by M Helbig
Alizia reached down to pick up her scepter. “I’d never be sober again, though I have a feeling I’m never going to want to be after seeing this thing. Also, completely random question: How fast can you run?”
I inched backward. “The better question would be, can you outrun at least one of us?”
Alizia bit her lip. “Very pragmatic, Horus. I knew there was a reason we made you leader against your wishes.”
Hippity Hoppity raised her head high and let out a dragon-like roar, revealing the same second row of pointed teeth as her smaller brethren—though hers were closer to the size of swords than needles. As she lowered her mouth in an attempt to form a savage grin, her head suddenly jerked back in pain and then froze.
After almost of minute of waiting for her to move again, Olaf willed the nerve to move forward and attempt an experimental poke, but he stopped short when an elf in armor made from a multi-colored patchwork of pelts trotted up from behind the creature.
The high elf scratched his chin and looked back and forth over the group. “You’re not a jackalope.”
“Yeah, and you’re not a genius,” Alizia said.
Olaf moved in between her and the elf. “My apologies for my companion’s manners, good sir. Her nerves after seeing such a large jackalope got the better of her.”
The elf turned around and jumped back with a start. “Ah, there is one . . . No, wait, that’s Hippity. I came out here for others of her kind, though smaller . . . Now, what was I here for?”
A four-foot-tall, pink-haired elf appeared from behind him and punched him in the side. “We’re here to tame more jackalopes, you old coot, so we can launch them at the hylf village and complete our commitment for the Society.”
The older elf scratched his chin again. “Now I remember! We’re here to tame more jackalopes so we can launch them at the hylf village!”
“That’s what . . . Gods, why couldn’t the Society apprentice me to literally anyone else?” The short elf pointed at us. “Lesson for you, kiddies. Don’t pick a mentor based solely on his level. At the rate we’re going, I’ll be older than Grandpa Forgetful over there by the time we finish this.”
The older elf rubbed the fur of the still frozen giant jackalope. “Laniel, look! I found one just as big as Hippity! With the two of them, we’ll only need a few more to lay waste to the hylf village, and then we can go home.”
“Did you say you’re trying to destroy the hylf village?” I asked. “We’re going there too, maybe we can—”
Alizia pushed me aside. “Sorry, Horus. More important things than that.”
“More important than finishing the bonus objective so you can get a free night of boozing?” Olaf asked.
Alizia scratched her chin. “Yes. They said they can tame jackalopes. First question, can you teach me to be a Tamer?”
Laniel inspected her. “You’ve already picked a class. You’d have to go to a Warrior trainer and unlearn your class first.”
“Rats. OK, second question. If you tame a jackalope, can you transfer it to a non-Tamer so they can keep it as a pet in their backpacks, and not so they can sell it for a gazillion dollars as the cutest thing ever?”
Laniel shook her head as her companion jumped in surprise again at seeing Hippity. “No, only Tamers can keep pets, and they only go in a special Tamer box when you want to put them away, not in a normal backpack.”
“OK, third question: Do all high elves have naughty thoughts about books—”
I somehow managed to reach up and cover her mouth. Before the bewildered elf could ask a question, Olaf intervened and changed the subject. “What my large-mouthed companion meant to ask was whether you could repeat the part about destroying the hylf village?”
Once again, Laniel was interrupted as her companion spun around, almost knocking her over. “Darpel and I are members of the most venerable high elven organization known as the Elven Preservation Society. Our organization has tasked us with eradicating this hylf village. The hylves are a savage, murderous race that has long been the sworn enemies of our people.”
“Ah, like those hairy, Scottish-speaking guys in Grimrag,” Yary said.
“They are dwarves,” Olaf said. “And real Scottish is nothing like that.”
“Oh.”
“Grimrag, where’s that?” Laniel asked.
Yary pointed to the east. “A couple hours that way.”
The older elf jumped with a start as he caught Hippity out of the corner of his eye. “Look, another giant jackalope, Laniel.”
“Sorry about him,” Laniel said. “And thanks for letting us know about that dwarf village. Good to know that so close by there’s a place for us to restock if we need to. We’re not from around here.”
“If your home isn’t nearby, then why do you want to eradicate this village?” I asked.
“Hylves are like a plague. They’re completely mindless killers who breed like—well, jackalopes. The Society’s mission is to wipe them out completely. It’s for the better of all, not just elves.”
“I think I know where this is going,” Alizia rubbed her palms together greedily.
Laniel’s eyebrows scrunched up.
I sighed. “What she means is, are you offering a quest to kill hylves?”
“Oh . . . ohh!” Laniel ran over to Darpel and pointed at the giant jackalope he was still looking at. When he exclaimed in surprise again, she reached into the bag at his waist and pulled out a handful of coins. “Some help would speed this up and would be much appreciated.”
Quest: Murder the Murderers
Description: The benevolent Elven Preservation Society has tasked their members Darpel and Laniel with destroying the hylf village in the Hidden Valley. This monumental task could take them a considerable amount of time (doubly so if Darpel comes across any shiny objects, or really any objects, along the way). Laniel has requested some assistance in softening the hylves numbers so that she and her associate can finish them off.
Completion Objective: Kill 75 hylves.
Reward: 30,000 XP, 15 gold, +100 Reputation to the Elven Preservation Society
“Hmm . . . a little light on the money,” Alizia said. “If you throw in a healing potion for each of us, we’ll do it.”
Laniel pointed out Hippity to Darpel, and when he gasped in surprise again, she rifled through his bag and pulled out four potions. “He didn’t have any normal healing potions, but he did have these ones for pets. Will they do?”
“Can I sample one?”
Laniel nodded and handed one over. Alizia popped the cork and downed ninety percent of it in one gulp. She wiped the dark red potion off her lips, rubbed her chin, and then downed the remaining potion. “Not quite the real stuff, but I’m desperate.” She shook Laniel's hand. “You’ll have yourself seventy-five dead hylves on your doorstep by the end of the day.”
“You don’t have to bring their corpses back, and my doorstep is about five hundred miles away. Just kill them.”
Alizia saluted her crisply, turned around and marched west, toward the hylf village. The rest of the group followed.
When we crested the second hill and were sure the elves were out of earshot, Olaf stopped Alizia. “You should have consulted the rest of the group before accepting that quest on our behalf.”
“Yes,” I said. “Since we don’t have a true leader, we do everything by vote.”
Again Alizia rubbed her chin and found drops of potion still there, which she promptly licked off her fingers. “In the future, I’ll consult the rest of you in all acceptances of quests that we’re not required to complete and when there is no negative ramification for dropping.”
Olaf grumbled. “You still should have consulted us, and I owe whoever taught you the word ramification a consultation with my dagger.”
“Gahh, that barky aftertaste is really starting to get to me.” Alizia spit on the ground.
“Disappointing that the quest doesn’t give Grimrag faction,” I said. “But I guess that wouldn’t make a
ny sense since those elves hadn’t even heard of the place. Still, some extra coin and experience will be nice, and I’ve a feeling we’re probably going to end up killing seventy-five of them anyway while we’re finding the mayor.”
“Why’re we going to this village again, instead of going straight to the Golden Hole?” Yary asked.
“To build our faction up so we can get the key,” Olaf said.
“Oh, right. Too bad Georgie isn’t here,” Yary said. “We’d probably already be done with the quest by now.”
Alizia slapped Yary on the back. “You don’t need him to murder innocent villagers, not-new-Deccy. You’ve got us, and if there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s killing mobs in the most inefficient, suicidal, yet somehow effective way possible. With me keeping them mostly off the rest of you, Olaf stabbing them from behind (sometimes even with his dagger too), Horus on drums, and you with the sparkly, healy-ness of those special bracers of yours, we’ll have this quest done in no time.”
Yary saluted. “Sounds good. Just need to use my bracers. What does your drum do, by the way, Horus?”
Olaf chuckled.
“I don’t . . . What she means is that I’ll draw any adds off if we get any and help with heals when needed. Which brings up a good point. I—”
Yary crashed to the ground between Alizia and me, with a wide, furry body on top of her. As our group stumbled around in panic, I couldn’t help but think this was all my fault. I was the one with Tracking. I should have been checking it. I hoped that someone would come up with something to save us this time.
So, The Thief Was Hiding Something?
Olaf summoned his dagger and somehow managed to navigate through the thing’s tangled mess of long, pale hair to stab it in the back of the neck. His strike looked to be true, yet a 0 floated up. My mind almost fell into panic as it assumed our opponent had some sort of damage immunity, but my natural skepticism took over and I used Inspect on it to make sure.
Hylf Rover
Level: 5
Resists
Type: Regular
Light: 0
Race: Hylf
Dark: 0
Faction: ???
Earth: 0
HP: 0/97
Water: 0
MP: 0
Fire: 0
AP: 0/20
Wind: 0
AC: 23
Special Attributes: ???
Weaknesses: ???
Relief flooded me as I took in that it was already dead, though three more hylves were bounding into view from the right. Alizia was already a step ahead of me, her Shout ringing through my ears. Yary tapped her bracer to heal Alizia before she was even hit, and in doing so drew one of the hylves to her. I was about to yell when I caught a fourth Rover bounding toward her from behind. My natural experience took over, and I cast my new Root spell on it.
My role in situations like this was to hit it with Root—which created a bunch of tiny roots and vines that grabbed an opponent’s feet to slow it down—and then inflict Hamstrung with arrow shots to its knees to slow it further. (If you ever suffer a serious leg injury, pray the guy at Pyrite responsible for naming things doesn’t try to help out.) I’d only learned Root four days ago when we’d bumped into a Woodsman trainer on the road from Highwall, but it was already automatic. With both of those applied, I could outrun even the fastest of mobs by backpedaling at a steady walk and leaving one less mob to beat on Alizia.
With the first one safely on me and Hamstrung, I glanced over and saw that Alizia had already drawn two of them on her. Yary had the third, and thankfully she hadn’t attacked back, which made it easy for me to pull it off and apply Hamstrung and Root on it too. I had just enough time to reapply the debuff and Root on my first one, keeping two of them on me.
As I got into my routine and applied two more rounds of Hamstrung and Root, I finally had enough time to assess the rest of the situation. Yary was at 67% but nothing was currently attacking her. A beam of pure white light projected onto Alizia from Yary’s bracer, taking Alizia up to a safer but still low 47%. Yary could see what I saw and tapped her bracer again, but this time nothing happened. She tapped it frantically two more times while I hurriedly reapplied Hamstrung.
“Yary, your bracer has a thirty-second cooldown,” I said. “Use your normal Bruiser healing until it comes back up.”
Yary stared at me in confusion, causing me to miss my shot at the hylf’s knee. It bounded toward me and got within a foot before I activated Sprint. My next hit found its knee. I was sure to spend more time aiming when I reapplied it to the second one.
“Don’t Bruisers have an ability that heals their group when they hit?” I asked.
Yary rolled her eyes. “Of course they do, but what does that have to do with me?”
It took all my strength to hold my tongue. “You are a Bruiser, that’s why. Could you please start punching the one Alizia’s on? Check your bracer still for when the cooldown is up, and only use it then.”
“Huh . . . I am! This could be fun.” Yary smiled and sprinted toward Alizia. “You can count on me, Chief.”
“Gah!” Alizia said as one of the hylves landed a crit for 45! “Chief? Ohhhhh. I’m calling you that from now on. Which do you prefer? Masturbator Chief? Chief Runs With Scissors? Or The Chief of Pu-leeze?”
“Those are all terrible.” I applied Hamstrung twice more after hitting them with Root and guided my hylves toward Alizia when I caught her HPs. With the constant small heals resulting from Yary’s attacks, she was at 36%.
“You’re right,” Alizia said. “That needs more work, Chief Place-that-used-to-be-America?”
“That doesn’t really work,” I said as I dragged my two just out of her reach. “While the old United States of America is no more, the part I’m in still has ‘America’ in its name. I thought you were an American?”
Alizia giggled. “You goobers wish.”
“I just assumed with some of the stuff you said,” I said.
Alizia’s HPs were still stable but not going up. Yary let out something halfway between a giggle and a cackle as she pounded on the hylf. I yelled at her to tap her bracer several times, but she ignored me. Finally, Olaf reached over and slapped one of them with the hilt of his dagger. The healing magic washed over Alizia taking her near 75%.
A loud yelp pulled my head back in the other direction. While I was focused on my companions, I’d forgotten about the other hylves and had stopped moving. I cursed and hastily tried to cast Root, but my fingers froze at the last second. The hylf yelped again (though this one sounded an awful lot like a “Woo!”) and hopped toward me at full speed. Another puff of smoke from a failed spell rolled off my fingers as the terrible breath of the approaching creature hit my nose. The second one wasn’t far behind as its Root wore off as well.
My legs locked, and I put my hands over my head almost at the same time that Alizia’s Shout rang through the air. She tried to grab both, but I had too much aggro on the second one. The brutal strikes woke my fingers up, and I somehow got off a Root. The Sprint icon floated above my head and I ran until I was fifty feet away. I pulled out my bow and managed to get Hamstrung on it before Root wore off. With a fresh coating of vines grabbing its feet, I continued to jog backward automatically before I realized my group had finished the previous one and was already on this last one.
You have gained a total of 1,320 (1,200 +120 Group Bonus) Experience Points! 77,251/100,000 to next level.
You have received +20 Faction with Town of Grimrag! Total: 20 Town of Grimrag (Receptive).
Alizia did a little dance as the glow of leveling washed over her, and the accompanying festive music played. Olaf and I began looting the corpses.
Alizia stopped her dance. “Eh, they should call this place the Hidden Valley of Crappy Loot. First the harpies and now these bozos drop about a silver apiece. Plus, the dwarves charge like three times what they did in Highwall.”
“We’re not here for loot,” I said. “We’re here f
or the faction so we can get that key to get into the Golden Hole. At five gain per kill, we should probably stay here for a while even after we finish off those quests too.”
Now that the fighting was over, I examined our quarry. All of them had varying degrees of a pale fur speckled with orangish spots. Where the fur did not cover, they had the alabaster skin of the high elves along with their telltale thin, pointed ears (unlike the shorter, more rounded ones of the wood elves). Some of them had long snouts and doglike noses while others had normal humanlike ones. Though most did have hands, none carried anything resembling weapons; they seemed to use their hands for locomotion or to scratch with.
Alizia pouted at me and then went back to her dance. When the leveling music stopped, we resumed our march to the hylf village, this time a little slower and with me keeping an eye on Tracking. As Alizia and Yary began talking about clothes, Olaf and I drifted a little further back.
“So, what do you think of Yary?” Olaf asked.
“That she doesn’t know her class at all,” I said as I checked the direction of another group of Hylf Rovers as they appeared in the Tracking interface. “Probably been grouping with her brother until now and never had to learn to play it under normal circumstances. She ignored me when I told her to press her bracers, too.”
“You may be right, but I think the bracer thing was just a little overexcitement in the heat of battle. If she does it again, we’ll have to talk to her.”
“Yes, as co-leaders.”
Olaf rolled his eyes. “Horus, I know you do not want the role, but you are a natural at it.”
“A natural at screwing up. Like when that first pack of hylves caught us completely by surprise. Whose job was that? Was it the only person with Tracking? If Alizia hadn’t been paying attention for once, I’d be dead and then so would everyone else.”