This is definitely going to be a chain quest, I sighed. Quests in general were a set of objectives the Ga’em occasionally gave one based on the desires they had, and on completion of the objectives, one obtained various rewards.
Chain Quests on the other hand were normal quests but were so in depth that they had many parts to them. Usually a chain quest would have a roman numeral next to its quest name, indicating which part it was, but many of the chain quests I’d obtained only revealed the roman numeral in the name after the second quest was unlocked. And that was exactly what I was expecting with this quest as well.
“I think I’m going to head back up,” Freya said. “I’m a little exhausted from everything that happened over the last few hours.”
“Same,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”
“You guys go ahead,” Krof said. “Ijyela and I will take some time with this Eternal and hopefully figure something out. Plus, I do not want to leave this Eternal alone at any point in time.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
The elf and I walked up the stairs, and back up to the ground floor of the mansion. The wood creaked beneath our feet once more as we stepped up from the hidden staircase. Freya seemed lost in thought, and her eyes glanced blankly at the wooden walls.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Is everything okay?”
She broke her trance and turned to me. “Yeah. Does something seem wrong?’
“No. You just seem…dazed.”
“Ah,” she said, and waited for a few seconds before she spoke again. “There’s a lot to think about. It is not a good sign that we have found another of your kind.”
I sighed.
A flurry of footsteps rushed toward us. I quickly turned around, and pulled my sword out.
Raffiel stood there, his eyes wide and his hands in the air. My sword tip hovered under his chin, half an inch from his throat. He stepped back, and lowered his arms. “As expected, your reflexes are very good, my Lord.”
I re-sheathed my weapon. “What brings you here, Raffiel?”
“We’ve sighted intruders beyond the village boundaries,” he said. “Their identity has not yet been determined.”
“What?” My eyes widened. I turned to Freya, and I could tell she was already thinking the same thing I was.
The Eternal. I grit my teeth. Someone had come for her.
“And we JUST brought her here,” Nyx said.
“What are their numbers?” I asked. “A hundred?”
“Uhhh.” He looked at the floor. “Two, my lord.”
“Two?” I blinked.
In a direct, head-on attack, lesser only meant one thing — whoever these intruders were, they were confident they only needed two people to get into the village, and that meant they were probably very powerful.
Who are these people? I scratched my chin. “Are we engaging in attack at the moment?” I asked.
“I have a few men stationed at the border, but we’re waiting for the intruders to get into our striking range before doing anything.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let us leave to the border immediately.”
“Zoran,” Freya said. “I’ll come with you.”
I shook my head. “I need you to stay here. If these men are powerful enough to justify their confidence in attacking with just two, then it’s likely Ijyela and Krof will need more help to keep themselves alive. Can you guard this place?”
She thought for a second and then nodded. “Got it.”
I turned to Raffiel. “Let’s head out.”
The Knights and I quickly moved, emptying into the streets, and charging toward the borders.
“First, we find an Eternal,” Nyx said. “And then we get the only intruders we’ve had since the last battle two months ago. Definitely not a coincidence.”
Definitely not, I said. Ijyela was right. There must have been someone at the forest when we found the Eternal.
“Diablo,” Acnologia said. “What do you wish for me to do? I am still at the village square.”
Stay there, I said. I will call for you if we need backup. I don’t want to use all our resources right at the start.
“Understood,” he said.
Oh, and if the intruders somehow get to you, I said. Don’t worry about breaking the village apart with your attacks.
“Oh?” the Dragon chuckled. “Wonderful.”
The end of the streets came into view, and with it so did the border of the village, a little more than twenty yards from where I was. I jumped high into the air, and landed on one of the rooftops.
I made my way to the building closest to the border and placed myself on the edge, standing at the highest vantage point I had. Raffiel and his men stood in the streets below me, with their weapons ready for combat. Swords and spears had been sharpened, and arrows lay knocked into their bows, ready to launch toward the enemy.
I glanced ahead of me, and saw the two figures walk up to us. I wanted to use Analyze on them but the skill wasn’t strong enough to work from such a distance. In a few seconds however, the figures came into view, and their features turned clearer in my vision.
“Help us,” a voice cried. “Help us, Zoran.”
What? I blinked. They know my name?
“Oh no,” Nyx said. “It…it can’t be.”
I took a closer look at the two figures, and my eyes widened.
A man of age stumbled toward the village, and his white hair flew amongst the hot winds. A shiver coursed through his voice as he called out to me again. A young lady lay frozen in his trembling arms, her limbs flailing lifelessly, her long brown hair brushing the sandy surface, her green eyes staring up at the sky — dead and empty.
This wasn’t an enemy.
My old ‘friends’ had come to pay me a visit.
Viola and Raffyr were here.
***
CHAPTER THREE
I walked past the line of knights guarding the borders, and toward the old man. Questions arose within my mind, and my calm demeanor was quickly disturbed.
“Zoran.” Raffyr stumbled to me, his dusty white robes fluttering in the hot wind. There were tears in eyes, the salty drops flush against his cheek.
I, however, revoked every ounce of emotion I felt and addressed the old man, keeping my voice to as deadpan a tone as I could.
“What do you want, Raffyr?” I stared at him.
The old man stopped for a second. “Zoran,” he said once again, his tone softer than before. “Help us. Please.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because you betrayed me before?”
The old man’s face changed, and pain struck his expression now. “Viola and I were always caught between doing the right thing and doing the safe thing, Eternal. When we abandoned you, we chose to do to the safe thing.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And it is in the safety of my own personal interests that I do not help you. Why should I care now?”
“Because this,” he held up Viola, “is what happens when we try to do the right thing.”
My eyes widened. I turned around. “If you have something to say, let us talk of it within the village.”
The old man shuffled behind me as I walked into the streets. The knights quickly moved to the side, and made way for us.
“My Lord,” Raffiel said. “Is everything alright?”
“Leave us be.” I waved him away and walked to the nearest house. “Raffyr, in here,” I said, and headed in.
The old man quickly followed, half-stumbling through the doorway as he carried the unconscious girl in. My chest tightened at the sight, and pangs of sympathy attack my mind, but I didn’t give in to them. I had been betrayed by these two before. There was no way I was giving them my blind trust again. For all I knew, this could be part of some elaborate scheme the Alliance of Light was trying with them.
Are they after the Eternal? I wondered.
“I don’t see signs implying that,” Nyx said.
“What is this place?” Raffyr said, glancing around.
“It does not look like a place that can heal Viola right now.”
“That’s because it’s not,” I said. “I’ve trusted you for worse before, Raffyr. It’s perfectly justified for me to expect you to have a reason as to why I should buy into your stories this time. What’s to say you won’t betray me again?”
The old man placed Viola on the nearest table, with her hands resting gently atop her chest. He turned to face me, with a steely look in his eyes.
“She seems to be in pretty bad condition, Diablo,” Nyx said. “Are you sure you need to do this now?”
“I believe it is required,” Acnologia said. “In situations like this, self-preservation is our top priority. Our safety comes first. Sympathy has no place on the battlefield.”
The dragon’s words hurt, but the truth within them resounded loud and clear. This wasn’t the nicest thing I could have done. In fact, I was pretty much playing into the Evil Overlord image right now. But it was something that was necessary.
I stared at the old man, looking right into his eyes. “So,” I said. “What exactly brought you here, Raffyr?”
He stood where he was and spoke. “It is like I told you before,” he said. “We never meant to betray you, Zoran. But it was not our choice. Our allegiance was to one faction. Going against them at a time like that would have been suicide. We were stuck between doing the right thing and doing the safe thing.”
“And now you’ve had a sudden change of heart?” I asked. “Suddenly you’re on my side?”
“Nothing about this was sudden,” he said. “When we were told you had sided with the Dark Alliance, Viola and I never believed the sources. And for our beliefs, we were shunned from voicing our opinions regarding the situations that occurred right after. It was better for the Alliance of Light if the public saw you as an enemy.”
“Viola saw me as an enemy as well, Raffyr,” I said. “I faced her on the battlefield. I saw her face. I saw those eyes that looked at me with contempt. Was that all an act?”
“I…” the old man’s voice broke off. “I cannot speak for what this young lady has done in the past. But that is the nature of youth. Brash and impulsive, doing whatever needs to be done at the moment.”
“That is a beautiful thought, but it does not assure me that you are not here to betray me once again. In fact, it does the opposite.”
The old man stepped closer to Viola and grabbed the tip of her sleeve, pulling it all the way up to her shoulder.
My eyes widened.
“Holy hell,” Nyx whispered.
The young lady’s arm was ridden with scars, running all along her skin in all sorts of directions. Any more scars and her entire skin would have been covered with just them.
“This is what happens when you decide to take a stand,” Raffyr said, a solemn tone in his voice. He gently pulled Viola’s sleeve back down, and then touched her wrist affectionately. “We decided enough was enough, Zoran. We took a stand. We told the Lumina Knights we did not agree with what was being done here. There was much they were keeping quiet about. Information manipulation was being done in abundance.”
“And they didn’t like that you said that,” I said.
He shook his head. “I never said any of that. Viola did.”
She always was the brazen one, I thought, but kept my expression frozen flat.
“I was too afraid to go against the higher ups of the faction,” the old man said. “But Viola…she’d had enough. We were told a few months ago that Zoran Diablo was going after a dragon to make himself stronger. And that it was precisely because of this that the Alliance of Light had to do the same as well.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “But that’s the complete opposite of what happened!”
“We thought so,” he said. “It was soon after that we began questioning everything we heard. And a few hours ago, Viola stood before the head council, and held them accountable for everything they had misinformed the public about.”
“And that’s when they attacked her?”
He nodded. “The Lumina Knights are after us,” he said. “I do not have anywhere to go. The only reason I am here is because I heard of how you had started your own village, and in this time of desperation and pain, I would willingly come here — even if the host did not think of me as a friend.”
“Wow that’s a little dramatic,” Nyx said.
Also, a little accurate, I said.
“Diablo, I don’t want to be blunt, but Viola seems half dead right now. It’s best we bring her back to the healing center first. Now that we’ve established what their story is, we can at least be assured that hosting these two won’t give us too much trouble.”
“They said the Lumina Knights were after them,” Acnologia said. “That means they ARE a beacon of trouble for us, does it not?”
There’s only so much of Evil Overlord I can pretend to be, I said. I looked at the old man. “There’s a healing station a few hundred yards down from here. Come with me.”
His expression immediately changed, and tears collected in his eyes. My stomach knotted and pangs of sympathy sunk into me once again. I’d been nothing but mean to this man, and yet he was this grateful just because I’d let him into the village.
“To those who are truly lost and hurt, any place is a sanctuary,” Acnologia said. “No matter what the circumstances.”
I signaled to two of the knights standing outside the house, and they walked in promptly. “Yes, my Lord.” They both bowed.
“Bring her to my house,” I said.
“Understood.” They lifted Viola up, and followed me and Raffyr we walked into the streets.
The old man walked silently beside me, looking at the houses all around, with a somber expression on his face.
I raised an eyebrow. He doesn’t seem to have his usual curiosity.
But then again, now was not a time for curiosity, given he had just run from a place he’d called home for who knows how long.
I felt a certain connection to his emotions right now — to how both of them must have felt when they had to leave their faction. It was not that I knew what it felt like to leave a house, but I certainly knew what it was like to wander around aimlessly, with no single place to call a home.
“It isn’t an easy situation to be in,” Nyx said.
I felt bad about how I’d treated the old man, but it was a case of me versus him. Either I assured myself there was no trick here, or I paid the consequences by being fooled once again.
“It is fine, Diablo,” Nyx said. “You did the right thing.”
“Although,” Acnologia spoke. “I am not sure if it is a good idea to take Viola and Raffyr to the healing chambers right away.”
Really? Why? I asked.
“It might not be in our favor to have those two see the Eternal we are trying to keep a secret.”
Raffyr is indebted to us, and whether I doubt his alliance or not, I certainly do not doubt his integrity, I thought. That is why I did not doubt the truth in his words.
“If you’re confident, then I’m good,” Nyx said.
“Very well then,” Acnologia said. “The old man does strike me as a person with integrity as well.”
I saw the top of the dragon’s head peek out from a few buildings away, and I turned to Raffyr, a smile on my face, wondering how he would react when he saw the Dragon.
Needless to say, I was not let down.
“A DRAGON?” Raffyr exclaimed the moment we walked into the village square, with a voice loud enough for maybe half the people to have heard him.
I smiled once again. That was who Raffyr was. In the toughest of times, a simple thing like this could get him completely ecstatic and ignorant of the hardships he’d just faced.
“I’d hardly say seeing a Dragon in the middle of a village is a ‘simple’ thing,” Acnologia chuckled. The dragon took one glance at Raffyr, stood himself up, and moved to the other side of the square.
I looked back once just to make sure the knights carrying Viola
were still behind us and then moved on, quickly coming up to my house. Freya stood right behind the doorway, an eager expression on her face.
“Zoran!” She stepped to me. “How did everything-”
She froze, and she looked at the people behind me. Her eyes shifted between Raffyr and then Viola, and confusion built up in her expression. I calmly walked past her, leading Raffyr and the Knights down the staircase and into the healing chambers.
Ijyela and Krof wore looks of confusion as well when they saw Raffyr and Viola come down the stairs behind me, but they asked no questions.
“Get her set up on one of the empty beds,” I told the knights and they gently placed Viola on the stone bed to the right of the Eternal.
I noticed Raffyr glance at the Eternal as well, but he quickly shifted his attention back to Viola. After all, she was the reason he was here in the first place.
Ijyela was fast at work, and had already set up a crystal chamber around Viola. She was on her screen now, sifting through options quickly.
“She’s completely healthy,” the elven witch said a few moments later. “She, however, seems to have suffered some kind of deep trauma. There are numerous scars all over her body. Her heart rate also implies she completely exhausted. The reason she’s unconscious is probably because her mind decided it was safer to shut her body down.”
“So, she’ll be fine soon?” Raffyr asked.
“She should be awake by the time the night turns to day,” Ijyela said.
“Thank goodness.” The old man looked at Viola, and his eyes teared up again.
“Zoran?” Freya grabbed my shoulder. “Can I have a word?”
I blinked. Eh?
“Looks like you’re in trouble,” Nyx chuckled.
“Zoran?” the elf asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, and then glanced at Ijyela. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
She and Krof nodded quietly, and I made my way back up the stairs, following Freya out. The two guards from before were still at the doorway and so I dismissed them.
“Okay.” I closed the door behind the guards. “What happened?”
The Eternal: Transcend - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 3) Page 3