I had skipped a few pages of the diary, left some blank as if to trick any potential reader into thinking I had died. No such peace for me yet. For most of our time spent on the island and in the first area, it had felt as though it was solely us against the world. We never got to fully appreciate the normal nature of the world around us, the sense of community that it was supposed to provide. As much time as we spent fixing things, we always had our feet in a new problem before seeing the results of our struggles behind us.
Ignoring Ren’s rolled eyes at my apparent desire to actually search for items for a change, I began to claw my way through the room Wolf had helpfully opened up for us.
“Don’t have a lot of time left, boss.” Roger leaned his head forward so I could see his bright purple eyes. “Need me to stick around?”
My own eyes roved around in my skull as if he had jostled them loose from their moorings. “Uh, no, we’ll be good. Thank you, Roger. Top work, as always.”
“Didn’t even murder anyone,” I heard him murmur as he slunk away into mist, the body of my jailer dropping to the floor inertly.
“Think we could sling up our friend there, if you’re okay with that, Wolf?”
“Sure.”
“You alright, Max?” Ren asked from the doorway, about to help Wolf with the part that needed hands with opposable thumbs. “I mean, clearly you’re not—but do I need to be worried?”
“No.” I shook my head and then looked over at her with a smile. “You’re perfect. I mean, there was nothing more that I could have asked for.” My brain was not having it. The sooner I could sleep this curse off, the better. “You came here to save me, is what I’m trying to say.”
Her face softened. “Of course, dumbass.” She went to assist Wolf, and I was left alone to sigh deeply.
Could I have murdered my way out of this den? Quite likely, once I had gotten the cuff off and retrieved my deck. Between Roger, my cards, and Hellhound+ any of these kidnappers and shady market dealers would have been at a disadvantage in these close confines.
I thumbed through the furntiture, pop-up boxes letting me know what lay inside. Mostly junk equipment in the first three boxes. Early level stuff that they probably couldn’t sell as easily.
The fourth gave me pause, and I looted everything from it to share around at a better time. I put the gloves on right now, however, despite my brain trying to do three things at once.
[Spiked Gloves] [+2 Str +10% Melee Damage]
[Gloves of the Trickster] [+3 Int, +2 Dex]
[Fast Shawl] [+4 Agi]
[Hardy Boots] [+3 Con]
[Red Necklace] [+2 Wis, +2 Agi]
[Slacks of the Wild] [+2 Agi, +2 Dex]
The last chest was actually a safe. One of those where you had to turn the dial back and forth in the right combination to unlock it. I didn’t know the right number sequence, and they hadn’t written it handily nearby.
“Quinn is strapped up, Max,” the elf reappeared at the doorway.
“Quinn?”
She nodded and stepped over to the ruined door to get closer to me. “He can barely talk. Just about said his name and then fell asleep.”
“Wolf does have that effect, huh?” I smiled and returned to frowning at the safe.
“We need to get you back, too.” She lifted the hat from my head and placed her hand on my hair. No heal was given, she was perhaps just checking to make sure I was in one piece. “There was no combination on any of the ones we killed.”
I gave the safe three taps on the top, and with the third, it vanished into my Inventory. The System would regret allowing me to do that. Even Ren’s sigh was one more of apprehension than disdain. We’d crack it eventually, I was sure. She placed my hat back on my head, and I stood and turned to face her.
“I don’t think you should be allowed to leave my sight,” she informed me, her bright eyes narrowed.
“It’s not nighttime yet.” I smiled. “You’re not supposed to be emotionally clingy.”
As she opened her mouth to admonish me, I leaned forward and kissed her. A brief thing, but reciprocated. We parted slowly, her eyes almost immediately narrowed after. Hopefully I couldn't pass the curse on that way, although part of me considered the forward act was only due to my worn-down sensibilities.
“I’m serious, you… ass.”
“Not keen on joining the commune, then?” I tilted my head as she moved away and we went to leave the storeroom.
“Fuck no. Fiona and Ruby are pleasant, but I can’t stand the rest. Perpetual do-nothings. Especially as they can’t see that they’re just slowly dying by allowing themselves to be picked off.”
“And what of these guys?” I extended my hand and gestured around at the corpses, picking up Jokkar’s mace into my Inventory along the way. “They aren’t even allied with the Lady. They’re just fuckers.”
Ren snorted, seemingly amused enough by the rare times that I swore with such gusto. “Really? I can’t believe they picked you up right outside the camp in broad daylight. Didn’t even wait for night.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I nodded and rubbed at my eyes. “Normally I’m not such an easy mark, but this curse has me pretty loose. I just wanted a nap, and the trees seemed like they’d be comfortable.”
“And you’re okay now?”
“Bruising to my head—which is pretty standard at this point, and a cut on my leg. But he made the mistake of underestimating me.”
She bit her tongue, clearly wanting to make some jabs, but also not wanting to undermine how potentially dire this situation could have been.
I held my hand out and emptied all of his horrible tools from my Inventory onto the corpse of the one who had jailed me. Even if they had a use, knowing what pain they could have caused prior to my capture… I didn’t want them to have a career past this point.
“Nasty things,” Wolf echoed my thoughts as he watched them drop to the floor.
As much as I had hated and burned to cause the death of the pig-like man, there wasn’t the desire to take pleasure in his suffering. We had killed plenty, often in ways that would get us locked up for life in other realities. But we didn’t seek it out and revel in it. I looked around the room at the dead and wondered how much I could believe that. Better to have these thoughts when my mind was more comfortable.
Demons at least had the excuse they were born and lived through sin, wholly beings devoted to and fulfilled by evil. This man didn’t have that excuse. Human, or at least adjacent to, he should have known better. Aimed to be better. Ren was right that the System seemed to pluck mostly assholes from their respective worlds. A reflection mirrorred by the lack of assistance from the camp. No necks sticking out on my behalf just yet.
“Let’s get going.” I gestured for them to show me the way out. “There’s nothing left for us here.”
It was a simple hideout, not too dissimilar to the thieves' hideout from the first area. Built into a rocky outcropping, it seemed more likely that they had somehow taken over a System-created space than carved it themselves. Their attempts to hide it away were at least more proficient, with an uprooted tree and crushed bushes now laying where Wolf had scuppered their ruse.
Not even that far from the camp, which was a chilling thought. They may have had abilities that made kidnapping me away in the daytime a piece of cake—but if they had instead waited for the dark of night, then they may have had me for hours before someone noted my absence. Once again, our enemy's desperation and overconfidence were our blessing. Perhaps they too anticipated apathy from those around me.
“I have some equipment for you to look at when we get back,” I told Ren as we began walking back to the camp.
“Oh, yeah?”
We stared at each other blankly for a moment as my brain continued to hiss in the background. “Some for Wolf, too,” I added. My eyes turned away to focus on my System windows, as I was currently unable to accurately read social cues. The kiss had been somewhat out of character for us both, even if the sentiment of wanting to be close and safe was our unsaid normal.
[Regeneration Orb] [Slowly regenerates health when out of combat.]
I just needed to strap this to my head, and then I’d be invincible. Took up the Accessory slot, which currently had +5% Cast Speed and +5% Magic Damage in it—but considering it was for out of combat only, I saw no reason why I couldn’t just swap them in our downtime. Even share it around. I equipped it now, shivering when I considered what it might have been used for previously.
In the den, I had counted eight opponents in total. Should things be as typical as anywhere else, that could mean there were two free agents somewhere—maybe on errand runs or looking for their next victim. The elephant poked their head out from the treeline to butt into my roving thoughts; could anyone in the camp be complicit?
“Ren?”
“Yeah, trickster?” She turned her head away from whatever she had been focused on.
“Am I being paranoid?”
Her frown narrowed, and I considered that she hadn’t actually been privy to my inner monologue, no matter how loud it had to be to drown out the humming noise. If there was one thing I could rely on, it was her ability to read me like a book.
“It’s hard to say.” She ran her fingers through Wolf’s fur. “We’re used to it being us against the world. Anything that challenges that feels suspect.”
It was possible that we were both paranoid then. A group of Players not allied with the Lady, but seemingly not doing much to push back against the Crimson Shadows either. Some black market torture site a stone’s throw away from them. Paranoia was something that keep us safe in a world that wanted us dead.
“Thoughts, Wolf?”
“I can almost taste the goat-man.”
I grimaced. Not exactly a sane response, but then again, I was asking a talking bear. Quinn remained in the sling, fast asleep.
Ren exhaled loudly. “I don’t think Fiona is a… bad person.”
“There’s something I’m out of the loop on though, right?” I tilted my head and stumbled in that direction as my inner ear took a brief holiday.
She removed her hat to brush some of her radiant hair to the side before donning it once more. “Short version of the story,” she began, as she worked her jaw, “she had a bit of a crush on me.”
I nodded—another terrible action for my lack of balance. “That explains the chat she had with me then.”
“When was that?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Right before I was kidnapped. Which sounds more suspicious than it probably is.” Probably.
Ren sighed and shook her head, scowling out at the sparse woods surrounding us as we passed through. “She has no right. As if she has any say on what is good for me after she ran off when she couldn’t accept just being friends and helping me on the island.”
The fact that she was just another in the line of people who wanted to pucker lips with the elf put a wet blanket on the ire she had shown me for doubting my care for Ren. I would have rolled my eyes if it hadn’t felt like I’d lose them. Not willing to help the elf with her murder spree, but feeling like she had something to say about her wellbeing and romantic choices now seemed shortsighted, even if somewhat realistic. At least the murdering part.
“She’s with the goblin now, right?” I put my hand up to my forehead. Burning up. “Ruby doesn’t seem like an asshole.”
“Fiona isn’t an asshole. People just do stupid things when led by their hearts.”
“Uh-huh,” I said with a smile.
She scowled further. “Fuck you, Max. You… you prick.”
I grinned widely and relaxed. If you ignored all the bad things, then life wasn’t so bad. My feet stopped me and I put my hand against a tree to try to stop the world from spinning out of control. They should really fix that.
The wide face of Wolf came up into my vision, his amber eyes regarding me with a tired look. “If you spent more energy on breathing instead of talking constantly, you wouldn’t get so tired.”
“Yerps,” I slurred, as sweat dripped from my head.
Ren was then beside me, shouldering my arm to make sure I didn’t flop over toward the nearest rock. History did try to repeat itself. I shouldn’t get in the way.
“It’s not too far now. Do you have another tarp and we’ll get you in a sling?”
I must look pretty bad for that to be the plan of action. In truth, I felt pretty bad—with no root to chew, the curse was slowly eroding me away into sweaty mush. How rude of the pigman to discard my medicine.
My mouth opened, but instead of words, I allowed a second tarp to fall slowly from within. A few awkward seconds passed as it unraveled into a small pile on the ground before me, the last corner of the faux-vomit leaving my lips as my mouth curled to form a soft smile.
“…I really hate you sometimes,” Ren said with a sigh.