Content Warning!
[Previous]
[Next]
Dale screams several curses and leaps to Deirdre’s bed in a panic. He tears away the bloody quilt and finds a log underneath. As he reconciles the lack of body with the presence of blood, the door to the room opens. Dale turns to the door and is ready to roll for turn order, when he sees that it’s Deirdre with a mug of tea in her hand.
“Morning, sunshine,” she says.
“What the fuck, Dee,” Dale asks.
“Oh, that. Did you just get up? Sorry, I just got in.”
“From what?”
Deirdre wakes in the middle of the night, about 4 a.m., and hears Dale snoring loudly. She tosses and turns, but is unable to get back to sleep. She looks over her character sheet, and is surprised to notice that she has about three dozen mana points for some reason.
A few minutes later, she hears rattling at the window. She opens her eyes and looks as best she can without moving her body, and can just make out two silhouettes outside in the dark. Gently, slowly, she pulls the covers over her head, and whispers, “Hide.”
She finds herself suddenly in the rafters, looking down on the room. There is a big lump about her size in the bed where she used to be. She draws her sword from its scabbard and waits.
There’s a little click!, and the window opens out. Two figures in grey cloaks enter silently. The first draws a spear, turns it point down, then crouches before making a small leap on top of Deirdre’s bed. There’s a muted thunk! as the spear lodges into the lump, and the cloaked figure is now directly beneath Deirdre. She takes a deep breath, grips the sword upside-down with both hands, and falls directly onto the unknown assailant. She rolls a natural 20, and a critical on a sneak attack is quadruple damage with no resistance: the attacker is killed instantly, run straight through the heart, and she rolls for turn order with the remaining assassin.
The assassin rolls 18. Deirdre rolls a 1 - her critical failure means that it takes her two rounds to dislodge her sword from what is presumably a log while the dead assassin’s blood pours out from the wiggling back and forth. By then, the other assassin is out the window and running away.
Deirdre makes a Nimbleness roll to dive through the window, and takes off after him.
The fleeing assassin turns this way and that through the starlit streets, Deirdre just behind and gaining. He turns down an alley and climbs a pile of stacked crates against the wall - Deirdre follows, and resumes the chase on the rooftops. He reaches behind with one hand and shouts, “Hold!” A sparkling yellow orb flies at Deirdre, but she makes a Nimbleness roll to slide under it and resumes chasing. He tries casting Hold on her twice more, missing both times but forcing her to dodge and lose some ground. She pulls a shuriken from her bag of tricks and throws it at him, hitting him in the leg for 2 damage. The assassin takes a knee to pull it out, then says, “Heal,” and resumes running, now barely ahead.
Deirdre says, “Hush,” and hits him with it: the assassin is now silenced and can no longer cast spells. As he leaps to an adjacent rooftop, Deirdre throws another shuriken, but rolls a 2 and misses completely.
A couple leaps later, the assassin is out of rooftop, and disappears from Deirdre’s sight as he jumps down to street level, making a good Nimbleness roll to land and a decent Stealth roll to hide. Deirdre follows, but fails the landing roll and takes 10 damage from the fall. She gets up and dusts herself off, looking around. No sign of the assassin. There’s a dumpster, a hay wagon, a few large open barrels, and some dark corners - plenty of places to hide.
She quiets herself with a moment’s focus, then turns slowly around and says, “Great, now where did he go?” She rolls high on Performance, so he takes the bait and rises from a large barrel to cast a spell. But Deirdre rolls high on Observation and hears where he is, so now it’s her surprise round, not his. She turns and does a powerful side kick into the barrel, rolling decently on Melee and knocking it over, sending him tumbling to the ground. They roll for turn order again as combat resumes, and Deirdre is first this time.
She brandishes her sword in both hands and approaches cautiously, holding her action and saying, “Game’s up - now tell me who you are and who sent you!”
As the assassin gets to his feet, he says, “I could do that - or I could Summon Soulreaper and kill you where you stand!” A large scythe appears in his hand with a sparkly yellow flourish. Deirdre uses her held action to prepare for a parry and counterattack.
The assassin swings his scythe down at her, but her prepared parry knocks it off course and she redirects her blade to cut him: she hits for 39 damage, but he has surprisingly strong armor beneath the cloak and only takes 12.
Deirdre holds her action to counterattack again, and the assassin swings his scythe in a wide horizontal arc. She dodges and cuts into his exposed arm - apparently the armor only covers his torso - and does 35 damage this time.
Deirdre hops back to a safe distance and says, “Wet thy pants before me, puny worm!” She rolls well on Performance, and the assassin is stunned.
“What did you just say,” he asks in confusion.
“I am Pannych, lesser goddess of fear and anxiety! You cannot hope to best me in combat!”
“Whoah,” the assassin says, backing off. “I’m here to kill destined heroes, not to dance with demigods. This is not what I signed up for! So...” he trails off, winks, and makes finger-guns at Deirdre before turning on his heel and fleeing down the street.
Deirdre stares after him for a moment, then shrugs when he is out of earshot and says, “Huh. Good thing he didn’t know I was back down to no mana.” She cleans off her sword and puts it back in the scabbard, then heads back to the Last Inn.
As Deirdre walks through the silent streets, she can see the pre-dawn light rising over the horizon. She can just see the first rays when she enters, and the innkeeper is just finishing setting up the tea service.
“Good morning, milady,” the innkeeper says, bowing slightly and motioning to the tea he has just put out. “I’m sorry if our unfamiliar accommodations proved difficult to walk around in the dark.”
Deirdre says, “Excuse me?” and tilts her head.
“I heard you bumping around earlier, so I went to check on you,” the innkeeper says. “But by the time I poked my head in the door, you seemed to be sleeping soundly.”
“Huh,” Deirdre says. “And you didn’t notice anything strange?”
“Well, I didn’t look long, and it was dark. But you and Lord Phyr were fast asleep in your beds, so I figured it was best to leave well enough alone.”
“Good man,” Deirdre says, and she gets a cup of tea before heading back up to the room.
“OK,” Dale says, “That explains the log and the blood, but where’s the first guy’s body?”
“No idea,” Deirdre says. “Like I said, I just got in.”
“So two guys came in through the window, you killed one and chased the other off, but the first one evidently disappeared, and I slept through all of that?”
“Yep.”
“Un-fuckin-believable! I can’t believe I slept through the first fight!”
“No,” Deirdre says after sipping her tea, “The first fight was when... you know.”
“Bah, I only got 1 XP for that.”
“Well, I didn’t get any last night, if it makes you feel better.”
“What? Why not?”
“I didn’t kill him, and apparently I didn’t kill the other one enough.”
“Wait,” Dale interrupts, “How’d you cast Hush and stuff, if you’re out of mana?”
“I guess health and mana grow back naturally? Like how your body recovers in real life.”
“What?! So why don’t you just grow back enough mana to create an exit portal spell?”
“Huh,” Deirdre says, “Let’s see - I cast Hush and Hide, that’s 30 mana, and I have…” she trails off and does math in her head. “It’s like 2 MP an hour, but Create Spell costs half a million. So a mana potion is probably the only way to go.”
“Fuck,” Dale says. “Well, can I learn to create spells, then?”
“Nope.”
“Why the Hell not?”
“You only have 100,000 mana.”
“The Hell for?! You have almost a million!”
Deirdre says, “I only have that much so I can cast editing spells. Also, don’t bitch! You have an accessory that refunds ninety percent of the mana you spend.”
“The enchanted earring? OK, so why don’t you wear that?”
“My ear’s not pierced.”
“Yes it is! You have three piercings in each ear, and a labret piercing too!”
“I get a labret in the future? Cool!”
“Present! It’s the present!”
“Whatever, I don’t have those here, because the game started before I got them done. Will get them done? Point being, it’s no good.”
“Fuck’s sake, then we’ll find a piercer, and get it done. We’re in a medieval fantasy world, surrounded by people with sharp stabby things!”
“But enchanted gear forms a lifelong bond with its user. Like, someone else could take it and wear it, but it wouldn’t work for them. Did I not mention that?”
“So we find an enchanter, and buy another one!”
“Good thought, but it’s a refund, not a discount - I have to have the mana in the first place.”
“You are impossible, Dee! Is it fun for you? Being difficult for difficult’s sake?”
“Difficulty’s sake,” she corrects him. Dale sputters with rage, and Deirdre continues. “Look, back on-topic, that guy I chased? With the big-ass scythe? I bet you’d like him.”
“He tried to kill you, Dee!”
“I mean, aside from that. Anyway, when I said I was Pannych, the lesser goddess of fear and anxiety, remember how he said, ‘I’m here killing destined heroes, not dancing with demigods’?”
“What about it,” Dale asks.
“Think about it,” Deirdre says. “This asshole only ran away ‘cuz he thought I was a demigod. If he’d seen through my ruse, I’d have been toast! So I think we should stick to our characters’ names, even when it’s just us, so we don’t give ourselves away.”
“That makes good sense, Pannych,” Phyr says with a wink.
“I knew you’d come around, Phyr,” Pannych says, winking back.
The “destined heroes” head out of the Last Inn after asking directions to an alchemist’s shop. It’s early morning, but the town is already in full swing. A few blocks away, they find Blue’s Brews. Inside is a large man with blue skin and white hair behind a counter, wearing a stained canvas apron and grinding something with a mortar and pestle.
“Welcome,” he says in a booming voice. “Ah, out-of-towners! Welcome, welcome! I’m Steve, but everyone calls me Big Blue, on account of... you know.
Pannych asks, “Is that from working with all the potions?”
“Um, no,” Blue says with a self-conscious cough. “My family is from the Azure Forest, we’re all blue there.”
“Jesus, Pannych,” Phyr says, “You can’t just ask people why they’re blue!”
“I am terribly sorry, sir,” Pannych says, reddening.
“Wait, Pannych? Then you must be Phyr,” Blue says, the offense forgotten. The pair nod back at him. “No worries, then. Destined heroes have nothing to apologize for, we know you’re new to our world and you’re here to help. I’m sure you’ll find things out soon enough. So, what can I do ya for?”
Pannych and Phyr see a price board, but there’s a big “sold out” sign next to the mana potions. “When are you getting more mana potions in,” Pannych asks.
“I guess you wouldn’t know,” Blue says. “No, there’s been no mana potions in these parts for a while. They’re all needed overseas for some war or something, not really a concern here on Noob Isle, we don’t get much news about it. Once the war’s over, it shouldn’t be a problem after a couple months, but until then, you’ll just have to wait for it to come back on its own.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Phyr says, “Guess now we gotta get involved in this war.”
“Whoah,” Blue says, “Let’s not get crazy now! You’re, what, in your first few levels? You can’t have more than a hundred mana at most. Just wait a few days, it’ll come back. No need to get in the middle of some huge dumb war over it.”
Phyr is about to protest, but Pannych cuts him off and says, “No, you’re right. Getting involved in a big dumb war is probably the last thing a couple of fresh adventurers like us want to do. Say, what do you think is the first thing we’d want to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Blue says, concentrating a little more on his work. “Probably head down to one of the guild halls, start training up for a noob team and go on a noob hunt. It’s good work, you’ll be next level before you know it.”
They thank the man for his help and head out to the street.
“So,” Phyr says, looking up at the morning sunshine, “To the guilds?”
“No, Jim told us to come see him,” Pannych reminds him. “He’s the town elder, it’s probably important.”
They ask a guard where to find Jim the elder, and are directed to the town hall, which is half an hour’s walk away, at the head of the square in the center of Noob Town.
The square is an open, grassy field, with a grandstand at the North end, right in front of the town hall’s main entrance. The square is large and well-kept, but also clearly well-trod; the grandstand is made of wood, stained and sealed but built for simple sturdiness more than looks; the town hall is large and functional, in the style of a simplified Tudor manor.
Pannych and Phyr enter and ask to see Jim the elder; they are immediately ushered to his office, where they are greeted by one of his “assistants,” who sends them right in.
“Ah, Pannych and Phyr. We meet again, and again, and again.”
“Come again,” Phyr asks.
“Of course,” Jim says with a chuckle. “Have a seat, you two. Can I get you anything before we begin? Tea? Crumpet?”
“Of course they have tea and crumpets,” Phyr says to Pannych. “Do you even know what a crumpet is?”
“Yeah, it’s an English muffin,” she replies flatly. She’s wrong, but that’s what she thinks it is, so that’s what it is in this world. She turns to Jim and says, “What’s up with that? Everyone seems to know our names, but they’re acting very strangely about it.”
“Yes, yes,” Jim says, nodding. He gestures to his assistant, who then brings a tray with tea and “crumpets” around. “Everyone knows the prophecy of Pannych and Phyr, the destined heroes foretold by Tom the prophet to dispel the darkness and despair that has befallen us. What wasn’t in the prophecy was just how many of you there would be.”
Pannych and Phyr regard each other for a moment, before looking back to Jim, who continues: “You see, destined heroes have been coming to Noob Town for months on end now. Always in pairs, always named Pannych and Phyr, always carrying Orbs of Destiny. Until you two came last night.”
Pannych sips her tea and asks, “Orbs of Destiny?”
“Yes,” Jim says, “Our head enchanter even authenticated them. We were very impressed, at first. Thankful, gracious, hopeful. But then, two by two, they began dying.”
“How vey bi,” Phyr asks anxiously through a mouthful of “crumpet.”
“Grayl,” Jim says gravely. Pannych and Phyr stare at him with the universal expression of I don’t know what that means but go on. “Few have seen him and lived to tell the tale. At first, destined heroes just started disappearing without a trace... but then other adventurers claimed to see a fierce warrior in a grey cloak roaming the wilderness around Noob Valley, slaying destined heroes with a spear. Or a scythe. Some manner of polearm, at any rate. And lately, he’s been getting bolder. Some of the townsfolk have seen him inside the town walls late at night, prowling around inns and taverns.”
“Hey, we got attacked at the Last Inn, late last night,” Pannych says. “Or early this morning, I guess. But there were two guys in grey cloaks, not one.”
“Oh, by the dead gods,” Jim says, dropping his head into his hands. “I hope they’re not multiplying, too!”
“So... do you tell this to all the destined heroes,” Phyr asks after everyone’s had a moment to contemplate.
“No,” Jim says, composing himself. “As I said, the others have all had Orbs of Destiny, but you two are the first not to wave them around like idiots, and you claim to be a goddess and a lord. The other destined heroes all look different from each other, but they speak and act very similarly, all ‘destiny’ this and ‘heroism’ that. It gets old.”
“I believe it,” Pannych says. “How many of these destined heroes have there been?”
“I don’t know,” Jim says with a shrug. “We haven’t been keeping track, honestly. Definitely dozens, probably hundreds, possibly a thousand? We just make sure they pay for whatever they use, and then we manage our own affairs, whatever happens to them.”
“But you’re doing something different with us, right,” Phyr asks nervously. “Because we’re different, right? And you wouldn’t blithely send us to our deaths, right?”
“Right,” Jim says. “I’m sending you to see Tom the prophet. He lives along the road to Leetsburg, just a couple miles from the crossroads where poor Vincent met his end.” Pannych glares at Phyr, he glares back at her, but they both pass a Performance check for Jim not to notice. “If anyone will know how to proceed here, then it’ll be Tom. Prophecy isn’t much good for us regular folk, but when it comes to matters of destiny, it’s never wrong.”
Pannych and Phyr conclude their business with Elder Jim and leave the town hall, receiving 3 XP each for completing a quest step. They purchase some traveling supplies - a canteen, sandwich, and fresh fruit for each of them - and leave town to go visit Tom the Prophet. The Sun is climbing high in the sky when they pass through the gates of Noob Town.
They don’t talk much as they walk, wanting to conserve their limited water. They pass by the crossroads without comment, the scorched earth the only remaining sign of yesterday’s altercation.
The pair arrive at the house of Tom the prophet right about noon. Tom’s house is a rustic log cabin set back a couple hundred yards from the road along a gently winding cobblestone path, with a painted wooden sign at the road hanging under his mailbox reading, “Tom the Prophet.” Smoke is coming out of the chimney. The adventurers walk down the path to a short wooden gate in a fence surrounding his garden.
“So,” Phyr says, “Is this one of those things you ‘need to do by yourself’?”
“Dunno,” Pannych says. “I’ve never talked to a prophet before.”
“I think I should stay out here, just in case,” Phyr says. “You never know when some grey-cloaked assassins might show up.”
Pannych nods her assent and opens the gate, saying, “See you in a bit, I guess.”
[image forthcoming]
Inside, the cabin is a simple one-room affair: rough-hewn furniture, handmade amenities, and a stone fireplace below a hanging tapestry, all set around a rust-orange bearskin rug with two bluish leather armchairs.
Pannych opens the door tentatively, then politely knocks on the frame as she says, “Hello? Tom?”
A man is stoking the fire with his back to her and says, “Welcome, Deirdre. Come in, I’ve been expecting you.”
Pannych walks around the table to stand between the armchairs, taking in the scene. “Hi. Uh, how do you know my real name?”
“I’m a prophet,” Tom says simply, rising to his feet and putting away the cast iron poker. “I’m linked directly into your authorial consciousness - the ‘you, the writer’ that made this world and created ‘you, the character’ - and limited your knowledge and memories. Please, have a seat.”
They sit in the armchairs, and Pannych asks, “So that means that you know more about this world than even I do, right?”
“Quite a bit more, in fact,” Tom confirms. “Tell me, if you stand beside a river for five minutes, is it still the same river?”
“Not really,” she says. “Water is constantly flowing along the bed, changing it every second in small ways that add up over time.”
“Precisely. Likewise, experience is always flowing through the human mind, changing it from moment to moment. Accordingly, you are not the same person on the outside that you were when you put your character into this world.”
“Right, I got that,” Pannych says with a nod. “I thought up a few things about the world when I started making this story, but I was mostly going to make it up as I went. And, like, I didn’t want to plan too far ahead? Or the ‘me’ that came into the world would’ve known too much. All according to plan, so far.”
“Yes, but now think: how were you going to begin the story?”
“Well,” she says, “I was going to get Dale in here, come up with some kind of predicament to keep us stuck in the world for a while, and then go to a nearby town. That’s about as far ahead as I had thought.”
Tom nods knowingly and says, “Tell me, how did that go?”
“Shit,” Pannych says, running a gloved hand roughly through her hair, “It got a lot more complicated than that.”
“Indeed. And why do you think that is?”
“I dunno. I guess I put a lot more thought into it?”
“When,” Tom asks flatly. Pannych ponders this for a moment.
“I mean - I dunno. I was making a comic, just the first couple of strips to get things started. Plain white background, way-too-meta dialogue, and then - wait, no, I decided to make it an illustrated novel instead of a comic, because I like to draw but I hate drawing backgrounds over and over. And I knew I’d probably need to go back after things picked up, to iron out any problems...” She trails off. “Oh, man. I’m getting confused. My head hurts. There was… something to do with a giant crystal?” She stops talking, and rubs her fingers firmly into her throbbing temples.
Tom gives her a moment to recover and asks, “How much time do you think has passed outside since you began this story?”
“Like, a week? I’m sure the stuff with Yvonne and Jim and Grayl took a couple days to write up, and I doubt I’ve been putting something up every day. Although, Noob Town’s pretty big, so… maybe two weeks?”
“Try again.”
“Um, two months? I guess this island’s pretty huge.”
“Longer,” Tom says.
“Sheesh, OK. Four months?”
“Much longer.” Pannych pauses to think. In four months, she reasons, she’d have pretty much lost any readership gained with the first few pages, even if she kept plugging away at it. She looks at Tom and shrugs with a slightly annoyed look of Just tell me. He takes a deep breath and says, “Seventeen years.”
“What?!” Pannych grips the armchair tightly. “Fuckin’ how?!”
“You made the comic for a couple years, and got pretty far. You shared authorship with Dale for a while, when you got too busy to do it all yourself. But then you went away to college and had so much more on your plate. You tried to keep working on it, but your finished strips got fewer and farther between. Eventually, you just... stopped.”
“But wait,” Pannych says, “If I stopped, then why am I here?”
“Because,” the prophet explains, “You kept the story on the backburner in your mind. You kept refining it, fleshing it out. You also wrote a couple other books - they weren’t picked up by a publisher, but you wrote them just the same - which gave you a more realistic idea of how the whole thing goes. It’s better now. And eventually, you decided to give it another go, in a way you thought you could actually manage this time.”
Pannych mulls this over for a moment, then asks, “So if I stopped because I didn’t have the time when I was a teenager, then how do I have the time now that I’m in my thirties?”
“I don’t think you want me answering that,” Tom says with a frown. “But your enemies won’t hesitate to use it against you, so be prepared.”
“I… see,” Pannych says. “Is there anything else you can tell me about my life? On the outside?”
“I really shouldn’t go into detail on that,” Tom says. “We run the risk of going way too meta. The last thing I have to say to you is this: be wary when you meet Grayl. He is not who you think him to be.”
“But didn’t I-”
“I can’t say more than that,” Tom interrupts. “Now go forth and travel the path you have lain before yourself. You will find what you seek in Noob Valley, to the West. Goodbye, Deirdre.” With that, Tom stands and goes to stoke the fire again.
“Wait, one last thing,” Pannych says. “I know you can’t go into detail about outside, but I have to ask. How am I, you know, doing?”
Tom regards her for a long moment, then closes his eyes and says, “Better.” Pannych breathes a heavy sigh of relief and sinks back into the chair, then hears the sound of Phyr’s plasma blaster from outdoors. She starts, and Tom says, “Sounds like you better get back to your friend.”
She bolts from the chair to the door, and hears a scream and another blast.
[Next]
No comments:
Post a Comment