by R K Billiau
“We did complete the quest,” Madison said. “That’s why we’re here, to turn it in.”
“That’s impossible, you just left yesterday. It takes time to get to that tree, and you either didn’t go through the portal or the portal wasn’t what we thought in the first place.”
Thinking back on it, the dungeon had given off some of the same feeling as injuries did when it came to memories. I could remember what happened, but it was as if I had watched it happening instead of living through it.
“We were in that place for… hours,” Madison said, “I think... Huddy?” she looked at me with those beautiful eyes, then the red flunky grabbed my face and stuck hers right in it.
“Pthaw!” I spat flunky fur out of my mouth. “I think,” I said and paused to scrape fur off my tongue, “I think time must act weird in that dungeon, or maybe all dungeons. We went in the portal and spent...” I racked my brain trying to figure out how long we had been in the dungeon, “…a long time in the dungeon,” I finished weakly.
Graham stared in awe at my strange furry friends, his jaw slightly dropped.
“Don’t worry about these little guys,” I said, rubbing the head of the one on my left shoulder. It pawed at me playfully. “The forest came alive with them when the portal tree exploded into a strange energy. The system text called them flunkies. Vicious little creatures, but they don’t seem to attack humans.” I dismissed the flunkies in a fountain of lights on my shoulders.
“As for the dungeon, it is true,” Kai said, his stance one of calm ease. “We went through the portal and cleared the dungeon. Just as you asked.”
Graham put his spear down, looking between all of us. He rubbed his chin, as if staring at us with squinty, intimidating eyes would help him know the truth.
“Huh, you really did go through the portal, didn’t you? Wait here, don’t move. I’ll go get the mayor; she can clear all of this up.” He spun around and leapt the wall again, then spoke to someone in the darkness. It was a little mumbled but I’m pretty sure he said something along the lines of, “if they move, something, something, something... then shoot them.”
I gulped at the sound of that. I didn’t know who he was talking to and didn’t want to find out the painful way. Kai, Madison and I sat around twiddling our thumbs. Well, Kai sat around statue still. Madison was literally twiddling her thumbs. I was just contemplating bringing black the flunkies to teach them how to play rock, paper, scissors when the mayor showed up. She opened the gate and ran right up to us, embracing Madison in a fierce hug.
“You DID it!” She was practically vibrating with excitement.
Graham came through the gate after her, closing it behind him. Mayor McKase held Madison out, her head swiveling between all of us.
“Oh, I am just so happy, you guys did it! Graham woke me up, and right away I saw the quest had completed to the next step. You cleared the dungeon!” She clapped her hands gleefully in front of her. This mayor was a sharp contrast to the mayor we had met before. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, joy the brightest of them all.
“We would love to tell you all about it,” I said, “it was quite the adventure. Are we allowed in the village now?”
The mayor nodded emphatically, motioned toward Graham, and they walked with us towards the main entrance to the village, a large wooden gate that was affixed to the wall.
“I will tell you, coming in at night is nowhere near as impactful as coming in during the day and getting to really see our little village, but it is what it is,” she said. “I want to warn you, you will see some things you didn’t expect.”
“We’ve seen nothing but forests and fields and wildlife in what feels like forever,” Madison said. “A homey little village seems like heaven!”
“Hold up,” Graham said. “Did you guys ever meet up with Carl, the other guy we gave the quest to?”
I glanced at Kai and Madison, then took a breath.
“Yes, we did. He went through the dungeon with us. You... haven’t seen him then? He didn’t come back here?”
Graham shook his head, “No, he hasn’t come here,” he narrowed his eyes, giving each of us a hard look. “What happened? Why isn’t he with you if you were together in the dungeon?”
“That’s part of the problem,” Madison said, “and why we need to share with you what happened.”
“Well you can tell us everything when we get to my office,” Mayor McKase said and opened the gate to the village. It creaked like you would imagine a huge wooden gate should, and we got our first glimpse of the place.
It was dark, but I could make out a wide dirt road with simple, single-story buildings to either side. The road widened in the center of the village into a sizeable square with two larger buildings on either side of it, before carrying on towards the back wall, with more buildings lining the sides.
The buildings closest to the gate each had a pole with a sign hanging from them. A compass and ruler on one, a mortar and pestle on another, an anvil, a purple eye, and a foaming mug.
“Nice hat.” Graham said to me, and I think I detected a note of humor. I decided to ignore the slight dig.
“You have businesses?” I asked, duly impressed.
“Yes,” the mayor said, sounding proud. She raised her hands towards the signs of the buildings on one side. “Each of these buildings has a specific purpose that grants a bonus to the people who run them.” She pointed to each sign as she explained them. “We have an architect’s office that allows us to make blueprints for buildings, design the village layout, come up with defenses like the wall, all that kind of stuff. We could do it all without blueprints, but having the buildings researched drastically reduces the time and resources needed to build them. Having an architect also allows us to retrofit old buildings into other things. All of these buildings were once residences that were converted.”
She pointed to the next building. “There’s our alchemist’s workshop, she can make some basic things like poultices and salves to help us heal faster or recover from injuries more quickly.” Her finger moved. “Then there’s the blacksmith, he used to make things like the spears we gave you…”
“Used to?” Madison asked.
The mayor blew out a breath, her cheeks puffing. “A lot of our professions are languishing because of a lack of resources. We were all given starter packs that had a small amount of resources we could use, but once those ran out they could only make things with what little resources we could find, or recipes that only needed ingredients we could grow. For example, ore for smithing is one of those things we can’t get more of, so our blacksmith shop remains empty these days.”
She carried on telling us about the other shops as we passed them. “We have a pub, but Ryan owns it and we rely on him for hunting, so he doesn’t spend as much time there as he would like. But when he is here, and his brew is completed, it’s a great place to be. Although I sure do miss refrigeration.” She chuckled at that.
We walked down the central road, our feet crunching in the dirt, listening intently to the mayor’s explanations, like students listening to the teacher read a fascinating story. I don’t think I had stopped smiling since we walked in the gate. It felt like I was in an old western movie, minus the distressed women and shootouts. This was amazing. To think they built all this from nothing, what would our world be like with so many of us working to advance it? My heart pounded with excitement from the possibilities.
Kai walked steadily and quietly, but with much interest. Madison bounced along as always, though maybe with even more skip in her step.
“Lastly we have our Oracle hut,” the mayor continued. “It was a specialized building that I was very hesitant about spending resources on, but it has paid off tremendously.”
“What’s an Oracle hut for? Sounds magic-y,” Madison asked, her voice excited and extra bubbly.
“It’s not magic, at least I don’t think it is. Anya, our oracle, can use her skills to tell us things like the best location to build o
n, or what kind of weather we are going to have, or what crops would be best to plant when. Without her, we would have been struggling a lot more.”
“Oh! She’s like a scam-free fortune teller! That’s neat! I can’t wait to hear more about that,” Madison said with a big smile. She was beaming with excitement and grabbed my upper arm, squeezing. She looked up at me and mouthed “this is so cool!” and moved her arm down mine, grabbing my hand, swinging it with hers as we walked.
So cool, indeed.
“Oh, I am sure you will hear more. Anya is very... interesting... and also very talkative. If you let her, she will talk your ear off.”
“Sounds like Madison and her will get along just fine,” I pretended to mumble under my breath. Madison shoved into me, feigning offense.
“These buildings are all empty because their owners are in for the night. I’ll call a village meeting in the morning so you can meet everyone. They will be so excited! In the meantime, you can stay in the banquet hall tonight.” She waved towards one of the larger buildings in the village square, a long rectangular and very primitive looking building. “It used to be a longhouse when we first started in the game, but once we built individual residences, we converted it. There are still some beds in there we can bring out for you, so you’ll get a good night’s rest. In the meantime, I’ll have you come to my office, we can get you fed and debriefed.” She turned towards the other large building in the square, a much more modern looking building that was also rectangular and with shuttered windows. She opened the door and walked in, the three of us following and Graham behind us.
My eye was immediately drawn to the jail cell at the far end of the building, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they’ve had to use it. In front of it were two large desks on either side, with rough-hewn chairs behind them, and long benches lined in a row in front. The mayor went to one desk and sat in the chair, gesturing for us to sit on the bench in front of her.
In a move that seemed very routine, Graham deposited his weapons in a stand next to the other desk, plunking down in the chair and throwing his feet up on top of it. Madison and I sat on a bench while Kai took a parade rest stance behind us. Completely opposite of Graham, Mayor McKase became all business, her face coming to rest as stern as the first day we met her. She sat straight upright in her chair, shoulders back, head high, and pulled out what looked like an infinite notebook, just like mine.
“So, tell me what happened.”
Chapter 32
“Hey!” I said as I pulled out my own infinite notebook and waved it over my head, “I have one of those too!” It was neat getting to see another class that had similar class gear, even if I was a little overzealous. The mayor looked shocked for a moment, her eyes widening, then smiled.
“Good to see, perhaps we can trade notes later. Do you have the Archive skill as well?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said, “though I don’t know how much my notes would be helpful to you. I’m sure I haven’t seen nearly as much as you have. I would love to see if transferring notes gives the same benefits, though.”
“I’m sure you have seen plenty that I haven’t,” the mayor said, “but for the meantime, please tell us about the quest.”
“Hudson gets distracted by game stuff,” Madison said, as she elbowed me good-naturedly.
“Okay, yeah, sorry,” I said and launched into a retelling of our antics through the dungeon. It took longer to get through the story than I thought it would because the mayor was taking notes and asking clarifying questions. Occasionally she would pause and turn to Graham, who would give a nod or a shake of his head, and she would motion for me to continue. After the third time this happened, Madison interrupted us.
“What’s going on here?” she asked. “Why do you keep looking at him like that?”
“She is conferring with him about the truth of our statements,” Kai said. “Many law enforcement personnel are good at telling when someone is lying, I assume by the casual nature of her requests this is something they have done often, and that she trusts his judgement.”
This finally got more of a response out of Graham, who dropped his feet to the ground, sitting straight in his chair and looking at Kai. “You a cop before all this?” he asked. It almost sounded like an accusation.
Kai shook his head. “No, but I helped train many officers. I spent a lot of time with policemen.”
Graham grunted in response, then nodded at the mayor.
“So, what, you’re like, a human lie detector or something?” Madison asked him. She didn’t come off as rude, rather genuinely interested.
“Let’s just say that your friend Kai is correct,” the mayor said. “I trust Graham’s intuition, and he doesn’t think you guys are a threat, or that you are lying. That puts you in a good place in my book.” She folded her hands on the desk. “So… Carl swipes a bunch of magic stones from you, then escapes, do I have that right?”
“Yes,” Kai said, “the reward at the end of the dungeon. They could be quite powerful.”
“Why do you think he’d do that?” the mayor asked.
“I do not know,” Kai said.
“Cause he’s a jerk?” I suggested.
The mayor nodded absentmindedly. “So do we think he’s now a threat?”
I laughed out loud. Probably too loud, and quickly covered my mouth as the stares told me no one else thought she was joking. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s a threat. I mean, he might think he is. But there are real threats in this world like zombies and necromancers and evil manipulating girls like Cora. He’s not one of them.”
Graham perked up at this. “Who’s this Cora?” he asked, sitting upright in his chair, his hands replacing his feet on the desk.
“Bad news,” Kai said.
I pointed my thumb at Kai. “What he said.”
Graham cocked an eyebrow. “Bad news like zombies coming to attack us or bad news like an annoying friend?”
I cleared my throat, “No, uh worse than that. And she’s annoying, too.”
Graham adjusted himself in his seat once again. “Okay, let’s hear it. Tell me everything.”
I launched into a more detailed explanation of what had happened with our previous tribe, and about Cora with her manipulation ability. The explanation was long since I had to start with how I got my Treasure Hunter class on the island, met the tribe, of course I couldn’t leave out the death tunnel and archons, and reincarnation, and, well, everything I had learned. I made sure to really describe Tim, and what a creep he was, but how Cora had squished him around like putty. And how, even seeing her actions with his own eyes, Chief Arnold couldn’t be convinced she was manipulating him after all.
Then I launched into more about the archons, and my meeting with Minuitt and everything she said about the contest between archons, my words spilling out like an overfilled glass. My hands were waving around in front of me as they tend to do when I’m really on a roll with telling a story, and I was bouncing around my eye contact between the four other people in the room. When my eyes went from the mayor, who was listening with a calm intention, to Madison, something about her saucer eyes and wide-open jaw made me remember I hadn’t had time to fill in my group completely about all this new information.
“Oh,” I said slowly, “right. So, uh, I didn’t have time to tell you about this yet because I just learned it all when I was fighting the tutelar and I rushed back to jump in the portal with you guys. Then we went right into defeating that dungeon, then all the crap with stupid Carl, and, well, I forgot. Sorry.” I smiled as innocent a smile as I could muster.
Madison closed her mouth and blinked, but stayed silent. Then she moved her face muscles around in a silent effort to say something along the lines of ‘okay, idiot, continue.’
“I am glad it came up now, because it is important that we know,” Kai said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Anyhow, it basically just comes down to that. A contest. But I don’t really see what that has to do with Cora, and quite frankl
y, I really don’t think she could be an issue anymore. I’m sure she reincarnated by now, and I don’t see why she would have stuck around,” I concluded. “There was nothing left for her.”
“Hold on now,” Graham said. “Didn’t you say that this Adjudicator didn’t know what happened to her? Why would you think she left? What if she was offered a deal by some other archon like you were?”
“I mean, I guess anything is possible, but that seems like quite a leap. Why would she want to stick around?” I said. “We had figured her out, she had no friends, her fake lover was a weirdo, and she hated everything about being there.”
Graham laughed at this nervously and leaned back in his chair. “You don’t understand a pissed off narcissist, do you?” He thought a minute, then slapped the table. “Damn I wish there were cigarettes in this place.”
“We knew this would happen eventually, Graham,” the mayor said softly. “We could not stay hidden away forever.”
He eyed the mayor, then stood up, pointing his finger at us as he moved closer. His eyes were angled angrily, his mouth tight, beads of sweat visible on his forehead. The tension in the room was so thick I was surprised I didn’t get a Fear debuff.
He jabbed his finger at us. “You may not mean to cause us harm,” he said, his eyes sharp and fiery, clenching each word in his mouth as he spat them out. “But you sure bring a lot of trouble with you. Is there anything else we need to worry about with you people besides gods, zombies, and evil women with brainwashing powers?”
Kai stepped in front of us, his stance a flawless transition from peaceful relaxation to battle ready intimidation in an instant. I swear I could feel an aura of power coming off him. “I think perhaps we should take a moment here, to calm down and remember that we are all friends; we are not the enemy. It is as your mayor has said, you could not live in this hidden away part of the world forever.”
Graham stepped up to Kai and looked him full in the face for a long time, his mouth set in a small hard line. Kai didn’t back down but didn’t make any advances either. A moment later, Graham looked away, puffing out his cheeks and blowing. “Yeah, we couldn’t stay hidden forever,” he said as he backed away from Kai, and walked back to his desk. “I just wish it could have been a little longer. We have so much to lose.”