Danto’s gaze swung toward Brin. His eyebrows lifted, and his mouth rounded with uncertainty at her disapproving look.
“You don’t act like any Novice I’ve ever heard of. Aren’t you supposed to be good with medicine or praying? Maybe both?” Brin sounded more curious than accusatory.
Danto bristled anyhow. “Maybe if it was something I actually wanted to do, I’d be more enthusiastic about it.”
Brin huffed. “I wasn’t aware that Voshell conscripted her tenders.”
Danto pouted a second longer and then shrugged. “She doesn’t. I just… Tender Hent said I might be good at it. No knack or anything, but I could learn the herbs and the reading and the prayer rituals. And I owe the church something, don’t I? I have no parents, so it’s not like anyone’s going to leave me a farm or the family business.”
Danto darted a look toward Galen that was at once covetous and apologetic. It took Galen a beat to catch the meaning.
He’s envious of me having a family and a family business. He has no idea my character’s father is a cripple. The business isn’t so much being left to me as leaving me no choice.
Which cleaved way too close to Galen’s real life and real father. Galen, of course, didn’t say any of that aloud. He still felt nervous about roleplaying someone who belonged in this world and was comfortable with its lore—it always took him a while to settle into a new character—so he didn’t say anything.
While they talked, Brin scanned the ground around the fallen mud-touched. The trampled grass and broken underbrush pointed in a direction that was clear to Galen, but Brin was good at picking out clues on the land even when they were less clear, so Galen gladly left her to it.
Brin snorted as she chose a direction and stepped carefully into the trail the hunters had left.
“’Leave me a farm.’ I’m not being left a damn thing. That all goes to Evwan.” Her shoulders squared and her chin lifted. The long braid swung against her back. “But that’s fine. They all have a knack, Evwan for planting and Augusa for husbandry. I don’t, but as soon as I get the chance, I’m lighting out for—”
Galen had heard this part often enough to recognize it as a bit, so he chimed in as Brin finished her sentence.
“Diairm, to join the city guard.”
Danto, whether because his player was smart enough to also pick up on the bit or he was an NPC programmed to do so, said the exact same words in the exact same rhythm along with Brin and Galen.
The lure of Diairm, a gem of a city not far south of Chanford Falls, made sense. Diairm was huge and cultured and awe-inspiring, exactly the kind of place a farm girl would go if she wanted to stop being a farm girl and make her fortune.
Brin stopped and turned. Her brows drew together over hooded gray eyes.
Galen couldn’t help his smile. “You’ve mentioned it a time or two.”
“Or ten.” But if Danto was still irritated by Brin’s comments about his lack of novice-ness, his voice held no malice. He smiled, too, although he also cast anxious glances into the woods surrounding them.
Brin sighed and turned away, but not before Galen glimpsed a smile on her mouth, as well.
If Brin and Danto were NPCs, they were well-programmed to be realistic. If they weren’t, then they were killer roleplayers to be able to act and speak so naturally as their characters already. Galen tended to believe they must be NPCs, but if they weren’t then Redemption Wars claims of deep customization and intertwined PC stories must have been at least partially true.
When Galen had opted out of real life and into the game, social media and “news” had been aflutter with controversies over the intrusiveness of Redemption Wars’ customization process and how much money Ugly Star had made from selling the game to people desperate to do the upload. Accusations were flying that their claims about server capacity were lies, and their claims that they couldn’t take everyone were suspect. Some people even screeched that there was no real first come first serve to the people trying to get in after the priority pre-order folks, but that Ugly Star was selectively choosing who they let in.
A sense of irony surrounded the entire cesspool of suck, Galen thought. In the early years of gaming culture, gamers had been pariahs, portrayed as losers living in their parents’ basements. Gaming, video and tabletop alike, had eventually grown more mainstream, and gamers had created their own culture and economy and workforce and raised their status even if others didn’t always completely understand it.
And suddenly all the people who’d spent their lives acting like gamers were somehow less adult, less responsible, just plain less than others had been screaming about how those same gamers thought they were better than everyone else.
A sharp knocking sound suddenly rang out, and all morbidly self-satisfied musing fled. Galen’s fist clenched tighter around the spear he carried. Instinctively, he bent his knees and hunched his shoulders.
Galen’s first thought was that the sound had come from the direction Brin had pointed them, but it echoed through the woods all around, fading gradually into nothing. He scanned the trees and underbrush around them, but nothing moved.
“The lord and his party?” Galen lowered his voice. It still seemed too loud.
“Maybe.” Brin whispered, as well. The knuckles of the hand she wrapped around her spear had turned white, so Galen felt a little less foolish about the pounding of his heart. “Or wildlife spooked by the passage of the raiders and the hunting party.”
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Galen spent a few seconds trying to gauge how long they’d been walking and how far they might be from the manor house. He couldn’t smell the smoke anymore, except what clung to their clothing.
“We’re moving into true wilderness, I’d guess.” Galen’s pulse fluttered in his throat. Wilderness had a ring to it that reminded him of adventure.
TTRPGs had been Galen’s adventure of choice. As a form of escape, it got him out of his house, away from screaming toddlers and his parents’ assertions that he should get out of the house and have friends. Which set Galen’s teeth on edge, because it made it sound like he was the one lacking in some way and offered no thanks for the sacrifices he’d been making on their behalf.
“Dangerous creatures avoid civilization, most often.” Brin’s grip on her spear loosened. She turned in place, taking another look around. Her feet made no sound on the grass-covered ground. “But we’re not really close to civilization anymore.”
“But with the raiders and hunters crashing through the woods, maybe all the disturbance will drive everything else away.” Danto stood up straighter, but he clutched at his medic’s bag as if that would keep him safe.
“Or draw them in,” Brin replied matter-of-factly.
When they set out again, Brin still leading, they all moved cautiously. No one darted off in stupid, selfish solo directions.
I could get used to this group.
For another half hour or more, the three of them crept through a forest that all around them turned thicker and darker. Sunlight still filtered through overhead, but the branches and leaves wove more closely, so that what light broke through came in rare shafts more than overall ambience. In the absence of sun, the air cooled, damp like rain and rotting vegetation and sweet with a hint of tree sap. The underbrush thinned out, but the trails that had been beat through it were easier than ever to follow.
“I feel like we’ve been walking long enough that we should hear the falls.” Galen peered into the trees ahead, looking for some sign of open air between them. How far had they wandered toward Lake Morene?
Brin made a soft, amused sound. “We’ve been angling away from true east all along. We’re traveling mostly north now. The falls are far off to our right and behind us.”
“Oh.” Galen fell silent and digested the information as he followed Brin. So much for all the pride he took in not using the UI for direction.
Good thing she’s with us.
Another quarter of an hour later, the trail Brin led them along wound around a tree and down a slope which ended in a rounded, rocky opening in the ground. The forest floor leveled off, but inside the cave’s mouth, the slope continued downward.
Galen glanced at the underbrush surrounding the cave, but aside from some crushed brush leading up to the opening, he saw nothing. While Galen and Danto stood side by side several steps back, spears in hand, Brin inspected the ground and bushes a few minutes longer before confirming Galen’s assumption.
“They went inside.”
Brin walked toward the cave’s mouth. Beside Galen, Danto sputtered for a second before blurting out, “Are we really supposed to go in there?”
Brin leaned her head and shoulders into the opening and then back out again. “Not if we don’t have a torch. It’s dark. But we are supposed to follow Lord Gastusad.”
Brin’s gaze fixed on Galen, and he heard the silent question. They’d known each other all of a week, but apparently she already had a few things figured out about Galen.
He had a torch in his pack, of course, carefully wrapped to keep it dry, and the flint and steel he’d need to light it. He’d been screwed over by one too many overeager GMs out to prove a point to ever travel without a few basic necessities.
A flutter of anxiety rose in Galen’s throat. It made sense to go after the hunting party. That was the order they’d been given, but beyond that it was the right thing to do.
But at some point, the game was going to spring some kind of trap on them.
And all we have are these 1d4 spears.
“Do you think the commander and the rest will be coming up behind us soon?” Danto, apparently oblivious to both Brin’s unspoken question and Galen’s hesitation, frowned worriedly in the direction they’d just come.
“Shortly.” Galen answered Danto but also latched onto the assurance to help answer his own question.
Follow orders. It’s the only thing to do.
“I have a torch.” Galen propped his spear aside and dropped his pack to one shoulder. As he handed the wrapped torch to Brin so he could locate the flint and steel, she grinned.
“Always prepared for everything, aren’t you?”
Heat crept across Galen’s face. A memory surfaced, of standing along Central Park West’s parade route, a boy in a throng of strangers. The world around him had been an ocean of shirt hems and elbows, and his hand had been empty of the hand he’d been told to not let go of. He’d stood there, paralyzed with panic and screaming his younger sister’s name into the hubbub. Then Galen’s mother had found Jody, and all had been well. Galen hadn’t even received a scolding.
But I should have.
Jody was dead, now. But Redemption Wars had thoughtfully provided his character with a sister named Jodri.
A familiar kneejerk brew of fear and shame bubbled in Galen’s gut. But that was then and this was now, and whether his sister was dead or not real or whatever, Brin wasn’t scolding him, either. He had done the right thing, this time. So he smiled at Brin and used the flint and steel to spark the torch while she held it and Danto watched over her shoulder.
Entering the cave was like leaving the world they’d known completely behind. Brin entered first, passing off the torch to Galen before she went. Galen ducked to get through the entrance, but once inside the ceiling was high enough for him to stand. The walls, however, remained only a foot or so from either side of him.
“It’s not a cave.” Galen lifted the torch so that the light shined past Brin in front of him. “It’s a tunnel.”
“It’s been dug out.” Brin’s braid swung side to side as she examined the interior, as well. “Parts of it, anyhow.”
A patchwork of rock both aged dark and freshly-cut pale mingled with areas of plain earth and reinforcing logs. Galen glanced up, hoping that whoever had made this shaft had made it well enough. But the ceiling showed no signs of caving in, and Brin was already moving forward. Galen hastened after her, holding the torch aloft to light her way. Danto’s footsteps shuffled behind him.
As the three of them crept forward, leaving behind the splash of light at the cave’s entrance, sunlight traded out for guttering torchlight in utter darkness. It wasn’t only the light they left behind, though. The rustle of leaves and bursts of birdsong became a muffled silence. The touch of a fresh breeze became clammy stillness. The warm scents of earth and sap gave way to something stagnant and moldy, like a grave. A black-shelled beetle scurried along the wall by Galen’s elbow before vanishing again into a labyrinth of exposed roots.
“Are we sure they came through here?” Behind Galen, Danto crowded up into the light of the torch Galen carried, close enough that Galen felt air move against his neck as Danto spoke.
Brin, leading the way, stopped and motioned with one hand. Galen shifted the torch to illuminate where she’d pointed.
Dirt and rubble had been stirred on the tunnel’s packed-earth floor. A long smear of blood painted a stretch of rock wall.
“All right,” Danto said. “That seems like a clear answer.”
“It’ll be fine.” Galen murmured the reassurance over his shoulder, but a trill of trepidation fluttered up his spine. The phrase had been routinely uttered by well-meaning people the world over for centuries.
It had already been proven, all too often, to be blatantly untrue.