Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Troll. Where are the druids?”

  He seemed shocked by my gruff attitude, but decided not to press, “They’re in the inn.”

  “Oh you-!” I stopped myself from screaming so loud that the people on the other side of Tarthirious could hear me, and starting doing some relaxing breathing exercises. “Thank you.” I said venomously, before turning around and stomping toward the inn, cursing under my breath the whole way.

  Progress made in mission: Amnesia.

  Objective complete: Return Jerrod’s Hammer.

  Objective added: Go to the Inn and Find the Druids.

  I reached the top of the inn’s stairs and paused at the door, composed myself, put on a big fake smile, and pushed them open.

  “Armelia!” a young woman’s voice cried from a table in the corner.

  Without responding I walked toward the table and saw the source of the voice, a druid with bright blue eyes and white hair in her ceremonial light brown robes, and she would not stop smiling.

  Progress made in mission: Amnesia.

  Objective complete: Go to the Inn and Find the Druids.

  Objective added: Find Out What Happened.

  “The others will be back in a moment, sit, sit!” she commanded, shuffling her stool around so that I could comfortably sit on the one next to her. “How have you been? We looked everywhere for you.”

  I was so uncomfortable, this person clearly had some deep and meaningful relationship with me, but all I knew was that she irritated me. Then I got to thinking that maybe she’d always irritated me and I’d just never said anything. Then I got to thinking that I should probably say something, “Hey! Yes. Good. You?”

  The woman tilted her head, “Good? Last I saw you, you were painting a Ky-Len’s heal sigil with blood from your head.”

  Unknown sigil identified as Ky-Len’s Heal.

  “So… wait, you saw me go off the edge?”

  “Uh, yeah! We were all going to, but at the last minute we got scared. Not you though! You jumped off that waterfall like you were taking a step. We went to see if you’d made it and… well, you know the rest. We did call down to you. Didn’t you hear?”

  I shook my head, trying my hardest not to blurt out something about me having irreparable brain damage and how these druids must’ve been the worst friends in the world, but then two others showed up, men with two tankards in each hand.

  “Armelia? Is that really you?” the younger one with the short brown hair asked.

  “Yes.” I said flatly, taking one of the drinks and draining it.

  That must’ve been when the older, bald one noticed something was wrong, “Are you okay? We all saw you on the rock, how’d you get down from there?”

  I took another tankard and skolled it, “I blew up the rock. Thanks for leaving me there by the way. Nearly got eaten by a diregator.” I said, pretty sure that thing in the water was a diregator.

  The bald one looked at me for a while, closed his eyes and became vacant, before shooting back like he’d woken up from a nightmare, “She’s lost her memories. Oh Armelia, I’m so sorry. We had no idea.”

  All the druids around me gave me sad puppy dog eyes and nodded, I felt like I was in university and had just been told I was wearing the wrong polo to sit with the cool kids.

  I snatched another tankard and started nursing it, my vision already having become rather hazy, “Why were you all naked?” I asked in an attempt to get past the fact that I had amnesia.

  The young woman started laughing, “Oh Gods, that’s right, I’d forgotten about that. You see, we had to get rope, but we didn’t want to waste any time. So, without thinking, we ran all the way back here and started demanding rope off people. Eventually got some from that brusque blacksmith. By the time we got back though you were already gone, so we decided we’d come back here and wait for you to come back to the room. I was really starting to worry about whether or not you were going to.”

  Mission Completed: Amnesia.

  +1000 XP.

  Level 1 Completed!

  Level Up!

  Level 2 Completed!

  Level Up!

  Level 3 Progress: 130/1000.

  10 Skill Points awarded.

  I wanted to kill them all, mostly because I was starting to grow bored, but also because they were getting on my nerves. But then the bald one pulled out something from under the table.

  “Oh yes! I think you’ll be wanting this back,” he said as he handed me a medium sized knapsack, the cheeriness having returned to his voice, “it’s got your robes and bow in it.”

  Received Knapsack of Weightlessness.

  I opened the bag with a look of disbelief thinking that he had obviously misspoken. He had not. I looked into the knapsack and, to my absolute wonder and awe, found a long bow and some robes similar to what the others were wearing floating in what appeared to be a complete void.

  Knapsack of Weightlessness contents:

  Student Druid Robes: Weight: 5(-5).

  Armelia’s Long Bow: Weight: 7.5(-7.5), Damage: 15.

  “Wow…” was all that I could say as I inspected the weightless back, “This is amazing!” I said, slinging it over my shoulders.

  Equipped Knapsack of Weightlessness.

  “Thank you so muc-”

  Kylia: Chapter 4

  A faint knocking on the door snapped me back to reality. I pulled off my headphones that were blasting the game and the epic fantasy orchestral stuff I’d found online, and discovered that the ‘faint’ knocking was more like intense slamming.

  “Kylia! Are you okay!?” Gerald yelled through the door.

  I spun in my chair and looked at the door, wondering why he didn’t just open it, but then saw the door snake that kept the cold air in jammed firmly in place and preventing the door from opening more than an inch.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I said calmly as I walked over to the door and removed the obstruction.

  Then an RL quick time event started in my mind as I heard Gerald’s body crash into the door. ‘Move legs to avoid concussion’ was the funny little cue I imagined as I jumped backwards and watched Gerald collapse on the floor and my door fling open so hard the knob put a hole in the wall.

  Gerald looked up like a baby who hadn’t learned to crawl, “I am so sorry,” he said with a pained look on his face, “I’ll pay for that.”

  I looked out into my brightly lit living and dining room, and lifted my glasses so I could rub my bright red eyes with a sigh, “Well are you going to pay my electric bill too? Why’d you have to turn on all of the lights?”

  Gerald clumsily got to his feet, “Why are you getting electric bills? And what are you talking about? It’s…” he checked his watch and seemed to have trouble reading the digital display, “Blimey! It’s only half eight.”

  My face dropped, “What do you mean it’s half eight? We can’t have gotten home any later than one.”

  Gerald smiled and pulled his circular half-rimmed glasses from their fabric case and put them on, “I take it you started the new character then? You always forget how quickly you get absorbed in those first few hours, don’t you?”

  “Yeah… Jesus. Yeah, well, you want to go wait out there? I’m just going to shut it down.”

  “Course, hey, I’ll make some brekkie while I’m out here, least I could do.” he said before disappearing.

  I didn’t bother to tell him that he wasn’t going to find anything, and just went ahead and shut the game down, and booted it back up with Daemion’s USB and set it so he ran in bot-mode in the Arena. All of a sudden I was hit with just how tired I was, my body shaking under its own weight, which, believe me, really wasn’t that much.

  I slung Armelia’s USB around my wrist and walked out of the room, pulling the door shut behind me, and shambled toward my bedroom, “I’m just going to have a shower. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I don’t think he heard me, he was too busy rummaging through my flat’s tiny kitchen looking for anything that w
asn’t crisps or canned beans.

  I shut my bedroom door and dumped the USB on my bedside table before starting to pull my clothes off as best as I could, leaving a trail of dirty laundry all the way to my en suite.

  Couldn’t tell with 100% confidence, but I’m pretty sure I fell asleep a few times in the shower without falling over. Mostly because I’d blink and there’d be exceptionally more steam than before, or I’d look down and see that I’d half-filled the bath because I’d been standing on the drain.

  However, I did survive the shower, and afterwards I felt clean and refreshed, well, maybe just clean. I looked in the mirror at my short, vibrantly purple hair. I loved having short hair, it required so little maintenance, and I loved the purple, it made my green eyes really pop.

  “Hey, Kylia?” a slightly defeated Gerald called through the door, “I can’t find much of… anything in your kitchen, mind if I take you out for breakfast and coffee instead? Of course I don’t mean take you out as in take you out, I just mean-”

  “That sounds great.” I said so he’d stop flustering himself, I knew he didn’t see me in that way, at least, I thought I knew. “Would you mind if I check in with one of the bidders as well? He’s out in Woodford.”

  “I… Yeah, yeah I s’pose that’s alright.” he said, clearly wishing I’d made any other suggestion.

  I wasn’t trying to rub it in his face or anything, but when I found my mobile some bloke had been called me half dozen times, and texted me nearly eighty saying that he was willing to pay £27,500 in cash for the token.

  When I finally moisturised and went to find myself some clothes I fell on that annoying realisation that I had to decide whether I wanted to be comfortable or appropriate. Now, I’m not talking about whether I should have worn a sexy dress and high heels or a t-shirt, baggy woollen jumper, jeans and pair of canvas shoes, I’m talking deciding between the latter and a pizza stained shirt that an old boyfriend had left behind and a pair of grey trackies.

  I rolled my eyes and begrudgingly started putting on the ‘nice’ clothes, but I tell you what, I’m sure those shoes knew just how much I hated them by the time I’d tied the last knot. Even my glasses got angrily forced onto my face, which hurt me more than them. Those retro glasses can really take a beating.

  I came out of the room to find Gerald sitting on the couch looking perplexed at a little pink device that most certainly should not have been on the couch. “Nice outfit, was the 90s hobo store having a sale?”

  “Yeah, your dad was there, and asked me to tell you that even after he lost his home you were still his biggest disappointment.” I said flatly.

  Gerald got to his feet and laughed meekly, “You’re really quite good at those.”

  “Yeah, well, benefits of growing up with a brother. You discover new and exciting ways to hate yourself and insult those around you.” I said with a smile, briefly forgetting that he wasn’t around to hear me talk about him.

  “You ready to go?” Gerald said in a much more animated voice than before. He must’ve noticed I’d gotten contemplative.

  I nodded, “Just got to get the token, did you see where I put my bag?”

  “Yep,” he said as he pulled it out from beside the couch and tossed it to me, “made a great pillow.”

  “I’m sure you would too.” I said while rummaging through my bag and finding the token stuffed right at the bottom.

  “Was that a compliment?”

  I dropped the bag and stuffed the token into my pocket, “Well, yeah, if you consider being skinned and stuffed with feathers a compliment.”

  “Aaand now I have a whole new topic to discuss with my therapist.” he said as I walked over to the front door.

  “Yes, yes, your life is very sad, now let’s go. I’m starving.” I said, ushering him out the door while I pulled my coat from the rack and put it on.

  “Can I at least use your mouthwash?” he asked having only just smelled his breath.

  I shook my head, “I don’t have any. Now come on, we can stop at yours on the way over, you can get nice and pretty there.”

  He checked that he had his necklace on and walked past me, letting me take the full waft of a man who’d skipped his shower and spent a night on the town. “Please, I’m pretty everywhere.”

  Kylia: Chapter 5

  Turned out his place wasn’t far from mine, literally around the block. He said that the reason he hadn’t gone there after dropping me home was that he thought, for some God unknown reason, we were in Chiswick instead of West Ham.

  I chose to wait outside while he went up to change, and took in the side of the street I’d never really paid any attention to. Normally I’d come home from the other end, and seeing as the Tube got me everywhere I needed to go there was no reason to walk through.

  Wish I had sooner though, it was really quite nice. The little shops, the smiling people, West Ham had really changed in the past decade. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it when I was a kid, but there was always graffiti and gangs of chavs skulking about. Simply couldn’t do that anymore, people were everywhere, and there were no cars to key.

  That, and the MPs weren’t too kind to hooligans in low hanging jeans.

  In the full twenty minutes it took for Gerald to get cleaned up I counted over fifty pigeons, only to discover it was the same pigeons flying in a wide circle.

  I turned to playfully scold him, but saw that he’d actually put effort into looking halfway decent for our breakfast, “Why, aren’t you dapper.”

  He had brushed hair, and put on a nice black suit to go with his fancy black coat. I could also smell the distinct scent of an £80 cologne he’d got at the last office Christmas party.

  “Thanks. Food first?”

  I nodded and pretended to be dying, “Yes, please. If you’d have taken any longer I’d have attacked the next old lady I saw with a coffee.”

  He chuckled, “You’re a very violent person, you know that?”

  “No,” I said as we started our walk toward the Tube station, “I just say a lot of violent things. Now,” I locked my arm around the crook of his, “I think we should get coffee before heading to Woodford, just the gross stuff in the station, then get brekkie there. What do you reckon?”

  “Uh… sure.” he said, looking at my arm around his.

  “What?” I asked as I released him from my grip.

  His cheeks reddened slightly, “I just… that was awfully intimate.”

  I smiled cheekily, “If you think that’s intimate, then I have some stories that’ll make you melt.”

  Gerald laughed, “Sure thing, weirdo.”

  “You’re the weirdo, Mister ‘Too-Cool-To-Skip-Down-The-Street’!”

  “That’s a lot of names, bit too many I’d say.” he chuckled.

  “Yes, well, your mum’s a bit of a slut.”

  “Jesus Christ woman! How can you say such things?”

  I shrugged, “Don’t know, just assumed.”

  “You don’t see me making fun of your mum, do you?”

  “That’s because she’s dead, innit?”

  “Well… yeah.”

  I smiled proudly, “And that’s why I’ll always win.”

  “So even if my mum died, you’d still make those horrible jokes?”

  “Eventually, after I’d given you a pity handy.” I said surely.

  “Oh my God!”

  “That’s two, now I’ve just got to get you to say Holy Ghost and we’ve got the whole trilogy.”

  He buried his face in his hands, clearly he was somewhere on the verge of rolling on the floor laughing or crying. “How have we not spent more time together?”

  We started down the steps of the station and passed a small family on their way somewhere. “Because we have very full lives.”

  “It’s funny.” he said over the loud beep as he pressed his card to the turnstile scanner and stepped through.

  “What’s that?” I asked as we started walking toward the platform.

  “You never
see fat people these days. When I was a kid there were loads, now everyone’s a lot leaner. I know there’s the odd person here and there who’s got a tyre on their waist, but even they look like they could do a few laps on the track.”

  I thought about it for a few seconds, trying as hard as I could to remember the last morbidly obese person I’d seen in recent memory, but nothing came to mind. “Wow, hadn’t thought of that. Guess that’s what happens when you get a nation of walkers.”

  “Exactly!” Gerald said enthusiastically, “We still eat the same greasy patties and chips we always have, but now that we’re out and about it’s just… it’s really changed the face of Britain I think.”

  For the next twenty minutes or so we continued to discuss all the benefits of our society. Most would probably suggest that we were brainwashed, that we were being lulled into this idea that everything was good and dandy, but we weren’t. We knew the injustices, we knew the state we were in societally, and we knew that there was a lot of bad in Britain, we just preferred to look at life through a slightly less dim lens.

  Ten years in a pseudo-dictatorship will do that to you.

  Daemion: Chapter 2

  Daemion the Dread [BOT] used Downward Slash.

  300 points of damage inflicted.

  Hikeron Honeydew has fallen.

  Congratulations Daemion the Dread [BOT], you have won.

  Max Level Reached.

  No Experience Points awarded.

  +2,000 gold.

  12,000 gold.

  Match over.

  Searching for match…

  Search cancelled.

  Player has joined.

  Bot-Mode cancelled.

  “Let’s have some fun, shall we?” an unfamiliar voice whispered in Daemion’s ear.

  Searching for match…

  Match found.

  Kylia: Chapter 6

  It wasn’t hard to spot the buyer once we reached the agreed upon street corner park near the Woodford station. He was the balding one in the trench coat nervously clutching a bowling bag that looked ready to burst.