Points to Allocate:
0
Quests:
Investigate- Word on the street is there’s a traitor among us. Find and prosecute the mole.
Rewards:
+10% Hero’s Blessing
Thievery:
Reclaim gold in the Theloom dungeon
Possible alliance with Dokumbe
Retrieve:
Locate Sir Redfeur and bring back to Lady Gavori dead or alive.
???
I leveled up twice, allocating nine of my points between stamina and willpower. Ever since I was summoned to Thalian, I’d never fed my willpower stats until now. I had this gnawing feeling that I’d need it soon, especially in the land of fae. Blaming it on Trin’s last words to me, I got paranoid, doing my best to keep the piece of the dungeon core with me.
Because no one was gonna mind-fuck me into forking over the dungeon core’s shield.
In terms of loot, I couldn’t complain. While I was hoping for another teleportation crystal, I did get a few good complementary prizes, with the one exception being a blob of goo.
No idea what that was even used for.
The description on that was a bunch of question marks which got a chuckle out of me. Strangely enough, it was a Thalian item, something natural to Alzera-Kar’s world.
“Did you get bored one day when you whipped this bad boy up, Kar?”
I smiled, reading the descriptions of the other items. Sleeper dust would definitely come in handy, having the ability to knock someone out for a few minutes. To be honest, that was actually pretty damn dangerous, and I was lucky to have gotten not one but two. The freeze bomb was self-explanatory, and the pocket black hole brought back daunting memories. “The last thing I wanted was to get anywhere near one of those,” I said to myself, thinking about Jezz again.
Despite the bad experiences with one, this item didn’t have the same power as the one on that mountain, hence the term, pocket. It was small, the suction though not something to be taken lightly.
After a long stretch and yawn, I sat down to eat Hatti’s delicious pastry. When it came to enjoying rest and relaxation, I was told that it was something I was physically incapable of doing. I had a few Senterrians say that I was allergic to it, working down to the bone from sun up til sun down. The important part of being a warrior was knowing when to take a break every once in a while. When da body is worn, the mind compensates, but when da mind is worn, what ya left with is shit, said the words of a very wise gearsman.
So I sat down under the shade of green and gave my body time to reciprocate. But as I ate silently to myself, I noticed smoke puffing out into the air along the horizon.
My eyes grew, and my stomach tumbled at the thought of not being as alone as I thought. Despite the smoke being so far, I was worried, springing up to my feet and stuffing the last of my food down.
I tucked my cyber pieces away and rushed toward the smoke until I saw a chimney. With low expectations, I figured I scope the area out. Truth be told, I doubted anyone saw me, but it didn’t hurt to check. When I got close enough, I saw yet another small cottage home, except this one was isolated in the middle of the woods. My eyes took to my left and right before I moved forward, until the sound of heinous laughter broke out. Judging by the sound of it, there were more than one person inside—two crooks and two hostages.
My body went numb.
What the hell was I seeing?
I was overwhelmed from the scene, my mind not processing what was happening yet. A man and a woman, both appearing to be around their late twenties, but with fae, you could never really tell. The man, whose name was Tienus Rimosser, was slumped over, bruised, beaten, and unconscious, sitting alongside a woman named Maxi Rimosser. They seemed to be a married couple, being held like prisoners in their own home.
Back to back they sat, with rope around them. Of course it wouldn’t be just any rope. Nothing was normal in Thalian, and magical items were plenty in Mavriel. The rope had a black shadowy hint to it, and judging by the fact that these two fae didn’t fight back, I’d say the ropes limited their mana.
Turning back around wasn’t an option. I was invested in helping them, but how?
The closest village was Ether-Serin, and even that was a stretch. There was no way in hell I could run the distance. While I could teleport us there, I didn’t want to risk losing a ride from my crystal. The last few trips I had were for Alzera-Kar only.
“Shit,” I grunted under my breath, pacing light-footedly along the edging garden. I poked my head up to one of the windows, hoping to catch a better visual of the inside. My eyes blew up to the scene in front of me, a little pink-eyed girl with teal hair and steampunkish clothing tying the couple together with more rope on the floor.
“Lan, pick up the pace! We still have to search this place inside out,” a big, and I mean BIG woman said with a thick accent. She looked like a hunter, with fur lining her broad muscular shoulders, a bear pelt on her back, and metal-banded boots and gauntlets. She made the average orc look like a joke with the heat she was packing, my throat closing up at the thought of having to challenge her to save the fae couple.
Her name was Pixie, and her pint sized friend was Lanette.
“Put a lid on it, Pix! Tying up flakies is intricate work!” she retorted, and then she backed two steps from the couple and brushed her hands off. “Voila, my masterpiece!”
Pixie walked over to Lanette and deadpanned the girl who looked no older than twelve. “A bow? Really?”
“It’s not just any bow, it’s a triple-decker criss cross bow! It adds extra resistance!”
“Please! They aren’t going anywhere,” Pixie smirked, trudging closer to the frightened couple. She tossed her fist into her palm and grunted, hovering over them intimidatingly. “An isolated home meters away from the closest village, smack down in the middle of nowhere. I bet the codex is in their cellar, sitting pretty in a lock box! The High Order might be clever, but they are no smarter than us! The Deo Guild, the true heroes of Mavriel! We will do what those dry skin bags can’t, and end this war once and for all!”
Well, that was unexpected…
And here I thought they were just mindless bandits. I wasn’t expecting them to be wannabe heroes… in their own sickening, despicable way. The Deo Guild were looking for the codex as well, but unlike Rufian, they had no idea that they needed a few ingredients to locate it. They were going about it the hard way, and I was grateful that they were clueless to the locator spell they needed.
Because if they knew about the locator spell, they’d become another obstacle I’d have to face.
