“You did what no other man, including my hired guards, could. I will repay you once we reach Tylue.”
“You don’t need to worry about pay--” I started to say, but then I felt Cornalic elbow me gently in the back. The half-orc was right. We had less than fifteen gold pieces between us.
“Dearest lady, you know our names, but we do not know yours,” Cornalic said.
“Ahh.” The beautiful woman turned to her handmaidens, glanced, at Allurie, and then her brown eyes met mine. She looked angry for half a moment, but the emotion danced past before I could determine if she was angry at me.
“I intend for Sanduport to be my name,” she whispered at last.
“Sanduport? Isn’t that the name of the kingdom we are sailing to?” I asked. I didn’t know exactly how royal names worked in Ohlavar Quest, but it was kind of weird to have a family name that was the same as the kingdom.
“Yes. It is,” she said with a coy smile.
“Oh,” I said. Then a realization came to my mind, and I felt my stomach twist.
“Wait, are you a member of the royal family or something?”
“You could say that, I suppose.” The beautiful woman’s lips grew to a full smile, and the three handmaidens sighed.
“You are standing before the future Queen of Sanduport, commoner. Now, bow before your better,” one of the servants in the brown dress groaned.
Chapter 3
Several hours later the crew met on the top deck again. The captain of the First Sunset congratulated us on repelling the invaders, and gave us a ships status. We had lost four crew members, and six passengers had injuries that the ship’s healer was working on. The captain seemed like the usual NPC for the role. He was tall with a trim beard, fierce eyes, and a posture that looked as if he was carved out of the same wood as the masts.
“We’ve got the pirates below decks in the cells, and they will be brought to trial once we reach Tylue. We’ve also retrieved a good portion of gold, silver, and gems from the pirates’ ship. The largest piece of loot is the ship itself.” The man gestured to the boat that was still anchored to us. “She is of good wood, agile, and capable. She’ll fetch a good price in the shipyards of Tylue, and I shall be splitting the income with all of you.”
The crew members cheered, and Cornalic let out a shout of glee.
“This is good news, dearest Leo. Our money problems are now relieved for a bit.”
“How much is a ship worth?” I asked.
“I’ve never tried to fence a ship before, but I would guess at least fifty thousand.”
“Great.” I smiled at the man. It would mean that I’d probably end up with a thousand or two after we made it to Tylue, in addition to whatever Queen Sanduport decided to gift us.
I had been unable to talk to her after her servant gave away her identity because there had been a shout from the next hallway, and Cornalic and I had run to investigate. The shout had come from a injured crewmember, and I was able to heal the damage in a few seconds with Breath of Life.
The woman seemed too young to be a queen, but then again, I didn’t know exactly what kind of age requirements the NPCs had for royalty. In my own world, weren’t kings and queens getting crowned at fifteen during ancient times? The beautiful woman looked as if she was in her early twenties, so she was probably old enough. I had always pictured queens as old women and the young, good looking ones being princess. Maybe I had just played too many video games.
The captain continued with his report, “We are going to split the crew into two groups so that we can take both ships back. It will slightly delay our sailing pace, but it will be worth the effort. Some of the passengers might complain, but I will be speaking with them all personally. Lastly, I would like to thank two passengers that turned the tide of battle for us. They could have stayed in their room, but they risked their lives to save this ship. The captain gestured toward us, and the crew members cheered as they faced us.
The Quest Completed. You have been awarded 5 attribute points words appeared over the New Quest: Repel the pirates message that briefly faded onto my UI. This brought my unused skill points up to 58, but I’d have to double-check it to make sure. I kind of wished the quest reward log would show all the unspent points, but it only took me a few flicks of my fingers to view my attributes on the UI.
“We need to get the ship repaired and cleaned. See to your duties, sailors.” The crew gave another shout after the captain finished speaking, and they scattered in a dozen different directions.
“Thank you both again,” the captain said as he stepped near us.
“Dear captain, it was our pleasure, and we are happy to be included with your crew for the division of the victory spoils,” my half-orc friend said.
“I’m more than happy to share. I’ll be sending you more than an even split, by the by. Can you two join me in my quarters for a spot of brandy? I have something I wish to discuss with you.”
“That’s fine,” I said after I had glanced at the half-orc.
We followed the stoic man down into the ship, through a few hallways, and into a room. The captain’s quarters were positioned over the back end of the boat, and while the room wasn’t as large as Queen Sanduport’s, it was decorated just as splendidly.
“Take a seat gentlemen,” the man said as he gestured to a couch in the corner of his room. We both sat and watched the man uncork a glass bottle. We soon held a drink in our hands, and the captain was sitting on a leather chair.
“The men we fought were not a mere group of pirates.”
“They weren’t?” I asked.
“Ahh, they were pirates, of course, but my crew searched their ship thoroughly. I’ve never heard of the captain or the vessel which means he doesn’t sail these waters. We found this in his chamber when we searched it. Take a read.” The captain pulled a note out of his pocket and passed it to Cornalic. The half-orc opened it, glanced at it for five seconds, turned to look at the back, and then passed it to me.
“What am I looking at?” I asked as read the letter. There were a string of numbers written on the paper, and then a simple message at the bottom:
Pretty. Long dark hair. Large brown eyes. Nice clothes. Servants and guards.
“The numbers are our exact route specifications from Arnicoal to Tylue. Do you recognize the description?”
I handed back the note without answering the captain. I didn’t know if he knew that he actually had the Queen of Sanduport on his ship. It seemed as if the woman had intended for the voyage to be a secret, but she might have put the entire ship in jeopardy. I imagined royal folk needed armed soldier escorts instead the kind that a passenger ship would have.
“Do either of you know the political situation in Tylue or Sanduport?” the captain asked as he sipped his brandy.
“Dear Captain. I was in the country about three months ago. I heard a little of the news, and it didn’t seem healthy, so I decided to spend some time adventuring in Arnicoal instead. My friend Leo here is a native of the place, and I would doubt that he knows,” Cornalic answered.
“Can you fill us in?” I asked.
“The old king is dead. Well, that is a poor choice of words. The man was younger than me. I should say that the previous king is dead. Some say poison, although the healers have said it was of natural death due to health issues.”
“Hmmm,” I said as I sipped the brandy. It was good stuff, and I marveled again at how the tube in the VRIU was giving me tastes.
“He never had a son, but he did have nine daughters.”
“Nine daughters?!” Cornalic and I gasped.
“Aye. With five different women. He kept divorcing his wives. Ha. I misspeak again. His first four wives all died from ‘natural deaths due to health issues.’ The fifth is still alive. That woman claims she should have the throne now, but the council is hesitant because she is not a native. In fact, she is from Gartuna, which up until the recent marriage, was one of Sanduport’s rivals. They are a smaller country b
ut share the east border of Sanduport. There was peace for the two years they were married, but now it looks as if war might erupt, if the current queen is not allowed to keep her crown.”
“What happened to the previous king’s daughters?” I asked.
“They are all living with their maternal families in their respective countries. The first born and eldest of his daughters hails from Iria. She is said to be quite beautiful and has long dark hair and large brown eyes.” The captain fixed his fierce eyes on me.
“Isn’t Arnicoal a waypoint between Iria and Sanduport?” I asked the two men, and they both nodded.
“The council said they will be gathering the potential heirs into the kingdom so that they can interview each one. The country has never had a female ruler without a king, so it is interesting times. I’m imagining there is some subterfuge going on, and that one of our passengers, perhaps the one that booked our largest room and brought a staff of guards, might be the future queen of my beloved land.”
“Has she admitted such to you?” I asked.
“It is against my code to ask directly. I am going to guess she is, and I am also going to guess the two of you have nothing to do with any of this. You both seem like fighting men. Merely adventurers who were in the right place at the right time.” The man gestured to the note with a finger on his brandy holding hand. “There is a traitor on my ship. Someone is passing information to someone who doesn’t want the young lady to reach her destination. I’d like you two to uncover the traitor, and deal with the matter appropriately.”
“How would we find out? Wouldn’t someone have to be sending Mind messages?”
“Aye. Or using some other method. Rumors are that you might have saved the young woman’s life. Start with her staff and then interview everyone on my ship. If anyone seems suspicious, let me know. I have a single Potion of Truth in my desk, and we can use it to determine who it is factually.”
New Quest: Find the spy onboard the ship.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not much for subterfuge. I’m more of hit things with my sword and heal my friends with my magic kind of guy,” I said as I smiled at Cornalic.
“I know, Sir Lennox. This is why you might have the best chance of finding the traitor. Let us touch base nightly to see how your investigation is going. We’ll be on the ocean for another fifteen days because of the delay, and I have confidence you’ll be able to find the spy.”
“Alright,” I said as I stood. Cornalic followed my lead, and we turned to leave the captain.
“Good luck, gentlemen,” he said as we exited his cabin.
The half-orc and I walked back to our room, and I puzzled over the ways to go about completing this quest.
“This is good news, dearest friend, Leo,” the green-skinned man said after a few minutes of us walking.
“How is getting involved in a kingdom-wide political struggle good news?” I asked him with a smirk.
“I told you I thought the King of Sanduport had one of the items you wanted. Do you recall?”
“Of course, it is why we are on this boat,” I said with a laugh.
“Rumor in Tylue was that the man was not kind, and I was planning on us performing some sort of amazing death-defying robbery to obtain your treasure. Now we do not need to! The girl we have saved could be the next ruler. All we need to do is find this spy, get her to Tylue alive, and then she shall reward us with whatever treasure we ask for. You shall get your relic, and I shall get something worth a mountain of gold. That task will be easy! I bet that when the bards sing of this leg of our grand quest, the stanza will only be a page long, maybe two when they talk about my smile and your handsome face.”
“I’m guessing she will still need to get crowned by this council. There will be eight other daughters. Nine total women if you count the current queen, and if they don’t select her, there might be a declaration of war.”
“Dearest friend, Leo, we can only do what we can do when we can do it. Let us first worry about the skullduggery on this ship. Then we will worry about the young lady’s rise to the crown. Agreed?”
“Ha. You got it buddy. Let’s try to figure out who this spy is. Shall we go talk to the future queen?”
“My dear friend, I believe you should go talk to the queen alone.”
“Alone?” I asked.
“Aye. I’ll investigate the ship’s manifest and spend some time with Tarry. The boy seems to know everyone on the ship. The young and future queen has a sparkle in her eye when she looks at you, and I do not want to get in the way of any potential romance.”
“Ugh. You think she likes me?”
“Ha! Who doesn’t? You are a good one. Let us talk more tonight with Allurie. She might be able to help us as long as we don’t actually tell her what is going on.”
“I hear you,” I said, and I thought about the elf girl walking around the ship looking for: “The meanies who told the pirates where we are.” Nope, the girl needed a simple task that wouldn’t get her in trouble. “I’m going to put her to work on it now. I’ll have her ask around for anyone who knows how to send a Mind message. I’ll tell her I want to let Artus know we are okay, and that she is with us. I bet she’ll give me a list of everyone by the time we meet tonight.”
“Tis a great plan, dearest Leo. Let us talk more tonight.” The half-orc nodded to me, and we turned in different directions to go about our own work.
Half a minute later I was at our cabin. Allurie was relaxing on my cot, and she smiled when she saw me.
“I’ve got a job for you--” she opened her mouth, probably to tell me that she loved jobs, but I waved a hand to silence her. “I need to send a message back to Artus. Can you walk around the ship and ask if anyone knows how to send Mind messages? I want you to talk to everyone and get me a list of their names. I don’t need to send it now. I’ll do that later. I just need a full list of everyone. Can you do it?”
“Oh, I would love to! I’ll get started right now!” the girl ran out the door with more urgency than she usually displayed when trying to mate with me, and I found myself smiling. Allurie was a great NPC, and part of me was happy that she had stowed away in my chest. Yeah, it would have been nice to sail into Tylue with four thousand gold, but we would figure out how to make it work.
I looked down at my clothes and sighed a bit. They were covered with blood, sweat, and travel stains. I didn’t smell quite as bad as I thought I would have, but I didn’t smell as if I was ready to meet a future queen. I remembered I had bought a spare set of clothes in Arnicoal when I had suspected that Baron Yinnia’s men were following me, and I dug through my pack to find them.
The new suit wasn’t as nice as the dwarven made clothes, but they were clean, and smelled a tad better. I didn’t really have a mirror to check my hair, but I figured the queen probably wouldn’t care that much. I had saved her life after all.
The crew of the ship was cleaning blood from the hallway where I battled the three pirates. They gave me a word of thanks when I walked past them, and I nodded back. The bodies of the young woman’s guards were no longer in the hallway, but the blood stains hadn’t been cleaned yet, and they served as a reminder of how close we came to losing the ship.
I had been eager to log in this morning, but I had been more than a little miffed that Zarra seemed to be avoiding me. Part of me wondered if she knew about the conversation I had with Chip when we worked out. Did she know I wanted to talk to her about my strange increase in strength? Chip seemed to think all of Arnacript was bugged, but he’d also brought a noise cancellation system in his pack. Either way, Zarra suddenly had to take a “business trip,” and she’d left without telling me where she was going.
Oh well. She couldn’t hide from me forever. She wanted to know how the game was progressing, and I wanted to know why I was suddenly four times as strong as I had ever been. The beautiful lavender eyed woman couldn’t hide from me forever.
I reached the door to the queen’s room and t
ook a deep breath before knocking. A moment later one of the attractive girls wearing a brown dress opened it, and she batted her eyelashes at me.
“I will ask if she will see you, Sir Lennox.”
“Great. Thank you,” I said.
The woman closed the door, and I heard muffled words from the other side. I thought they would have opened back up the door within a few moments, but the time continued to slide by, and I guessed that ten minutes had passed. I supposed I was the one calling on her, and she might have wanted to see me, but needed to look more queenly, or something. Fuck, I didn’t know how royalty was supposed to act in a virtual video game.
“Lady--ahhh Queen Sanduport will see you now,” the servant girl said as she opened the door. “We apologize for the delay.”
“No. That is fine. I was just swinging by. I didn’t give you--”
“Sir Lennox, thank you so much for coming,” I heard the brunette queen call from past the door. I finished stepping inside and then turned to look at her.
The young woman was sitting on a chair I hadn’t seen earlier in the room when I killed the pirates. It wasn’t quite a throne, but it wasn’t really a simple wooden chair either. The thing was made of a rich looking mahogany, exquisitely carved, and had a wingback which rose up over her head.
The queen’s hair was tied up in an elaborate nest of curls, braids, flowers, and ribbon decorations. A few key tresses fell from the top, and they helped accent the smoothness of the skin on her face and elegant neck. Her dress was crafted from white and lilac colored lace, and accents of cream satin material ran through the pattern to give the frills a smoothing effect. The dress was long, and although her feet were concealed beneath the fabric, I could tell that she sat with her legs crossed at the thigh.
I realized I was gawking at the woman, and I turned my eyes away from her to study her room again. I didn’t see any trace of blood on the floor from where I had slain the pirates, or where her other handmaiden had been murdered. Her staff must have done a quick job of cleaning up the place, and I kind of wondered why she didn’t have any elves with her.
Lion's Quest: Trinity: A LitRPG Saga Page 3