Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
After what seems like a century, we finally arrive at Ismarus. So far, this is the biggest town we’ve encountered on this trip. That makes sense given that the game chose it as the capital of Thrace.
There’s a line of NPCs and players at the gate, waiting to be let in.
The city guards are interviewing each person, looking for any threats, but they’re also judging whether each person has anything to offer Ismarus in return for its protection from the wilderness.
All the NPCs look pretty desperate to get on the other side of the gate, and I don’t have to wonder why for long when I overhear a conversation behind me.
“Did you see the chaos dragon?” a man’s voice whispers. “I’m not sure what happened to it, but I would rather let my farm fall apart than risk becoming its prey.”
“I saw it,” a woman answers. “I was sweeping the front porch like I do every single day, no matter how clean it is. Then the dragon showed up, and I…I don’t know how to say it. It felt like I woke up and then realized nightmares don’t just exist in my sleep.”
Looks like I broke some of these NPCs without even meeting them. This is a big city, and the streets will be crowded with many more of them possibly having epiphanies like this. God, I wish I had my headphones.
Some players a little ahead of us are arguing with the guards.
“What do you mean I’m too far behind in the main quest line?” asks a woman wearing first-level plate armor. “We’ve tried to do every quest, but they’re all broken!”
I’m not sure if any of the players here are like the Zeus worshippers and would know me on sight, but I pull at the hood on my cloak, hoping it will cover enough of my face to hide my identity.
Guy leans close and whispers, “Turn off your title.”
Oh, shit, that’s right. I’ve gotten so used to everyone having a title over their heads that I don’t even notice them anymore. If I’m lucky, no one will see mine before I turn mine off.
“Cleric of Aphrodite?” a man’s voice says from some point behind me just as I’m bringing up my menu. Guess I’m not so lucky today.
I turn to look at him. He’s a big guy, probably because he chose to be an orc. His tusks kind of remind me of the ones Cetus had, except they’re small enough to fit in a normal-sized mouth, and they’re not covered in drool.
“You’re not that Cleric of Aphrodite, are you?” he asks. His furrowed brows and squinting eyes could be the angry mask most orcs wear, or he could be really pissed at me. Or both. I’m betting on both.
While I consider whether I should lie and say it’s a coincidence, I see a familiar arm waving at me from far behind the orc player. Fuck, it’s Dolius. Maybe I can pretend like I don’t notice him, and no one—
“Cleric!” he cries out, waving and smiling like I’m a good friend he’s finally getting to see again after years apart. “Lauren!”
Oh, great. He said my fucking name. An NPC said my goddamn name.
“I knew it!” the orc shouts.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Dolius comes rushing toward me. He was such an all-business type in Thebe, but now he’s bubbly.
Love really changes people. My attention ping-pongs from the orc to Dolius on repeat, trying to gauge whether I should deal with the immediate threat the player brings or the possibility that my merchant friend could make this situation a whole lot worse.
Maybe if I break off the conversation with Dolius now, I can focus on charming the orc.
“Um, fuck,” I say, scrambling for the best way to get my friend to go back to his spot in the line for now. “Shit. Look, I can’t really—”
The orc makes a dash at me, and I fumble with the staff on my back. I’ve never had trouble getting this thing off, except for now when I desperately need to. It’s too late. He’s almost here. I squeeze my eyes tight and hope that one of my friends is prepared for this encounter.
To my shock, instead of beating my face in, the orc puts his arms around me. Is this a hug? He’s rocking me back and forth like you would with a big bear hug. It feels like…like…the way Doug used to hug me.
“I wondered if it was you when I heard there was some Cleric of Aphrodite named Lauren,” he whispers.
“But that could have been just a coincidence. Then someone described how you look, and it sounded like you. But as an elf, you look different enough that I couldn’t be sure.
Not until you spoke, and no one swears as much as you! It’s you! It’s really you!”
“Lauren,” Guy says from over my shoulder. “Do you know this person?”
“Apparently,” I say.
The orc finally lets go and laughs at me. “I guess I look pretty different, huh? You must know who I am, though.”
I don’t want to know, but I’m pretty sure I do. That hug is much too familiar and, despite the way the tusks make him lisp, he sounds a lot like Doug.
With a sigh, I say, “Of course I do, Doug.”
Guy comes to my side. I can see now that he’s crossing his arms, and there’s a stern expression on his face. “Doug?”
Cait comes to my other side. “That Doug?” she asks, looking at me.
“Yeah,” I answer them both.
“She talked about me?” Doug asks.
“A little,” Guy answers. He weaves his fingers with mine and rubs the back of my hand with his thumb.
Cait does the same with my other hand. “Honestly, not much. Just mentioned she had an ex named Doug, but it didn’t seem that important to her.”
Do they think they need to protect me from Doug? He’s like a golden retriever, a dumb one who never figured out how to do anything useful.
I realize I don’t have any ill will against him. Sure, I was mad at him in the real world, but I’ve barely thought about him since we started our journey to Thebe. If I really think about it, I can admit we’d been breaking up for years. We pulled that Band-Aid off slowly, but it’s still off.
I squeeze their hands, then slip away from their grasps. “It’s good to see you, Doug,” I say, extending one of my hands to shake his.
Doug seems confused by my formality, but he shakes my hand all the same. “Is…is everything okay?”
The answer to that is “No, nothing’s okay,” but he won’t understand. He just wants to know if he’s in trouble.
“We’re good,” I say. “They’re just protective of me, and, well…Guy, Cait, this is my ex, Doug. Doug, this is my boyfriend and girlfriend.”
If Doug was confused by my handshake, he’s gobsmacked now. “Your what?” he asks.
I open my mouth to explain, then Dolius interjects in a voice so loud that I’m sure everyone can hear him, “You’re together? Oh, how wonderful! The Cleric of Aphrodite finds her own love! And she’s been doubly blessed!”
“Fuck me,” I whisper, knowing how much attention he’s probably brought upon me. I get the staff off my back and look at Doug. “You may want to run. Pretty sure you don’t want to get in the middle of whatever smackdown the other players are going to bring.”
“Why would they—?” Doug starts, only to be interrupted by several outcries of rage.
Cait readies her great axe, and Guy grabs his staff. Joshua grips his short sword, and Miko brings up her menu. Goddamn it, we were so close to getting her druid gear.
Players from all over the line run at us with their weapons at the ready. They’re much lower-level than my friends, but there are also easily over twenty of these people.
Doug pulls a great sword out of its sheath. “You think I’d run from this? I’m an orc with a lifetime of gaming under my belt!”
Cait gets in front of me, while Guy casts a spell that creates a sparkly fog between us and the players heading our way.
Joshua and Miko stand behind me, with Sylvia at their side.
Because we’re not sure we can kill the eidola without hurting Sylvia, she’s still bound and unable to fight.
However, Miko summons a wind elemental, and Joshua hurls out sick burns.
Really, this game has a mockery spell, and now’s the first time he’s using it?
“Was it your mother or father that gave you those ugly frog genes?” he asks.
The painful groan coming from the attackers behind me tells me that this insult was enough to knock down that person’s health bar a little.
“Untie me!” Sylvia calls out. “You need me in this fight!”
“Not a chance!” Miko responds.
While Miko’s elemental splits in two, Alexander whips out his shotgun.
“Whoa, whoa!” I say. “Don’t get trigger-happy! I’d like to make this fight nonlethal if possible.”
“Emphasis on if possible,” Cait says as she kicks a player to the ground. “I learned that the hard way.”
The memory of Cait dying tightens my chest. We took down a chaos dragon. Surely, she can survive this. Right?
A few players pass through the sparkly fog, looking dazed as they stumble toward us. Whatever spell that was, I sure wish Guy had tried it out much earlier. Maybe it’s a really high-level one and zaps too much of his energy. Hopefully, I won’t have to guard him as he sleeps during this fight.
One by one, they come at us. Some are slow and clumsy, some are fast and tricky, and some are downright terrifying. No matter how they approach us, though, we knock them back too easily, and they grow tired quickly. How low-level are they if I’m a level five and doing okay still?
Within a few minutes, our attackers are either passed out or have given up altogether.
They sit on the ground, their heads bent downward in both defeat and exhaustion.
I feel sorry for them. Of course, they think I’m their enemy.
They’re trying to survive, to get back to their lives, and they can’t.
Because of me.
Most of them are wearing the armor and gear that’s for sale in the starting village. If the quests are broken, they may not be getting paid, or they may not qualify for updated items. Fuck, no wonder they’re all desperate.
“It’s not fair,” I say to no one in particular.
“What isn’t?” Doug asks, putting his sword back in its sheath.
“It’s not fair that we’re stuck with the choice between NPCs having real lives and players getting the XP they need to play the game the right way,” I answer.
“Why choose?” Doug asks.
Why choose? I check my quest log. It’s been a while since I did so. I’ve been so preoccupied with making sure no one died, I haven’t checked on my progress. Hell, even if a notification pinged, I doubt it would even have registered.
“Why Choose?” is still on my quest log. I assumed that because Guy, Cait, and I were together now, I’d completed that quest. Could it be that it has nothing to do with love? Am I supposed to help the players as well as the NPCs?
“Doug, why aren’t you mad at me?” I ask him.
“I think we both saw our breakup coming for a long time,” he answers. “But we’ve always been friends, and I don’t want to give that up.”
“That’s really sweet, but that’s not what I mean,” I say. “All the other players are pissed because I keep accidentally breaking the quests, and they’re not getting any XP.”
“That’s because they’re not grinding,” Doug says. “When I got to Sardis and there wasn’t a giant web for me to get rid of, I realized I needed to find another way to level up. So I went into the forest and killed a bunch of monsters.”
Cait’s eyes widen with realization. “Oh my God, of course. Everyone’s so focused on figuring out their offerings that no one goes off the beaten path.”
“But none of them can get into Ismarus unless they’ve made progress with the main quest line,” I point out.
“Seems like you need to break some guard coding, then,” Guy says with a wicked grin.
“Smart thinking!” Cait tells him, and they high five.
“Maybe a charm spell?” I ask. “At least so I can convince them to relax the rules a little.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Doug says.
I leave our spot in line and approach the guards while my friends hold my place.
One guard holds up his hand to stop me. “No cutting.”
I lift my staff and say, “Charm” in a syrupy sweet voice.
The guard’s eyes turn pink, and his head bobs like he’s dizzy.
“You’re feeling generous today,” I say. “Ismarus needs more people, new people. It needs them from every walk of life and every level. You want to take in everyone from the line.”
The guard nods. “Yes, we need all of them.”
He waves in the NPCs standing in front of him, and they rush in like they expect him to change his mind.
“What are you doing?” another guard hisses at him. “We have to vet everyone!”
The charmed guard shrugs in return. “We need all of them.”
“Why?” the other guard asks.
The charmed guard turns to me so that I can supply the answer.
“Because of the chaos dragon, of course,” I say and decide to exaggerate. “I saw three of them on my way here. Ismarus will need as many people as possible to defend the city from an attack.”
The other guard makes a choking sound and stutters out, “Th-three?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“Everyone in!” the other guard calls out. “One by one in an orderly line. No pushing or running but make it quick!”
A few of the weary players approach me.
“Did you just break the guards?” a halfling player asks me, her eyes full of hope.
“Yeah, they shouldn’t be any trouble now,” I tell her. “I’m sorry the quests are all breaking. It’s an accident, but my orc friend over there says he knows a way people can still level up.”
I point at Doug, and he waves in response.
“He does?” the halfling asks.
“If you spread the word, maybe we can all meet somewhere tomorrow after everyone’s rested and figure out a solution,” I say.
The halfling beams. “Yes! Where!”
“Good question.” I turn to the charmed guard. “Where’s a good place for a lot of people to have a meeting?”
“The courtyard next to the temple,” he answers. “There’s a podium between the fountains.”
I turn back to the halfling. “Did you hear that? Let’s say noon tomorrow?”
She nods. “I’ll let everyone in my group know to tell all the others.”
Why choose? It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Freedom is for the taking—players and NPCs alike.
A notification pings, and I check my quest log. “Why Choose?” is scratched out, replaced with “Meet With Players.”