She frowned as her heart beat faster and she forced herself to look above his head.
Tomas Oban - Warlock - Caretaker of Adrianna Swann ( ! ) - Quest Available
“What?” Adrianna whispered, her mind going with a thousand questions. “Uncle, you’re...you’re…”
“Yes, Adrianna,” her uncle looked at her with blank eyes and a weak smile. “And I suppose you have a lot of questions.”
You have completed a secret quest: Life Story - Uncle in Distress
You have found your uncle. Good luck with the rest.
Reward: +150 xp
Chapter 24: “We Need To Go”
Current Status
Name: Adrianna Swann
Class: Seeker
Level 6
Speed: 40
Armor Class: 15
XP to next Lvl: 800
Strength 10 (+0)
Dexterity 16 (+3)
Constitution 12 (+1)
Intelligence 19 (+4)
Wisdom 13 (+1)
Charisma 13 (+1)
Reputation: Nobody Special
Proficiencies: Crossbows
Traits
Keen Mind
You remember everything you’ve read within the last 30 days.
Ambidextrous
You have no penalties with using your off-hand
Way Finder
You gain additional experience when you discover a new place.
Internal Compass
You always know where you came from and which way is north.
Careful Eye
You gain a bonus to your Perception checks.
Blessing of the Fates
You may change your fate at the price of another’s fortune.
Active Quest(s)
Quest: History of the Pseudodragons (Any)
You’ve made a promise to collect and record the history of the pseudodragons. There are troves scattered around the Quell, waiting to be discovered.
Success Conditions: Collect all 8 scrolls of the pseudodragon ancestors.
Reward: Experience (duh). The approval and alliance of Gyanati. That might come in handy.
Failure: You offered this quest. To fail is to break a promise. That may have lasting consequences. Perhaps Gyantai will be generous....perhaps not.
Quest: Secrets of Kelly Hancock (Personal)
Hancock certainly has a lot of secrets hiding in that black beard of his. You should probably figure them out if you want to know more. Talk to him, gain his trust--maybe you’ll get the answers you're looking for.
Success Conditions: Unlock Kelly Hancock’s tragic backstory.
Reward: Experience. And you get to know what’s up with Hancock!
Failure: You’ll never know now.
Quest: Secrets of Joseph Parrish (Personal)
You’re not certain, but you’re pretty sure Joseph Parrish is hiding something. Finding out other’s secrets seems to be a favorite pastime of your. Who am I to deny you?
Success Conditions: Get Joseph Parrish to tell you what he’s hiding.
Reward: Experience. And someone gets to know his secrets.
Failure: You’ll never know now.
There were very few things that made Adrianna stop and struggle to process. The fact that her uncle was in front of her was easy enough to swallow, but she was shaken to her very core with what she was learning about him.
“Adrianna?”
“You’re not my real uncle are you?” she whispered, her hands shaking. “Were you ever my uncle?”
He silently looked at her with his familiar gentle, blank eyes.
There was a long beat of silence and Adrianna could only stare at him, trying to process this new reality. She had never known his name. Tomas Oban? Was he her mother’s brother? Why hadn’t she known this before? Why was she just now asking these questions?
“Adrianna!” Myra urgently shouted her name from the continuing chaos behind them. “If you got him, let’s go!”
“It’s not going in!” Hancock bellowed, slashing at the final horror behind them. It was still chained by Parish’s spell, but the portal itself was rapidly closing as the spell started to wear off.
“I can’t hold this for long, hurry up!” Parrish yelled, and held out his hand as the suspended coin that hovered in front of the horror pulsed and returned to him.
“We need to go.” Adrianna finally said and held out her hand to help Tomas up. “I didn’t travel all the way here to ask more questions. I came here to get off this stupid island and to find you. Now let’s go.”
Tomas nodded, and took her hand and wearily nodded his head in the direction of a corridor. “Tell your friends to come this way. I know how to get away from this place.”
Adrianna nodded and looked around, trying to see if she could find anything to distract the horror.
Perception Check. Search for a distraction. 4 + 2 (Wis) = 6. Failure.
After a moment, she huffed indignantly and picked up her crossbow. “I’ll be right back.”
She ran forward, eyeing a spot between her uncle and her friends and rolled to a stop before firing off two more crossbow bolts into the horror. One harmlessly bouncing off of its fleshy hide and the other one snapped in half against one of its many crevices.
“Guys, get moving!” Adrianna yelled pointing at Tomas and hoping that the final horror wasn’t smart enough to follow her line of sight.
It wasn’t. But it didn’t particularly like to be struck with crossbow bolts--effective or not. It turned towards her. She hadn’t noticed it had a single dark brown eye covered within the mass of writhing flesh and it pierced into her own blue ones. She fully expected to be thrust back into her room of ghosts and endless loneliness, but her necklace illuminated and kept the magical properties at bay.
The horror hummed and loomed overhead, its eyes narrowing at her. Adrianna couldn’t look away and she froze in place.
“Ari, move!” Myra’s voice pulled her mind out of the stupor and she heard a ding! as her waypoint suddenly activated in full force. Her way out.
She didn’t need to be told twice. As the horror pulsed again, she turned and rolled into a forward roll as the force of its attack vaulted her to within reach of her companions. Together they ran through the corridors and away from the horrors of the maze.
Chapter 25: Revelation
You are the 3rd Party to have escaped from the Maze of Horrors! Congratulations!
Earned: +500 xp
Myra was laughing with relief when they got to the other side. Raindrops sprinkled over their heads bathing the forest in gentle droplets. Parrish let out a huge sigh of relief and even Hancock let himself smile a little. They were in a glade.
“Let’s never do that again,” Myra grinned, her face still stained with the tears of her nightmare.
“Never is too soon,” Parrish muttered, running a hand through his kinky hair and wiping the wetness on his pants. “That was pretty bad.”
"We took more than we bargained for." Hancock concluded. "We made it in the end, though, didn't we? Even got a man out."
Adrianna's party members turned toward Tomas and the celebratory smiles melted into confusion, just as Adrianna expected. The Seeker was fully aware of her situation.
"Ari, are you sure...?"
"Yeah," Adrianna whispered. "Same man."
The silence stretched between the four of them as Tomas stood facing the group.
"Is anyone opposed to me getting changed out of these filthy rags?" He asked.
Adrianna couldn’t believe her uncle--her caretaker (?!) was standing here in his reality. It became all the more confusing when they felt the Quell shifting for a moment. His beard was no longer dirty, his red robes melted off and were replaced by the plain brown and white attire that Adrianna remembered him always wearing. A staff appeared in his hand. His face went slack and he seemed to dissociate in the same instant.
“Is he resetting?” Parrish frowned.
"If you don’t mind my a
sking--why is your uncle an NPC?" Myra pointed at him.
"I have no idea,” Adrianna whispered. She desperately tried to reconcile this new reality. Everything she had ever known was a ruse or a lie! The one person whom she had counted on to love and care for her her entire life wasn’t a person at all, but was on some crazy assignment to raise her.
"And you're sure that's your uncle?" Parrish made a face. “You were raised by an NPC?”
You have completed a self-appointed primary quest: Life Story - Uncle in Distress
You have found your uncle. Good luck with the rest.
Reward: +75 xp
Adrianna sighed, connecting the dots of their routine life and mundane tasks repeated every day. He could be seen doing the same things at the same times more often than not. She thought he was just a man of habit. "Without a doubt.”
Tomas finally started moving again, and started speaking as if nothing happened. “I understand this is strange, but I must thank you all for my liberation. I was in need of assistance."
The four of them stared at him, Adrianna the most confused of them all.
“You probably have questions.”
“Yeah,” Myra blurted out. “I mean, how does an NPC have a class? And raise a girl? And get kidnapped from a Haven.”
“I didn’t live in Haven,” Adrianna clarified.
“You weren’t born in a Haven?” Myra repeated.
“I raised her in the Quell,” Tomas shook his head. “By the request of her parents.”
“Amazing.” Parrish glanced at her. “You’ve spent your whole life in the Quell without knowing. Without being hunted down by monsters.”
Adrianna didn’t say anything in reply, but glanced at Hancock, who had first told her that bit of information. She hadn’t realized how important that was until this moment.
“Okay but that doesn’t answer my question.” Myra pulled everyone back on track. “How do you have a class. NPCs don’t have classes. That’s a player exclusive trait.”
“I am aware,” Tomas nodded. “I was once a player like you all.”
Adrianna suddenly sat down heavily on the wet grass as Myra and Parrish gave their exclamations of surprise.
“Once you reach 9th level, you are given the choice to continue being a player or work towards being an NPC.” Tomas explained. “You gain a quest to start doing a single thing, over and over, until it becomes second nature to you. Just before hitting level 10, you have to die.”
“What?”
“Whaaa?”
“It’s the only way the Quell will accept you as part of itself,” Tomas gave a sad smile. “My Warlock origins allowed me to become an NPC more easily. You cease aging, you are locked in with the traits you have and you no longer level up. You do the same thing over and over again for the rest of your life. You find yourself being assimilated by the Quell, letting you live a consistent ageless but mundane life.”
Adrianna grimaced. That sounded like a terrible way to live one's life.
“I’m surprised you didn’t know this already,” Tomas frowned. “Kelly Hancock here has been trying to become an NPC for a while now.”
The attention violently shifted to Hancock who had been quiet this whole time.
“Hancock, is that true?” Adrianna whispered, her voice small, already knowing the answer.
Hancock sighed. “Yeah. I’m just not ready to die yet.”
Myra looked like she wanted to say something, but Tomas put up a hand.
“As much as I would love to continue this conversation, we have bigger issues.” Tomas turned his hand and an image of a red sword sparked in the rain. “The Crimson Army is on the approach. They are rising from the ashes of events and phenomena such as the Maze of Horrors.”
“I thought the Crimson Army fell by the Defenders after the First Coming of the Quell,” Myra asked.
“You are well knowledgeable. They had fallen, it is true, but that was only a large fraction of them. They’ve been growing under the nose of the Quell itself, working out of Havens and in pockets outside of those who would want to stop them, which are now far and few between. The last of the Defenders died about twenty years ago.”
“Is anyone going to explain this army to me?” Adrianna asked. “This wasn’t covered in the books.”
“The Crimson Army were a cult of players who were trying to raise a pagan god to destroy the Quell in its entirety.” Myra explained. “They believed that once the Quell was destroyed, humanity would live in peace without the use of the Quell’s power.”
“The only problem is,” Tomas picked up. “They would have to destroy all of the Quell. As much as it would be nice to go back to the normal world before this, all players, creatures and beings involved in the Quell today would die as well. Everything touched by the Quell would be gone.”
Adrianna grimaced. Almost everyone would die. Especially her.
“Their leaders were intent on the eradication of this world and those willing to follow them were ready to die. Their ranks include people who once wanted to become NPCs and others who have nothing left in the world to lose.”
“You know a lot about this group,” Parrish pointed out.
“As a former member, I should hope so.”
That bit of information made everyone a bit uncomfortable as the party struggled to digest this new information.
“As much as I love discovering the secrets of the very world we live in,” Parrish asked, “can we please get somewhere dry so my socks don’t soak all the way through?”
“Well met,” Tomas nodded. “We should seek shelter.”
Something was nagging at the back of Adrianna’s memory, begging to come to the front.
“One more question.”
Tomas looked down at her as she stood to her feet.
“When you left, the guys who took you away said something about the sisters. Do they have something to do with this?”
The dark look that crossed over his face was enough to tell her it very well did. “They lead the army. They are the Twin Generals. Pray you never meet them.”
Chapter 26: Next Destination
“I’m not sure you can add NPCs to a party,” Parrish dropped all of the wood in his hands and turned the pieces over to their dry sides. “I’m pretty sure there’s a penalty of some sort.”
Adrianna frowned and took Tomas’ hand. “I’m not exactly sure how to add people anyway.”
“You’re team leader, so it’s just all about intent at this point,” Hancock nodded.
“Okay,” she looked up at what used to be her uncle, pointedly not looking at his eyes. “You’re in my party now.”
“I accept your proposal,” Tomas replied. For a moment nothing happened, and the Quell went silent. The sound of the rain stopped and the rustling trees went still with an ominous quiet for a brief moment before the noise came rushing back with a sharp scream.
Party Updated!
Party Members:
Adrianna Swann
Seeker
Level 6
Myra
Bard
Level 6
Kelly Hancock
Warrior
Level 9
Joseph Parrishing
Cleric
Level 7
Tomas Oban
Warlock
NPC
Parrish coughed, as he rubbed his ears with a frown. “That was...concerning.”
“Now that I am a part of your party I have a proposal for you,” Tomas started. The four turned to look at him, Hancock the most skeptical one of all of them. “The Crimson Army used to take works of literature and various tomes of information from the Quell. It was all stored in a place known as the House of Knowledge. It lies underneath Merc’y Springs, a land of geysers and hot steam. It’s an archive of knowledge that’s been relatively untouched.”
“I heard about this!” Myra smiled. “I thought for sure that it was just a bunch of hogwash, but the amount of stories and history buried behind the
walls of a place like this?” She sighed, looking out into the rain. “I would kill to get my hands on even one piece of old literature.”
“Forget literature,” Hancock’s face lit up like Adrianna had never seen it before. “Think about the amount of Player’s Guides I could find there. I know they couldn’t have gotten rid of all of them.”
“You mentioned that before,” Adrianna pointed out. “Why were they taking those in the first place?”
“It was the Quell’s influence,” Tomas explained. “The army believed that the Quell would speak to people through the Guides and encourage them to go exploring. But it’s influence was nothing magical. It was mostly just ideas through the words that were read.”
“Like a piece of scripture,” Parrish muttered.
“Exactly like that. They thought if they could get rid of the knowledge in the books, it would assist them. Instead, it ended up getting people killed faster. Ignorance is a danger to those in the Quell.”
“Why not just give them back then?” Adrianna frowned.
“To get people to join their cause.” Tomas shook his head. “The Crimson Army gathered a loyal following when knowledge about succeeding in the Quell was kept to a minimum. They don’t care about those who suffer from it.”
Adrianna glanced over her party and she could see Hancock clenching and unclenching his fists.
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