“Again… apologies.” Her demeanor was as sincere as a trollish face could be. “How may I be of service? Some more tea… and smoked pike with a side of steamed mushrooms?”
Saliva flooded Rowan’s mouth and spilled into his throat. Eating in the real world during nightly log-outs had not help their characters. He’d been feasting on apples for days and the occasional herb Gabrielle had recognized. His stomach was threatening to rumble, loudly.
This wasn’t time for a clownish display. He clenched his gut and spoke with a tone of suppressed haughtiness, “And the seasoning is?”
“Just salt. We are still… building this village.”
“Then we’ll pass.” Gabrielle’s hand waved lackadaisically. “I like pepper and sauce on my food. I’ll take some raw mushrooms though.”
Jin’tal’s face dipped. “As you wish, and again… apologies for our… shortcomings.”
She really had to turn down the fish? But it could be actually be poisoned this time. Rowan kept his breathing steady, ignoring his whining stomach. “Enough talk of food. Our demands still stand. Tomorrow night’s gold and one or all of your slaves.”
“All your slaves,” Gabrielle said. “We have a lot of rituals to do.” Good lie.
Jin’tal’s crinkled lips pressed into a line. “Please, may I request that our slaves remain with us until the sacrifice? We require of their… services… for the sacrifice preparations.”
“Awww. All of them?”
“Yes. All six.”
Faenin hadn’t been lying about their numbers. Good to know. Rowan sniffed annoyance, pretended to weigh the request with much irritation slashed onto his face, then said in a rumbling voice, “Very well. They may remain with you until then.”
“Thank you, Demon.” Jin’tal bowed again, deeper.
In that action, Rowan caught glimpse of a guard Troll doing not so well to hide a wicked grin. Ding ding ding, alarms went off. Either Jin’tal was trolling her ass off or… that guard was an extra special Troll. And as the guard’s eyes met Rowan’s, its smile fell away, replaced by sudden fear. No, not exactly fear. Reading their faces was tricky.
Jin’tal continued, “Is there anything else you… need of us?”
Gabrielle’s tongue clicked. “Nope. We’re good here. Pack those mushrooms for us and we’ll be on our way. The High Lords require a report by sundown.”
“Would you… like to use our enchanted crystals?” Jin’tal’s muscles were visibly tensed, and the guards behind shifted.
Unease stirred in Rowan’s chest. “We have a special mirror in our camp.” He gave a sort of angry sigh. “Now, you have wasted enough of our time. Get those mushrooms and let us be off.”
Instantly, the unnamed Sun Elf slave ran off mechanically, at a blistering speed, toward the storeroom. His black hair bangs ruffled in the wind like feathers. He was back in four seconds flat, a basket of light-gray mushrooms the size of kiwifruits in his grasp. He held it out for Gabrielle.
She accepted. “Ooooo. These are nicely grown. Good work, for Trolls at least. Ya’ve pleased me. Keep the boar corpse.”
“Thank you, Demoness.”
“No problemo.”
Rowan made an annoyed grumbling noise. “Then let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
“And may I say…” Jin’tal raised a crooked index finger. “There is a seemingly… demonic ruin by an ancient manawood tree… between our two camps off toward the east. Does this information… also please you?”
A deliberate trap? Yes.
Rowan muttered, “I’ll let you know after we’ve checked it out.” He marched out with an aggressive gait, ignored Faenin’s desperate eyes.
“Seeya tomorrow night!” Gabrielle skipped to follow, humming a merry tune, waving at a glaring Troll here and there. They likely hadn’t caught wind of the apocalyptic news.
Meanwhile, Rowan was now sure they were going to try something by tomorrow night. It couldn’t have been this easy. None on the forums had reported fooling any sentient intelligent race to do their bidding. And not to forget, Demonborn fate had promised pain and tribulation. Had he bested the game so easily when a hyper-intelligent AI was running the show? The answer was a definitive no.
He walked past Faenin’s mate, felt a distant pang of sadness—not too sad—for the young couple. They probably didn’t deserve this, but he didn’t know their full story. Maybe they liked to torture animals or worse and this was their karma at work. Maybe Sun Elves were in actuality downright evil, but how would an evil civilization not implode on its own? These Woodland Trolls were doing rather well for owning slaves.
The chatbox beeped.
Gabby LeMort: Smile and wave, Row. Smile and wave.
So she was thinking similar.
Rowan LeMort: I’m trying to keep character, if you haven’t noticed. I’m not playing the cheerful, cutesy Demon.
Gabby LeMort: Are ya sure you’re not a cheerful, cutesy Demon? ^_^
Rowan LeMort: Certainly, and don’t touch those mushroom. Don’t even burn them. Dump them the moment we’re out of sight.
She glanced at the basket. Her mouth twisted into a knot as she continued forward with her upbeat walk, passing Rowan. The two guards at the gate did not stop her.
Gabby LeMort: Fine. My Luck points saved us, btw.
Rowan LeMort: How do you know?
Gabby LeMort: What else could it have been?
Rowan LeMort: Real luck. Maybe they’re being genuine.
Gabby LeMort: Are ya that dumb? She was OBVIOUSLY acting! She wants us to walk through that spider nest!
They stepped into the cover of trees, quickly climbing uphill with lengthy strides, not looking backward once. He almost slipped on a mossy rock and fell onto a log ripe with fluffy red mushrooms.
Rowan LeMort: I was being facetious. The guard behind her mostly gave it away. He was trying to not smile the whole time.
Gabby LeMort: OMG seriously? Then ofc they’re pulling something on us. They’re stalling.
Rowan LeMort: Yeah, for reinforcements.
Gabby LeMort: They might wanna sacrifice us. It’s a trap for us tomorrow night!
Rowan LeMort: Trolls be trolling.
In no time they were at the top of this hill. He cast his gaze across the valley, surveying for any other Troll activity and found none. He breathed easy. Scents of pine sap was thick in the air, and the canopy cast a cool shade over the underbrush. Multifaceted shadows danced beneath their feet. The graphical fidelity of this game was ever-astounding, perhaps better than real life graphics.
Gabrielle tucked the basket under a pile of pine leaves, still unhappy about it. “Alrighty, mister don’t-touch-those-mushrooms, what’s the plan? We’re not abandoning those Sun Elves, are we?” She pressed him with shaking lips and big pleading eyes.
A devious smirk took over his face. “We start killing everything we can find in this forest. Squirrels, boars, wolves, birds, whatever we find that moves… apart from insects.”
“Huh? Why?”
“You’ll figure it out.” He unfastened his admirable longbow from his back, nocked an arrow. He pulled, released, and nocked another in a single smooth motion.
Silent death, the arrow pierced forty yards of leaves and impaled a black bird resembling a crow against a branch. Dead. Blood flowed down its feathers and dripped from its claw, unusually bloody for a bird of its size. Atop the canopy, a second crow flew away, crying over its slaughtered mate.
12
There, fifty yards down the creek, a gray wolf was drinking.
Rowan pulled the bowstring taut, then released. The arrow flew true, but a crack on the top limb enlarged ten fold and splintered off a needle piece—straight at his face. A tad too slow, he flinched backward, and the splinter scratched skin under his right eye. A line of painful heat radiated, a familiar wetness running down his cheek into the corner of his mouth. Out of instinct he spat out the blood, but a rush of adrenaline and euphoria blossomed from deep within. And on the fringes
of that blossom was sharp, fiery anger he had rarely felt.
Anger for those goddamn Trolls.
They could’ve avoided this, the lot of them. They could’ve cooperated, let him and Gabrielle use their Town Hall once it was built. Why did they have to sacrifice a perfectly good slave when two gold veins were nearby? Useless dicks, the lot of them. It was time for mass death.
“Row?” Gabrielle said from behind. “Something wrong? You’re staring at your kill.”
He spun on the balls of his feet—and seized her by the arms. Strangely, her appearance was normal. “What do I look like?” he said in quite a calm tone. The rush of demonic magic was already faded, his heart settling back to a soft beat.
“Like a Row that hasn’t taken a shower in a week.” She smiled so beautifully, but then frowned. “Oh, you’re bleeding.”
“I licked a few drops. Want a taste?”
She touched his cheek with the tip of her pinky finger and didn’t hesitate before licking. The effect was delayed by a second. Her irises dilated as she looked around. “Whoah! I feel amazing!” Her eyes snapped to him. “Oh my, ya look like you’re carved from stone.”
“You saw?”
“Just for a second. It was really trippy.”
“I guess I wasn’t fast enough.” A dramatic sigh rasped up his throat. “Anyway, let’s hurry up. How many corpses are we at now?”
“I just dumped in three squirrels. With that wolf we’re at… like thirty-five. Mostly squirrels and possums… and birds.”
A whole morning and two afternoons of hunting had produced mostly small game, five arrows lost to the wild. Not impressive, quite abysmal. Those Light’s Justice guys had gathered a full pit of at least a few hundred jungle snakes, some over ten feet long. Their main guild was, so far, over several dozen strong, all under the command of Lance the famous MyTube gamer. Envy sizzled Rowan’s skin. What was he and Gabrielle doing wrong?
He shook off those unhelpful ruminations, saying, “Then that’ll have to do. My longbow is broken, and it looks like the sun’s setting.”
She looked up through gaps among rustling leaves. The sky was purple, streaked with brushed gold and fire once more. Genuine uncertainty weighed down her face. “Are ya sure this’ll work? I dun wanna disappoint Faenin.” She said his name with far too much affection.
His nose scrunched hideously. “Do you have a crush?”
“Hehehe. So jealous.” She poked his nose, softly. “They just remind me of us in a way, ya know? We’ve been married for like… fifty moons? What if I die tragically as well? Like in the real world. You’ll be left all alone like Faenin might be.”
This again. How many times did she have to keep saying shit like that? “Don’t say that,” he growled. A bad emotion was waging war on his insides. “But if that Elf couple means so much to you, then fine.”
“So ya do care! I knew it.” She hugged him tight for just two seconds, her embrace seeping warmth into him.
“I wouldn’t have put up with all your crap and burnt muffins otherwise.”
Her eyes rolled. “So funny, and I don’t burn my baking anymore.”
He ruffled her messy hair. “Let’s just do it. Is the manadust ready?” He strode toward the dead wolf, his cold feet numb against the small pebbles and sticks. He’d lost his makeshift sandals; she as well.
“Yup.” She followed with careful steps. Her left toe was bloodied.
Definitely, proper gear was high up on the agenda. Perhaps enchanted with hunger and thirst prevention buffs. His empty stomach was gnawing at his midriff, whining now and then. And he hadn’t heard any rumbles or hungry complaints from her. Why? He knew why.
“You ate those mushroom, didn’t you?” he asked as he picked up the dead wolf, its fur muddy and tainted with a strong pine scent.
Her eyes had widened like a caught deer’s. “Maybe.”
“You ate them raw.” They hadn’t returned to the campsite or started a fire.
“Maybe.”
“Raw mushrooms!” His voice vibrated in his skull.
“Yum yum.”
“Did you even wash them?”
“Yup. I’m not a dumb-dumb.”
His head shook. “At least you did it here and not back on Earth.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t do it there, ya silly.” She giggled, her chin high.
“Whatever. They looked clean enough.” He picked up the pace and put his legs on autopilot, and, again, checked the forums for recent developments.
In the general section, many were still complaining about rampant ganking in the wilderness. A community manager by the name of Vorax had responded—a kindly-worded suggestion to stay in groups or near towns and cities, which only egged on all their gamer rage.
Others were bragging about world-first achievements and various legendary Fate ongoings. That guy with The Dragonrider, Jonathan Bladestrider, was busy protecting his incubating egg, which, thanks to his loud-mouthing, was the target of not less than ninety-seven bounties. King Ralston of the Humans wasn’t pleased, and supreme levels of jealousy was abundant among the masses.
At the bottom of the page, in the Hardcore Wilderness Survival section, the rate of thread creation had dwindled to almost nothing. Playing the game without magical skills had quickly proved tedious and difficult—like in the real world. No one wanted to spend whole days to build a minimalistic hovel.
And in the other sections… Rowan didn’t have to time to check as his legs brought him to the dumping spot. The smell of piled bodies was vomit-inducing, the general weight of the aura pushing down on the area not something he desired to endure for long. Perhaps that was ambient dark magic, but he doubted his body would react in any other way in the real world. Small and medium-sized animals alike were slowly decaying, held together in a goop of dried coagulated blood and other bodily fluids.
Disgusting, to say the least.
Rowan threw the wolf corpse onto the pile. Behind the cover of the arch-like rock formation, he sat on a boulder, looked over his shoulder through foliage, and saw glimpses of their barricades. Their watchtower at the far end was barely visible, but a faint glow painted a green shade on taller builders. Magic.
It was starting soon.
“I’ll toss in the manadust,” Gabrielle whispered. She emptied a basket onto the corpses, and then another.
He nodded. “How’d you get so many, by the way?”
“Oh, they’re way more common the closer we get to the manawood tree.”
“Saw any spiders?”
“Nope.”
Good. That decision to split up had paid off, but the real risk was now. He gripped the bone of his mithril dagger tighter, his palms breaking out with a tingling sweat. His pulse drummed in rhythm with intensifying pulsating light. Clouds parted over their settlement in a perfect circle. It was starting.
“Done,” Gabrielle said on cue. “What now?”
“Wait.” Rowan looked at the pile. The shrooms were disintegrating where they touched blood, mixing into one of many potion bases, releasing latent magical energy into the concoction. An oddly metallic smell wafted in the air, coupled with a spicy brine flavor. The rush of magic swirled through Rowan’s innards, but other than that, nothing happened. The corpses remained as they were: dead and motionless.
“Wanna add our blood?” Gabrielle asked.
“I was just about to say.” He brought the dagger’s edge to his other palm, sliced a shallow cut. The mithril parted skin and tiny blood vessels with ease, like cutting through boiled apples. Blood pooled on his skin. He let it drip onto the pile, passing the dagger to her.
She did similar, though with a touch of reluctance. She hadn’t bled so much yet. She sucked in a harsh breath, then added her blood to the mix.
Drip, drip, drip, their combined blood mixed with already bloody manadust, but nothing happened for over a minute. The corpses did not animate. And after the second minute of dripping, Rowan swore he was feeling the blood loss in his tiring muscles and
lightening head. He pinged her to stop, squeezing his palm. His knuckles cracked.
Together, they must’ve dripped a whole cup of blood, but evidently a cup of demonic blood wasn’t enough. Maybe this area lacked proper magical currents. Or maybe those Luck points weren’t enough, and this for sure was in the realm of unpredictable magic. A grim mood settled on his shoulders, his limbs chilly in the young night.
And the sacrifice was well underway. There was no other choice. He grabbed Gabrielle’s smaller hand and walked.
“Huh? It’s not even—”
“We failed.”
“Awwwwww.” She sniffed. “I was so sure that was gonna work.”
“Really?”
“I had faith in ya.” She shrugged. “I still do.”
He huffed a breath. “After this trainwreck?”
“We promised each other, remember? And this makes for great footage! People like watching others fail and retry. It’s all part of the show.”
“That’s optimistic.” A genuine smile upturned his lips. “Is your back-up character configured?”
“Yup. We’ll be nobles.”
“Sounds good.” He sniffed something burning. “We can always come back to these characters one day.”
“Well, duh. Hehehe.”
They trudged through tall grass, stopped before the scene of Troll magic lighting up cloudy heavens. Drums were beating. Tribal music of mass singing layered the wind.
Might as well watch the show.
Rowan strode through the front gate. Immediately a trio of guard Trolls sprang from behind the fence and seized them by the arms, squeezing painfully. Agile hands disarmed him, taking his longbow and mithril dagger. Moonfyre too.
The lead guard was taller by a full head, stinkier. He grinned a mouth full of chipped yellow teeth. “Ah… you are in time to witness the might of Zar’took, Humans.” His English was surprisingly good.
“We’re not Human,” Rowan tried.
The Troll laughed. “How stupid do you think we are? You are nothing but a trickster, and if you are what you say you are, then it is too late. Demons have no power in Zar’took’s domain. Jin’tal shall deal with you shortly.”
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