Arrival

  “My little boy,” she sobbed, fiercely returning the hug. “I am SO happy to see you! You had us so worried.”

  The rejoiceful reunion continued for nearly a minute before his dad grumpily cleared his throat and said, “I’m here too.”

  “Hey, dad,” Mark said, pulling his father in for an awkward 3-way hug. It was then that he noticed his dad’s forearm was heavily bandaged, and his mom looked worn out and drained. “Are you guys okay? You don’t look so great.”

  His dad chuckled mildly. “Son, if you had access to a mirror you’d see the irony in that statement. But yes, we’re okay. Barely, and only thanks to this woman.” He gestured to an older woman in forester garb who was standing beside them.

  “This is Mark?” the woman said, nodding to him.

  “That he is!” his mom said. “Mark, this is Eliza. She found us in the forest and helped us get to the city.”

  It was surprising to hear that his parents had arrived on Arenia together, and even more so that they’d been able to find someone able to help them. He was pretty happy about the fact, though, and did his best to convey the weight of that sentiment through a simple shaking of her hand. “Thank you so much for helping my folks.”

  “It was nothing,” Eliza said. When the two of them made eye contact, her eyebrows rose slightly and she gave him a crooked, curious smile.

  “Don’t listen to her,” his dad said, oblivious to the exchange. “If it weren’t for Eliza, we never would have made it.”

  “And you!” Mark’s mom said, giving him another quick hug. “You appear to have made it without too much trouble. That’s a very interesting staff you’ve made yourself, by the way. Thanks to your Boy Scouts training, I’m sure. And to think that Eliza had us worried that you were in some kind of dire situation! Thankfully, our Tomes appear to have been wrong.”

  Mark’s gut dropped, and he glanced at Eliza. “Uh, yeah. No idea what that would have been about.” Eliza raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. Thankful for the reprieve, he leapt to change the subject. “Now that we’re here, let’s stop wasting time and head inside!”

  His dad shook his head. “I’m afraid we can’t. The guards won’t let us through.”

  “Even though you hold land?”

  “It seems like they have some odd rules here,” his mom said with a sigh. “You can’t come in if your Renown is less than Level 10, which is obviously the case for all of us. There’s some kind of loophole where owning land and vouching for your family gets around it, but the fact that that I’m only Level 6 means we can’t take advantage of that fact.”

  Mark grinned. “I may have picked up a few levels. Does that help?”

  “Son, please, we’re in a serious situation here,” his dad said.

  His mom, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity to look more closely at her son. “Peter, look at his Renown.”

  Mark’s dad made eye contact with him, treating Mark to the sight of his dad’s eyebrows rising into his hairline. “How in god’s name did you get to Level 10?”

  A loud voice interjected itself into their conversation, booming, “Aye, now that’s a story!”

  Mark turned to see Darius ambling over, his wide grin taking in the whole group. Mark gave him a pointed look and said, “That particular story will NOT be getting shared out here, right?”

  Darius grinned but didn’t say anything further.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Darius,” Mark said. “I managed to find a road that follows the ocean north, and he and his family were kind enough to give me a lift. Darius, meet Beth and Peter, my mom and dad. And their friend Eliza.”

  Darius winked at Eliza as though he knew her, and she gave him a deep bow of respect in return. Then he looked Mark’s parents up and down. “Yer parents? So that means…”

  Mark nodded in agreement, and Darius gave a long, low whistle.

  “Something tells me things are about to get a wee bit strange around this city,” he said. “Why are yeh waitin’ out here?”

  “The guards won’t let us in,” his mom said. “I own land inside the town, but my Renown is only Level 6, so…”

  “Bah,” Darius said, waving her comments aside. “They’ll let yeh in if yeh got Mark in tow. He’s Level 10, so yeh meet the requirements.”

  “Actually, I’m not so sure,” Eliza said. “The guards were very particular about the rules, and with Beth not being the one who—”

  “GUNTHER!” Darius bellowed in the general direction of the gate. “These folks have land, and their son’s Renown is Level 10! Let ‘em in!”

  The guard looked over at them for a moment, then consulted a Tome that popped into his hand. It was huge, like an old bible from the middle ages. After a moment of consultation, he snapped it shut and the book disappeared.

  “Can’t do it, Darius!” the guard called back. “It clearly states that the landowner must be the one with Renown above—”

  “Not a problem!” Darius said. “Can’t have yeh breakin’ the rules, can we?”

  Darius turned towards his wagon. At the top of his lungs, he shouted, “ROSIE! GUARD GUNTHER HERE DON’T WANNA BE BREAKIN’ NO RULES, SO NO MORE O’ THOSE PIES O’ YERS! YEH KNOW, THE ONES HE BE NEEDIN’ TO GET HIS FLAG UP O’ER HALF-MAST—”

  “HANG ON!” Guard Gunther shouted, his face going beet red as the other guards snickered. “I, uh, just found a loophole. You folks are clear to go in.”

  Darius spun around. “Ain’t that a pleasant surprise! Come on, folks, let’s get yeh to yer new home.”

  Quest: “Get to Palmyre” Completed!

  You got to Palmyre! Good for you. Even if you were unconscious for half of it.

  * * *

  Reward: 200 XP, and you got to see your family! Well, some of them at any rate.

  Mark grinned at the appearance of the message. From the smiles on his parents’ faces, he could see they’d gotten similar alerts. His grin faded somewhat when the guard glared at him, but Eliza distracted him with a bump on the shoulder.

  “You heard the man,” she said. “Let’s show you around your new home.”

  Epilogue

  Endings and Beginnings

  This was it. There was no other option—Angela was going to die.

  She was going to die fighting this disgusting, massive, fucking O.P. asshole in the middle of a goddamned, mother fucking, piece-of-shit eating, monkey slapping, horse humping, demon licking, 5-star shitfuck forest.

  With nothing left in her motor, Angela stumbled to a halt, her flight ending in a clearing atop a cliff so high that the river below resembled a painting more than a real object.

  She was spent. How long had it been? Five hours? Six? How many times had she thought she’d lost the thing, only for it to find her again? Now she was tired, worn out, and still on cooldown for her heal spell. But hey, at least she got an Endurance point. Yay.

  “Okay,” she said as she turned around, the words wheezing out of her. “You’ve been playing with me this whole time, haven’t you? Well, you got me. I’m done.”

  A gigantic set of claws appeared between a pair of hundred-year-old trees on the far side of the clearing, pushing them aside like bamboo stalks. Slowly the rest of the creature emerged, slipping through that new opening in the dense foliage. The nightmarish creature that had pursued Angela to the end of her rope. Its breath came out of wide, slitted nostrils that twitched as it consumed the scent of Angela’s fear. Red eyes sunk on the sides of a narrow face looked at her with fierce intelligence, while long, hairy ears pointed straight up off the back of the creature’s head, twisting independently as they listened to every movement of the forest world.

  Slowly, the creature made its way towards her.

  Its movement was stilted, the front paws moving with the predatory grace of a hunting cat, while the powerful hind legs waited until the creature was stretched out before hopping to catch up, keeping the nearly 2-metre-tall beast constantly ready to pounce and rend its prey to pieces.

  When th
e creature was so close that its hot breath blew the hair off Angela’s face, drying the sweat on her brow, it stopped. Slowly, the bisected halves of its upper lip split apart, pulled up by a wide grin that revealed razor-sharp incisors the size of broadswords.

  Even though Angela knew she was about to die, she activated Druid Lore one last time:

  Druid Lore: Level 142 Feaster Bunny

  A somewhat common, carnivorous rodent, the Feaster Bunny is largely harmless and almost indistinguishable from its more benign vegetarian counterpart. Due to the animal’s short lifespan and the low-level nature of its prey, it is rare to encounter a Feaster Bunny above Level 10. However, in the extremely improbable situation where a Feaster Bunny reaches Level 40, it begins to undergo a period of rapid growth. During this time, its power, size, and deadliness increase exponentially, while the creature’s lifespan also skyrockets from the measly 2-3 years of its smaller variety to upwards of a hundred years. By the time a Feaster Bunny reaches Level 100, it will be the apex predator in almost any stretch of forest.

  * * *

  Encounter Advice: Up to Level 39, Feaster Bunnies can easily be trapped with simple snares. From Level 50-80, it is advisable to only approach a Feaster Bunny on your own if it is of a level no more than twice your own. By Level 100, Feaster Bunnies should not be hunted without a party of at least six people, including no less than two heavy melee fighters and a battlemage of at least Master rank. Any Feaster Bunny above Level 150 is generally dealt with by notifying the nearest dragon, then bunkering in walled cities armed with heavy ballistae until such time as the dragon sees fit to come and devour the Feaster Bunny, which the dragonkin consider a rare delicacy.

  A Feaster Bunny.

  Throwing her craptastic wanna-be shillelagh off to the side, Angela raised both hands out to the side. This was it. She was done. Druids could go screw themselves. Right then and there, Angela made a vow that if she respawned, she was going to find the least druidy class possible and never leave the city again.

  “You gonna eat me?” Angela shouted. “Fine, EAT ME! I’m sick of this goddamned forest! If dying means I don’t have to spend another second in the woods, I am OKAY with that.”

  She pointed skyward. “And you, Ennàd, can take your piece-of-shit Druid class and SHOVE IT UP YOUR AS—”

  With one swipe of its gigantic paw, the Feaster Bunny lopped off Angela’s head and sent it flying into the river below.

  In someplace undefinable, there existed all things. A sea of potential where everything came into being and disappeared again, based solely on the probability of its existence. Nothing could ever last long in that place. After all, the chance of something existing was always in direct opposition to the chance of it being destroyed.

  Within that place, a seed of life came into being. Lacking in substance or feature, it floated amongst the quiet, ambient chaff of noise that resulted from a mix of all sounds, and the featureless gray that was a mix of all colours. Before the seed could vanish, bright light and a sucking noise intruded on that ambient sea, plucking the seed into reality where it manifested as a bright, rainbow light that hurled towards an amorphous soul held in the hand of a god.

  In the barest moment before the seed of life impacted the soul in the god’s hand, something appeared, blocking its path. It didn’t stop the seed. Rather, it altered it. Knowledge, experience, love, loss, memory, pain… all of the things that made Angela who she was flooded into the seed. As a result, when the seed of life and the amorphous blob of her soul finally met, it resulted not in a cleansing of the slate, but the beginning of a new chapter.

  The blob vanished from the god’s undefinable hand in a flash of light, and he looked down in amusement. “I was hoping that would happen.”

  After so much time in the rain, it was almost symbolic to have blue sky overhead as the family made their way through the streets of Palmyre. Ever since Verna told Beth about the city, she had been hunting for a picture in her mind of what the town would look like. On the low end, she had feared it would be some sort of medieval Monty Pythonesque, “Bring out your dead” village with straw huts and an agrarian society. On the high end, she had been holding out hope for something like Dickensian London: Rows of brick houses, storefronts, and cobblestone streets. What she got was something completely unexpected: Beauty.

  The city of Palmyre was like a mishmash of renaissance London, Paris, and Florence. While the eastern side of the city held an elite district with the large lawns and gated estates you would see on the outskirts of old London, the city proper felt more like Florence, with red clay roofs and round cobblestone piazzas, as well as a staggering amount of public works. Wide gardens, towering monuments, and great endeavours on display—statues, buildings, and even whole museums—dedicated to the arts. The nature of the city shifted as they moved through it, but clearly there was a premium placed on the beautification of the city. As for the Paris element… that came from the two rivers that flowed into the city from the east and northeast before merging and flowing out to the western ports.

  “This is wonderful,” Beth said, her mouth agape as they crossed a massive bridge that spanned the southern river, east of the confluence. “What’s the name of this river?”

  “This is the Incus; the one to the north is the Casúron,” Eliza said. “The city districts are largely defined by the flow of those rivers.”

  “What a place,” Beth said, still awestruck. “I’m so glad this is where we ended up!”

  “A common first impression,” Darius’s small wife said from where she perched on the wagon next to their son. The woman hadn’t spoken since they first met, even when it was revealed that the blacksmith’s family were aware that they were Legends. Beth had taken her for the meek, quiet type, but there was no evidence of that in her voice. “Don’t let your eyes fool you. In Palmyre, the greater the beauty, the greater the sin being hidden.”

  Beth raised an eyebrow at Eliza, who returned the look with a flat expression.

  “I make a habit of not arguing with a blacksmith… or his wife,” Eliza said, glancing at the short woman. “Especially when she speaks the truth.

  “But now isn’t the time for that!” she said, her tone switching. “I can give you a proper tour tomorrow, but right now, I’m sure you’d like to head to your new home.”

  “And I’d like to head to our old one,” Darius said. “Been a long time on the road, and these horses need hay and a rubdown. We’re a skip north a’ here, so we’d best part ways.”

  “How will I find you?” Mark said.

  “Where yeh livin’?” Darius said. “I can send Gavin to find yeh tomorrow.”

  “327 Cirque du Chânce,” Beth said, careful to watch the blacksmith’s reaction. Other than a slight upturn of his cheek, he seemed to restrain himself, but his son was another matter.

  “Oh, wow, ma!” Gavin said to Rosie from atop the wagon. “Isn’t that right on—”

  “Now now,” Rosie interrupted. “Best not be giving anyone ideas.” She leaned towards Beth. “Trust me, you could do a lot worse. The Chance district is kind of a catch-all term for the area where the rivers meet. There’s various establishments on all three shores, as well as on the bridges over the river itself. And under it, for certain clientele. It’s essentially the centre of Palmyre and has a little something for everyone.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Peter said.

  “Aye, it’s not. For folks o’ the right mindset,” Darius said. He snapped the reigns and set the wagon moving away from them over the bridge. “I’ll send the lad to come get yeh in the mornin’. Enjoy yer new home!”

  They waved their goodbyes, then turned to Eliza.

  “Shall we?” Beth asked.

  “Certainly,” Eliza answered. “Follow me.”

  It took them longer to get to their new home than Beth had expected. They ended up travelling over the bridge and angling left towards the ocean, but for some reason, Eliza had to keep stopping to ask for directions. That r
esulted in them meandering through town and ultimately turning back south again and onto a different bridge. This was nothing like the previous one, though, as it was practically more a street than a bridge given the hodgepodge of houses and stores that lined the roadway. The construction of the buildings on either side of the street were markedly different from each other for some reason, suggesting they had been built at different times.

  Eliza stopped and looked at one of the houses overlooking the river. “Yep, this is your place. Welcome home!”

  “We live on a bridge?” Beth said, her mouth gaping in shock. “We’ll have a fantastic view of the river!”

  Peter and Mark nodded happily, clearly sharing her sentiment. For a family who’d lived almost their whole lives in the dry inland of Southern California, the idea of a home with a water view was too perfect.

  “Pretty nice construction as well,” Peter noted. Beth had to agree. It was the end house in a row of five joined brick residences. It was an odd placement, given that they weren’t centred on the bridge and the building blocked much of the view for anyone passing by on the street, but Beth wasn’t too concerned. After all, they hadn’t built the place—they were hardly to blame for the nature of its construction.

  Each house had a small fenced-in area out front that was a few metres deep, with just enough space for a small table and some planters. Beth walked up to the door, then paused, staring at the lock.

  “How do I get in?” she said.

  “Magic,” Eliza answered.

  Beth rolled her eyes. “No, really.”

  “Yes, really. Just write into your Tome the names of anyone you want to have access. When they grab the handle, the door will unlock.”

  “Like keyless entry on a car,” Mark said.

  Eliza looked at him in confusion. “Why on earth would you lock a door on a cart? A person could just climb over the side.”