"Let's first turn in our spider leg stew quest to Patch. He'll love that. Then maybe grab something besides bear steak to eat and head to bed."
"That sounds like a winner to me."
We quickly retraced our steps. Nothing had respawned and we marked on our maps where the hidden door was so we could find our way back.
By the time we found our way back to the entrance, it was pitch black outside. We grabbed a couple torches from the wall and started for home.
"It's so peaceful out here..." Esmerelda sighed. Then she stopped, turned to me and kissed me on the lips. "I had fun tonight. I hope you didn't mind me interrupting your dungeon."
"No." I shook my head. "In fact, I would've kicked the proverbial bucket if you hadn't shown up. Plus it's a nice change of pace."
She smiled and caressed my hand. "Let's go."
It took another hour before we made it back to the inn. By then it was nearly morning. Patch wasn't there, so I threw some coins on the counter with a note and we let ourselves in the rooms.
Even though I was completely exhausted, it took a long time for me to fall asleep. I thought of many things. The foremost being that of my time with Esmerelda. I liked her. I especially enjoyed her company. After playing solo for awhile, it was nice to have some company.
Her skills complimented mine. I could root them in place and pick them off at my leisure, while she had the bursty damage to bring them to their knees.
She was really going to come in handy in the final boss battle.
That was something else that worried me. How much time did we have before the AI found out about us and attacked? And of course, defeating her 15th lvl minion wasn't going to be the end of her. Not by a long shot.
All we could do was bring new players into the game and try to stack the deck in our favor. That was our only hope.
I would've counted through my money, but I was just too damn tired. Who knew that dungeon-delving could be so tiring! Slowly, I drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep. I wasn't awoken until about noon by a worried rap on the door.
"You gonna sleep all day?" Patch's worried voice came through the wooden door.
"I'm up, Patch. Give me a few min and I'll be right down." I said, groggily rubbing my eyes. I looked over and saw Orge sitting on the chair next to the bed.
"Okay. Just making sure you're good. Want some breakfast?"
"Yeah. Sounds great. Give me the best you got." I waited until Patch had padded down the stairs before turning to Orge. "What's up? Another player?"
He nodded. But his face was grim.
"What's wrong?" I sat up in bed, worry suddenly clutching my heart. As much as the dungeon brought me up, I still wasn't anywhere near ready to take on the boss. What if she sent her minion now? They'd wipe the floor with us lowbies.
Orge sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. "She's starting to catch on. I've been noticing certain...odd spikes of energy around you guys every so often. It took me awhile to catch on to what she was doing, but I traced it back and figured it out."
"Oh?" My heart thrummed in my chest. My mouth went dry and suddenly my tongue felt like sandpaper.
He nodded gravely. "She's testing you. And not just you, everyone that we've brought into the game."
"Testing us?" I gulped. "How exactly?" I didn't particularly like the sound of this.
"She wants to know what you're made of." He interlaced his fingers and leaned forward. "As far as I can tell, she's doing two things. First, she’s adding in a random black cloud to all your encounters. What that means is that every now and again - and this will be completely random - you will critically fail a check. So, for example, you're fighting a creature and you successfully dodge its attack. From now on there will be a small chance that instead of dodging, you'll critically fail. Maybe you'll slip and fall on your back, allowing your attacker to hit you for double damage."
"Holy shit!"
"And second, you're going to be attacked by random creatures at random times - including when you're sleeping. Nowhere is safe. Keep your dagger on you at all times."
"This sounds bad." I shivered. I stretched and yawned my way out of bed and dressed. I threw my pack on, belted my dagger and looked Orge in the eye.
"It's going to get worse, isn't it?"
He nodded. "I'm afraid so. Just keep your guard up at all times."
"Are we pulling someone today?" I asked, strapping my leather chest piece on.
"Aye. Have a nice brunch and meet me at the designated location."
"Who is it?"
"An Elf girl name Candy. She fancies herself a two-handed, axe-wielding barbarian warrior." He smiled. "We'll see."
I bid Orge adieu and skipped down the stairs. I was surprised to find just Esmerelda and Patch waiting for me. I figured some of the others would be down here.
"Esmerelda said you got some spider legs!” Patch was smiling from ear to ear. "I've been waiting a long time to make my favorite dish. Want some?"
"Uh, no thanks." I said and sat across from Esmerelda. "But I do have some for you." I rummaged around in my bag and pulled out 5 pristine spider legs.
I had never seen a man's eyes widen so much as Patch’s when he took in the sight before him. He nearly fell to his knees when he saw the creepy legs.
"Oh my God!" He rubbed his hands together. "Oh my God, I've never..."
He looked at me expectantly. "Can you get more?"
I nodded, smiling at his reaction.
"If you can get me a steady source of these, I can split you in on the profits."
"What do you think, Esmerelda? Think we can get him a weekly supply?"
She nodded and forked a bite full of what looked like mashed potatoes in her mouth. "Sure. Why not?"
Quest complete: Spider Leg Stew
Experience gained: 2000 (x2)
New quest objective: Bring Patch Pristine Spider Legs (recurring quest)
Patch fished out a bag of gold and threw it at me.
"Is there a top end on how many we can bring you? I mean, can you safely store them?" I asked, forgetting for a moment that this was a digital world and as far as I knew things didn't spoil.
He frowned, but shook his head. "No, bring me as many as you can get. I'll cook them right up. I have many customers who are constantly begging me for this delicious stew. You really should try it."
I shook my head. "I'll pass."
"Your choice, but it really is a delicacy. Was there anything particular you wanted for lunch?"
I looked at Esmerelda. "Bring me your fattest, juiciest steak. Just the steak, no fixins." Esmerelda arched an eyebrow.
"You got it, hoss!" He wrote something down and skipped off to the back.
"So, what are we doing today?" Esmerelda forked in another mouthful.
"We?"
She nodded. "I figured we had so much fun that we should team up together. Orge told me about the AI catching onto us and how we should always be on guard. Easier to do when you have someone guarding your back."
I pondered her words for a moment as I watched her chase her food down with some ale. She did have a point. Besides, I did like her company. It got awfully lonely wandering around the map.
"Well..." I leaned back in my chair and fished out my own canteen for Patch to fill up. "It just so happens that I've built a smallish house out in the forest."
Esmerelda arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yeah," I found myself smiling. "Paid a carpenter in Jakarth City to teach me how."
She leaned forward with sudden interest. "Wow, I didn't even know that place existed. You'll have to take me there sometime."
I nodded. "Yes. I will. But what I'm trying to say is that if we're going to quest together, why not..." I gulped, wondering if I was doing the right thing.
"Why not, what?" She shook her head.
"Shack up together."
The silence in the air was only broken by Patch cursing at something in the back room.
"You mean...live
with you?" Her eyes widened.
I laughed. "Yeah. Though to be honest I don't spend much time there. Tell ya what..." I leaned closer. "I won't even charge you rent."
I watched the thoughts flitter through her head as mischievousness flashed in her eyes.
"Maybe. How big is your bed?"
We accepted each other's proposals and planned out our day. First, we needed to rescue some Elf girl named Candy.
"Candy? Really?" Esmerelda shook her head and tut-tutted. "What kind of Elf name is Candy?"
"Well, anyway, I figure we'll take along Patch's hand cart and chop some wood."
"Working on your house?"
"No." I shook my head as I popped the last bite of steak in my mouth. "I need to replace my arrows. I have about 5 left." I pointed to my quiver, which was looking a bit sad.
"I see. So, you make your own arrows?"
"Yes! I had the local fletcher teach me. I figure if I'm going to be here for a long time, I may as well learn these skills now so that I can save my precious coins."
"Speaking of coins. Have you counted yours yet?"
I admitted that I had not. "Let me get my arrows made and then we can sell all this junk."
Esmerelda thought that was a swell idea. When I went to pay Patch for the delicious steak, he waved it away.
"Part of the quest reward was a nice, tempting bowl of Spider Leg stew. I let you substitute it out for the steak.”
I shrugged and put away my coins.
"Best innkeeper in Thronn Town!" I joked and both Patch and Esmerelda laughed.
I was going to take the hand cart, but then remembered that my pick and axe were back at my house. "We'll pick this up when we're finished with the ritual."
Esmerelda and I set off toward the starting zone. She seemed happy and carefree as the slight breeze blew through her hair. It was a nice, breezy day and the birds were out in full force.
"I still can't get over how gorgeous this place is." Esmerelda sighed. "I guess if you're going to get stuck somewhere for the rest of your life, this is as good as any. You agree?" She turned to me.
I kicked a pebble into the water and nodded. "I've had many of the same thoughts. I don't know how the devs did it, but this has got to be the most detailed, realistic game world ever created. It has to be."
"Have you ever thought that it's not necessarily the game world that's so vast and detailed?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we're not viewing this through our human lenses. We're digitized into the game world. We're literally made of the same bits as the game itself."
I furrowed my brow. "Go on."
"Well, maybe the devs designed our characters in a way so that we view and appreciate the beauty more than our human brains ever could."
I nodded. "That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense, actually."
The moment we arrived at the starting zone, Orge popped out. I often wondered if he didn't hack a portal into my bag and use it to jump back and forth.
"Oh!" Esmerelda clutched her chest. "You scared me."
"You two love-birds ready to bring the next victim - I mean player - into the world?"
"Yup. Just give me the word." I reached into my pack and pulled out the dev stone.
Esmerelda looked at it curiously. "What is that?"
I was about to answer, when Orge answered for me. "For our purposes, it's a special stone that allows one to connect to the game itself. We're using it to bring trapped souls into the game wold. If there was a real world left, we could use it to kick them off the servers. But there's not." He turned to me. "She's increasing her rate of devouring."
"Devouring?" Esmerelda asked, her face a mixture of emotions. "What does that mean?"
"It means that she's..." I started to explain.
"Consuming the souls." Orge finished.
"Oh my God!" Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
"I'll explain more later." I said. "But right now we need to bring Candy into the game. As you can see...time is not on our side."
She nodded vigorously. "Yes, I see that. Go ahead, then. I didn't realize..."
I patted her on the shoulder.
After consoling Esmerelda, I grasped the stone in my hands and closed my eyes. I heard Orge fish out his data pad and begin typing. A moment later, a swirl of dust rushed up out of nowhere, followed almost immediately by a loud thud.
"What the --" Esmerelda said, shock coloring her voice.
I opened my eyes and was stunned to see a very beautiful, red-haired Amazon warrior. Now I see why she wanted to be a barbarian warrior. Not only was she stunning in her beauty, but she looked stronger than the three of us combined.
"Uh...hi..." I said, extending my hand, a frog in my throat. My cock jumped when her strong hand gripped mine. Holy shit.
"Hello." She said breathlessly. Candy took my hand and pulled herself upright, nearly bringing me down on top of her - which, to be fair, I wouldn't have minded one bit.
I was too smitten by her beauty to be able to even say a word. Until Esmerelda nudged me in the ribs, that was.
"My name is Esmerelda." She stuck out her hand in greeting. Was that a glint of jealousy in her eyes? "This is my...boyfriend, Ivan. He's the leader of our little merry band of adventurers."
Boyfriend? I cocked an eyebrow in her direction. Oh shit, just because I invited her to live with me, now she thinks we're a couple. I was going to have to have a talk with her. But later.
"Oh, well, that's nice. So, what's going on here?" She rubbed her head. "I seem to have a bit of a fuzzy memory."
Orge stepped forward, thrust out his hand and began explaining. When he was finished, Candy's face was a mixture of shock and surprise. Immediately she began peppering him with all sorts of questions.
"Uh, we need to be on our way. We'll catch you later." I said, tearing myself away from the conversation.
"Yeah, it was nice meeting you!" Esmerelda waved and followed me. "Did you see the size of her --"
I was smiling when she said that.
"Arms, silly! Not breasts. Although those weren't exactly small, either."
"Yeah, she could probably kick both of our asses."
"Indeed. That woman was buff."
"Before we head back, I'm going to need your help getting enough feathers. I've only got a few arrows left and I can't exactly stab a flying seagull." I smiled at that thought.
"So, you want me to bring them out of the sky so you can kick them to death?" She laughed.
"More or less."
"Okay, sure. Let's have some fun."
For the next half-hour or so, we killed as many birds as we could see. From what I could tell, the birds respawned pretty quickly. Sometimes spawning in more than we killed.
I really didn't know how many I needed for the arrows. I just know that we were having too much fun to stop. Besides, I could always save the feathers for later. Plus, free meat.
"Have you tasted gull meat?" Esmerelda asked, taking one last pot shot at a lazily-flying gull.
I nodded. "Pretty good actually. Not very filling, you have to eat several at a time just to make a decent meal."
"Well, I guess we're going to be eating a lot of gull for the foreseeable future."
We stuffed all the gulls into our packs, which were still over-flowing from our dungeon dive and slowly made our way back to Thronn. Dusk was approaching and there were a few big, fluffy clouds looming overhead that threatened of rain.
It took us another hour to finally be able to dump all our stuff off. The gem shop was very pleased at our haul. Ben offered us a 10% markup for all valuable gems we bring him. Of course we accepted it. We'd have been a fool not to.
All in all, when we counted everything out and divvied it all up, we were each 123 gp 256 sp and 1400 cp richer.
"I wonder if there's a bank around here." I said, wondering how in the hell I was going to be able to lug around all these coins - or why I would need to.
&
nbsp; "Maybe there's one in that big city, what did you call it?"
"Jakarth." I nodded. "Yeah, probably. It looked like the type of place to have one."
After counting up my coins, I realized I had 290 gp. That wasn't including the silver and copper. I salivated at what I might be able to buy with that money. A better bow, some nicer clothes, a really nice bed...
"Have you thought about a horse?" Esmerelda interrupted my thoughts.
"Hmm?"
"A horse. We could use it to ride around on. It could also pull your cart." She looked at me hopefully.
"A horse..." I mulled the thought over in my mind. "A horse would be good, but I have yet to see any in the game."
"Probably because they're so expensive."
I nodded. "True. Wonder how much they cost and who might sell them."
"Why don't we make your arrows tonight and go to Jakarth City tomorrow and check it out. Surely they know someone who sells horses. I've got a ton of gold burning a hole in my pocket."
"They might be more than we have." I cautioned her.
She shrugged. "So be it. Then we do some more dungeon-diving and find the gold."
"Sure. Oh, before we leave, we need to get some bedrolls. I had a certain...midnight visitor destroy my only bedroll."
She smiled devilishly. "You sure we need more than one?"
"Maybe not if we get a big enough one." Why did I get the strong feeling that we were now going to be playing house. Was this what I really wanted?
"How about this." I said. "We'll build you your own room. You can decorate it however you choose. You can come and go whenever you please. Does that sound fair?"
She pouted, but eventually nodded.
"We can make this place as big as we want. Have a nice big fireplace, a coal-heated hot spring, a large balcony, whatever we want."
"Mmm...that sounds delicious." She said. "Let's get our bedrolls and get back. It's starting to get late."
We found a place that sold what we were looking for. We also picked up some cooking utensils while we were at it. The walk back home was very slow as we just reveled in the cool, night air.
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