Chapter 6
Chapter Six
My new acquaintances chatter noisily about something. I don’t know if they’re always this talkative, or it’s just because I’m around. I don’t care. Alexander, the Alexander, is waiting for me to talk to him. So, I get up from my seat, ignoring everything but his handsome face.
Because of the UI, I can see a small, glowing blue orb above his head. When I played the game, that marked an NPC with an available quest. Given what’s in my quest log, I assume it means the same thing here.
As beautiful as he was as an animation in a video game, he’s drop-dead gorgeous in living flesh. A stubborn lock of his dark hair brushes the edge of one serious eyebrow. His brown eyes somehow communicate the pain in his heart, as well as his interest in speaking with me.
When I get close enough to speak to Alexander, I can see his chest hairs peeking through the V of his tunic. There’s also a hint of his pectoral muscles that the cloth mostly obscures. I tilt my chin up to look at his face, knowing it will give him a full view of my blushing cheeks.
“H-hello,” I whisper.
“Hello, there!” Alexander says. “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you an adventurer?”
Ah, yes. We’re at this part.
Remembering that he’s another NPC douses the flames burning in my chest and on my cheeks. He’s programmed to gaze at every player this way, not just me.
“Um, yes, I am.”
“I was once an adventurer,” he says, “but the gods have cursed me to never lift a blade again.”
“Because of Phoebe…” I mutter to myself.
“Because of Phoebe,” Alexander continues.
“She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but my thirst for glory made me careless.
When I set fire to the nest of harpies, I didn’t realize they had kidnapped her and hidden her there.
Now, she’s dead and by my hand. For my sin, I can never touch my sword again. ”
I take a moment to think about how best to respond to his backstory monologue.
I could ask him if he needs my help. That would lead to the first quest, which is finding Phoebe’s locket in the ruins of the harpy’s nest. I could also take some time to get to know him, which would mean a lot of rehashing conversational points.
Is there a Skip Dialogue option somewhere on my UI?
Alexander’s face holds the endless patience that NPCs exhibit while players deliberate over the best course of action.
His dark hair is so shiny and healthy, not at all digital in appearance.
I bet if I stroked it, my fingers would feel like they were combing a gentle stream.
His eyes absolutely smolder with regret and longing.
He looks like every guy I ever crushed on but never had the guts to approach.
For a moment, I wonder just how far his NPC coding goes.
Lauren, you need to do the quest. Getting back to Mom is more important than seeing if you can romance an NPC in person.
“Do you need my help?” I ask.
“My love had a locket,” Alexander answers. “It’s still in the ruins of the harpy’s nest. Can you retrieve it for me? I cannot fight any beasts that may arrive, so I have no way to get it myself.”
“I’ll do that for you.”
The blue orb above Alexander’s head turns yellow. My quest log’s glow also turns yellow.
I return to the table, feeling heavier than I had before.
It was unreasonable of me to want Alexander to speak with me in an authentic, unscripted way.
He’s a video game character. Still, it reminded me of what I realized when I broke up with Doug.
I’ll never find real love. My choices are heartbreak or fiction.
“Harpy quest?” Cait asks.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s a necessary one to get through to the better ones,” she says and then sighs. “It’s super boring, but we’ll help you out with it.”
“It should give you enough money to buy some beginner equipment,” Sylvia chimes in. “You’ll need a mana-enhancing robe and a staff.”
Everyone around the table discusses the fastest path to level me up. They have months of experience on me, and they need me to be as prepared as possible to heal them on their higher-level quests. Tara’s silent, though. Every time I glance over, she’s studying me intently.
Suddenly, she interrupts the conversation. “We’re not rushing her off to any quests today, y’all.”
Cait blinks. “Why not? It’s an easy quest.”
“Look at her,” Tara says, pointing at me. “She just found out she’s in a game, but it hasn’t sunk in yet. That’s going to happen soon, though, because a major character just proved himself to be nothing more than an NPC with better dialogue options.”
“So?” Joshua pipes up. “We all had to go through the same thing, and we didn’t get a break from the game to do it.”
“Because we were alone; because we didn’t have a choice,” Tara counters. “She has us though. Why make her go through what we went through? Let’s help her get used to this world before we throw her into combat.”
Sylvia nods. “I agree with Tara.”
“Well, what about what Lauren wants?” Guy asks. He turns his deep brown eyes to me. “How do you want to do this?”
I consider my options. Taking the day to contemplate my situation tempts me for a moment, but it gives me anxiety just thinking about how much thinking I’ve yet to think.
Does that make sense?
I don’t want to confront reality—or whatever this is—yet. I’d rather jump into quests to distract myself from how scary my situation is.
“Cait, how fast do you think we can get this harpy quest done?” I ask.
Cait twists her lips to the side and taps her chin.
“Well, it takes about fifteen minutes to walk there and about twenty minutes to find the locket in all the ash. There’s a mini-boss battle with a surviving harpy.
Took us maybe three minutes to finish her off last time.
Then it’s fifteen minutes to get back here and turn in the quest to Alex. ”
“So, about an hour,” I say. Then I turn to Sylvia. “Let’s do this. If you help me with stuff like this, I’ll be your healer.”
Everyone cheers, especially Guy.
Poor mages. They’re like tissue paper in a fire. I better learn more than Healing of Minor Wounds if I want to keep this handsome man alive.
Getting Phoebe’s locket from the harpy nest is the one Legends of Sacrifice main quest I completed before my computer died.
It was a pretty quick one, only requiring me to dig around in the ashes for a while, pluck out the locket, and take care of the surviving harpy who showed up.
That had been easy while playing it on a computer as a monk.
In “real” life on a rainy day as a cleric with only one spell, however… ?
“What the fuck?!” I shout.
The harpy shrieks from above, her raptor-like claws extended.
I don’t know whether the harpy wants to use those claws to rake me across the face or guts.
Maybe she wants to snatch me from the nest and drop me from a great height.
Whatever the case, with no defensive or offensive spells to use in the situation, I need to get out of the nest ruins and run away!
However, I’m right in the middle of the nest, and it was like crossing over a dune to get here. The paste of damp ash on my hands and feet is crystalizing and producing a painful heat.
Why does it burn? Does ash really do this when it goes from wet to dry? Stupid programmers!
Getting out feels impossible. I’m not at all helpful in this situation.
Honestly, I’m probably holding them back.
Every time I try to take a step out of this muck, the pain of my efforts causes me to wince and grab Cait’s arm.
She can’t do what she needs to do because I’m clinging to her like a toddler having a tantrum.
“Duck!” Cait shouts, pushing me off her, and she dashes in front to block me from the monster swooping down on us.
The screeching creature with the face of a woman and wings of a buzzard reaches out to grab Cait, but the barbarian pulls out a great axe from thin air at the last moment and cleaves the harpy’s leg from her body.
Rusty brown liquid pours from the monster’s stump.
It’s beyond disgusting, but of course, Cait’s somehow still fucking gorgeous covered in its blood.
Still, the harpy isn’t dead. As shrill as she’d been before the attack, her screams are even more ear-splitting now.
The harpy rises high in the air. For the briefest moment, I think she might be retreating. But the wound only caused the harpy’s wrath to intensify, and she’s readying for another attack.
“Sylvia, get your bow ready!” Guy calls out, as he produces a ball of lightning in the hand he isn’t holding his staff with.
The archer gives a curt nod in response, but her eyes never leave the harpy. Just as Cait pulls her great axe out of nowhere, Sylvia knocks a flaming arrow onto it.
“Sylvia, no!” Guy shouts. “The ash may still be flammable!”
“But it’s wet!” Sylvia calls back.
“Don’t risk it!” Cait shouts. “A regular arrow will do. Now stop talking and get ready to attack!” Under her breath she mutters, “We’d be done with this already if not for the—”
The harpy swoops down on us again. This time, though, she curves her flight path at the last second so that she’s behind me.
Before I can turn around to face the monster, an arrow and a bolt of lightning strike it.
A health bar pops up above her head, showing that they’ve taken half her life away—not enough to give me peace of mind.
“Get behind—” Cait starts.
Joshua comes dashing in front of me, shouting, “Leeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Cait grumbles, as Joshua swings his sword wildly at the harpy.
Joshua slices the harpy’s stomach. It looks gruesome, but it seems to be only superficial since the health bar barely nudges.
He juts his sword forward, puncturing the monster.
This time, his attack is effective, bringing her almost all the way down.
Unfortunately for him, she responds to that by clawing at his chest.