by J D Astra
Realization, gushing like a broken dam, washed over me.
“Alarm off.” I spoke aloud, and the noise cut out abruptly.
I spent a good twenty seconds rubbing furiously at both my eyes, taking slow breaths through my nose to calm my pulse. I felt like a battered meat-sack from one of the Rocky films after Sylvester Stallone did his training montage. The squish squish of my eyes moving around in their sockets turned my aching stomach, so I cut the rubbing short and got back up on the bed.
I snapped open my character screen and checked the time. 5:58 AM. Two more minutes and Osmark would have his Scrolls of Allegiance. Seven more and I would have my copy of Aleixo Carrera’s.
A personal message blinked in the corner. That wasn’t right... Seven minutes early? I checked the sender and groaned; it was Osmark Technologies. I knew they had a customer support system to monitor the transition, and I guessed there was some kind of update on my progress there, but I wasn’t interested. Either I was going to make it through all three days or I was going to die. I didn’t want to know how close I was to doing either, it would only distract me, so I deleted the message.
There was a gentle knock at my door, followed by an older woman’s voice. “Ever’thing all right, love?”
“Yes, bad dream.”
There was a long pause, and I reached for my staff at the side of the bed. Maybe she was an agent of Osmark, here to expose me or maybe even take me to him. But how could he know? There was no way he could’ve known what I’d done yet. In a few minutes, however, it could be evident. I didn’t know what sort of protections were placed on the scrolls he’d created.
“Sigorsped.” The shuffling of her aged steps moved away from my door. I wondered how many different languages Eldgard had, and if I would have to learn them all to understand everyone... I’d just have to assume sigorsped meant “okay,” for now. I checked the time with a sigh. 6:00 AM. Osmark, or whoever was picking them up, had the scrolls.
I tapped my feet, stood and paced, washed my face in the basin of water on the dresser, then stared out the window and tapped my feet.
6:01 AM.
I inspected my staff, scratched off some blood spots on the wood, laid flat the wrinkles in my robes, and flopped back on the bed.
6:02 AM.
I opened my character screen and checked my stats—just the same as they were when I last looked. I panned over to the standard abilities page and checked on my Two-handed Staves skill. Since I hadn’t been doing combat in my sleep, I wasn’t surprised to see it hadn’t changed, either. I looked at my reserve of ability points, two total. I could sink them into some of the standard stuff, but then I would be a standard caster. I wanted to be exceptional, and that meant I needed my ability points for my class kit, or at least my basic Sorceress skill tree.
6:03 AM.
“Aghhhh!” I rolled off the bed and paced in circles, counting down the time in my head. My feet fell to the beat of my counts, and I bobbed my head to the song of impatience, which sounded oddly like “Night Ride Across the Caucasus.”
5.
4.
3.
2.
I popped open my character screen as the time ticked over to 6:05, and my inbox lit up with a little red [1]. The message opened at my command, and I sped to the bottom, where the scroll should be attached.
It wasn’t. It was just the message:
You can do this, Abby.
I closed the message and watched the inbox. Maybe the scroll was too big? Maybe it would have to arrive separately? Maybe it would appear in my inventory? I panned over, but it was just full of worthless Heckling Goblin gear.
The despair gnawed on the fringes of my mind as I tried furiously to come up with some other explanation. The “Log Out” button in the upper right corner of my character screen blinked, taunting me. If only I could get out, run the code again, and get back in. The “Log Out” button pulsed and flashed as the game interface noticed my thinking about it. I only had a few hours left, and then it would be disabled forever.
Even if I could get out and back in, what would I do out there? The hack I’d tried failed, and I didn’t have the time to craft another attempt, nor the skill. I was a failure. My code was garbage and I sucked. No wonder the game had so many bugs. I myself probably programmed in tons of them. I sat back on the bed and clenched my teeth as tears welled in my eyes.
“No. Bullshit, Abby. You don’t cry, you problem solve. Get off your ass.” I tilted my head back and sniffled away the self-pity, then got up and grabbed my staff.
I pulled open the door and marched down the stairs to the tavern, my mind still cranking away on what could’ve gone wrong. The code checked out, it ran successfully and did exactly what it was supposed to. So, what had happened?
When I reached the bottom, I was surprised to see Otto already sitting at the table from last night, chowing down on some gloppy substance in a bowl and a plate of thin fried meat, strikingly similar to bacon. At least there was still bacon.
I joined him at the table to see he’d thought of me, too, and there was a place setting similar to his, though with considerably less food. It was fine, I was a third his size and definitely didn’t need to eat his portions. I plopped down and leaned my staff against the table.
Otto nodded and returned to his food.
“Thanks,” I said, and shoved the spoon into the bowl. The mush turned out to be some kind of barley meal with sprinkles of brown and droplets of yellow. I stirred it vigorously until the scent of cinnamon and honey wafted up through the air on the steam.
I pulled a spoonful to my mouth and blew a few times, ensuring I wouldn’t sear the roof of my mouth with gelatinous lava, and took a bite. I wasn’t a fan of barley, it reminded me of heavy IPAs, but this was amazing. The honey and cinnamon completely masked the taste of beer, and the little barley pearls were a perfect, tender consistency.
The heat followed all the way down to my stomach as I swallowed, and a notification appeared in the corner of my screen:
<<<>>>
Honey-Cinnamon Barley meal
Restore 20 pts of Stamina per minute. Increase Vitality by 5%. Duration, 30 minutes.
<<<>>>
The first bite clued me in to an awareness of my empty stomach, and I shoveled three more spoonfuls into my mouth. Where had all the chicken gone that I ate last night? I picked up the bowl and tilted it against my mouth as I scooped the remnants at the bottom.
Just over the rim of the bowl I caught Otto staring at me, one brow up.
“Should I order more?” His tone asked another question, Do you always eat like a savage?
I set the bowl down gingerly and grabbed the crispy pork belly with my fingers, then took a tiny nibble of the edge. Salty, sweet, crunchy edges of fat coated my mouth in a rich, cast-iron flavor, and I resisted the urge to stuff the whole thing in my mouth.
“So,” I said as I finished chewing, “you know the guards at the door pretty well?” I took a sip from the cup in front of me. It was just water, but it tasted so fresh, much more so than any of the high-end bottled stuff Osmark would buy for the employees.
Otto cleared his throat. “Yes, I know a lot of people.”
“How’d you come by knowing so many important people?”
He rolled his eyes, obviously not impressed by my flattery. “I know the people who can get things done.”
“Useful.” I nodded and took another, much larger, bite of the pork.
He mirrored my head bob, then his eyes flicked around the room.
This Risi was at least twice as awkward as me. By now, I would’ve asked what I was doing here or at least asked me something. He seemed completely uninterested in who I was or what I wanted to do.
“Uh, so, after we sell the things and you pay me for the escort, the room, and the food, do you,” he paused, shrugging, “need anything else?”
Wow. His awkward level was over 9,000. I really hoped I wasn’t this bad IRL.
“Yes. I’ll p
robably need help with my class quest. After that, if you still want to hang around me, I’ve got something a lot bigger going on.” And absolutely no idea of how I would get on to those bigger things without that damned scroll. I cursed my coding skills, or whatever it was that caused the scroll object not to be copied over to my message.
“My rate is seven silver a day.”
Make that awkward level 10,000. No way was I going to get pushed around by my NPC.
“How about we split the spoils from the quest, after I pay my fair share for the food and the room?”
He scowled, probably considering how much he could make from the mobs on my quest line.
“Not just the money, but the loot too. I mean, I won’t need or be able to carry most of the heavy armor and weapons, so they’re yours,” I offered.
He bobbed his head, then held his hand out to me. “Deal.”
We shook on it and finished our breakfast. The barmaid loitered near the kitchen, her arms crossed and cheeks red. Apparently, we’d scorned her with the poor tip last night, and this morning. As we got up to leave, I pulled one of the rusty daggers, worth ten copper, from my inventory and set it on the table. It wasn’t much, but was literally all I could do to compensate her.
Otto stopped me at the door. “Set your bind point here. Don’t want you going all the way back up to Havasil.”
I nodded, opened my character screen, and selected the “Bindings” tab. I selected the “Set Point” button and a pop-up appeared.
<<<>>>
Home Binding
Are you sure you would like to set the Boar’s Head in Harrowick as your home binding?
Yes/No
<<<>>>
“Yes,” I said. Blue light, so bright it looked white, flashed around my body.
<<<>>>
Home Binding
You are now bound to the Boar’s Head in Harrowick!
<<<>>>
I closed my character sheet, and he nodded to me. We pushed through the heavy oaken door, and I was surprised at the quiet. There were birds chirping a happy song, distant sounds of an anvil being hammered on at a rhythmic pace, and the far-off calls of fresh bread, but the roars of drunken ballads and brawls were absent.
Otto led me back through the streets toward the main road. The remnants of last night’s activities were strewn about the dirt path, including a few choice-to-avoid puddles, but we finally made it back to the relatively clean stone path.
“Merchant first, my coin is low,” Otto grumbled.
“No, Natty Moongal. I want to know what I need for the quest before we go to any merchants.”
Otto stopped short, then turned, leaned down, and whispered, “Naitee Mungal. Do not disrespect her. She’ll”—he glanced about—“do things to you.”
He returned to his upright posture, taking one more furtive look about the mostly deserted street. Great, my trainer was one of those types. Full of themselves and ready to punish anyone who didn’t notice their greatness. No matter, she would train me.
“Okay, take me to Naitee Mungal first and I’ll give you ten silver for yesterday’s escort.” He didn’t look satisfied, so I added, “And I will pay you whatever you had to pay the guard to let us in.”
He looked even more upset at the last part, but then his shoulders relaxed, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine, keep up and don’t get me in trouble.”
Otto turned away before I could say anything else—“Thank you,” for instance—and kept a fast pace down the street. We were heading deeper into the city. Wood and straw residences were becoming scarce as brick-and-mortar businesses took over the landscape. Places like “Groffer’s Ironworks” and “Twin Sister Bakery” were alive with the sounds of labor and sales as the population on the street became denser.
The crowd bumped me, shoulder to shoulder as we pushed through, until I decided to trail behind Otto, who magically had the ability to part the way. Perhaps it was something to do with his seven-foot-tall, tusk-faced, sword-wielding appearance.
There weren’t many things I could see through the crowd, damn me for not making myself a little bit taller, but some fluttering off the path on the left caught my eye. A black spire flying four flags: red, blue, white, and black with a single symbol on each: a burning fire, a drop of water, a snowflake, and a crystal.
“Is that it?” I raised my voice to carry over the noise of the rabble and pointed to the spire.
Otto’s gaze followed the direction of my arm, and he gave a gruff, “Yes.”
Giddy as a schoolgirl, I pushed my way through the Wodes to the side street on the left. Otto tromped over to me, moving like a shark through a school of fish. For the first time since I entered V.G.O., I was grinning ear to ear, bouncing on my toes, and actually excited. I was going to be a freakin’ Sorceress and do real magic with my hands!
Otto smirked and motioned for me to lead the way down the side alley to the shop. I hardly worried about the puddles and mounds of debris as we made our way to the tall structure. It stood alone with no other building sharing a wall, looking one part gnarled tree struck by lighting and the other part something like a haunted house.
The roof was all shingled in black, slanted at a greater degree than any other roof in town. The exterior walls were a dark wood, maybe chestnut, and there were intricate symbols drawn in the four colors of the flags. I didn’t recognize the language, if that’s what it was, but it seemed to create a border around the doors and windows, which were also blacked out with dark curtains.
“Well, are you going to go inside?” Otto broke my trance, and I walked up to the door. The iron knob was warm from the morning sun and turned easily. As the door opened, a wave of heat spilled out onto the doorstep. I was instantly uncomfortable.
The inside was the complete opposite of the outside. White walls decorated sparsely, tan wood floors adorned with fluffy brown and black animal furs, and glass cases, meticulously clean, full of trinkets of all sorts. And gods, was it hot. It was like a damned sauna on steroids, at least 30 degrees hotter in here than out on the streets.
I pulled at my robes to fan myself and looked around for signs of life, but the room was still. “Hello?” I asked toward the stairs at the back of the shop.
There was a creaking on the floor above and footsteps, but no reply. I looked to Otto, who seemed perfectly comfortable in the unbearable heat. He shook his head as if to say, “I’m not shouting next.”
I took a few more steps into the shop and leaned over one of the glass cases. It was laid out like a jewelry shop, but the displays were a far cry from that standard fair. The cases weren’t supported or framed by metal structures, they were formed entirely from glass, with very few to no edges. There were ripples in the glass, like someone dropped a pebble in a gentle pond and froze it in time.
“Like anything?” The strong, accented voice at my back raised hairs on my arms, but I didn’t move.
“The glass.”
The woman, Naitee I assumed, chuckled. “Thank you, I made it myself.”
I turned to see Otto hovering near the door, looking nervous. Red caught my eye, and I turned farther to see a six-foot-tall, pale-skinned, gold-haired Dawn Elf woman dressed in wine-colored robes, with red lips to match, who’d been right behind me. Her haunting blue eyes only intensified her beauty, and she stared down on me with fierce curiosity.
“You’re not here to buy anything?” she asked, folding her slender fingers together over her navel.
I shook my head. “I want to become a Sorceress.”
She grinned, but didn’t speak.
“I want you to teach me.” Just in case my intent wasn’t clear from the first comment.
Her smile widened into a sinister thing, and her long arm reached out for my shoulder. This NPC was giving me the damn willies, but I wanted to be a caster. I’d already picked the class kit I would get, and most of the spell tree I would follow. One of the benefits of being on the Dev team, I got early access to the content.
Her f
ingers gripped down on my robes, and she pulled me in. I resisted the urge to retaliate, or make a fuss, knowing this woman was my only chance in many miles to get the class I wanted.
She tilted her blood-red lips down to my ear and whispered, “You would never survive my training.”
She released me, and I rocked back on my heels, seething inside. How dare she judge my worth, my gumption, by my appearance. She had no idea what I’d gone through to get here, and no idea how far I’d go to get what I needed.
She waved her hand at me in a shooing motion. “Go run along now and play mercenary with your friend.”
I could see Otto fidgeting out of the corner of my eye, and Naitee turned her back, heading for the stairs.
“I will be the greatest Sorceress in Eldgard whether you train me or not. Do you want the honor of being my mentor or the shame of turning me away?” It was a gamble, but I needed to get her attention... and I was pissed off.
She stopped at the first step and looked over her shoulder at Otto. “This one’s fiery.”
The Dawn Elf cut behind the glass case and moved to a similar style glass shelf on the wall. Her hand fell on many vials, until it stopped at a teardrop shaped container filled with a green pearlescent liquid.
The vial made a tinkling as she set it on the glass countertop in front of me.
“Drink it.”
My heart skipped as a new pop-up appeared.
<<<>>>
Quest Alert: The Path of a Sorceress
Naitee Mungal has challenged you to become her apprentice. Drink the liquid in the vial before you to prove you’re ready to take on what she has in store.
Quest Class: Uncommon, Class-Based
Quest Difficulty: Easy, Gamble
Success: Drink the liquid in the vial before you.
Failure: Refuse the liquid, or die upon drinking it.
Reward: Class Change: Sorceress, Varying Kits; Unique, Scalable Item.
<<<>>>
Well, shit, she called my bluff. I grabbed the tiny bottle and popped the crystal stopper out, then glanced at Otto. His face was painted with worry, but he didn’t move to stop me.