Heeding Lora’s warning, Dorri came to a stop. The footfalls of their companions approached from behind, a soft shuffling on the rutted path. That sliver of Dorri’s brain that was still clocking all the little things about the game that made it superb commented once more on how realistic the shufflings were compared to the heavy-handed clomping sound effects of some other games she’d played.
You’re not just playing, anymore. Keep your head in the game.
The six of them stood near the crest of a low hill, not quite to the very top. Forest grew thick to the south, while to the north a heavy tree line had temporarily blocked the view of fields. The river was perhaps half an hour’s walk behind them.
Dorri opened her mouth to ask but before she got to it, she heard what Lora must have heard—voices from somewhere ahead. The speakers were on the far side of the hill, although not too close since Dorri could pick out no individual words. The murmur rose into something that resembled laughter but was way less pleasant.
Booth with his shield and chain mail made a metallic clink and rattle as he walked. It grew louder and stopped just behind Dorri and Lora. A pleasant, musky mix of earth and mowed hay drifted forward with him. Nildeyr made no such noise, but he stepped up on the far side of Lora from Dorri.
“What’s going…” Nildeyr’s voice rang out. A sharp flick of Lora’s other wrist cut him off and dropped him to a whisper. “…on?”
“Listen.”
By then, two other sets of footsteps arrived and stopped behind Dorri. Neither Karon nor Arra spoke.
“Some kind of trouble.” Booth swept around Dorri and strode toward the hill’s crest, jingling lightly as he went.
Dorri hadn’t decided yet if Booth was PC or NPC, but whichever he was, he was apparently the one who’d go charging into trouble without waiting for the party to come up with any kind of strategy. She stifled an irritated sigh.
Lora’s lack of smile dropped all the way into a frown. She lowered the hands she’d used to stop Dorri and quiet Nildeyr.
“Booth. Wait.” Lora hurried after Booth, not quite running, but her movement set her skirts flurrying around her ankles.
“We should maybe be careful?” Nildeyr stared after Booth and Lora and then glanced around.
Looking for shadows.
Instinct carried Dorri toward the left side of the path and the protection of overhanging foliage. She glimpsed Nildeyr’s waving gesture as he attempted to tell her to do what she was already doing. She ignored that, but she did pay attention to how he slunk to the opposite side of the path and also used the shadows beneath the trees to make himself barely visible. Both of them dropped into a crouch.
[You rolled a 21 for Stealth.]
Stealth was a proficiency for Dorri, with a +5 modifier, which meant she’d rolled a 16. She dared to hope her spree of bad rolls the day she’d gotten kicked out of the Gardens was over.
Ahead, Lora had urged Booth to the path’s edge, but he didn’t crouch or stoop or give any sign whatsoever of trying to make himself less conspicuous. Left alone in the middle of the trail with her employer, Arra grabbed Karon’s arm and steered him toward the tree line where Dorri had sheltered.
Dorri still hadn’t figured the two of them out. She waffled between thinking Arra might be a PC and Karon was some kind of super long-term escort mission for her. Or maybe Karon was the PC, and Arra was an NPC tied to his backstory. Or maybe they were both NPCs. For the most part, it didn’t matter to Dorri, except that she wasn’t sure if Karon had any kind of defensive or offensive capabilities, or how many hit points he might have. He most definitely had no armor.
Whatever the case, Karon jerked as if unaccustomed to being handled in such a way, but then he hurried in the direction Arra had indicated.
“Stay in there. Out of sight.”
Dorri had never heard Arra speak before. Her voice was rich and timbred. It also indicated there was no room for argument. Karon stared defiantly at his bodyguard for a single breath. Then he stepped deeper into the tree line and hunkered down not far from Dorri.
Arra had already turned away, as if she had no doubt she’d be obeyed. From the sheath over her shoulder, she drew a massive sword and held it in front of her, two-handed and pointed down but slightly to the side. She stalked toward the crest of the hill where Booth and Lora had stopped.
In spite of herself, a little thrill tickled up Dorri’s spine—this could be their first real party battle, maybe. She enjoyed the strategy element of turn-based combat.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Of course, combat now had far higher stakes than it ever had in the past. And this was the first time she’d see the others in action. She had some guesses, but she didn’t know for certain what any of them could or would do. She had no way to know if they could be trusted to play smart. She knew only that she could trust herself.
Dorri glanced at Karon, who had crouch-walked through the underbrush until closer to her own position. Branches had already dragged his neat blond tail of hair into disarray and littered bits of crimson and yellow leaves onto his fine, forest green coat. He still had a book in his hand. He didn’t look like he had many hit points, and he definitely couldn’t lift a weapon. She had some suspicions about that book, though.
“You can follow me forward. But not too close.”
Dorri whispered the offer without even thinking about feeling self-conscious about it. All her senses condensed, and her mind whispered too many things about the wind’s direction and the laughing sounds ahead and the positions of everyone in the area for her to have room for any errant foolishness.
Dorri didn’t wait to see if Karon agreed. Slowly, she crept forward, eyes fixed on the curvature of the road ahead until she could see whatever it was that had caught Lora’s attention.
Along the edge of the road and looking down the hill’s far side, Lora tugged at Booth’s elbow. Dorri’s instinct told her it had been mere seconds since they’d arrived there, despite the slow motion sensation through which she currently moved.
Booth’s response to whatever was on the other side of the hill was to ignore Lora. Two-handed, he removed the shield from his back and hefted it into one hand. He reached for his flail.
Real trouble. Whatever it is, it’s not true laughter.
Dorri held her breath and took another few steps, planting her booted feet carefully between shrub bases and ducking her head beneath low-hanging trees, sticking to where leaf cover yet remained and ever-aware of the longbow protruding above her shoulder. A few paces back, leaves and branches rustled and crackled, but not because of her.
Karon. Stealth is probably not a high modifier for him.
Motion ahead caught Dorri’s attention. The path dipped down the hill toward a small pond and curved to run alongside it. A man had waded into the pond and made it maybe halfway to a copse of trees on a raised embankment in the water’s center. Above his head, he held aloft a small scythe, short-handled and smaller than a full-sized farm implement. It was made all of one piece and appeared to be of gold.
The man in the water grasped at the golden scythe with both hands, and his movements were slow and choppy. Dorri got the impression he might be struggling to keep the object away from the water and possibly to keep his feet under him. The water had risen to waist-high. There would be no current, but she imagined the pond’s bottom was largely mud.
Making all kinds of AGI and STR rolls to try and get out of that mess, I’ll bet.
Two other people stood on the road’s edge, facing away from Dorri and the others as they watched the first. One threw an elbow into the other’s side. Laughter drifted through the lazy insect hum of the humid air. They wore simple traveling garb, much like the man wading through the marsh.
Unlike that first man, however, these people wore large axes on their hips.
Dorri reached back and touched the weapon on her back. Without having to actually do anything more difficult than that, the longbow slid into her hand. She bent the supple wood and slid the half-unstrung bowstring into place, a neat touch of realism that felt very satisfying to her.
“You!” Booth’s shout echoed forward and back along the road, shivering through the leaves over Dorri’s head and momentarily stilling bird calls. Dorri’s heart leaped, but no soft clatter of virtual dice indicated any kind of initiative roll just yet.
Down the hill, three heads turned to look back. Booth didn’t follow up with anything else. He started down the road, sunlight striking his mail armor and his shield and setting fire to his red-gold hair. He turned his feet and walked half sideways, planting his boots with care on the mud-slick path, but he marched on like he meant business.
Mud. For the first time, that caught Dorri’s attention. The path was muddy, although it had been dry up until now. Filtered light through the treetops reflected from puddles, but with an odd purple-red appearance.
Insects. Not just humming but buzzing loudly. A stink like iron.
Dorri took another step and finally saw the bodies. A half dozen dead littered the road and lay in the trampled, thrashed vegetation alongside. Of the dead, two wore plain traveling garb. Identical copper bucklers rested in outflung hands of the others or lay beside them in the gory mud. They wore sashes, too, of an amber cloth stained and dripping with mottled black and blood.
Dorri shifted her bow into her left hand. With her right, she reached toward her quiver.
The man and woman who’d been laughing a moment before suddenly seemed more sinister. Their smiles fell away as they reached for their axes. Out in the pond, the man with the golden scythe made a frustrated gesture.
Arra reached the hilltop, too. She didn’t so much as hesitate, merely strode after Booth, her greatsword at the ready.
Lora watched Arra and Booth go. Her shoulders rose and fell. Then she unfastened the silvery-colored shield she carried and turned her head ever so slightly to the side.
“Watch the one in the water.” Lora didn’t shout, but her voice carried well enough.
Even as Lora spoke, the man in the water turned and flung the golden scythe toward the mound of higher ground in the pond’s center. It flipped end over end and landed in tall grass at the water’s edge. When the man turned back, he lifted both hands in front of him, although they contained no visible weapon.
Caster.
Dorri adjusted the plans flashing through her head.
The quality of air around Dorri seemed to thicken and slow. She felt a sort of unhitching sensation at the back of her head. A new mini-map, square and semi-opaque, snapped into the bottom right of her vision. Dorri heard a soft but satisfying rattle as her initiative roll played out.
[You rolled a 15 for Initiative.]
Not great, given her high AGI should’ve given her a leg up, but not bad. If she landed in the middle of initiative order, that would give her a chance to see what everyone else, friend and foe alike, intended to do.
While the System sorted out initiative order, Dorri focused on the bottom left of her vision. Her character sheet snapped into view.