the country.”
“Fear not, my friends, for this vehicle, damaged as it may be, will be driven by the greatest pilot in all of Sable.”
“Is it you?” Amelia asked.
Delarius smiled. “Of course!”
“The only time we ever flew with you the ship blew up and we crash landed.”
“That was a prototype, it was a poor representation of my actual skills. Besides, this is a far more stable and trustworthy vehicle.”
At that point, one of the horses broke free from its reins and bolted down a sidestreet, vanishing into the mist. Delarius shrugged. “They’re military horses, I’ll get another one. Take your seat on this fine wagon, and we shall advance onwards to our next adventure!”
Quest Completed
Long Road Ahead
----
New Quest
Court of Spiders
Objective: Reach Kries
>>>
Gungnir slammed the thug against the alley wall, jammed her pistol into his chest and fired.
Haelshire Thug 7
0/25 HP
----
Gungnir
Pistol Ammo
1/6
He coughed up blood, and she threw the body to the floor as another bandit tried to stab her. Lambda came between them and blocked the strike with his scythe. He swung the scythe around and pulled it back, slicing his enemy’s head clean off.
Haelshire Thug 8
0/25 HP
Gungnir pulled Lambda’s head down as a bullet flew past their head.
“Nice guns, lady,” The last thug smirked. “Wanna put them to the test?”
Gungnir fired back, but the thug took cover.
Gungnir
Pistol Ammo
0/6
“You reload,” Lambda replied. “I’ll take him.”
He held out his hand, and a skeleton crawled out of the headless corpse he had just created.
Lambda
Corpse Disposal
----
Lambda
Abyssal Summon
The two ran down the alley as the gunman turned and fired again. The skeleton and Lambda swiftly parted as the bullet whistled past them, embedding itself in a far away building. They both rushed him, Lambda slashing at the gunman’s legs while the blade raked across his chest. The gunman swung the butt of his gun at Lambda, smashing him in the chin.
Gungnir
Reload
----
Gungnir
Pistol Ammo
6/6
“All set!” She shouted, spinning her guns as the chamber snapped into place. As she did so, the thug swung at Lambda again. The Necromancer jumped back into the mud as one of Gungnir’s bullets flew over his head, going straight through the thug’s chest. He dropped the gun and collapsed.
Haelshire Thug 9
0/25 HP
----
Encounter Complete
All Party Members gain 200XP
All Party Members gain 200 Gold
----
Sidequest Complete
Hired Guns
All Party Members gain 300XP
All Party Members gain 400 Gold
----
All Party Members: Level 6
Gungnir: +50 HP
Lambda: +5 STR
“Finally,” Lambda let out a long sigh. Unlike James’ party, Lambda and Gungnir had chosen to do some grinding in Haelshire. They were both completionists and liked to drain games of as much XP as they possibly could. This was especially helpful considering they didn’t have a full party. However, their attempts to do this in Haelshire had not gone well.
“I hope there’s more to this game than kill quests,” Lambda said. His skeleton helped him stand up and then crumbled to dust. “This is really getting dull, hardly any story in any of them so far. And now my cloak’s covered in mud,” He started trying to clean his necromancer robes, to little success.
“Would you prefer if we were doing escort quests?” Gungnir asked.
“No, but at least there’d be variety.”
Gungnir looked up at the rooftop above them. “Enjoy the show?”
Lambda looked up to see a silhouette in the mist. Although he couldn’t make them out, he picked up on who it was once they started speaking.
“I finished that sidequest the day the game came out,” The misty figure growled. “You did an excellent job of murdering air.”
“Thanks. Now where’s our money?”
“I paid you to observe Cieth while I was offline. Yet he’s nowhere to be found in Haelshire.”
“He wasn’t online when we spawned in. Must have shown up later. We’re not streamers, we can’t afford to play this game 24/7.”
Lambda opened the menu and checked his friends list before saying, “He’s somewhere called the Kries Rocklands. Must be the next place in the story.”
“Did Cieth do or ask anything unusual while you were with him?” The silhouette asked.
“He asked the Goblin King about a hooded figure in the Goblin Caves and...that’s it, I think.”
The hidden figure let out an exasperated sigh. “I guess you did what I asked you to. Take your money, and don’t tell anyone about what happened here.”
Two bags of money fell from the roof and Gungnir quickly scooped her share up.
Gungnir
+2000 Gold
“We’re done.” the figure turned to leave. However, before they could, Lambda shouted a question.
“Could you at least tell us how to increase the intelligence stat?”
The figure stopped. “Why?”
“I mean, it would just be a cool bragging right. You and Cieth are the only people I know who have it, and it would be neat to have this stat almost no one else do-”
The figure leapt off the rooftop, grabbed Lambda’s head, and slammed them into the dirt, stabbing their massive sword into the ground an inch away from his neck. Gungnir aimed a pistol at their head as they started to talk.
Warning
PVP is not possible outside of designated areas.
Please move to the nearest Arena or use the Dueling Dust item if you wish to continue.
“Let me tell you what INT is,” the figure growled. “It is not a stat, it is not an achievement, it is barely part of the game. It is a target painted on your back. It is used by the people who run this hellscape to see who knows too much. Maybe you know exactly what’s going on, or you only saw something out of the corner of your eye. It doesn’t matter: you gain a point of that, and they watch you forever. For those who play the game, it is Intelligence, an urban legend that can be marketed virally. For those who run the game, its true name is Insight.” They glanced over at Gungnir. “Check your stats.”
Gungnir did as she was told.
Gungnir
Int: 1
“They’re watching you now,” the woman in black said, “and they’ll never let you go, just like Cieth’s lot. They’ll be in the shadows until they rip out your memories…or you die.”
She climbed off Lambda and hefted her sword over her shoulder. Gungnir helped Lambda to his feet and kept the pistol trained on her as she walked away. There was almost a hint of glee in her voice as she spoke.
“Enjoy your new bragging right,” Knight Oblivia said as she vanished into the mist. “You’ve earned it.”
James Stats: Level: 5 VIT: 300/300 STR: 15 DEF: 15 DEX: 5 SPL: 15 INT: 1
Amelia Stats: Level: 5 VIT: 200/200 STR: 25 DEF: 5 DEX: 10 SPL: 5 INT: 0
Grey stats: Level: 4 VIT: 150/150 STR: 5 DEF: 15 DEX: 5 SPL: 20 INT: 0 Healing Pool: 400/400
Patrick stats: Level: 3 VIT: 100/100 STR: 20 DEF: 5 DEX: 15 SPL: 15 INT: 0 Mana: 150/150
