He had a bushy moustache and mutton chops, both showing signs that he’d given up on taking good care of them years ago, and vibrant green eyes that both calmed me and made me feel dreadfully exposed.
“What brings you ‘round here? Sure hope it ain’t adventure, ‘cause I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“Yes actually, we’re heading up the mountain.” I said as I took a swig of the pint, the frothy goodness disappearing and offering absolutely nothing in terms of effects, positive or negative, and disappointing me greatly.
As the pint left my face though, I discovered that my words had done a number on Ric’s cheerful expression, “Oh… yo-you mean the one up there?” he asked, pointing in the general direction of Aldok’s hideout.
“That’s the one, why?”
“It’s just… Well, you are aware of what’s built into that mountain, aren’t you?”
I shrugged, pretending not to be in the know for whatever reason, “Heard some necromancers like to spend their time up there. Figured we’d head on up and see what we can do to remedy that situation.”
Ric’s eyes widened and he started shaking his head, “Believe me when I say you don’t want to go up that mountain.”
“And why’s that?” I asked nonchalantly.
The barkeep looked between Gerry and I a few times, clearly trying to see if he could pull the wool over our eyes about it before deciding, with a tired sigh, that he’d just be straight with us, “There’s a man up there, Aldok Dethrisr. Dangerous beyond belief and prepared to do whatever it takes to take over the world, including turning on his own family.”
And suddenly I was sucked in.
“What do you mean? How’d he turn on his family?”
“It was his brother, Gulk,” Ric said solemnly, “the two of them had decided they were going to help create a better world some years ago. Gulk wanted to study the art of magic through nature, while Aldok wanted to make it so that everyone would be immortal. It wasn’t long before Aldok had become corrupted by his quest, he’d delved too deep in the dark arts, and he’d become the Master Necromancer.”
“What about his brother?” Gerry jumped in, clearly just intrigued by the story as I was, “Did Gulk continue his work?”
“Unfortunately no. You see, Gulk found out what his brother had been doing and tried to stop him. Aldok was far more skilled though, having learned spells that could be used to harm and corrupt while Gulk had been more focussed on healing, and… let’s just leave it as it didn’t go well for the kinder brother, shall we? My point is that it would be most unwise for you two to go up the mountain.”
I liked that a lot about Tarthirious, the random little opportunities you get to learn more about quests and the world just by simply engaging in conversation.
It added a whole new level to the immersion in my opinion, and did a good job of making me want to keep on playing.
Also, that particular bit of information did kind of make me feel guilty for making fun of the town’s name, which is cool… I guess.
“Well, I suppose it’d be in our best interests to go up that mountain then, huh?” I said, again playing up my naïve, brash side, “Stop Aldok before he can do even more damage to the world?”
“What? You two? You really think you have what it takes to defeat a man who’s practically a god of death?”
Gerry and I shared a look, shrugged, then looked back at Ric, “Sure, why not?”
Ric seemed shocked at first, then cautious, then finally amused, “Heh, alright, guess there’s nothing I can say to stop you. I would recommend you do yourselves a favour though and make sure you have a turn undead spell. I can teach you one, if you’re interested.”
“Oh yes please.” I replied with perhaps a bit more excitement than was absolutely necessary.
“Alright, but it’s gonna cost you. 150.”
I went to haggle then stopped, realising that if I pushed him too far I’d probably lose the opportunity.
Besides, it really wasn’t that much considering.
“Deal.”
-150 gold.
13,885 gold.
Learned Turn Undead.
“Thank you for your patronage,” Ric said as he stuffed the small sack of gold I’d handed him in his back pocket, “is there anything else I can help you with?”
I shook my head and gave him a smile, “I think we’ll be alright for now. Thank you for the warning and the spell.”
“Not at all.”
Gerry scoffed as we got up and started for the door, “Seriously, not one quest? Not so much as bounty hunt?”
“Who would he have us hunt down?” I asked quietly, “The tavern’s empty, and I’m guessing the rest of the town is too.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“Because it’s nightfall and the tavern’s empty.” I said slightly more brusquely than I’d intended to, “Sorry, I thought I’d answered that before.”
Gerry shrugged off my snippiness and pushed open the door for me, “I ain’t bothered, figured you might get a bit tetchy as the night wore on.”
He was either deliberately pushing my buttons or had at some point hit his head. Either way, he was playing a dangerous game with me.
Goddamned mood swings.
Anyway, I got past my desire to rip Gerry a new one and climbed up on Shadow-Stal, “You wanna?”
“Wanna what?”
“Hit Aldok’s place.” I said like it was completely reasonable, “I reckon I could get through it, and it means we get to start fresh tomorrow.”
Gerry seemed to think about it for a few seconds, staring up at me and tilting his head from side to side, before finally climbing up behind me and putting his hands on my waist, “As long as you’re up for it.”
“Oh, I’m up for it.” I replied confidently as I lined Shadow-Stal up with the road and got ready to ride hard, “Let’s do this.”
Armelia: Chapter 23
Turns out my ‘Let’s do this.’ remark may have been a tad premature.
Why? Because it turns out that Shadow-Stal didn’t move at the speed of a fighter jet, so instead of an amazing entrance filled to the brim with Kenny Loggins tunes, Gerry and I were shown to a boring ride that was more suited to those weird tracks that come with new phones and OS’.
“Well that was… fun.” Gerry said as we finally got within spitting distance of the entrance, “Not like we could’ve fast travelled here and saved ourselves a whole bunch of time or anything.”
“You know what? Go to Hel. We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gerry responded with a roll of his eyes, “Come on, I’m starting to get tired.”
Couldn’t really blame him for that, my eyes had started to droop as well, but I wasn’t about to agree with him.
“Ah, you made it!”
Progress made in mission: The Necromancer’s fate.
Objective completed: Go to Aldok Dethrisr’s Hideout.
Objective completed: Meet Vilor and Lyrias at Aldok Dethrisr’s Hideout.
Objective added: Speak with Vilor and Lyrias.
It took me a second to recognise Vilor’s voice as I dismounted, and it wasn’t until I’d started toward the door that I saw him and Lyrias standing in patient waiting, “That we did. I take it you two had a pleasant journey?”
“We certainly did,” Vilor said happily, “we thought that it’d be for the best if we spent some time enjoying ourselves before coming here. It’s been quite some time since either of us went somewhere that wasn’t strictly related to our work.”
“But this is one of those times,” Lyrias said, “is it not?”
Vilor looked at her for a few seconds, then nodded sorrowfully, “I suppose it is. But that’s beside the point, are you ready to face Aldok Dethrisr?”
For some reason I hesitated, something about accepting a mission that I knew could take at least an hour when I wasn’t even confident enough to look at the clock holding me back.
T
hen I saw Gerry’s face and I couldn’t help but smile, everything else in my body getting smothered by the excitement I had for the opportunity to have a real challenge with him.
“Indeed I am. Shall we?”
Vilor gave me a nod and went to work on reading the inscriptions on the door in a language that seemed to be made up primarily of clearing your throat.
“You ready?” I asked the barely half-conscious Gerry.
“As I’ll ever be.”
Suddenly I was blasted in the ears with an explosive hiss of air and the sounds of gears rolling inside the door as the inscriptions glowed a vibrant green and the door split in the middle, slid out of the way, and opened up to a dark entryway.
Progress made in mission: The Necromancer’s fate.
Objective completed: Speak with Vilor and Lyrias.
Objective added: Enter Aldok Dethrisr’s Hideout and Find Him.
I couldn’t believe we were finally doing it, after so long travelling and doing random odds and ends we were finally going to go up against the big baddy.
Words can’t accurately describe the feeling I had as I stepped through that threshold with the others in close tow, it was like my first kiss.
The fear of screwing it up, the exhilaration of it happening, the slight tingling sensation I got in my…
You know what? I might like games a bit much.
“This is rather foreboding, innit?” Gerry asked as we walked through the ornately decorated yet poorly lit hall, “Half expect everything to start glowing green and gulp us all down into Hel.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, “Mmhm.”
“Yeah, and it’s not like if we screw up we can just come back, is it? I reckon without Vilor and Lyrias here we’d be stuck twiddling our thumbs outside until they came back out.”
“Mmhm…” I replied, making no effort to hide my building frustration.
“And just think if we-”
“Dude, I swear to God if you don’t shut up I’ll… ugh, I’ll do something, and you won’t like it.”
It’s those little moments you regret, those little outbursts of anger and frustration at insignificant things. I can blame it on tiredness and anxiety all day long, but at the end of the day I still regret it.
Gerry though, with his sweet heart, didn’t seem to mind, saying “Not a problem.” before clamming up and moving like a ghost.
We eventually reached the end of the ginormous entranceway where a large wooden door blocked our way further, its heavy oak structure reinforced with steel bars that were built into its core that were just visible in the parts where the wood bevelled.
“Reckon it’s locked?” Gerry asked.
I shook my head and took a large step back, “I reckon it’s booby-trapped.”
We both stood there a while, trying to decide what to do, but Gerry finally let out a sigh and marched over to the door, “Screw it, we aren’t gonna get anywhere waiting for it to open for us.”
His hands had barely touched the door before we heard something crashing around in the roof.
Grand Gerry the Good alerted a cluster of Risen Spiders.
5x Level 30 Risen Spiders, HP: 17000/17000.
Risen Spider discovered.
Journal entry made.
Armelia: Chapter 24
“Now you’ve done it.” I said as the electricity in my hands rumbled to life.
The green-eyed, dog-sized spiders had dropped through a hatch in the ceiling on the other side of the room, giving our little party just enough time to get into a combat formation before they started scuttling their way toward us.
“You can’t seriously pin this on me, can you?” Gerry replied with a grunt as he let loose a hail of splinters into the fast approaching arachnids.
“Well you could’ve checked for traps first. We may still’ve had to fight them, but at least we would’ve known what to expect.”
Gerry went to respond with the expected level of indignation, but to my glee one of the spiders had taken a leap for him, knocking him back against the heavy door and leaving me to win the argument by default.
Winning by default; a staple of modern culture.
Anyway, my victory was short-lived, and before I knew what was going on the door to the entrance had slid shut and plunged us into darkness.
Lyrias was the first to do something about it, casting a radiant ball that bathed the room in an almost harsh white light, and, in a mix of good and bad fortune, revealed that there was a spider not a foot from my face.
I shot an arc of lightning at it, but in my panic I failed to aim and… well, let’s just say that Lyrias’ ball didn’t survive my tumble.
Suddenly I was in the dark, pinned to the ground by the surprisingly heavy spider with its hungry mandibles clacking directly in front of my face, its glowing eyes the only light source as it prepared to feast on my defenceless head.
And that’s why we bring friends along for the ride.
Gerry, with near perfect timing, blew the thing’s head clean off with what I guessed was some kind of wind-based magic, before covering me as I got back to my feet.
“Great job on knocking the light out.” Gerry mocked, successfully ruining his moment of being my hero.
I shot out another bolt of lightning towards where I hoped a spider sat in waiting, giving Gerry just enough visibility to blast another spider with his wind attack before switching back to splinters.
“Not my fault,” I said, smiling slightly at the sparking spider that was bouncing off the walls, “I got tackled.”
“So you’re willing to concede that it wasn’t my fault that they appeared then, right?”
“What?” I laughed, “Why would I do that? They’re two completely different issues.”
“Ah yes, but they’re so similar in a lot of ways too, are they not?” Gerry replied, pausing partway through as Vilor sent out a brilliant beam of fire into one of the spiders, splattering it into a hundred fiery little pieces and releasing a green gas from where it had been.
“Ugh, fine. It’s not your fault that they attacked!” I shrieked that last word, a spider taking another leap for my head right as I fired off more electricity.
I got the bastard though, meaning nothing but its useless body reached me, marking the near end of the battle.
And then Gerry started laughing, “Did you seriously just make that sound?”
“Shut up.” I responded, trying to sound serious and failing as I turned around and started for the door, “Come on, let’s go.”
“Hold up, Lyrias is still finishing off the last one. We’ve still gotta get the EoC.”
“Well how long does she need?” I asked as I turned back to face the group.
“Just another seco-ah, there we go.”
End of Conflict Report:
Grand Gerry the Good: 2x Level 30 Risen Spiders.
Armelia Fireheart: 1x Level 30 Risen Spider.
Total experience awarded:
Grand Gerry the Good: Max Level Reached.
No Experience Points awarded.
Armelia Fireheart: +1000 XP.
Progress: 3450/6500.
Armelia: Chapter 25
Not gonna lie, that last bout of combat had made me feel a bit less confident that we were on our way to having an amazing challenge in Aldok’s lair, but Gerry’s general enthusiasm was doing wonders in alleviating that pessimism.
“That was bloody brilliant, huh? Like, seriously, bloody brilliant way to start a dungeon.” my infectiously happy boyfriend said as he pushed open the doors, revealing a caged elevator at the end of a short hallway.
“Yeah, wasn’t bad.”
“What? ‘Wasn’t bad’? Do you know how many dungeons I’ve been through that have started with seemingly weightless rocks and piles of wood falling on my head? If every crawl started with that level of dedication it’d be the only thing I’d be doing every day.”
“I bet you would, now shut up and keep moving, I don’t wanna spend the rest of the night li
ngering about here.”
Gerry almost audibly rolled his eyes and smiled as our party stepped into the elevator, the caged door sliding shut behind us as soon as Lyrias was clear of it, “You can try and trick these two, but you can’t trick me. I know when you’re having fun.”
“Sure, sure.”
We fell silent after that, the sounds of the clunky lift lowering us down into the heart of the mountain filling me with unease as I watched the rusty iron bars shoot off sparks as they grinded against the jagged rocks.
In the brief moment of quiet we had, I decided to reflect a while on my relationship with Gerry.
He was technically right, I was having fun, to some degree, but with his moments of pissing me off growing at an exponential rate I couldn’t help but feel if it was time for me to cut ties with him.
I wasn’t exactly thinking a hundred percent clearly, I was tired, a bit hungry, cramped up to next week, and waiting to get killed and brought back to life by some twat who lived in a mountain like a bloody mole.
My point is that it wasn’t all Gerry’s fault that I was being snippy, and I think even in that moment I knew that, but, to be fair, he was being really annoying.
A sharp snapping sound brought me back into the moment, followed swiftly by the sound of something whipping its way down the shaft.
“Well,” Gerry said calmly as he looked up and down, “that can’t be anything but good.”
I went to respond sharply, snapping about his sarcasm or something along those lines, but my moment of bitterness would have to wait as something else snapped and the elevator started falling down into the mountain.
We each clung for life somewhere in the middle of the cage, the metal crashing and bending against the force of its weight smashing into the shaft’s walls.
Over the sounds of the disaster unfolding around us, I failed to hear Lyrias whispering her incantation as we plummeted to our doom.
In fact, it wasn’t until we’d practically smashed into the ground that I even noticed her as a bubble of brilliant blue liquid encased us all like fruit in jelly.
Legends of Tarthirious : Books One-Four of Kylia's Story (Legends of Tarthirious (A LitRPG)) Page 51