“Can you tell me why the hell you people think it’s okay to bring me piles of orc teeth and ears?” the one-armed merchant ranted as he waved his hand at the two sacks that I was now holding. As he did, the rope that hung over his shoulder suddenly came to life and began to stretch itself inquisitively towards the bags, Ritt paying no heed to its movements. “Like, what am I supposed to do with them? What is anyone supposed to do with them but throw them away or burn them?”
“Uh…” I started to say, my eyes fixating on the living rope as it moved, only to have Ritt wave me off with a slash of his hand and kick open the very crate that he’d been standing on, which I saw was completely filled with [Crushbone Belts] and [Crushbone Shoulderpads].
“And then there are these things!” he exclaimed, once again gesturing violently with his hand towards them. “I have dozens of snickering adventurers all handing these to me by the armload like they’re all in on the same joke! What could possibly be so funny about these things? Is it me? Am I the joke here?”
“Easy, Ritt, easy!” Freya replied a little anxiously, holding her hands up to soothe the irate man before he could continue, the rope hanging from the merchant pulling itself back closer to his body, clearly unhappy with his rapid movement. “Don’t worry, you’re not the joke. It’s just a little adventurer humor about…oh, geez, I can’t do this anymore. Y-you’re aware that rope on you is alive, right?”
“Eh, you mean Noodles here?” Ritt replied, completely unphased by the woman’s abrupt segue, his hand coming up to stroke the side of the rope. “Yeah, of course he’s alive. Why do you ask?”
“Because…um,” Freya started to reply, the woman suddenly finding herself at a loss for words, eventually turning to look towards me. “Lyr, help?”
“Because you’re yelling about all the weird stuff that adventurers are doing when you yourself have a rope snake hanging off your shoulder like it’s a piece of jewelry?” I suggested as I turned to look back at her.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Freya replied with a nod, turning to look back at Ritt. “Let’s go with that.”
“Uh, well, when you put it that way, maybe I’m overreacting a little,” the merchant replied, his earlier anger abruptly deflating as he looked down at the snake who continued to retreat closer to the man, going as far to coil itself partially around his neck. “But in any case, Noodles here isn’t jewelry, he’s my…uh, assistant, I guess. Helps me grab and carry things that need two hands to move.”
“Does he now?” I asked, looking at the man and wonder just how that exactly worked. “Speaking of Noodles, though, how exactly did you end up with him anyway? I thought he belonged to someone else?”
“He did,” Ritt said with a shrug. “At least until one night involving a deck of cards, a jug of Marlin’s roughest moonshine, and a really bad string of luck.”
“So I see,” I replied while simultaneously making a mental note to never play cards with Ritt.
“So you do,” he said with a nod, before motioning back to the sacks that I still held. “And hopefully you can make me see what it is I’m missing here. Am I being pranked?”
“Well, it’s actually a little hard to explain without a lot of context,” Freya replied with a shake of her head. “But they really aren’t making fun of you. It’s just a bit of an inside adventurer joke.”
“Hrm, well I guess that’s fine, so long as it’s not me then,” the man replied as he glanced towards the crates. “Though that still doesn’t give me any idea of what to do with any of this stuff! The armor we can salvage, sure, but the teeth and ears?”
“It’s just a thought, but you could give the teeth to Marlin or another alchemist,” I suggested, shaking the one sack so it rustled loudly. “They might be able to uh…make potions out of it or something?”
“Give…it to…Marlin?” Ritt said slowly, his voice turning slightly incredulous as he glared at both Freya and me. “You’re telling me that you would drink a potion made from orc teeth?”
“Uh, well, depending on what it did, yeah, probably,” Freya answered for me, giving the man a shrug as if the question were a silly one. “You already know what goes into the half the potions we already have, don’t you? Orc teeth wouldn’t be a far stretch. And I guess for the ears…you could do the same or give them to Ragna if Noodles doesn’t want to eat them. Maybe she can bake them into muffins or something.”
“You’re kidding right?” Ritt asked slowly, his eyes growing even wider. “You want me to go and give our half-orc chef a bunch of orc ears, so she could presumably make them into food. Am I getting that right? Because that doesn’t sound right to my ears.”
“Why?” Freya countered, offering the man a small grin as she replied, no doubt imagining the mental picture of him doing exactly that. “Are you scared that she’ll be offended? Or that she’ll have a recipe to actually use the ears?”
“Yes,” the man said simply. “And I can’t believe we are having this conversation.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted a second opinion,” I said, offering him back both leather sacks, seeing Noodles immediately shifting towards them in curiosity once again. “The easy option is to just burn all of this and not think twice about it. Of course, if you do that, you might miss out on some money…”
“Oh, damn it,” Ritt growled as he took back both the teeth and ears, dropping each bag beside his crate. “You know, just when I think I’m starting to figure you adventurers out, something like this happens, and I realize that I don’t know anything at all.”
“If it makes you feel better, most of the time we don’t either,” Freya offered, the grin still on her face.
“Is it bad for me to say that hearing that actually does makes me feel better?” Ritt replied, his words ending with a sigh. “Oh, well. Thanks for listening at any rate. Though I’m guessing that because you’re both here, you have your own stuff to drop off too?”
“We do,” I said, taking that opportunity to reach into my inventory and pull out a cracked ballista bolt, its arcane-edged tip still attached. “We have a huge crop of these we recovered, plus a bunch of weapon and armor scraps, along with some miscellaneous debris. And before you can ask, we don’t have any teeth or ears, so don’t worry.”
“Small blessings, then,” Ritt replied as he glanced over at the bolt I was holding, his hand motioning over his shoulder to point deeper into the square. “But in that case, the bolts all go straight to Jenkins at the far end of the square. He and his assistants are fixing them up right as they come in so we can have them ready in case the orcs attack again. As for the other stuff, I’m pretty sure you can tell where it’s supposed to go. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get most of it sent back to Aldford tonight for Léandre and the others to pick through and salvage. What we have just here is more than we can realistically process in any reasonable timeframe.”
“I’d definitely agree with that,” I said as I gave the supply yard another glance, seeing once more just how cluttered and filled it was. “All right then, Ritt, we’ll get out of your hair for now and drop our stuff off. If we end up with a quiet evening later on, I’ll see if I can’t come by to help you guys sort this mess out.”
“I’d appreciate it, Lyr,” the merchant replied graciously as we made to leave. “But if you want to take it easy for a night, I definitely won’t blame you either. We’ll figure this out one way or another.”
Saying our goodbyes, Freya and I broke away from the man and headed deeper into the square, waiting until there was a good distance between us and Ritt before speaking in hushed tones.
“You didn’t tell him about the teeth and ears we collected,” Freya said as we walked, the woman turning to glance over her shoulder. “What are we going to do with them now? They were part of the loot for some reason, but I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with them.”
“Neither do I,” I replied, shaking my head at the question. “That idea with Marlin was just a wild guess. In either case, though, we don’t
need to worry. After he gave me the bags, I dropped in everything I had when he wasn’t looking.”
“Oh, smart,” the woman replied, breathing a brief sigh of relief before her eyes suddenly widened in a panic. “Shit, wait, what if he really goes to Ragna and she ends up cooking those ears? I was half-joking when I suggested that! I don’t want to eat orc ear muffins!”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head as a smile crept across my face. “But you’re on your own on that one. I don’t need to eat remember?”
“Lyr! That’s not funny!” Freya insisted, her tone rapidly increasing in urgency. “What are we going to do? The last thing I want to deal with is to have orc ears in my f—”
“Hey, Jenkins!” I called out, interrupting the woman mid-sentence as our whispering exchange finally brought us to within earshot of the man and the area that he’d set up shop in. “We have another batch of bolts to drop off for your tender touch.”
“Oh, hey, it’s you two. I was wondering when you’d make it back,” the man said by way of greeting as he glanced up from the workbench he was standing behind, a large arrowhead in hand. “Just drop whatever you have in the barrel there, and one of us will get around—hrm, are you alright there, Freya? You look like you might be sick.”
“I’m…fine,” she replied in a halting voice, giving me a pointed glance before turning towards the smith. “I might have just given Ritt some…questionable advice as a joke, and in hindsight, I’m afraid he might actually follow through on it.”
“Eh? A joke?” Jenkins grunted in confusion as his eyes shifted between us. “What do you mean? Erm, wait, do I even want to know?”
“Probably not,” I said to the man, unable to keep a small grin off my face. “But if Ragna happens to bake muffins in the next couple days, you should probably pass on them.”
“Muffins?” Jenkins queried before shaking his head at the question and waving it off. “You know what, never mind. I’ll just take your word for it.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Freya agreed, breathing a sigh of relief as she spoke.
“Right, well, anyway,” the man said as he changed topics, his voice dropping down in pitch. “How…how was it back down there? Any movement from the orcs since they pulled back?”
“Only from the skirmishers that they’ve sent out,” Freya answered in a tone that matched his. “At least a few dozen of them have been seen heading out into the surrounding region, no doubt to get the lay of the land around us. As for the horde itself, it looks like they’re setting themselves up to stay. We could see them starting to build a line of earthworks just outside our range.”
“Damn,” Jenkins cursed, his expression visibly falling as he digested the news. “Then do you think it’s true? The whispers that have been going around the base that is. That the war is starting again?”
“I…think it’s a bit too early to think anything like that,” I replied, despite Carver’s words of exactly that echoing through the back of my mind. “There are a lot of orcs out there, sure, but we’re still getting a proper count of them and figuring out exactly what else we’re dealing with.”
“I see,” Jenkins said, doubt evident in his voice as he looked back at me, his eyes meeting both mine and Freya’s briefly before he shrugged his shoulders, appearing somewhat embarrassed as he collected himself. “Sorry, it’s just nerves on my part. I’ve spent all my life living through one war with the orcs, one that I thought was over for good. To think that it’s all starting again…and so soon after it ended…”
“We understand,” Freya said in a soothing tone as the man trailed off, his shoulders shrugging helplessly for a second time. “And we can only imagine how it feels from your perspective. But Lyrian is right. We don’t fully know what we’re dealing with, and until we do, we can only take things one step at a time.”
“You’re right,” Jenkins replied, his head bobbing in slow agreement to the woman’s words. “And I suppose that even if it ends up being a full-blown war again, at least this time we have you adventurers to help us. After seeing the way you all stood up to the orcs today…”
Once more the man’s voice simply trailed off while shaking his head.
“No matter what comes our way, we’ll do our best,” I promised, meeting the man’s eyes as I spoke, Freya’s voice echoing out with a similar assent moments behind mine.
“I know you all will,” Jenkins replied, his moment of doubt passing as his eyes hardened with resolve. “In either case, though, there’s no use in stressing when there’s work to do. Let’s have a look at what you’ve brought me.”
Shifting gears from there, Freya and I unloaded the contents of our bags with everything that we’d scavenged from the battlefield, handing Jenkins a collection of broken ballista bolts and other arcane-edged weaponry. Once we were finished, we bid the smith farewell and made our way out of the square, happy to find our way out of the press of people.
“Whew, I’m glad that’s over with,” Freya said as soon as we were free. “Now what do you say about finding that place to rest we were talking about earlier? Not only do I really need a break, but I’ve been half reading my level twenty-five class skills out of the corner of my eye and getting nowhere fast.”
“Ha, I hear you there,” I said, my attention turning to glance at the two notifications that had been hovering steadily in my vision for the last few hours. “Though…in the interest of expediency, maybe a quick glance over them right now while we walk couldn’t hurt? Then we can focusing on relaxing afterwards.”
“You know, I was just about to suggest the same thing,” Freya replied with a smile. “Give them a quick skim and regroup in a minute to trade notes?”
“Works for me,” I said, returning the woman’s smile with one of my own as I shifted my attention back towards the first notification, seeing that it was a summary of the battle that we’d just fought.
Battle Summary Update! War: The Town of Aldford vs. The Dread Crew & Orc Tribes of Khudazal
Wednesday, April 17th – Battle at Valor’s Point
Outcome: Minor Victory
Allied Player Casualties: 212
Allied Non-Player Casualties: 0
Enemy Player Casualties: 41
Enemy Non-Player Casualties: 389
War Assets Destroyed: 43
War Assets Lost: 6
Rewards:
Glory Points: 703
Experience: 55,000
Leadership Experience: 15,000
Huh, it looks like we did better than I thought we did, I noted as I read over the battle summary, slowly absorbing all of the details that it presented. Having been thrust directly into the middle of the conflict, it had been hard for me to get a sense of the scale of the overall battle and what it had cost both of our sides. It looks like we only suffered losses amongst our adventurers, which is a bit inflated since that number accounts for multiple deaths after respawning and running back into the battle. Though that said…the orc and Dread Crew losses are a hell of a lot higher than anything I expected. The summary has to be taking all of the spirits and shades into account on the enemy non-player casualty tally, in addition to any orcs we killed. I’m guessing too that the orc constructs also make up the war asset numbers since I can’t imagine what else could account for them.
Continuing my scan through the list, my gaze eventually took me towards the rewards section, which had been the source of the boost that I’d needed to not only reach level twenty-five after the battle’s end, but also make headway to level twenty-six. In addition, the battle had also managed to give me enough leadership experience to net me three more skill points along with a healthy dose of glory points. As I moved past the rewards section, I saw another section labeled “Spoils”, which after a few seconds of staring at I realized appeared to exhaustively list everything that we’d managed to recover from the battlefield thus far. Blinking numbly at the massive list of mundane weapons, armor, and other supplies, I decided against pursuing it, for
the time being, knowing that if allowed myself to get into the details, I’d never stop until I finished reading everything.
With a minor act of will, I forced myself to dismiss the summary and instead turned my attention towards the second pending notification in my vision, seeing my character sheet spring up to fill a portion of my vision. Taking the time to get my bearings, I went about the traditional level gain process and glanced over my attributes, considering where the best place was to spend my free points.
Well, the plan earlier was to try and bring agility’s base score in line with strength, so might as well finish that, I said silently as I reviewed the two attributes and mentally assigned the points. Once I was done with that, I turned my attention towards my newly gained leadership skill points and glory points, scanning over each respective portion of my character sheet and assigning those points as well. In the case of my Leadership skill, I chose to max out Enhanced Movement, bringing the skill to its max level of ten. For my PvP skills, on the other hand, I had just enough points to max out Increased Health, granting me another half of a percent of hit points, as well as gain two levels worth of Increased Mana, granting me a full percent increase in that attribute. Reviewing my choices, I took a moment to refamiliarize myself with my newly updated character sheet before confirming my choices.
Statistics:
HP: 1668/1668
Stamina: 1479/1479
Mana: 1805/1805
Experience to next level: 49337/62800
Renown: 7110
Attributes:
Strength: 80 (116)
Agility: 80 (118)
Constitution: 85 (89)
Intelligence: 105 (108)
Willpower: 30 (33)
Not seeing anything to cause worry after a second’s glance, I confirmed my choices before promptly dismissing the sheet from my vision and eagerly bringing up my skill menu, excited to see what awaited me now that I had the time to fully investigate it. But instead of the long list of six class skill choices that I was expecting, I found myself greeted by only three this time. Puzzled that the game would suddenly change the pattern that we’d seen so far, I focused my attention on the list, feeling my heart begin to race the second my eye landed on the first ability.
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 36