The Road to Red Thorn

by Blaine Hicks

  Radley wanted to transition the ambush into a conversation about the strange state of the world. His goal had been to find someone who could answer his questions, and this was an opportunity if they didn’t kill him first. If the elves wouldn’t help him, maybe they could point him in a better direction. Before he could articulate any of these thoughts, Edensu spoke again. “You are crossing a very thin log little snake. I advise you to answer carefully. What brings you northward...and how did you make it so far into Elderwood without our detection?”

  Radley had just entered the woods, so the revelation that he was deep inside their territory was news to him, but he didn’t want to admit that. This new world had already proven itself a dangerous and unforgiving land. He needed to know more before risking a full confession. He decided to create an RP backstory; something simple but believable. Luckily, role playing was ingrained in his DNA so creating a reasonable backstory within the context of an RPG world came easy. “I’m Radley, an Elementalist from Nyssrask. I am on a quest from the great Master Sseviss to obtain a spell of elemental power.”

  Edensu’s eyes narrowed and a fresh look of indignation crossed his face. “There is only one elemental spell quest in this region, but you are not worthy of it. IF this is what you seek, then you are grasping for powers you can’t comprehend. Your master is a fool.”

  The conversation was going in the wrong direction. Radley didn’t care about a spell right now. He wanted answers about the world and why it was so screwed up. If he didn’t have a spear pressed against his throat, he would have interrupted Edensu but he wasn’t in a position to dismiss the feedback. He patiently listened to the rant.

  “The entrance you seek lies in the mountains to the west, but the cavern guardian would be a match for even my battle competence and power. Wandering naked towards certain death is madness. I weep for you, your class, and your kind.” The last part was said with snarling disdain and not with the empathy that the words implied. It was another attempt at provocation, but Radley focused on his goal to steer the conversation towards finding help.

  “Well...” Radley started as politely as possible, “my quest does not begin with the guardian but with a search for allies.”

  Edensu’s eyes narrowed even further at the implication of cooperation and he began shaking his head before Radley was even finished speaking. His response was firm. “You will find none in Elderwood foolish enough to help you. Be gone snake and bother us no more.”

  “If not you, then who?” Radley asked, trying to salvage something positive from the chance meeting.

  Edensu sighed, growing bored with the conversation and waved the question away. “Continue on your way snake. Head north. I’m sure the vermin of Red Thorn will be more than accommodating.”

  The elf made a small gesture with his hand and the spear was pulled away from Radley’s throat. The pain left with the spear tip and Radley groaned in relief. He finally shot a sideways glance at the second elf and was surprised to see a young woman in a green cloak holding the spear. Like Edensu, her skin was the darkest black he could imagine; like raven feathers at the bottom of a well. He did a double-take and stared, forgetting the promise of answers, and inhaled her visage with his jaw hanging open. She was painfully beautiful, and Radley’s heart broke with a longing to love her.

  Her eyes were blue-grey not green like Edensu’s eyes, but they still appeared to glow faintly in the shaded forest. Her face was perfectly smooth as if she were very young despite her mature height. As Radley stared, he saw wisdom in her eyes that contradicted the youthful face. Her black hair was unbound and cascaded halfway down her back.

  Radley was unable to think or even move as his mind tried to process the perfection of her features. He wanted to be lost forever in the sparkling pools of her eyes...until he realized she was speaking to him. He tried to focus but it was so hard to pay attention.

  “...the northern patrols so you won't be stopped again but we won't promise your safety through Elderwood.”

  Her voice was as fair and clear as a songbird and when she spoke, her words wrapped around Radley like a warm blanket. She was the glow of moonbeams on velvet flower petals. She was cool water under an August sun. She was the fall harvest after a summer’s labor. She was…gone?? A fuzzy confusion settled over Radley who looked around frantically. Where did she go?? He wondered. Edensu was gone as well. How long have I been standing alone? He was still just five paces from the edge of the treeline but it felt like he’d just traveled a thousand miles.

  “Where are you?” Radley called aloud into the trees. “Come back, I need you!”

  There was nothing but silence in reply and Radley was reminded of losing his mom. He shook his head trying to clear the two ideas. They didn’t both fit in his mind at once. What had happened?

  He knew it didn’t make sense, but he loved the elf. How is that possible? He called out again but still received no response. Tears fell down his cheeks, not the blubbering tears he had cried in his kitchen for his lost mother, but quiet lonely tears.

  “Where did you go?” Radley whimpered.

  He had lost both women who had ever mattered to him. Both women? How could the elf compare to his mom? He shook his head again. Then, like a veil sliding off of him, clarity returned. The elf had been beautiful, but he had just met her. He hadn’t loved her. He didn’t even know her. He wiped the fresh tears from his eyes with the back of his scaled forearm. The wetness suddenly felt foreign to him, like the tears weren’t his. He looked around again but still only saw dark trees.

  What just happened? he wondered again. There was no sign of any elves. Was it a dream?

  Radley selected the flashing exclamation point at the edge of his HUD telling him he had new notifications waiting.

  *Despite having almost no chance, you successfully made the charisma check. You have opened negotiations with Edensu White-Fawn.*

  *You have learned the skill “Negotiate” (level 1)*

  *You have failed the charisma check. Edensu will not aid your fake quest.*

  *You have failed the willpower check and are affected by infatuation. Your wisdom is decreased by 80% for the duration of the effect. Your intelligence is decreased by 80% for the duration of the effect.*

  *You have failed the willpower check and are affected by Mind Haze. You have lost 1 minute of memories.*

  *You have failed the willpower check and continue to be infatuated. Your wisdom remains decreased by 80% for the duration of the effect. Your intelligence remains decreased by 80% for the duration of the effect. You have lost 1 minute of memories.*

  *Your strong memories of love have boosted your resistance to infatuation. The willpower requirement to overcome the spell effect is reduced by 50%.*

  *You successfully made the willpower check. You are no longer affected by infatuation.*

  Radley dismissed the notifications relieved at least that he wasn’t going crazy, or at least not crazier than he’d already been. He supposed it was still possible that none of this was real since game mechanics and dynamic skill notifications shouldn’t exist. The stream of prompts at least proved that he hadn’t imagined the encounter but did nothing to console his annoyance at getting no answers. He wondered why the elves’ had such an attitude problem, and what was that infatuation thing? He had more questions than ever. The elves had shared nothing except some random spell quest info and the name Red Thorn. He filed the shreds of knowledge away. The quest info really wasn’t useful to him at the moment, especially if Edensu was under leveled to fight the guardian at Level 68.

  Radley didn’t have time to dwell on any of this. The morning was quickly getting away from him. The elves had made it clear they wouldn’t help him, so he was left once again with his original plan: find the source of the smoke. That meant heading north, and he needed to get moving or he’d be risking a night in the forest.

  CH. 20 Hey Little Doggy

  Radley set off again towards his beacon, heading deep into the woods. The fores
t was disorienting, and he had to check his map regularly to ensure a northerly heading. He smelled the birds near the meadow but those were replaced by strange bat-like creatures that flew erratically beneath the high forest canopy. The milder scents of rabbits and squirrels were also replaced by the stronger stench of forest grendel.

  Grendel were the most prominent creatures in the forest, and each patrolled a well-defined area marked by the pungent aroma of urine along the borders. A human probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but the boundary was a tangible barrier to Radley’s enhanced sense of smell. It was slightly harder to actually find them. The grendel were lazy when unprovoked and looked a lot like rocks while sleeping the day away. At first, Radley tried to search for their tracks, but the forest floor was covered in leaf litter that masked any prints from their passing. Their odor however was just as strong as their territory’s boundary and Radley quickly discovered he could track them much easier with his nose. As he walked, he flicked his tongue, grabbing the odor trails from the air. He could intuitively tell which direction they traveled and how old the trail was. It wasn’t an exact science but more like guessing how old a chocolate chip cookie was by eating it. He considered this analogy. A fresh track was like a hot cookie straight from the oven that burned your mouth. Tracks from earlier in the day were like still-warm cookies. The oldest trails were like hard stale cookies that had fallen behind some kitchen appliance and been forgotten for a couple weeks; obviously quite old.

  Thinking of cookies made Radley sad again and he thought of his mom. He thought of his friends and the life he no longer had. What was he doing here? Tears wet his eyes and blurred his vision as he walked. He felt so alone. He felt so scared. He stopped walking and leaned against the dark trunk of a tree and wiped his eyes as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him again. No! he thought, pull yourself together. He tried to focus on hiking, but his mind kept trying to think about how hopeless his situation felt. He trudged to the top of the next hill and the self-pity was driven from his mind by fear when he almost stumbled into a sleeping grendel. He froze only inches away from the level 71 monster. He hadn’t been smelling the air and had thought the feature was just a big grey rock until he saw it breathing. The lazy beast kept sleeping.

  Radley looked around but saw no other signs of danger, so he very carefully backed away down the hill the way he’d come. Once there was sufficient distance between him and the sleeping beast, he circumvented the entire hill in a wide arc. When the imminent danger was behind him, he resolved to be more vigilant. Another misstep could be his last. He redoubled his efforts to taste the air for their scent and banished the thoughts of pity and doubt.

  The hiking continued on throughout the morning. Each time the grendel odor grew to a critical intensity, Radley slowed his pace or hid. He could usually figure out their direction in addition to their presence. Once he knew where they were, he could more easily avoid them. They were all high level and always identified as aggro but as long as he stayed out of sight and moved quietly, they never seemed aware he was there.

  As far as Radley could tell, the monstrous grendel were the only major threat to him in the forest. There were a few other carnivorous plants but those were stationary and easily identified with an HP bar floating above them. His biggest problem was keeping vigilant searching for them. They were everywhere. He hiked north for several hours until his stamina bar began to flash red. With only 6/42 STM points remaining he began to look for a place to rest. The sun was almost directly overhead when he found a shaft of sunlight illuminating a log on the forest floor. The temperature was still cold, and the golden glow of sunlight promised warmth. He stepped into the bright beam of light as if he were an actor coming on stage; except that he was alone. There was something sad about that paradox and fresh tears welled up in his eyes. He took a deep breath to calm his emotions. You’re such a mess, He thought to himself as he sat down on the log at the center of the spotlight.

  He wondered why he was having so much trouble keeping his emotions in check since waking up in this reality. He tried thinking about other things and surveyed the forest around him for danger. He realized that the fallen tree he was sitting on was probably responsible for the hole in the forest canopy that was letting the sunlight through. With the sun shining on him, the snowflake icon finally vanished from the edge of his vision. Just like when he had lost the hunger icon, he felt stronger and faster the moment the icon vanished. He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath as the strength and agility returned to his muscles. There seemed to be an emotional buff as well but no other icons or notifications appeared.

  He stayed on the log for more than an hour until his stamina had fully recharged and even then, he procrastinated setting off again. The sun was wonderfully warm and simply too pleasant to abandon quickly. Eventually his water drop icon appeared notifying him he was thirsty again. He zipped open his backpack to find his water but didn’t realize as he fished around for the sports bottle that he was rattling the contents of the bag against the log. Such small clanking noises would never have been important in his previous life, but in the serenity of the forest it stood out like ringing a dinner bell.

  The grendel came up from a shallow ravine behind Radley. It was downwind so the basking naga couldn’t smell its pungent odor. The beast searched the area for the source of the sound but by then, Radley had found what he was looking for and had set the bag down beside him on the log. As the predator scanned the scenery, Radley sat relatively motionless, drinking from his sports bottle with a long slow draw. The water was cold and sweet. When he finished, he started to put the lid back on the bottle and the beast finally noticed him...and charged.

  Radley became aware of the commotion behind him after the grendel had crossed half the distance between them. He heard rustling leaves and had time to see the grendel approaching him like a freight train.

  The backpack saved Radley’s second life. It fell backwards off the log as Radley scrambled to get away. When the bag hit the ground, it made a heavy clank and the grendel adjusted its wild charge towards the sound. An instant later, the monster blasted through the log just beside where Radley had been sitting a moment before. Radley avoided the worst of the impact but was still on the log when it was converted into a torrent of shattered wood. The force was like an explosion that sent Radley flying end over end through the air. He landed in the leaf debri that carpeted the forest floor. It broke his fall without breaking his legs, but he was momentarily stunned.

  Somehow, gripped in his hands, he still held his walking staff and the sports bottle, but the backpack had been destroyed. All that was left was shredded fabric. The can of protein had burst open. Radley shook his head to clear it and he rose to his feet before the grendel had even come to a stop. He focused on the grendel, and selected the magnifying glass icon to identify it:

  Forest Grendel - 1335/1447 HP (aggro)

  Battle consideration: This Forest Grendel is level 58. You are in serious trouble. It's probably time to start running.

  Radley agreed with the prompt. He paused just long enough to process that the grendel had lost more than 100 HP, presumably from its headlong impact with the log. The beast turned to examine the destruction it had caused, and realized that Radley was not dead. In fact, he appeared relatively unscathed. The lack of its target’s death angered the grendel more than the creature’s breach into its territory. Radley could feel the creature's rage building and needed no other motivation. He immediately turned and ran away.

  The forest ground wasn’t flat. Gnarled tree roots, leaf debris, and broken branches made a direct path unrealistic. Even with Radley’s nimble reptile legs he had a difficult time traversing the terrain. That difficulty didn't stop him from running like a housecat at bath time. He chanced a glance behind him and saw the grendel begin a slow lumbering run in his direction. The difference in their apparent urgency filled him with a false sense of hope that he might win the foot race. What he didn’t know was that the grendel
was no pushover in a chase. What it lacked in urgency, it made up for with an incredible top speed and a woeful disregard for its own safety. Thirty seconds later the grendel was eating the distance between them as it hit its stride and bounded headlong through the forest. It weaved around only the largest of the forest’s trees, but the smaller ones stood no chance. Deafening concussions rocked the forest as those trees exploded into more wooden shrapnel.

  Radleys stamina had replenished but it was dropping fast while running at top speed. He checked his HUD’s status bar and saw it was already down to half. At this rate, he estimated that he could only run for another minute or so before being forced to stop and rest. The grendel was showing no signs of slowing. At the top of the next hill, Radley took another glance backwards. This time he lost all hope of getting away and only had enough time to roll sideways before the beast roared past him at twice his top speed. The grendel slowed its charge over several seconds before it turned to face its prey. Radley had scrambled behind the closest tree to hide. He peeked around the side to watch the beast’s next move.

  The grendel disliked such a cowardly opponent and rose up on its back legs to intimidate him. It zeroed in on the sound of heavy breathing, then roared and began to beat its chest fiercely. It dropped back down to all four legs and trotted at a victor's pace towards the hiding spot.

  Radley was desperate and knew that running away again wouldn’t work. A thick branch above his head caught his attention as a possible route to safety. It was pretty high up, but he had to try.

  He leapt with all his strength, kicking off the trunk of the tree to get a few extra inches and ended up higher than he expected. He hooked his arms securely around the limb but his weak core strength prevented him from climbing the rest of the way up. For a moment he just hung there like a ripe fruit, unable to climb higher and unwilling to fall back down. He remembered climbing the ant hill and dug the claws of his feet into the trunk of the tree. With the extra traction he walked awkwardly up it and hooked a leg over the limb. He had just pulled himself upright to straddle the branch when the grendel prowled around the side of the tree.