Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Phemie’s house isn’t grand, but it’s comfortable and well-kept.
When I knocked on the door, I wasn’t sure what I’d see or how I’d be received, but the woman seemed to have been expecting me.
She’d sent for a delivery service the day before, and she assumed I was with them since I was offering to take her gifts to her kids.
In a way, I am the person she’d requested, since her request was just a quest prompt created by whoever developed this game.
For someone who doesn’t believe in love, she certainly is friendly and gracious. She sits Guy and me down at her table to eat some stew, telling us she doesn’t want us getting weak roaming all over town.
The stew is phenomenal. There are so many ultra-real elements to this game, but the one that always surprises me the most is how I can actually taste the food. It even sustains me. Video games shouldn’t do that. Then again, NPCs shouldn’t have feelings, and I’m beginning to think they do.
When I hear the ping of a notification, I’m reminded that there are still unrealistic elements to this experience.
I tap to see what the notification is for, and I’m pleased to see that Phemie’s stew has given me a speed buff.
Because we ate it, we’ll be able to dash all over town without wearing out. Nice!
When we finish eating, Phemie grabs the packages for us to deliver.
They’re each conveniently in their own bags, but they’re also on the weightier side, which is annoying.
We can transport an entire camp from spot to spot like magic, but I gotta lug this heavy stuff for a side quest?
This must be part of the challenge. Once again, I wonder if the game developers are sadists.
Fortunately, Guy is with me, and he takes half of the packages so that we’re each only carrying four of them. Still, this feels like when you grab all your groceries from the trunk of your car at once, and it takes too long to get them in your house—except that I’ll be doing this all over town.
It doesn’t take long for my fingers to go numb from the bag handles digging into my skin. I find a clean place to set my packages down and stretch my digits to get blood flowing to them. Guy sets his next to me and does the same thing.
“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” he admits.
I nod. “Even with the speed boost, this will take us all day if we have to keep stopping like this.” I sigh. “There’s gotta be a ‘work smarter, not harder’ solution to this.”
I close my eyes and think, tapping at my temple like I can nag my brain into coming up with ideas faster. After a moment, I give up that tactic and look around.
We’re in an alley, and there isn’t much to see. Just some trash and pigeons. Then an old man walks past us. His back is crooked, probably from a life spent bending over as he worked. He’s rail thin and unsteady on his feet. Fortunately, he’s got a pretty sturdy cane. Then it hits me.
“Get your staff out,” I tell Guy.
He raises his eyebrows in confusion but doesn’t ask why, simply takes it off his back where it’s held with some kind of magical magnet that the game provides for every player’s weapon of choice.
“Do what I do,” I say.
I loop two package bags on each end of my staff and then use both my hands to hold the staff across the back of my neck and shoulders. Guy smiles in understanding and does the same.
“Oh, this is so much better,” he says. “Good idea.”
“I’m grateful for that Strategy Under Duress favor.”
“Well, you’re pretty smart without it.”
Guy glows at me, and my stomach does a flip.
“Let’s get going.”
A few minutes later, we find one of Phemie’s children. He’s selling food across the street from the temple. The moment I lay eyes on him, I hear a notification ping, and I check it, expecting to see that I’m one step further into this side quest. To my surprise, that’s not the only one.
“Weird…” I mutter.
“What is?” Guy asks.
“This is the same man I need to hook up with the chick in the temple,” I say.
“Well, that’s convenient,” Guy responds. “Want to make a quick pit stop at the temple before heading to Phemie’s next kid?”
I consider that for a moment. A lot of times in video games, they lump side quests together so that you can get them all done in one go. But this isn’t like other games. I can’t clean up a temple and deliver packages at the same time.
“No, I’ll have to come back later,” I say. “Amalthea’s quest might be an all-day thing with how busy that temple gets.”
We greet the man, and he smiles when I tell him that his mother has a package for him. Wanting to know just what I’d been hoisting on my shoulders, I stick around to see him unpack it. The man weeps when he does. He lifts a large woolen cloak and two smaller ones.
“She’s always thinking of us,” he says and then looks at me appreciatively. “Winter’s coming. Since my wife died, it’s just been me and my little girls. She was a tailor, but now that money’s gone, and it’s a lot harder to make sure my children have what they need.”
The man digs into his pocket and pulls out some coins. I hear a ka-ching and see that he’s given me a few copper pieces.
“For your trouble,” he says.
I know that the game is simply rewarding me for completing this step in the quest, but I can’t accept money from someone who just told me he doesn’t have enough money to give his kids what they need.
“Please take your money back,” I tell him.
The man stares through me with a blank face. I can see his little NPC gears grinding to a halt. I almost leave, thinking that he won’t respond to me since this isn’t an option to take with this quest. Then he snaps out of it, and his eyes meet mine.
“You’ll let me keep the coins? Why?” he asks.
“Your mother is already paying me, and I want to make sure that money goes to helping your children,” I answer.
The man wipes a tear away. “You’re too kind.”
“Honestly, it’s no problem,” I tell him.
He looks at me with large, admiring eyes. “I will never forget this,” he says. “I already thought you were beautiful, but I didn’t realize your heart was even more so.”
Uh oh.
“Um…thanks. Gotta dash!” I give an awkward laugh and lift my package-laden staff onto my shoulders again. “Let’s go,” I whisper to Guy, before I scurry away from the street food vendor. The moment we’re out of earshot, I ask, “What the fuck was that?”
Guy shrugs. “Appreciation?”
I shake my head. “No, that NPC just hit on me. He’s supposed to be the love of Amalthea’s life. My job is to get them together. I let him keep some copper, and suddenly he’s telling me I’m beautiful?”
“Maybe he’s just being nice,” Guy offers.
I side-eye my friend. “Do you really think that?”
Guy doesn’t say anything, but I see the doubt in his eyes when he glances down in thought.
Fortunately, three of Phemie’s daughters are in the same place. They all work as maids for some rich dude. Each one of them is quite pretty, with perfectly coifed dark curls and big, brown eyes. One of them is truly stunning. She has long lashes, bee-stung lips, and an hourglass frame.
She gasps when she opens her package and shows it to her sisters. “Look, new cloaks! Oh, and they’re so lovely. We’ll be warm and fashionable this year,” she says with a giggle.
Her sisters nod in agreement.
“She even packed some for your little ones,” the young woman tells them.
A handsome man walks down the hallway, and the beautiful woman’s attention shifts immediately from her present to the man. Her eyelashes flutter as she sighs wistfully. The man doesn’t notice her at all, causing her smile to drop.
A notification pings, and I open it up. Not only does it show that we’re halfway through our deliveries, it indicates that I’d found both Gelasius and the maid crushing on him.
“Again?” I say and then turn to Guy. “I guess they really intend for us to do these in tandem. That man who just walked by is another one of my side quests. I have to find some scrolls for him.”
“Maybe you can find them really quick while we’re here,” Guy whispers. “If we run out of time, we can always come back.”
I nod. This quest would probably be a lot faster than cleaning up an entire busy temple.
“I would love to have kids of my own to give cloaks like this to one day,” the young woman says to her sisters. Frowning, she continues, “I guess I should just marry the stable boy. He’s…nice.”
Ouch. Poor stable boy.
“Don’t settle!” I say. “You’re beautiful! One day, the right man will come along.”
The woman shakes her head and looks at the doorway Gelasius just left through. “My mother keeps telling me that love like that doesn’t exist. And, well…I haven’t had cause to disbelieve her.”
“I’m really fucking up this quest,” I mumble.
Her eyebrows press together. “What do you mean? You’re not at fault.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s…” I trail off.
Once again, an NPC has responded in a way that doesn’t make much sense to me. She’s supposed to pine over Gelasius so that he can fall in love with her. Now, she’s responding to my muttering that wasn’t in any way directed at her.
“You might be surprised,” I say. “As long as you stay patient, that is.”
I deal with finding the scrolls as quickly as possible, barely interacting with Gelasius as I do so. I’m in such a rush that I forget to talk to him about the maid until I’m pretty far away. I decide to come back the next day and talk to him then.
The next two packages are easy, because they’re for two brothers who work together as blacksmiths. I almost sigh with relief when the whole interaction is uncomplicated. There’s no connection to any of my other quests with those two.
However, when I walk away, one calls out to me, “Please let our mother know we appreciate this, and we’ll come by for dinner soon.”