by D Wolfin
“Mouse, sorry! But I have to run! Please take care of that clothing for me!”
“Sure, sure. Go do your thing. And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” He gives another business smile as I am about to turn around, only to stop in my tracks.
“What secret?” I am genuinely curious.
“You know, that fire that someone started the other day. The city guards are furiously trying to find who did it, nearly every person with fire magic has been put to the question. I even hear there is quite the bounty, considering that the flame burnt down 5 houses in the end.”
“Wait! What!? How did you kn… Never mind, I have to go!”
I don’t even have the time to wonder how he knows such a thing, nor why he is being overly kind to me. There is a bounty on my head, and in the end, he is a businessman.
I rush off towards the Gold Run Inn with Fen still silently attached to my arm, not questioning Mouse’s knowledge again.
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-Verde-
I return online and rush over to the inn in no time at all. After all, I returned to the game only five minutes before our meeting time. Considering that as the sun comes up, the system wakes up all the players that choose to sleep in game. Naturally, all the streets soon fill up.
Once I reached the inn, I see the two brothers, Mason and Matrix, sitting at one of the table barrels with Sir Laurence. The brothers are busy chatting to each other and have completely excluded Sir Laurence. Even though he probably decided himself to not talk to them, it was still somewhat of a pitiable sight to see.
“I’m here.” I put on my best smile under the hood that covers most of my face. Mason only nods while giving me a glance but Matrix immediately blushes and looks away. At the same time, Sir Laurence gets up and walks over, instantly going to one knee in front of me in the pose of a knight before his queen.
“My lady, I am glad you are safe. I spent the entire time worrying that some fiend may have attacked you.”
Despite how used to his selfishly embarrassing lines I am, he occasionally speaks one that I can’t help but feel incredibly awkward in front of.
“Where is Lost?” Passing off the knight’s line like it was never spoken, I address the other two.
“No idea,” Mason replies, “It says he is online though.”
“Hang on.”
I open up my friends list and select ‘Lost’. From there I send a private message asking where exactly he is considering the rest of us are already here. I know Fen is not here, but she is an extension of Lost, and will be with him.
He almost seems to be in a bit of a panic when he realizes the time, which causes me to let out a small giggle inwardly.
Five minutes later, Lost rushes through the door as it is time to start the quest. He immediately send the party request to everyone, yet nobody other than me accept it. They are all too busy staring wide eyed at him, including Sir Laurence.
“T-the hood!” Mason stammers. He has not known Lost for long, but he was fully aware of the fact that that hood does not come off.
I’m not shocked at the hood, but the girl who was shamelessly wrapping her arms around Lost’s arm took me aback. I need to do something about that!
“Nothing to do about it.” Lost shrugged.
The next surprise that Sir Laurence talks to him, for the first time without me explicitly wishing him to do so.
“That ghastly expression looks like something out of a horror film. Put it back on.”
There is no hatred in his voice, it is completely emotionless. There is however, shock and hatred over those words in the eyes of the two brother, Fen, and even myself. Sure, Lost’s expression looks was something akin to someone who had been to hell, but to say it so forthright and put someone down about it is going too far.
Through the silent atmosphere, he slowly rises the hood up and brings it back over his head, allowing that mysterious shadow to shroud itself back down over his face once again.
He tests taking the hood off and back on again, but eventually leaves it on.
“Let’s do this quest.” He quietly mumbles to us as he walks past and towards the bar keeper who has just come out of the back of the store. With Fen clinging to Lost’s arm, as soon as she passes behind Sir Laurence, with a sweeping motion one leg, kicks against the stool he was sitting on. The two rear stool legs snap like twigs and the knight in shining armour falls to the ground with a shout as the wooden structure beneath him collapses.
By now, everyone has accepted the party request and moves behind him to start this quest.
“Lost! You are here! Perfect timing, my daughter has just left the back door. Follow me through to the back.” Rix, the innkeeper, speaks most of the sentence in hushed tones, not wanting to alert any unnecessary attention.
He leads us behind the bar and out the back door of the room. We pass through what appears to be a living area, and then a large kitchen, where a lady as large and round as a giant tomato was busy flying up a large amount of stir fry in an equally enormous wok.
She didn’t even turn around when we walked in, so all we could see was her massive back. With one thick braid of hair running down her back, she was dressed in blue overalls over a pink and white floral shirt.
“Sweetheart, these are the people that are going to find out where that pesky daughter of our is sneaking off to with our food. They were recommended by my brother.” I can see the loving affection he had for this woman
“I don’t care,” she speaks over her shoulder in an incredibly harsh tone to her husband, “Didn’t I tell you to just leave her alone!”
“Honey, I care for her! I’m sorry, but I must know she is safe.”
The wife let out a snort and Rix led us through to the back of the kitchen, where a door led to the alley behind the building.
“Sorry to be a burden to you,” Rix speaks to us quietly, yet very rapidly, “But, can you please follow my daughter and find out where she goes with all that bread!”
The next thing I know, I am standing in the alley behind the building with everyone else, the back door to the inn firmly closed in front of me.
“Wait, what about her name?” I ask towards the closed door.
“What about her looks? Who exactly are we looking for here?” Lost follows up next to me.
I stare at the door the same as everybody else, but there is no response.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait around,” Lost let out a large sigh. “At least we know she is carrying bread. Judging by the parents, she should be anywhere between five and fifteen years old. Originally it was just you, Verde, that was going to secretly follow her. But now, we all need to split up and locate her first.”
“Everyone, keep your party chats on so we can keep each other updated. Make sure to make the call when you find her.”
Everyone looks at each other and gives their agreements.
As I go to head off in my own direction, I notice Fen sticking close to Lost and suddenly get an idea.
“Lost,” I sheepishly call out, causing him to stop and turn around. “It may be better if Fen splits up as well, to cover more ground.”
Lost seems to give it some consideration, nodding his head a few times. Next to him, Fen shoots a terrifying glare at me that sends shivers all up my spine.
“Don’t… want to…” The wolf girl speaks in an icy voice.
“W-well,” Lost starts stuttering, “I g-guess there is no helping it if she comes along with me or not.”
I don’t fully understand why Lost seems so nervous, but I kind of get the premonition that he is afraid of something.
“But you two are the fastest among us. If you split up we all will cover a lot more ground.” It is a solid argument. If we want to succeed this quest, we will need everyone doing their part.
“I-I know. Let’s not worry about it t-this time.”
&nbs
p; From the glare the girl is still giving me, I feel like the entire area around me has dropped a few degrees.
As I let out a deep breath, steam forms in the frosty air in front of my face.
‘My god, the temperature has actually dropped! Is this that wolf’s doing?!’
“Okay, I get it.” I actually don’t, but for some reason he seems to want to give that wolf girl what she wants. I am also frightened of pushing too hard and causing her to attack me.
Turning around I head off into the crowded streets to search for this child that is supposed to be running away with bread for some unknown purpose.
Five minutes into my investigation and I start getting a headache. I don’t know if it is because of this quest or the fact that I never really paid attention before, but while the ratio is low, there is an incredibly large number of child NPCs running around.
I immediately rule out all the boys and only look at the girls, but none have any bread on them.
“This is so frustrating! How can I find the girl when the streets are so crowded and the kids keep disappearing!” I call out over the party chat in frustration.
“Verde,” Mason responds to me, “you need to be in a high place. Get on top of a roof or similar where you can overlook the entire scene.”
“That would help!”
“No worries. Oh! I found her!”
“What!? Already!?” It was not just me who was astonished, but also Lost, Matrix and Sir Laurence over the private chat.
“Ah yeah, she just entered a pretty dark alley with a basket full of bread. Pretty sure it is her. Let me send up a beacon on my location.”
All of a sudden a translucent beam of golden light like an early sunrise reaches up into the air. Even if through all the people a buildings, I can only see a fraction of it, I instantly recognize the light for what it was.
It is an option called the ‘Beacon’ that any member of a party could utilize at any time. All it does is send up a beam of light for one minute which indicates the players position. The best part about it is that only the other party members can see the light. Naturally, this is useless in underground dungeons and the like.
I weave my way through the busy streets towards the faint light. Surprisingly, Mason is quite far away. It takes me a good ten minutes to finally reach him, his ‘beacon’ being sent up multiple times as he slowly follows the innkeeper’s daughter through the crowded streets.
When I arrive I find him on a rooftop, with Lost, Fen and Matrix already there.
Looking dumbfounded from the street, I have no clue how to even get up there. Pursing my lips, I look around for something to climb up.
While I can easily jump a five or six meter gap with my agility, that does not mean I can jump five meters up to get on top of a double story roof.
Around the other side of the building I spot a few crates stacked up and a second floor balcony. Jumping up onto the crates, I launch myself up onto the balcony ledge and further up to the roof.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the full jump and ended up with only hanging onto the edge with my hand, before ungracefully pulling myself up and onto the roof.
“I don’t understand. Where is she going? It is almost as if she is heading for the city walls,” Mason states quizzically.
“Hmm. It could be possible,” Lost replies, seemingly devoid of emotion.
“H-Hey!” I call out to the group who were currently ignoring me. “What’s happening? I only just got here.”
“Ah, Verde!” Lost turned around, his voice suddenly happy, “We have found the girl, but she is taking a strange path. We are having a bit of trouble keeping track of her in this crowd.”
He indicates to a young eight year old girl strolling through the crowd quite quickly. She is wearing a light blue scarf and a pink and white polka dot dress. Under her arm is a small basket with a few loaves of bread in it.
“Okay, I will go down and follow behind her.” I feel a little sour considering it was quite the effort to get up here, and now I have to go back down.
Down on the ground I see the others easily jumping the distance to the next building as they refuse to let the girl get out of their view.
“Hey, Lost. Where is Sir Laurence?” I ask the leader with uncertainty. I have never known him to be one to be late or get lost.
“I’m not entirely sure. Considering that he has such heavy armour and is the slowest of us all, he may still be trying to get here.”
“Well, this is pretty far away from where we began. How exactly did Mason find this place?”
“Also not exactly sure. Mason mentioned something about putting himself in a little girls shoes and figuring out where he would go.”
“Okay! Well, I don’t really get it, but I’m only here to secretly follow this child. It is lucky we found her in the first place.”
As I say that, I also focus my attention on having everyone around me avert their eyes.
A cool, secretive sensation invades my mind, informing me that the skill is now currently active.
In front of me I am only a few steps behind the girl.
Almost as if she is aware I am chasing her, she suddenly stops and does a complete ninety degree turn, disappearing into an alley in the blink of an eye.
A tinge of worry assaults me, but I feel better when I catch up to the little girl only a minute later.
I keep giving Lost reports over the party chat. He is slightly behind as when she had entered the alley the others lost track of her.
I go in and out of dark alleys and through busy streets, almost as if I am being lead on a wild goose chase. This girl clearly did not want anyone following her.
The houses all around me slowly get smaller and smaller. Eventually, I come to a sudden realization.
‘We are approaching the city wall!’
Lost and the others are no longer trying to follow as well. Once Sir Laurence caught up with them, there was no longer a way for all of them to keep up with me and the girl on the ground.
I told them at one stage to just come down, but apparently, they aren’t meant to be seen. Of course, I yelled out to them that if they didn’t want to get seen then they should hurry up and get off of the roofs. It was an incredibly frustrating conversation. And over such a simple thing, I even lost control of my emotions.
Feeling ashamed, I follow the girl in silence. She often flicks her head back to check for any followers, which makes me incredibly uneasy and nervous, but my skill to avert her eyes from me prevails in the end.
When I bring my eyes back to the girl from looking at the wooden buildings, she has somehow disappeared from right in front of me. My heart clenches at the thought that I just failed the quest.
I frantically search the surrounding to find out where she could have gone, but I cannot discern where she went no matter how hard I look.
Returning to where I saw her last, I can’t gather where else she could have gone. There are some small cheap residences on one side of the road, while on the other side, there is the city wall.
‘She must have gone into one of the residences, but which one?’
I ponder to myself while looking around. There is no way she climbed the wall with some kind of extraordinary feat, so what else could there be.
My eyes wander to the base of the wall where I notice something peculiar. There is a thin plate of metal, about forty centimetres long and wide, leaning against the wall.
‘No, it can’t be.’
I move over to the plate and move it out of the way. I may have suspected it, but to find a hole in the wall is still surprising.
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to crawl along the ground through the small hole. The hesitation goes as I consider that this quest needs to be done. Lost probably won’t forgive me for causing him to fail it just because I didn’t want to crawl through the dirt.
I get down on my elbows and crawl through the gap. The wall is about two meters deep and having to squeeze my shoulders together in
such a tight spot makes my chest feel rather uncomfortable.
After a minute of wiggling around I emerge on the other side of the wall. The hole on the outside isn’t covered by a metal plate, but instead has a clump of unnaturally long grass growing over it.
Outside of that crop of grass was a small clearing about fifty meters in diameter. Everything else was what appeared to be endless woods, the trees reaching from ten to twenty meters tall.
On my way out of the grass it is unavoidable that I made a few rustling noises. So who is to blame me for warning not only the little girl that I was following, but also the little boy she is meeting.
The boy is wearing simple brown clothes, with a white beanie on his head that was pulled down to cover his ears. Some small wisps of blonde hair poke through the rim of the beanie, but most appear to have been tucked underneath it.
There is a strange air about this boy. He appears to only be eight years old, the same as the girl. But he had this mysterious aura that causes him to look incredibly elegant.
The noise I made allowed these two to become aware that someone is definitely there and look past my ability. The boy is the first to throw his glance over at me, fear showing in his eyes. The girl, at the sight of me, seems to be about ready to start crying when the boy looked back at her.
“W-what have you done!?” The boy cries out to the girl next to him. “I told you that you can’t tell anybody about me, and you led them here!?”
“N-no! It’s not like that!” She states back, letting out a few sniffles.
“You kept saying how you want me to go over to yours to play. How you want to introduce me to your parents. Did you let someone come here with you?”
“I c-checked, there was nobody f-following me!”
“Well now I have to tell me parents, and we will have to move away! I won’t be able to come here again!”
Even the boy started tearing up now, while the girl started balling. All I could do was stand there dumbstruck and witness this scene.
‘What the hell did I just witness. Is this the kids these days? Acting out soap operas?’
I fail to realize that my mouth was hanging open. The boy runs off into the woods with a frightening speed for someone his age, and the girl sprints back to the hole in the wall in tears.