We’re in the kitchen drinking tea with Gurdo. It’s not a bad brew. A bit floral for my tastes but it’ll do. The kitchen is as pretty and welcoming as the farmhouse exterior. It has a blue cornflower pattern painted on white washed walls, and there are neat stacks of crockery and cooking gear on shelves by the sink. There’s even a bunch of blooms from the flower beds outside, arranged artfully in a jug on the middle of the kitchen table.
Rem is upstairs trying to rouse Madam Gott. He’s been up there a while.
“Like trying to wake a bear,” Gurdo comments. “Especially if she’s had a few morning eye openers.”
We hear the sounds of stairs creaking.
“There we go,” says Gurdo.
The door to the hallway opens and in walks a sour faced caricature of a fairy tale step mother, with Rem following behind her. She’s big and she’s ugly, and her face is caked in a thick layer of clumsy make up. The rouge on her cheeks look like it was drawn on with crayon, and her kohl style eyeshadow is smeared across her cheeks. Her general air of dishevelment and strong whiff of sour booze suggests she’s grappling with a beast of a hang over.
“Remdak tells me you’ve completed my quest?" the stepmother says. "Did I hear him right? Difficult to understand the brutes sometimes, way they talk.”
Misty opens her mouth to speak, but Gott interrupts her. “What was the reward again? One hundred gold pieces? I have them right here.”
Now, I’m not quite up to speed with the economy of this world. I don’t yet have a strong handle on the value of things. But as I understand it, beer is about 10 bits, and there are 100 bits to one gold piece. Which means we could buy 1,000 beers with that reward. It’s twenty times the reward for the original quest to exorcise the haunting at Gott Farm. Which is to say, it’s a large chunk of cash.
We all look at each other as Gott produces a bulging coin purse and places it next to the flower arrangement on the table.
What’s our move?
Andraya is the first to speak up, saying something that’s more for our benefit than Gott’s. “That is a generous sum. We could kit ourselves out with good armour and weapons with that reward. It would take us a long time to accumulate such an amount from regular quests. Which of course, is why we accepted the challenge of yours Madam Gott, despite the difficulty.”
“Very good,” says Gott. “So we have an understanding?”
Misty stands up. She looks angry.
“No,” she says. “We don’t.”
“Are you sure Misty?” says Andraya. “Think how far that would go at Curnig’s Supplies.”
“I’m sure. I don’t accept bribes or blood money.”
The anger in Misty’s voice brings about an instant change of atmosphere in this cozy kitchen. There’s tension now. Gurdo and Rem look alert, and all of us have risen to our feet. My hand has moved instinctively to the hilt of my sheathed sword, and that’s not gone unnoticed. Gurdo calmly picks up an iron pan from the shelf, and holds it by his side. Rem grabs an iron poker resting next to the kitchen stove.
“Blood money?” Says Gott. “Are you blind? That’s more coin than the likes of you will see in a year.”
“She killed her brother,” Misty says, talking to the half orcs rather than Gott. “She killed the help. She abused all the animals. She’s a monster. Our quest isn’t to kill a gang of poachers. It’s to kill her.”
“Are you listening, you dumb bitch?” snaps Gott. “Or have you got the wits of these green half breeds? Just look at it.”
She picks up the pouch and empties a cascade of gold onto the table.
“There’s no filler there. No coppers at the bottom. It’s all gold. A handsome sum for you to fuck off and leave us all alone.”
“No,” says Misty. In a low voice, she begins an incantation.
“As Lord Mar is my witness,” says Gott, “you lay a finger on me, and these brutes will tear you apart. Stop that, whatever it is you’re doing. Stop that right now.”
Mar? That’s a name I’ve heard before, but I can’t remember where. Now’s not the time to question Gott about it, as things are clearly escalating. Misty conjures a small green bottle and holds it out to Gott.
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“Drink it,” she says. “It’s a kinder death than you deserve.”
“Are you insane?” Mott shrieks, outraged at the notion. She turns to the half orcs, and gives Rem a shove. “What are you waiting for you useless sack of turds? Kill them! Batter them out of here.”
As we ready ourselves for battle, Gurdo steps forward with his skillet raised. But instead of coming at us, he slams it with a back swing into Gott’s face. She rag dolls to the floor in a sizeable heap, her crushed features oozing blood. As she hits the ground, I get a full body tingle which I identify as a burst of XP.
“You killed her,” I say, stating the obvious, shocked at this unexpected turn.
“I did,” says Gurdo, with characteristic calm. “The old sow deserved it. Besides, that is a lot of money to be bandying about. A tempting sum.”
“Our money,” says Andraya with a defiant look.
“I reckon not,” says Rem. “Reckon we earned that by doing your job for you.”
“You’re outnumbered,” says Andraya. “We’ll take it, and no one needs to get hurt.”
“No, you won’t,” says Gurdo. “Say you’re able to kill me and Rem, what happens then? You’ll have to find Bardley and kill him too. Or he’ll come home and find his lady love and his workers murdered and he’ll get the Watch on to you. Most likely there are a few witnesses that can place you hereabouts. There’ll be a crow or two that will have spied you on your way over here, and happy to talk to those that have knowledge of their tongue.”
“Andraya, we’ll leave the money,” says Misty. “Because it’s the right thing to do. We’ve no quarrel with these gentlemen. Gurdo’s completed two quests for us with one swing of his pan. We’ll go and turn in the quests, and count ourselves fortunate that they proved to be so easy.”
“How about we split it?” Says Andraya. “Fifty coins each? That’s still a grand sum.”
“No,” says Gurdo. “The money’s ours. You best leave before Bardley comes back for his midday meal.”
“What are you going to tell him?” I ask.
“We’ll say that the Madam ran off back to the city. This money on the table must be Bardley’s, as the old cow was penniless. We’ll say she stole his money and left him.”
“There are pigs in the back field,” says Rem. “They’ll make quick work of the body. You go, and leave the clear up job to us. We’ll take our fee out of what’s on the table.”
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I’m relieved to learn that quest portals are a thing here. When a quest is finished, you can summon a portal using your thy, which will take you instantly to the place where you’re to turn in your quest. Very handy. The portal itself is a standard looking shimmering circle type of thing, but stepping through it doesn’t result in any kind of supernatural out of body experience. There are no rainbow tunnels or wooshing sounds or feelings of nausea. It’s just like walking through a door.
So here we are through the portal and back in the haunted farm. Things have calmed down considerably. We find Brimsker upstairs sitting crossed legged in the upside down bedroom. He’s still crying, but the oppressive atmosphere has abated and the gloom has lifted to some degree.
He lifts his face from his hands when he sees us.
“So the murderer is dead,” he says. “I felt it. But I know she didn’t suffer.”
Turns out that the effects of Persephonica last until we rest, so we're still able to understand what Brimsker is saying.
“We were going to make it slow,” says Veppi, “Truly. But someone did her in quick before we could get to her. I’m sorry. I was looking forward to a bit of torture.”
“She is gone,” says Brimsker. “But I am not. Her death did not bring me the peace I thought it would.”
“Sorry,” says Misty. “We got the XP from the quest. It’s marked as finished. I’m not sure what else we can do.”
“You could take me home,” says Brimsker. “Back to my family shrine in Orvar’s Cross.”
“Share the quest,” says Andraya. “And we’ll take a look at it.”
“There is no quest for this. It’s just an errand. But it will bring me to my rest, I know it. Please, do this for me.”
“Errands are jobs people undertake,” Misty explains for my benefit. “Without any XP and no formal reward. They’re just day to day tasks.”
“We’d love to help,” says Andraya. “But we don’t have time. Sorry goblin. We hope you find some way to move on.”
Misty sighs. “You three wait outside,” she says. “Give me a moment alone with poor Grimsker. I will say a private prayer for him. It may help.”
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Another portal later, and we’ve turned in our second quest - Whispers in the wheat fields - to Farmer Osterworth, the owner of the third of the Three Farms, where Brownie the labourer works. Osterworth put up the quest as he was worried about the spectral infestation spreading to his own farm. I’m surprised he didn’t want to take care of the ghost himself. He’s middle aged, balding and built like a tank. He’s got that retired warrior look about him, like he got sick of questing and decided to swap out his sword for a spade.
He’s friendly enough though. He hands over the gold and the ring of rewilding, which he doesn’t know much about. We’ll need to get it identified in Brackwater. As luck would have it, Osterworth is heading there this afternoon to deliver some cheese to the pub, and he offers us a lift in the back of his smelly cart.
“Just leave the wheels of cheddar alone,” he says as he helps us up. “Don’t want to deliver them nibbled.”
We’re tired and not that talkative as we settle onto the cart benches for the long ride back to Brackwater. The oxen pulling the cart are bigger and more sprightly than those in the real world, and so they pull us along at a brisker pace than I was expecting. Osterworth assures us that we should reach Brackwater just after nightfall.
“So all in all, not a bad couple of day’s work,” says Misty as we jostle along. “We got this ring, we solved a haunting. We’ve made enough money to pay back the satyr and we have a couple of gold to spare for a decent meal and to get us all pissed.”
“Could have been a lot more,” says Andraya, somewhat bitterly. “I still say we should have taken the money.”
“Maybe we did,” says Veppi. “A little of it anyway. He takes off the satchel on his back, and produces a few coins. “There’s eight extra gold here. I managed to palm them away from the pile on the table while you were all arguing with the labourers.”
“Nice work Veppi!” says Andraya. “I’m impressed.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Turns out those two half orcs should have paid more attention to the ferret.”