Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The walk to the coastline from Dardanus isn’t long, so we take our time eating and packing up. After the tight deadlines we had helping Dolius, it’s nice not having to rush anywhere. We even have time to chat and joke around.
“Good news!” Miko announces as she takes a bowl of boiled grains from Sylvia. “I got my new assignment last night.”
“Oh, really?” Guy asks. “Please share.”
“Well, I’m a druid now,” she says, and we all gasp. “I know, right? Such a different class than a warlock. I guess it’s because you all found me in the woods, and I fought off those guards with grapes.”
“Makes sense,” Guy responds.
“I got to keep my level five status, which was a big relief,” Miko continues. “I don’t have that many spells, but I’m sure rooting enemies to the ground and having elementals at our side will be helpful. Also, I can make grapes grow anywhere.”
“That all sounds great!” Sylvia says. “We’re happy to have you with us. You could have left us behind at Dardanus. It’s nice to know we can call you a friend.”
“Well, I couldn’t leave my saviors in the lurch,” Miko says and gives Guy a grateful look. “Without you, I would have been stuck wishing for the void’s sweet embrace.”
Guy blushes. “Aw, it’s no big deal. I’m glad I finally got to use that favor. I thought I’d never use ‘Convert Believer.’”
“We couldn’t ask for a better druid,” Joshua says, sounding genuine instead of creepily hitting on her.
Now it’s Miko’s turn to blush. “Thanks.”
Hmm, are they into each other? Could Joshua be that lucky?
“Everyone seems so perfectly assigned to their deities,” Guy says. Then turns to me and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Especially our Cleric of Aphrodite here.”
His touch is so sweet, and I’m reminded all over again of all the reasons I want to be with him.
Cait stands and stretches. “I’m ready to pack up and head out.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Tara agrees. “I felt some snowflakes this morning. If we don’t want to trudge to Ismarus during a blizzard, we should get going.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “A blizzard? You think that’s gonna happen so soon?”
Cait shrugs. “Probably not, but there’s a big chance our trip won’t be short. Conceivably, we could get there in two or three days, but sometimes stuff goes wrong.”
“Wrong? Like what?” I ask.
Joshua laughs and points at the coast, just barely within view. “Here there be monsters!” he says in a pirate accent.
“What Joshua means is that sometimes players encounter Cetus on their journey,” Sylvia explains.
“Cetus? What kind of monster is that?” I ask.
“Kinda like a whale, I think,” Sylvia answers. “We never saw him, but we’ve come across a few players that have.”
“Know what’s weird?” I say. “I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to any other players except for you all. I mean apart from turning down that other Aphrodite worshipper.”
“Yeah, we kinda learned to keep to ourselves,” Tara responds. “Getting to know people outside of our party can be…emotional.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Remember when I said people can really die here?” Cait asks as she packs cooking wares into a box. “Well, we know that firsthand.”
Sylvia’s eyes well, and she wipes away a tear.
“The worst was that older couple. Remember?” she asks the group but doesn’t wait for an answer.
“They talked about how they’d taken up gaming together during their retirement, and they felt so lucky that they came here together.
But they couldn’t fight, not really, not like younger players. ”
The companions who took me in all look down with heavy expressions. Sylvia doesn’t need to say anything more. I’ve wondered why all the players I’d seen so far were no younger than teens and no older than maybe their fifties. That’s probably because the children and the elders didn’t last long.
Aphrodite had said she wouldn’t let me die. She’d said that some gods were fine with disposing of their worshippers, but she wasn’t. I feel lucky to be so protected. I hope my friends share the same fortune.
I ponder this as we pack up camp and while we walk down the well-trodden road to the coastline. When the docks come into view, my mind turns to the quests ahead of us. Not only do I need to give a message to Khione, I need to complete the main objective of saving Orpheus from some Circones women.
This was a quest from the trailer for Legends of Sacrifice.
I remember reading the beta forum threads about it, too.
Seems Orpheus is another romanceable character, which feels weird to me, since the myth he’s famous for is how he descended to the underworld to bring the woman he loved back to life.
I remind myself for the millionth time that the game developers cherry-picked what they liked about Greece and its mythology and tossed the rest away.
As far as romanceable NPCs, I’m not as excited about them as I used to be.
Alexander walks beside me with the same brooding look he’s had since I first encountered him.
I’m kind of tired of him, if I’m being honest. I mean, yeah, he’s hot, but he can’t fight.
He didn’t even opt to come to the market with us.
The outlines of boats form in the distance, and I grow excited. I can’t wait to put a lot of water between me and Dardanus. I’m tempted to break into a sprint, but I know that I need to save my energy for whatever might happen once we get on our ship.
“That’s her!” I hear someone yell.
I turn toward the voice and see a man on a hill pointing at me with rage in his eyes. “Oh fuck,” I mutter.
Several other men appear from behind the hill, rushing to their friend’s side. They all look ready to kill me as they run down the hill in my direction.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I yell.
We all get into defensive positions for whatever battle is coming.
“Are those…players?” Miko asks.
I see what she means: one of them is wearing a ball cap; another’s polo shirt collar is peeking out of his mage robes. All of them have titles I can’t quite read yet above their heads. They are other players.
“What do they want with you?” Guy asks.
I want to say that I don’t know, but I’ve been worried this might happen for a while. “I’m breaking the quests,” I say. “Because of me, they can’t level up.”
“How do they know that, though?” Cait asks. “It’s not like we’re going around telling people about it.”
“Well…” Joshua says. “We’re not, but…”
“Out with it!” Cait demands.
“The gods know,” he says. “Pan told me a lot of gods aren’t super happy about it.”
“But Aphrodite thinks it’s great!” I say.
Joshua shrugs. “The gods are different people. They’ll have different opinions.”
“Enough!” Tara barks. “We can discuss all this after we deal with these dudes!”
But how will we? They’re not NPCs. Fighting them could lead to their actual deaths. I’m still shaken from watching a guard fall on his sword, even though he apparently respawned moments later.
However, there’s no time to think about an alternate solution because one player, a beefy orc wearing metal armor, swings a sword at Cait. He’s slow, so it’s easy for Cait to duck out of the way, but when she tries to shove him away, he doesn’t even budge.
“Use your axe!” Joshua yells at her.
“These are real people!” Cait argues.
“So are we!” he responds.
Cait may have the temper of a barbarian, but I see the moral conflict all over her face. She knows there’s no going back from the decisions she makes in this battle.
I’ve stared at her too long, so I don’t react in time when an arrow comes at me.
A sharp blow to my shoulder knocks the breath out of me, and my heart thunders in response.
For some reason, I can’t feel it anymore, though I’m hyperaware of everything else.
Is this what Cait felt like when she had that spear in her side?
Numb to the pain because of the chaos of the fight? I shake these questions from my mind.
Everyone’s so busy with the fight that they don’t notice my wound. Fortunately, I’m the healer of the group. Not feeling the pain of it is a boon I need to take advantage of. There are five of the enemy players and seven of us; most of us are higher-level, too. We can do this.
I call on my Strategy Under Duress and think through the situation.
As a cleric, I’m the one who can keep the rest of the party alive, but I’m also the easiest to kill.
We’re up against gamers, so they’re going to know this.
They’ll want to take me out of the equation immediately.
I get behind the group like a smart healer should.
Regardless of whether I can feel my wound, I’m bleeding a lot and can’t do my best with an injury. So, I yank the arrow out and cast Heal Major Wound on myself. Now I can concentrate on the battle at hand.
Our enemies have two soldiers, an archer, a healer, and a mage.
Cait seems to be holding off the soldiers just fine, even if she’s doing her best not to kill them.
Joshua is playing something new. Is that the climax to “Live and Let Die”?
Miko’s brought a wind elemental into the battle, and the creature is whipping away every arrow the enemy archer looses at us.
Unfortunately, this is also hampering Sylvia’s archery as well.
I’m not sure where Tara has gone, but she’s a pretty shrewd woman.
I’m sure she’s figured out something smart.
Guy is right by my side, trying to fling his magical icicles at the other mage, but every single one of them crumbles in his hand.
“That mage must have some kind of spell that negates mine,” he says.
“Maybe not all of them,” I tell him. “Try something else.”
Guy nods. His eyes scan up and down quickly, and I can tell that he’s looking through his spell menu. Then, he chuckles and says, “Of course.” He lifts his staff and shouts, “Silence!”