by Ryan Rimmel
“Of course, I’m alive! I’m….” Wait, I’m not Jim. I’d taken the option to choose another name. I’d have to decide here, and I better make it good. I would stick with it for at least the rest of this Remort.
“O’Really,” she replied. “I can see your name tag. Are you an Easterner?”
I brought up my character sheet. My name was listed as Jim there, but I had a new tab for Aliases. That had precisely one listing.
● O’Really - Remort Alternative Name, current default name tag. Would you like to switch to Jim?
“What the hell?” I thought to Shart. “How did that happen?”
“I think the naming is voice-activated,” said Shart. “What was the first thing you said out loud when you took the renaming perk?”
Oh, really?
I’d been so happy I could change my name. Yet, I’d somehow picked something even stupider than Jim, if that was possible.
The woman was still looking at me. I remembered that I didn’t have menu time anymore, and I was having a long conversation in my head. On Ordinal, that was considered rude.
Feck it.
“Let’s go with that,” I said, praying that there wasn’t a children’s book featuring someone with a stupid catchphrase.
“What is your name?” I asked, realizing that I still couldn’t see her name tag over her head.
“Julia,” she replied curtly, closing her mouth with a snap.
“See, now we know each other’s names. Isn’t that just peachy?” I said, moving to place the key on a shelf next to her cell.
“Well, good. Hey, aren't you going to let me out?” she asked. She thought I was still under compulsion.
I used the key and unlocked the door, allowing the woman to step into the main hallway. I tried to do a quick Lore on her, but her handcuffs seemed to be blocking that ability. She held out her wrists, and I undid the cuffs that were there. She took a moment to flex her fingers before grinning at me. She grabbed her hair and lifted it off her neck, revealing a collar.
“Will you do the honors?” she asked. I was considering saying no, but the idea of a woman in a slave collar was unappealing to me. I was more of a slave bikini, cinnamon-bun hair sort of guy. I brought the key up to the lock, but it didn’t fit.
“This key doesn’t go to this lock,” I said, fiddling with it for another few seconds.
“They must have different keys. One of the other guards has to have it,” she said, her cheer momentarily broken.
“I checked the building to find this key. There weren’t any other keys anywhere,” I replied calmly.
She inhaled sharply before turning back toward me. I could see the wheels spinning in her mind as she determined her next course of action. “Did any of the guards escape?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied, guessing how this was going to go.
“I require you to go chase down that guard and bring me back the key,” she said.
● You are the subject of a Word of Command. Resistance check. Successful.
“No,” I replied.
“You can resist me?” she asked, her eyes widening before taking a step back. “The cuffs are off. I should be more powerful now than the first time we spoke.”
“You mean the first time you used your Word of Command? I resisted it then, too,” I smugly stated.
“Well, O’Really, you are just full of surprises,” she said, coming back on base like she hadn’t just tried to mind control me. “You seem pretty capable for a level 2 Cleric. Maybe we could come to an arrangement?” She smiled prettily at me.
“I don’t know if you have anything that I want,” I said after a moment. Julia frowned.
“I’m a freaking princess! I have something you want! Just name it,” she snapped back, placing her hands on her shapely hips.
“You are a princess?” I replied doubtfully.
“No, they just take random people and dump them far up into the mountains in hunting lodges with anti-scrying wards on them,” she said.
“See, that’s why I can’t find this place,” said Shart. “Just going to modulate the filters…”
“I’m here. I don’t think I fit the princess mold,” I said.
“You are a Cleric! You spawned here and were left to die. You’d be, like, the second one I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” she said, brushing past me and glancing into my cell. She promptly hugged herself and shivered. “You are the only one that lasted the night, though.”
“So, you don’t care if people die in these cells,” I said. She rounded on me.
“Of course, I care, but there wasn’t much I could do about it,” she grumped. The princess rubbed her wrists for a moment before reaching up and touching the collar. It shocked her, and she pulled her hand back with a whimper.
“Why are you in here?” I asked, as she started stomping up the stairs. I followed her; she had one of those kinds of backs.
“Because my aunt and uncle are fighting for the throne. Whoever wins will need a princess of the royal line to legitimize their claim.”
“So, it’s royal politics, then?” I questioned. She looked around the room we were about to enter. Her eyes widened, first at the large man sprawled on the floor with the massive wound in his chest, and then at the gory splatter that filled the room. She turned to face me, drawing her hand up to form some sort of arcane, divine symbol.
“Yes, royal politics,” she answered in a clipped fashion. “What happened up here?”
“I had a sandwich.”
“I disagree,” she retorted, as a large lump of intestines fell from the ceiling.
“It wasn’t a very good sandwich,” I explained.
“You killed all the guards,” she said, stepping into the kitchen. She very promptly stepped right back out.
“All but the one that escaped. How is the one that got burned to death in the fireplace? Crispy?” I guessed.
“You could have warned me,” she hissed, visibly attempting to gather control over herself. “Excuse me; I’m not used to second-level clerics who can clear a room full of 12th level guards.”
“I was only first level when I did it,” I said. “You know, if that helps.”
“Oh, that makes perfect sense,” she smiled sarcastically. I thought I could hear her little inner voice screaming. She started pacing the main room. Due to the exploded guy, it was covered in a fine mist of particles. Each step she took became a bit stiffer. Finally, she looked like she was about to lose it.
“Do you want a sandwich?” I asked.
“NO, I DO NOT want a sandwich,” she yelled, before visibly regaining control of herself. “I would like to find the guard who escaped. I want to get the key to my collar. I wish to remove it.”
“I could help you with that,” I replied, “for a price.”
“I already told you I’d give you anything,” she spat back. “What do you want? Please, just tell me! I’ll be happy to offer it to you!”
“Where are we?”
Chapter 5 – Into the Unknown
Once the princess finished screaming, she explained that we were outside Angwin, a small town in the northern part of Falcon. Specifically, we were on Howell Mountain, just north of Angwin.
“Just north is a bit of an exaggeration,” stated Shart. “I found you, by the way.”
“Great, how far away is Windfall?” I asked the demon.
“You aren’t going to like it,” stated Shart. He had lost the ability to project images into my mind. Instead, he was forced to figure out how to articulate things that were best shown with pictures. “It’s more than a hundred leagues from the Vineyards.”
“The Vineyards?” I asked.
“There are several smaller cities that have merged to make up the de facto capital of Falcon. Collectively, they are called the Vineyards,” stated Shart. “That was where you were supposed to spawn. Windfall is twenty leagues west of that.”
That meant I was a good distance away from Windfall. I shrugged. A little over
one hundred leagues would take a bit to cross, but it wasn’t anything unmanageable. “Well, at least we have a path now.”
“Yeah, so, the entire northern part of Falcon is a series of mountains and valleys, unless you can get to the inner sea,” continued Shart.
“You’re saying I’m not going to be walking in a straight line there?” I guessed.
“Nope, call it a 140-league journey to the vinelands, give or take,” stated Shart.
“160 leagues to Windfall,” I stated. “The only reason I care about the Vineyards is that it’s a spot between here and home.”
“Good point,” stated Shart.
Then, there was blessed silence, as Shart began doing whatever it was that a demon watching over his friend from Limbo should do. I searched for Julia, finding her quickly enough. She had stepped out from one of the side rooms, wearing a warm looking parka over her outfit. I raided the kitchen, finding a hunk of cheese that I squirreled away in a backpack, of which I had also pilfered. The princess stood nearby and tried to be patient. By the time I’d filled the entire pack, she looked ready to burst.
“Are you going to help me find that last guard or not?” she asked testily. Before putting on the parka, she’d spent several minutes looking for the other key. Once she had decided I was right about it not being here, she’d rushed off to get changed.
“I said I would,” I replied.
“Well, it’s just, I didn’t really pay you very much,” she said. “I mean, it's not hard to find out where we are. There was a map in the front room.”
“Okay,” I replied and started toward the door that the guard had fled through.
“Unless…” stated Julia, as she started walking behind me. She looked almost like a child that was wearing her big brother’s coat. “Unless you already knew where we were. Were you just testing me, to see if I was honest?”
I said nothing and activated my Tracking skill. I didn’t think it would be all that challenging to find the guard. The snow was fresh and, aside from some wind blowing a few wisps of fluffy, white powder, the night was clear. That meant that the man’s tracks, combined with his trail of blood, were straightforward to follow. I trudged through his footfalls, Julia trailing behind me.
I had been wrong about the cell being cold. Away from the stone hearths that provided heat to the main hall, the night grew extremely cold, extremely quickly. A blast of frigid air seemed to carve straight through my coat, causing me to pause. There was no way that the guard had survived wearing less than we were.
I was about to suggest that the guard was, most likely, a frozen popsicle, but a quick glance at Julia stopped me. The princess didn’t appear to be cold at all. She looked at me with blissful serenity. I watched her loosening her coat slightly, so that it wasn’t uncomfortable around her waist.
“Can you cast that spell on me?” I asked.
“Sure,” she replied, whispering, “Great fires of London!”
● Julia has cast “Resist Cold” upon you. You can automatically resist this spell; however, you will gain no benefits from the spell should you do so. Resist Cold will allow you to feel comfortable in temperatures up to -40 degrees. Would you like to resist this spell?
No way in hell I was going to resist Julia’s spell on me. I was already checking my character sheet to verify my gender. I selected “No.” Instantly, the cold didn’t seem to bother me. It felt like a balmy spring day. Well, maybe a fall day, but it was still far more comfortable than it had been moments before.
“So, you’re a Cleric?” I asked. I’d tried Lore again, but the collar, not the cuffs, seemed to be blocking it.
“Hardly,” she retorted. “I’m a Zealot. I’d never survive bowing and scraping to some god. You poor clerical types, you have to spend all that time on your knees.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said, groaning inwardly. I had been considering the spawn location more than the class itself when I decided to choose Cleric. I should have done more investigation, because each class had its own requirements. Having to pray to a god seemed a bit more complicated than the other classes, though.
“You are low-level, give it time,” she admonished. “When you spend your whole life being what other people need you to be, it gets old quick.”
I considered that and remembered what she had said earlier about legitimizing someone’s claim. “Your aunt and uncle need you to legitimize their claim to the throne. How would that work?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d have to marry one of them. I’m definitely not looking forward to it, either. My uncle is too old, and my aunt is too difficult to deal with.”
I kept walking. If a woman’s most significant problem with marrying her aunt or uncle wasn’t that they were her aunt and uncle, I didn’t want to think about it. She chuckled and walked past me. She further increased her pace as we grew closer to some trees. At the base of the first large tree, the guard’s tracks ended.
“The tracks just vanish,” she said, looking around but finding nothing. The princess climbed onto a pile of snow at the base of the tree, but a higher vantage point still showed nothing. “Can you track him?”
“From here, no,” I replied, climbing up next to her. She swore in a very unladylike fashion.
“Fuck a Phoenix, I need to get this collar off,” she said. She slid down the pile of powder before adding, “It's blocking half my powers!”
“What will you do if I find him?” I asked, picking some berries off a nearby bush. She started brushing snow off her coat.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” she replied.
“Try me,” I responded, tossing a frozen berry into my mouth. Julia didn’t say anything, but I caught the smirk. The berries were mildly poisonous, which I’d noted before I started picking them. However, with my Poisoner perk and Mitigate, I avoided the more squirty of the problems they caused. They were the right kind of tart, I determined.
“Fine, I’m going to travel into the Vineyards to check on something,” she said, frowning at me. “It’s something high-level. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I need to go to the Vineyards,” I casually mentioned.
“You can come with me, if you find the guard,” she responded.
I reached into the pile of snow at the base of the tree and pulled. With my limited strength, it took two good yanks, but the head of the frozen guard eventually popped out. The rest of him followed, as I dragged his corpse out of the snowbank and plopped him down next to Julia. I hadn’t expected much of a reaction. All I got was a deep inhale from her royal highness.
“So, he was walking into the woods, and the snow from the tree fell on him. Then, he froze to death,” she said.
“I’d say he was already about two-thirds of the way to freezing to death by the time he got here, based on his stride,” I replied.
Julia got down on her knees and began rummaging through his pockets. I exhaled loudly and turned back toward the lodge. While the lodge was well out of eyesight, the Phoenix Moon's fading ethereal light was still making the night reasonably bright. I could see a single plume of black smoke from the direction of our former captivity. The lodge was burning.
“Hey, I think we might have a problem,” I stated.
“Hush, I’m still looking for the key,” she replied.
I felt the world slow for an instant, but I recognized what was happening and let my body respond. An arrow whizzed past me, slamming into the tree.
“Hey, those two men are shooting arrows at us,” I said.
A second arrow whizzed toward me. I used my favorite trick to catch it, just as it flew to impale me. That wasn’t my best decision. Even at this distance, the arrow carried significant force. Without my usual strength, it seemed destined to crash into my chest. Fortunately, I was standing on some slippery snow. The power of the arrow pushed me several feet, until I was right next to Julia.
Julia looked at me while snatching the arrow from my hand. “That’s one of my aunt’s soldier’s arrows.�
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I looked back at the two men. I guessed two men, at any rate. I suppose a better term would be “two individuals wearing bulky coats, so you couldn’t tell what the hell gender they were.” On Ordinal, gender didn’t matter that much, anyway. Only one of them had a bow; the other was carrying a walking stick. They were on the last ridge we’d walked over, which was still pretty far away. The shot the soldier made would have been impressive, even for SueLeeta.
Scratch that, I don’t think SueLeeta can even fire from that range.
“We need to go,” yelled Julia, standing and running into the woods. A volley of arrows followed us.
Chapter 6 – Hiding in the woods
“I’m pretty sure the one with a bow is a Woodsman,” I yelled, as we ran into the tree line. The long-range pelting of arrows ceased. Even on Ordinal, an arrow had a flight path that was locked in once you shot it. If there was some sort of homing arrow perk, I hadn’t found it. Luckily, neither had Mr. Archer.
“I thought you said your aunt needed you to legitimize her claim on the throne,” I barked, as we slid down a snow-covered slope and started running down another hill.
“Well, I don’t really get along with her. I’m guessing that if her trusted men found me dead in a lodge controlled by my uncle, it would probably help her cause just as much,” replied Julia.
Despite all the running we were doing, I was beginning to get cold. Very cold, in fact. Julia finally took a moment between gulping in breaths of air to freshen her spell on me. “Sorry, it only lasts about fifteen minutes,” she choked out. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn I saw a twinkle in her eye. I couldn’t bail on her out here; it was too freaking cold, and I didn’t have any shelter handy.
Clever girl.
Two more arrows whizzed past me, causing my Fancy Footwork skill to kick on. Trying to outrun a Woodsman in the forest was next to impossible, but no one told that to Julia. She immediately scrambled down an icy path. I followed her. She slipped about a quarter of the way down and started tumbling down the hill. I was able to stay on my feet, thanks to my Mobility perk, as well as my Hiking skill. Unfortunately, that meant that the Woodsman had an easier target.