“I dunno,” Gerry replied abashedly, “three, four months ago?”
“So we weren’t dating?”
“No, but still… Whatever, piss off.” Gerry said with a chuckle that was about as convincing as a bloke telling an MP he was wearing his friend’s jacket and that he had no idea how that stuff got in the pockets.
My analogies may not be quick, but they’re accurate.
“Besides, probably would’ve turned out to be proper shit for me anyway.” Gerry said in an attempt to shift the focus away from him.
“Yeah,” I replied, deciding to go along with it, “guess it would be with those guys. I’m assuming it was the blokes from legal?”
“You know it.”
“Dick and fart jokes galore then, yeah?”
“Oh yeah.”
The awkwardness successfully diverted, I returned to my game persona and looked up the road, “Another town coming up. Wanna push through?”
I was met with a few seconds of silence as Gerry tried to get a look at it, “I… don’t know. Normally there’s a bunch of players in there.”
“So?” I asked, turning my head to face him.
“So, there’s not.” he said before gesturing to a map in his hands that I wasn’t allowed to see, “It’s a dead zone.”
“What do you mean ‘dead zone’?”
“There isn’t a single player in there, literally not-a-one. Ain’t any around for miles.”
At first I was kind of thrown by how he knew where players were, but then I remembered that one of the many benefits of being such a high level was that you started gaining access to things like maps that told you town populations.
And then another realisation dawned on me.
“Do you just look at your map every time we go somewhere new?”
Gerry raised his eyebrow curiously and shrugged, “Um, yeah? Why wouldn’t I? We aren’t exactly doing a great deal between here and there.”
“Well I don’t know,” I replied, making no effort to hide my disappointment, “maybe so you could share the excitement of going to new and wondrous places with me?”
I prepared myself to be all smug about winning my own emotional gymnastic competition, but instead of receiving the complacent ‘Alright, I’ll stop. Sorry.’ I’d expected from Gerry, he gave me a tired sigh and put away his map, “Alright, but to be fair I haven’t been to all these places. Some of ‘em got added in recently, and some I just discovered by travelling the world by sticking myself into a bird in a flock and letting them guide me around while I was at work.”
Getting past the imagery of Gerry literally forcing his body into a bird, I tried to think of something snarky to say, not because he’d said anything particularly offensive or annoying, but because he’d sighed and deviated from the conversational path I’d laid out in my mind.
I ran the clock out though, and not just because things lose that special ‘umph’ factor after waiting a few seconds.
We’d entered the town.
Dioring discovered.
Journal entry made.
Armelia: Chapter 20
A pale afternoon glow had set in and our snakes had disappeared seemingly of their own volition as we passed the wooden sign that read ‘Welcome to Dioring’ in dark red paint.
The township was small, as most of the others had been, but it had been developed in a wheel and spoke pattern with a market at the centre according to Gerry and his map.
“You gettin’ an eerie feeling about this place?” Gerry asked as we trotted our way through a seemingly empty residential district.
“Yeah… You searched for life?”
Grand Gerry the Good cast Life Detect.
“Just pinged it,” Gerry replied concernedly, “but my spell’s not working as well as it should be. People are definitely out there though, they’re just staying in their houses.”
“Wanna give this place a pass then?”
I wanted to say yes, the idea that we were being avoided making me feel less than welcome, but at the same time I wasn’t sure when we’d next find a town.
“Let’s head to the town centre first, make sure there aren’t any little jobs that need to be done.”
“Like getting some much needed dopamine in the air?” Gerry chuckled nervously, “Alright, sure. Not like it’s out of the way or anything, huh?”
“Exactly.”
I wished he hadn’t agreed with me, everything about Dioring giving me a definite unease, especially the part where Gerry’s magic wasn’t behaving as normal.
But the time for going back on my suggestion had passed, and I would have to live with the consequences as we approached the centre and a few piles of oddly wrapped meat started to take shape.
Yeah, it wasn’t meat.
Well, I suppose you could technically argue that it was meat, after all, isn’t that what we are?
“Is that..?” I trailed off as we finally entered the mostly empty market, the ‘meat’ being the exception.
“Yep… Those are player bodies. What do you think happened?”
I shrugged and went to answer, but then I saw what was scrawled in blood above each of the dead player’s heads.
‘Heathen’.
‘Sinner’.
‘Witch’.
Eight piles, all magic users, judging from their robes, beaten to death and left to have their blood run through the market.
“I take it they don’t like magic here…” I said as I cautiously looked around for potential attackers, “Any ideas?”
“I just looked it up,” Gerry replied, “and I know I shouldn’t be leaving world, but this seemed important.”
“Forget about that,” I said as I dismounted and went to check on the bodies, “what’s going on?”
“Well, according to the forums for this server Dioring has glitched out. Apparently there used to be a quest here where you cleanse the town of magic so that faeries’ll stop attacking, then someone screwed up when trying to hack their way through some kinda questline, and now the whole town purges magic by themselves.”
“And the devs aren’t willing to just jump in and fix it because that ‘someone’ was the guy renting the server, yeah?” I asked with an irritated sigh.
That wasn’t the first time some twat had thought he could mess with the system without running it as a custom server, something people didn’t like to do in the UK on account of the fact that you don’t get to keep any of your resources when you play on those servers.
“Exactly. Wanna hop? Find one that hasn’t been screwed over?”
“What? And miss out on that?” I asked with terrified amusement as I pointed down one of the streets to the angry mob stomping their way toward us.
“Oh good. Angry townsfolk. What fun.”
I waited for the notification that we’d engaged in combat for longer than I probably should’ve before pulling out my bow.
Equipped Armelia’s Long Bow.
“You gonna be alright goin’ analogue?” I asked as I started to look around, the snarling faces coming at us from all of the eight roads that led to us.
“Yeah,” Gerry said, pulling out his sword and spinning it in his hands a few times before getting into a combative stance, “should be fine. How many do you reckon? Thirty? Forty?”
“Heh, I reckon when we tell this story there was a hundred of ‘em, eh?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Shadow-Stal was the first in our party to attack, whinnying loudly and thundering down one of the roads toward a group of rock and stick wielding villagers while I tried to see if I could spot a member of the town’s guard.
“See anyone with a sword yet?” I asked when my search turned up nil.
“Nope, there’s a bloke with a dagger somewhere though. Guards’ll probably come out at the last second, yeah?”
“Probably.” I said disappointedly, realising that I’d wasted ages of perfectly good seconds, “Let’s get started then.”
I loosed my first arrow
into one of the streets blindly, catching an elderly woman right in chest, sending her to the ground to get trampled to death by her fellow mob members.
But it did little to slow the rest of them down.
“Do you seriously not have a bow?” I snapped when I saw Gerry was still waiting there by my side with his sword drawn.
“Not with magic I don’t. Never saw the point.”
“This.” I said as I fired another arrow into another group, “This right here is the reason to have a bow.”
We’d have undoubtedly continued our conversation, but the first group had made it to the market and Gerry had taken that as his cue to attack.
For a brief moment I thought about pulling out my own sword and giving him a hand, and then I saw the second closest group of the mob was drawing dangerously close and started firing as fast as I could.
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 21/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 2410/6500.
I watched as one of my arrows went through one man’s screaming mouth, out the back of his neck, and lodged into another’s chest.
The first guy went down, but the second seemed to be only further angered by the arrow.
“Second group just broke the line!” I shouted as I loosed another arrow that caught a guy in the eye socket.
Critical Hit!
+1 Archery Skill.
Progress: 22/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 2420/6500.
“Bit busy over here!” Gerry yelled back over the sound of his sword cleaving through flesh and bone.
Unequipped Armelia’s Long Bow.
Equipped Sparky McStabby-Stab.
To my great annoyance, the electrical thrum that I’d come to expect from my sword was gone, replaced with a bland glint along the metal.
There were six left of the second group, and without level or HP indicators I had no idea what I was up against.
That wasn’t about to stop me though.
With the rage of a Norse berserker, I charged the line, my sword held above my shoulder as I roared with a weird mix of excitement and rage.
It was glorious.
I brought my sword down and, in one swift motion, cleaved some butcher’s arm clean off while blocking an attack from a farmer’s stick with my forearm.
Critical Hit!
+1 Singlehanded Blade Skill.
Progress: 32/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 2430/6500.
Thinking I’d done well, I got a bit cocky, taking a big swing at the farmer without thinking about the other four assailants who’d taken to surrounding me.
Luckily, I managed to get caught in a brilliant finishing move before they could attack, the brief animation of me grabbing the farmer by the shoulder and stabbing him in the gut forcing them to standby.
Unluckily, that animation lasted all of a second, and before long they were going to be on me.
That is until Gerry appeared like a freakin’ superhero and went to work quickly dispatching three of my foes for me in a series of lightning fast blocks, slashes, and stabs which left me to comfortably cleave the last one’s head clean off.
Critical Hit!
+1 Singlehanded Blade Skill.
Progress: 33/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 2440/6500.
“Thanks.” I heaved, covered in blood and sweat and realising that I’d been holding my breath through most of that fight.
“Not a problem.” Gerry replied with a smile, “Six to… make that three. Shadow-Stal really knows how to lay down a beating, huh?”
I followed Gerry’s amused gaze and laughed when I saw my beautiful horse covered in blood and viscera as he slammed his mighty hooves down on the screaming villagers.
“Oh, ho, ho, this is a bit evil, innit?” I asked as we got ready to make a run for another of the groups.
“How do you mean?”
“This,” I replied, gesturing to the piles of dead bodies we were leaving behind, “you don’t think we’re a bit too powerful to be picking on these guys?”
Gerry made a curious face for a few seconds and then shrugged, “Well, I am. But I reckon if you were on your own you’d be havin’ a spot o’ trouble with ‘em. ‘Sides, they attacked us.”
I let a smile play across my face at the realisation that the little murder spree of ours was somewhat justified, “I suppose so.”
Silence fell over us as we moved on the group, meeting them well before they reached the market, and went to work on cutting them down.
Gerry was faster than me, sure, but all that meant was the group of ten we were up against didn’t have a hope in Hel of hitting me as I got in a few good hits of my own.
Most of my attacks were proving to be primarily useless though as I’d knock one away and Gerry’d finish them off.
It was actually kind of annoying.
But then I got an opportunity to squeeze in another kill, slicing at a blacksmith’s stomach and spilling his guts through his leather apron before cutting his head off.
Critical Hit!
+1 Singlehanded Blade Skill.
Progress: 34/100.
+10 XP.
Progress: 2450/6500.
“Alright, I get to go as the primary for the next group, deal?” I said with a laugh that was barely genuine.
“Sounds good.” Gerry laughed back, leading me to believe that he’d missed my point.
We marched back to the market, ready to find a couple dozen angry peasants, but, to my great dismay, found an awfully chuff looking Shadow-Stal, his tail flicking streaks of blood every which-way as he stood over the pile of dead men and women he’d trampled.
“Brilliant…” I let out with an annoyed sigh, “Just brilliant…”
Armelia: Chapter 21
I was grateful to have gotten anything out of the conflict, honest, but as Gerry and I searched the last of the mob members and discovered nothing of value we couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed.
“So much for those guards, aha…” I said in an attempt to lift Gerry’s spirits.
“Yeah…” Gerry replied as he half-heartedly kicked a body, “Damn shame too. I reckon we would’ve pulled some well good gear if we’d gone up against them.”
“Agreed. Ah well, at least we had a bit of fun, eh?”
Gerry let out a little chuckle at that and nodded, “Yeah, s’pose so. You feeling about ready to shut down?”
I wanted to respond with a ‘Yeah, sure.’ because it had been my experience that when people ask if you want to shut down it usually means that they’re kind of tired and would prefer it if things wound down.
But I wasn’t ready for bed.
…
That kinda makes me sound like an insolent child, doesn’t it? Ah well.
“Not really, no.” I finally responded after leaving Gerry to hang for a good few seconds.
“Awesome,” Gerry replied with a smile, “I just figured you may have wanted to and I didn’t want to be the one that forced us to stay up all night, you know?”
Not gonna lie, that made my heart flutter a little.
“Yeah, I get what you mean.” I said, my voice perking up for some weird reason, “What should we do then?”
“Well, I reckon we should keep pressing on for as long as we possibly can, you know, keep doing as we are. I know it’s probably getting a bit boring just riding everywhere, but I think that that’s our best bet until we get to Dethrisr’s.”
I nodded and walked over to Shadow-Stal, “Works for me. Who knows, we might get somewhere that offers an actual challenge.”
Gerry laughed and joined me as I climbed onto my saddle, “Doubt it. I don’t think we’ll be running into a decent fight for a while, not until Aldok anyway.”
“I dunno,” I said, giving Shadow-Stal a light tug on his reins and directing him to the road that led out of town, “we don’t always need a big fight for it to be difficult.”
“Yeah, maybe we
’ll run into some weird monk who makes us do some complex math problem or something.” Gerry joked.
“I know you think you’re being funny, but after these past couple of hours that really wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Come to think of it, wouldn’t surprise me either. Heh, this is a weird, weird world.”
“You can say that again.”
“This is a-”
“No.”
Armelia: Chapter 22
It wasn’t long before we’d gotten out of Dioring before another town started coming into view, and by town I mean a single windmill, two houses, and a tavern.
We were sure that it wouldn’t offer much in the terms of brilliant questing, but what it didn’t have in scale, it had in proximity to important locations.
“Is that the mountain?” I asked as we drew closer to the small group of buildings.
“Mmhm, we’ve finally gotten to Aldok’s.” Gerry replied, “It’s funny, I thought we’d still be wandering for ages.”
“Eh, Tarthirious is large, but I doubt the mage questline would’ve sent us too far.”
The Township of Gulk discovered.
Journal entry made.
“The Township of Gulk?” I laughed, “What kind of place goes by ‘Gulk’?”
“I like it, it’s short. When you get rid of the ‘The Township’ part.”
“Still though, ‘Gulk’? That’s the name these people settled for?”
I reached the tavern and dismounted, hitching Shadow-Stal to the post next to the door as I did so.
It was an odd series of movements.
“Welcome to Gulk!” a friendly voice said from inside the tavern before we’d opened the doors, “Don’t get many visitors pass through here. How can I help?”
“Just looking for some good drink and maybe a feed.” I said as I entered the quaint tavern and made my way over to the bulky man behind the counter.
“Then I’d recommend the place down the road!” he laughed haughtily, “Name’s Rictor, but folks call me Ric, and I’m sure I can find you somethin’ to quench that thirst.”
Ric seemed like a nice enough bloke, and as he pulled up two frothy pints out from under the counter I took a moment to take in his face.
Legends of Tarthirious : Books One-Four of Kylia's Story (Legends of Tarthirious (A LitRPG)) Page 50