by K R Dimmick
Increase your Strength to increase your physical attack damage.
Increase your Dexterity to increase your physical attack speed.
Congratulations! You are now level 8.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 90,000 XP for your next level.
29
The Champion
I hurried over to Soter. His fur was still smoking in patches, but his health had stabilized at 20%.
Now that I was out of combat, my mana started to regenerate. I focused on casting Wound Seal. Soter faded away from my vision, becoming a wolf-shaped, see-through blue grid. Several of the gridlines were broken or frayed in various places. I concentrated on mending the grid and joining all the lines back together. The white mist from my staff rapidly enveloped him and I watched the ends of the lines all knit themselves back together again.
Soter came back into view. He was sitting with his head between his paws, looking up at me. Healed. Good. That had been a little too close for my liking.
The beetles had long since disappeared, so I walked around to see what loot I’d been given. Most of it was simply trash items: broken carapaces or torn acid sacs. Where the last beetle had died, however, there was an almost luminous, green, glowing sac lying on the floor and a crumpled piece of paper sitting next to it.
You have received Corrupted Bombardier Acid Sac.
You have received: Blank Parchment.
You sense that more may be revealed to someone smarter than you.
What was that supposed to mean? I stuffed the glowing acid sac into my inventory with a thought and glared furiously at the blank piece of paper for implying that I was stupid.
Unlike a lot of games I’d read about, this one hadn’t taunted me or tried to wind me up so far. Therefore, this was probably supposed to mean something. After the day I’d had thus far, however, I wasn’t going to work it out on the spot. I sat down next to Soter. It was time to work out what to do with my five stat points.
I pulled up the stats part of my stats sheet to see where I was and what I should work on.
STATS, ATTRIBUTES & SKILLS
NAME: Orianna
RACE: Human
LEVEL: 8 (Progress 0%)
HEALTH (HP): 305 (10 x 25 + 35 + 20)
MANA (MP): 475 (10 x 44 + 35 + 0)
STAMINA (SP): 305 (10 x 25 + 35 + 20)
STRENGTH: 25 (25 + 0)
DEXTERITY: 58 (25 + 33)
INTELLIGENCE: 44 (15 + 29)
TOUGHNESS: 25 (25 + 0)
ENDURANCE: 25 (25 + 0)
FORTITUDE: 37 (16 + 21)
WISDOM: 54 (18 + 36)
KARMA: 100
BONUSES:
+10% effectiveness to Fire Magic
+10% effectiveness to Spirit Magic
Given how the game was pushing me toward being a magic user, I needed to focus my build around Intelligence and Wisdom. I wanted to be able to learn new skills in the two magic branches I’d unlocked so far, and my Wisdom stat determined how many spells I could learn. I had no idea if hitting twenty points in Wisdom would be a milestone, but since it was one of the stats I wanted more of, it seemed like a good place to put two of my points.
All of a sudden, a light went off in my head and I pulled up the lines from the riddle.
Once twice wise,
now clever two
I’d started with ten points in each stat, and now I had twenty in Wisdom. Surely, that’s what the line about being once twice wise meant. The ‘two’ spelled t-w-o instead of t-o-o hinted that Intelligence needed to be at twenty points as well. I might finally be getting closer to solving this. Time to have a look at the riddle as a whole and see what else I needed to work out.
To move onward,
have the Mark,
Okay, to succeed, I had to get some kind of mark. Still didn’t know what it was, but I was sure that would become more obvious later on.
ensure your light outweighs your dark.
I knew this one, I had to have positive Karma.
Decipher runes, or you’ll remain,
R G D T defines the frame.
Well, I didn’t know what the frame was yet, but thanks to Andrew’s tapestries, I at least knew what the four runes looked like. I guessed I had to find the runes in the right order or somehow it wouldn’t work. Okay, so I still had some work to do on that section.
A potion drunk, no time to drain,
This must have something to do with an Alchemy potion. It had to be why the Dragon Hunters had killed off the high-ranked Alchemists. That meant it was a high-level potion. Hopefully, the journal I’d taken back from Andrew’s study would give Aliz the recipe. The time to drain part was still a mystery, though. Maybe I had to drink the potion quickly or I’d run out of time to finish it?
go through stone, reborn through flame.
This line still confused me. How did someone go through stone?
Once twice wise,
now clever two,
If I was right, I now had enough Wisdom. I’d also get enough Intelligence next time I leveled up, if I didn’t already have it from visiting the library in Ratters Town.
see the blue light cover you.
I knew I had to get to level 10. Only two levels to go.
Lore describes the Elven death
Well, according to Kailu, this had something to do with going to Goran Thedgate. Hopefully, once I was there, this would become more obvious. If not, I might be in trouble.
intentions glow in one Long breath.
I knew Long referred to dragons, so this must have to do with their fiery breath. Andrew had obviously been attacked by a dragon and had somehow survived its breath. I, however, didn’t have a shield like he’d had. It also didn’t tell me if they were still around. No one had seen a dragon that I knew of, and all the NPCs referred to them as myths. Maybe Andrew had been in the game a lot longer than I realized and he’d killed the last one. If so, I was in deep trouble.
Voice your courage to get the heart,
enter alone, forever a part.
The end of this still made no sense. Whose heart was I supposed to get? At this point, all I could think of was that it must be a dragon’s heart. However, it looked like Andrew had done the wrong thing by killing off the dragon and getting its heart, otherwise, why would he have been crying in the tapestry? I looked at Soter and sighed. I was so confused.
It also struck me as odd that ‘a part’ was two words instead of one, when being alone was another way of saying being apart. It was like I had to enter somewhere alone and always be separated from everyone else. That sounded lonely. Hopefully, that wasn’t the case.
Team. Part. Soter stared at me as if it were obvious.
I shook my head. Of course. Enter alone, then once I’d gotten the heart, somehow, I would team up with whatever it was and we’d be two parts of a team. That made sense. I guess the ‘getting the heart’ part had to do with winning their heart or perhaps taming them, instead of cutting it out like Andrew had probably thought. Well, I guess you would have to be courageous to tame a dragon.
Dragon. God.
“What?” I looked at Soter again. “How can a dragon be a god?”
Animals know. People forgot.
Interesting. From what I’d read growing up, NPCs tended to refer to the game AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a god. Could this mean that at least one of the dragons, if there was more than one, was the game’s AI? If so, there was no way they’d died out. That was really good news.
I glanced at the blank parchment in my hands again. What if it also needed me to have a certain amount of Intelligence to read it? I quickly put my last three points into Intelligence and picked up the parchment again. No change. Perhaps if I’d put all five points into Intelligence? Oh well, there’s always next time. At least my mana pool was now at 505 MP, so I should be able to handle longer fights with
out running out of mana.
It was time to go and find Mikael and Aliz and visit Ratters Town.
The three of us formed a party and set off through Boon’s Forest, with Soter scouting ahead so he could steer us around any trouble.
Suri had kindly sent us enough food packages to feed a small army and we’d distributed them between us. Aliz now had the all-important journal I’d reclaimed from Andrew, although she hadn’t had a chance to look at it yet. The rest of her inventory was overflowing with Alchemy supplies and tools. So, we’d shared those between us as well.
After an uneventful trek, the trees finally thinned out, and there, laid out ahead of us, in all its starkness, was a small, walled city.
Congratulations! You have discovered: Ratters Town.
Around the gray stone wall was a deep moat. A stone bridge spanned the water and led directly to the front gate, a huge iron contraption that looked like it would need several people to raise it. At regular intervals along the wall were tall, circular towers with arrow slits up the sides. On top of each one, I could just make out two guards in red, looking out away from the town. I had no idea why a starting town needed such heavy fortifications or active guarding.
Inside the walls, I could see multiple stone buildings, the biggest of which looked like some kind of castle or important building.
To either side, the forest had been cleared as far as I could see to make way for farmland. There were several farmers working in the fields on the right, but the ones on the left were strangely empty. It was a little odd because I would have thought a town that size would need as much food production as possible. What did I know about farming, though? I hadn’t even been able to keep a potted plant alive growing up.
Summon later. I watched Soter slink off into the forest. I guess he didn’t like towns. Probably a good thing because I doubted that they’d let a large wolf in without a lot of hassle.
We crossed the bridge and approached the front gate.
From inside the town, I could hear what sounded like a lot of shouting and screaming. Again, it could just be the normal noise level, but something felt wrong. I glanced at Mikael to find he looked as worried as I was.
“What’s all that noise?” Mikael hailed one of the gate guards.
“Food shortages. People starting ta riot,” he said, as if it were old news.
“Why aren’t people tending the fields?” I asked, pointing to the empty fields on the left.
“Ya not from around here or summat?” The guard looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “The corrupted beasts have been wrecking havoc on the fields for the last few weeks and killing anyone who goes near ‘em. They’re what’s causing the food shortages. Stupid elves. Mayor’s tryina organize a war party ta teach ‘em a lesson.”
The guard looked at the three of us more closely.
“I’m guessing yer here ta help with the fight,” he nodded at our weapons. “Head straight ta the town hall, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the extra help.”
With that, he waved us through the gate and was already talking to someone else before I could say anything further.
As we walked through what was probably the market square, we could see crowds of people yelling and waving sticks and pitchforks at the soldiers who were trying to hold them back.
On the other side of the square was the large, imposing building I’d seen from the outside. That must be the town hall. The last thing I wanted to do with five days left to solve my riddle was to get in the middle of a war between this town and the elves. Mikael, however, looked like he was making a beeline for the man standing at the top of the stairs leading into the town hall.
The man was wearing a large gold necklace as a mark of office and holding a parchment and a small bell. With a guard on either side of him to protect him if the soldiers failed to hold back the horde of people, he was ringing the bell loudly to try and get everyone’s attention.
“Hear yee. Hear yee,” he yelled in a highly refined voice, producing no change in the amount of noise from the crowd.
“Listen up, ya filthy rabble!” the mayor yelled, showing his anger and causing the crowd to get quieter and look up at him.
I grabbed Aliz and pulled her to the side of the square, slightly behind another building. That way, we were as far away from the crowd as we could get, just in case things turned nasty, since I had no idea if she had any fighting skills.
“If you need to, can you defend yourself?”
“Of course!” Aliz declared indignantly, “What do you take me for? A helpless idiot?”
“Sorry, I needed to know just in case,” I muttered.
“Hmmph. I’ll never understand you travelers.”
Mikael had finally made it to the bottom of the mayor’s stairs and the soldiers around him weren’t looking too happy about it.
“We need to take the fight to the elves,” the mayor declared haughtily. “I’m told they are the ones who are corrupting the beasts in the forest, and therefore, they are the ones responsible for the desecration of our fields.”
The crowd grumbled loudly, but before they could start causing any more trouble, the mayor carried on.
“As you know, when you elected me Mayor of Ratter’s Town, I swore to protect you and your livelihoods. So, I’m asking for volunteers to help the soldiers stop the elves from corrupting any more beasts,” he looked down his nose at the rabble.
Mikael took a couple of steps back toward the crowd and hunched down slightly, almost like he was trying to appear shorter.
“To help us, I’ve made a pact with a new friend. He is a traveler who has agreed to aid us. He and his guild are offering all the residents protection sigils. The sigil will help anyone who is outside the town’s walls and prevent them from being hurt by the corrupted beasts. He has also agreed to help us take the fight to the elves, as well as leave behind a force to protect our residents while the soldiers are away.”
The crowd and soldiers all turned to look up at the mayor’s announcement, and silence descended over the square.
I was getting a nasty feeling about this. I pushed Aliz completely behind the side building. If I was right, and the mayor had made a pact with Andrew, we needed to get out of here.
“Mikael,” I hissed. Either I wasn’t loud enough for him to hear or he was ignoring me.
“I’d like to introduce you to our champion, Andrew Hoetford, guild leader of the Dragon Hunters.”
The mayor waved his arm toward the door as a very smug looking Andrew stepped out in front of the crowd.
I silently and desperately willed Mikael to hide in the crowd. Unfortunately, telepathy wasn’t a skill I had, either.
30
Chocolate Chip Cookies
“Good people of Ratters Town.” As Andrew surveyed the crowd, his lip curled up slightly at the corner.
Aliz tried to poke her head around the corner of the building, but much to her annoyance, I quickly pushed her back.
“It’s Andrew,” I whispered as her face went white. “You need to remain unseen at all costs. We have to somehow get Mikael out of here, too, since Andrew has already tried to kill him once.”
“Kill him?” Aliz asked shakily.
Ah yes, something I hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone yet.
“Long story. I’ll fill you in once we’re safe. Just stay away from Andrew and all the Dragon Hunters for now.”
Aliz nodded as I carefully peered around the edge of the building again to see what was going on.
“The elves have turned against us!” shouted Andrew as silence fell over the crowd. “They are the ones responsible for the trouble you now find yourselves in. They are the ones who are corrupting the animals out there and sending them against you. They have brought your freedom under attack. They want to frighten you into submission. Will you let them succeed?”
Andrew threw his arms up into the air and waited for the crowd to respond.
“No!” someone shouted from the back of the cr
owd.
“Down with the elves!” shouted someone else as the crowd started getting in on the act.
This was going to get ugly, fast. Why was Mikael just standing there, hunched over? Didn’t he realize he’d be in trouble as soon as Andrew spotted him? Admittedly, how he hadn’t spotted him yet was a mystery, albeit a miraculous one.
“Years ago, your forefathers fought the elves and won, pushing them deeper into the forest,” intoned Andrew.
This was some lore I didn’t know. What had they fought over? I made a mental note to ask Aliz and Mikael once we got out of this mess.
“Today is the day when travelers and locals unite as allies against those who would harm us. It is time to take a stand. We won’t sit by and let them hurt us with this corruption, will we?”
“No!” “Never!” “Stinking elves!” yelled the crowd.
“Then we, the Dragon Hunters, are here to fight alongside you.”
A cheer rang out from the crowd.
“Together, we will stop this corruption, you have my word!” Andrew proclaimed.
Interesting. He had to know that he’d end up with permanent negative Karma if he didn’t deliver on that. Andrew thought NPCs were worthless, so I know he didn’t care about the residents of Ratters Town. He equally didn’t strike me as the type of person to make huge mistakes because he hadn’t researched his actions properly. Having started a guild in the past, he must have had Reputation Points before and seen the game message about them. Something fishy was going on. I tore my attention away from my thoughts and focused back on Andrew, making sure I didn’t miss anything.