Shari and the other party members’ eyes went blank for a moment as they all received similar messages with reputation gains. She smiled at Charles and said, “This is just the beginning. If our plans come to fruition, this will become a place of power and prosperity. Citizens will come from far and wide to live or trade here. You will oversee battalions of guards and protect many thousands from those who would do harm or take advantage of them.”
Charles’ chest puffed out as he pictured it. “Well, I should get busy then!”
He rose and ushered them out of his house, carefully placing the books on the table. “If you don’t mind, I may save these for a bit. It may be that we get new blood who can better use them. Our folk are mostly simple crafters, not nearly of the level to warrant the use of these.”
Mace shrugged. “I trust your judgement. I have brought you into our inner circle with the information you’ve been given today. I hope that proves my trust. And that I have yours in return.”
Charles shook his head. “Words I never thought to hear from a drow. But aye, you’ve more than earned my trust, lad. No question.”
Mace and the others went back to the tavern, ordering a meal as they sat to talk about their immediate plans. Minx made herself visible and hopped from Mace’s shoulder onto the table, where she promptly helped herself to his food. Tiny hands moved with a blur and snatched bits of meat and cheese, which disappeared just as quickly into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s as she chewed on her prizes.
After a while, her tummy visibly bulged and she lay down on her back, her feet lazily flopping in the air. Mion jumped down and settled on Minx’s belly, curling up to enjoy the warmth and soft fur. Both little ladies began to purr contentedly.
Mace began. “We have the quest to go to Graf. Two quests, actually. My original quest from Jervis and the quest to escort Ian back there. And since Graf is where the Black Flame seem to be based, there’s a third reason to go.”
Shari nodded. “Any chance one of those portals goes to Graf? Otherwise it’s quite the trip. The fastest route would be by boat across the lake and down to Port Bjurstrom, then up the river to Graf. A three day trip, at least.”
As she spoke, she was drawing a rough outline of the route on a parchment with a little help from Layne on direction and distance. She picked up a point in the Cartography skill as she worked.
Lila spoke up. “I want to use the portals too. But…” She hesitated, suddenly looking shy.
Shari reached over and rubbed the halfling’s back. “You’re family now. We always want to hear your opinion.”
Lila nodded slightly and continued. “We don’t know much about those portals. Mace activated them by accident. We don’t know what powers them or how long they’ll last. If we use one to go to Graf, for example, we have no way of knowing it’ll be there to bring us back. And if we’re planning to take on the Black Flame while we’re there, we will almost certainly need a quick escape route. So I say it’s better to have Captain Jorin there and ready to sail us away.”
Shari looked impressed. “You’ve been giving this some thought.”
Mace shook his head. “I think she’s just naturally sneaky and cautious. Until you piss her off. Then she becomes a ninja berserker woman.”
Lila’s smile showed that she agreed with him completely.
Shari laughed. “Okay, so we’ll ask the captain if he has time to take us to Graf and back. We can afford to pay him. Maybe give him some of the dungeon loot to trade when we get to the ports.”
Mace facepalmed. “I was wrong before. We have four quests. Jorin gave me one to take down the Black Flame.”
Before he forgot again, he pulled up each of his quests and shared them with his party members. They all began to smile as they read the descriptions - and especially the rewards.
Their immediate plans decided, Layne left with Lila to do some shopping, while Shari went to speak with the boat captain to arrange for them to depart the following morning. Mace found Charles and informed him, then headed to the previously-abandoned house where Ian was supposed to be hiding.
Only when he got there, the house was no longer abandoned. The influx of prisoners had apparently caused the house to be fixed up and occupied. He lingered near the house for a while, then walked back to the alley where he’d met Ian. Almost immediately, the tall green rabbit materialized with a bow and a sweep of his hat.
“Greetings, Mace.”
“Ian. I was looking for you. Have you lost your home again?”
The rabbit sighed. “Indeed, yes. The place, it grows more crowded, yes. I have had to relocate twice more. Not safe here much longer, no.”
Mace looked over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being observed. “We plan to leave in the morning on Captain Jorin’s boat. First to Port Bjurstrom, then Graf. Be on the boat before sunrise. Have you got enough food?”
Ian smiled. “I am well enough fed, yes. Glad to be returning home, oh yes.”
“Once we’re on the boat, you can stop hiding. I’ll introduce you to the captain, and you can travel openly as one of our group.”
“Oh, no no.” Ian took a step back, a horrified look on his face. “It is much preferred to remain hidden, yes. Large green bunnies stand out in a crowd. Tend to be remembered, yes. Prefer not to be observed in my travels, no.”
“Alright, then. Suit yourself. We’ll be on a relatively small boat for three days, maybe four. Could make it difficult to hide.” Mace shrugged at the dapper rabbit. “Be on the boat by sunrise.”
With nothing in particular demanding his time, Mace went to find the carpentry boss Verga and offer his services. She gladly gave him some finish work to do, and he spent several hours raising both his Builder and Carpentry skill one level each.
Toward dinner time, he put away his tools and met back up with Shari. They climbed the stairs at the inn and entered Mace’s room, where they logged out. The plan was to get an early dinner and then some sleep, so they could be ready to depart before the sun rose in the game.
Both of them glanced at the floor several times as they ate their meal in near-silence. Even after the short time with Dakota, the dog had become a part of their lives. Mace expected him to be sitting nearby, begging for food with his eyes and wagging tail.
Shari mumbled something Mace couldn’t hear. When he put a hand to his ear, she repeated, “Have you seen any dogs in the game?”
Make thought about it for a minute. “Yep. Starter zone NPC’s give out lost dog quests.”
Shari smiled faintly. “Maybe when we upload ourselves and have a stable home somewhere, we can have a dog in the game. I think I’d like that.”
Mace moved closer to her and wrapped her in his arms. A few moments later they cleaned up the dishes and crawled into bed. Mace held Shari close as she quietly cried herself to sleep. As he dozed off, he had tears in his own eyes.
*****
After a good night’s sleep, Griff was up before dawn. He took a quick shower and grabbed his dirty clothes.
A trip to the laundry room to get the washing started and then he was off to the kitchen. He found pancake mix and powdered eggs in the pantry, as well as an industrial-sized canister of syrup.
Lisa and Evan showed up as he was making a tall stack of pancakes. He offered three each to them on plates as they sat down.
“I’m almost done, so don’t wait on me. Dig in,” he motioned them toward the syrup.
Evan didn’t hesitate, grabbing the syrup and coating his short stack liberally. He then set it down and dug in, ignoring Lisa completely. With a sigh, she reached for the syrup and prepared her own stack.
She politely waited for Griff to finish making his own stack and join them, giving him a brief smile as they both took a bite.
“Mmmm… these are good,” she offered.
“Ha! Yeah. I added a cup of water to two cups of mix and stirred. I’m a regular gourmet over here,” Griff winked at her.
Evan was too busy shoveling
food into his mouth to notice. When he was through, he got up and walked into the fridge, emerging a moment later with a fruit cup, which he opened as he walked. Heading out the door, he paused and looked at Griff.
“You’ll clean up, yeah? Then I assume you lot will be playin’ yer game again?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just walked through the door.
Griff ignored him and quietly finished his breakfast. The food tasted delicious compared to the rations he’d been surviving on, and he savored every fluffy, maple-flavored bite. Lisa took her time as well, content to sit quietly and eat.
When they were through, she helped with the dishes, then showed him where the trash chute was and gave him a quick lesson on the dishwasher.
As they left the kitchen and headed toward their pods, he asked, “So what did you do all day? Before, I mean. With just you two here. No offense, but Evan don’t exactly seem to be a sparkling conversationalist.”
Lisa snorted. “He’s not so bad. He’s funny when he wants to be. We played some board games. Worked out a lot. Tried the radio sometimes. I like to read. Back when it first happened, I managed to download a bunch of books. Spent half me life savings, but I didn’t think money was going to matter much anymore. So I have about a hundred books to get through.”
“What are your favorites?” he asked her, sincerely curious. He loved to read himself.
“I love the old LitRPGs from the first couple decades of this century. Have you ever read the Emerilia books? Or the Greystone Chronicles?”
Griff grinned. “Aye! Loved them both. Please tell me ye have them? I haven’t seen ‘em since I were a child. I was more partial to the Terra books. The ones with the kobolds.”
“Sure, I have them all. Or as many as I could find. If the site’s not down we could look for some more later.” She gave a little skip as they reached the labs. “I’ll see you in the game.”
She gave a brief wave and shut the door. Griff locked his own door again and stripped before climbing into his pod. In less than two minutes he was closing his eyes and falling into immersion.
When he opened his eyes again, his avatar was where he’d left it at the inn. Since he’d joined the American server that Mace and Shari were on, the hours were kind of funky. It would take him a while to adjust to operating on their time. Being underground made it easier, though.
Still, they wouldn’t be on for a few more hours, so he walked Lisa around the village as she did fetch quests and crafting quests. She’d elected to take up leatherworking as a skill when they’d received bunches of raw leather from the wolf kills. She liked the idea of turning the hide into something useful, like lining for the armor Griff would be able to craft, or bags and boots and quivers.
Lisa was approaching level ten, when she’d be able to choose a specialization. The two of them had discussed it as they walked through the forest and the village completing quests.
Griff was surprised to find that the normally-timid woman had a love for sharp weapons. She was leaning toward a two-bladed fighting style, and she was a quick study on the crossbow. Which was wonderful for Griff, as he was still not very talented at ranged fighting. He was content holding off enemies with his shield while Lisa shot at them.
In the beginning, though, it hadn’t gone so smoothly. He’d purchased her a beginner crossbow using some of the ridiculously high coin drops they’d gotten from wolf kills. The weapons merchant had shown her a target dummy out back and given her a few pointers to get her started.
As soon as she had hit the target four times in a row, Griff had declared, “Good enough!” and they’d gone back out hunting. The very first fight against an angry boar, Griff had slammed it with his shield to stun it, then called for Lisa to shoot.
He heard the click and twang of the cable being released, and a moment later felt a blinding pain as the crossbow bolt slammed into his backside. Out of instinct, he spun around to try and see the offending missile, leaving the boar and its sharp tusks at his back.
The pig didn’t hesitate, gouging the backs of his legs and tearing one hamstring. Griff found himself falling backward to sit on the bolt, which pushed deeper into his ass cheek as he screamed in pain and tried to fend off the boar with his shield.
Lisa had the presence of mind to reload as she apologized profusely. Another shot got a lucky critical hit, boring into the pig’s eye. The pig fell over onto Griff, pinning his damaged and bleeding legs.
“Damn that hurts!” he growled as he used his dwarven strength to push the carcass off of him. He accepted a health potion from Lisa and gulped it down, then rolled onto his belly, reached back and pulled the now deeply-embedded crossbow bolt from his butt. Grunting in pain and bleeding again, he tossed the sharp projectile to the ground.
There were tears in Lisa’s eyes when he looked up at her, and her hands were covering her mouth. His anger instantly subsided and he began to get to his feet, saying “Oy, no worries luv. ‘Tis but a scratch.”
She couldn’t take it anymore and burst out in a raucous laugh. The tears had been from suppressing laughter. But the unconscious Black Knight reference had put her over the edge and she couldn’t hold back.
“I’m… I’m sorry!” She gasped between snorts. “It’s just, I hit you in the ass, then you sat on it. And the look on your face, and the…” She collapsed to the ground helpless with laughter.
Griff stood there for a moment, mouth agape. He’d been all prepared to comfort this dwarfess who’d shot him in the ass, and she was rolling around on the ground laughing at his pain! After a moment, he began to chuckle himself. “Right, then. I suppose shootin’ me arse was an accident?”
Laying on her back, arms wrapped around her belly, she shook her head. “I swear. I was aiming for the pig. But yer arse was in the way. And its such a big target!” she giggled, eyes wide and innocent.
Shaking his head he sat down next to her, the pain from his butt wound causing him to grunt, which sent her into another fit of laughter. He drank a health potion while he waited for her to gather her wits and tried his best to keep a stern look on his face.
Eventually she sat up next to him. She threw her arms around him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Mister Grumpy!” she teased.
That broke his resolve, and he grinned back at her. “Next time, you get the shield and I get to shoot pointy things in your direction.”
Her eyes widened in mock horror and she released him to lean back, as if afraid. “Oh, no! Uh-uh. Nope. I need to practice my marksmanship.”
They stayed in the forest long enough to kill a few more wolves, boars, and bears. As soon as Lisa reached level ten they headed back. Once in the village, Griff took her to a pavilion where several class trainers resided.
The building was wide open, with a twin row of small living quarters in the back. The main area was dedicated to training. There were obstacle courses, varying types of target dummies, a small arena for PvP training, and weapons racks scattered around each.
“Well, have ye given more thought to what ye’ll choose?” Griff looked at Lisa as she surveyed their surroundings. Only a few of the trainers were in sight. Which she supposed made sense, since no outlanders had come for training in recent months.
“I think I want to be a ranger. I can shoot people in the arse from a distance…” She smiled at him, then moved her eyes significantly to his butt, which he rubbed unconsciously. “Or I can get in close with swords.”
Griff nodded. From his conversations with Shari, he thought a ranger might fit into the group’s makeup well enough. He would be the tank, while Mace and Lila were both melee dps that specialized in sneak attacks from behind. Layne had buffs and debuffs, and Shari could heal.
Of course, none of them stuck strictly to their spec. Shari was also good with a bow, while Mace had magic for ranged attacks. No reason Lisa couldn’t be a dual-purpose player as well. And her two choices were complimentary. The dexterity, agility, and strength that would make her good with
twin swords would also improve her shooting skills with the crossbow.
Griff pointed to a hut near the end of the first row. A wooden staff and leather bag sat by the door, where a dwarf in mottled green leather sat whittling. He appeared to be making arrows.
Griff stayed where he was while Lisa approached the ranger and asked for training. The dwarf nodded, holding out a hand. Lisa paid him his fee and the two of them moved to one of the training areas.
Leaving them to it, Griff went to see his own warrior trainer. He’d assigned all but his most recent attribute point, with a focus on Stamina and Strength and a little Agility and Dexterity added in. And after his run-in with the bear, he’d put his most recent point into Luck. He took a quick look at his character stats.
Character Name: Griff
Class: Warrior
Level: 15
Race: Dwarf
Spec:Tank
Exp 280/4300
Health: 6,000/6,000
Mana: 100/100
Attrib Pts
1
Stamina: 16
Wisdom:10
Charisma: 10
Life Regen: 20/sec
Strength: 15
Intellect: 10
Dexterity: 12
Mana Regen: 1/sec
Agility: 11
Luck: 11
Armor:55
Skill Pts Avail: 0
He and Lisa were still too low-level to be of much use in combat with the rest of the group. But Mace had said they had plenty of time to level up and hone their crafting skills. Their group was going to complete a quest in Graf that would take a week or so.
Griff expected that he and Lisa would both be level twenty by that time. After all, they could play twelve or more hours at a time with no day jobs or school to worry about. He smiled to himself, feeling like a kid on summer vacation.
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