Chapter 17, Ersboda a village in distress
We did as Yoerus suggested, we took it easy for a while, had some food and talked about the easiest way of getting into Ersboda. Here is where the question of how Jojo would be close enough to help but at the same time not be in the way. A QueenaFant is not a conspicuous being so we decided that she would be flying in the air and come when I called for her. We tried it out too, to see if long distance communication worked. And it did! Then when it was closer to the middle of the night I started the trek into Ersboda. The village was closer to Ostvik, both in size and in how it looked, not at all the same rugged feel Raeen had. But the biggest difference was that the village felt dead and empty and there was a smell of fear permeated in the whole place. All the windows were covered or blocked off. According to Yoerus, Marurade and his followers had descended on Ersboda just two weeks earlier but for the villagers it probably felt longer. Information was not clear if Marurade still was there or if he had left. But my mission was to take care of all his followers and make the village safe again. With a little bit of help from my robe and the shadows, I was going to be invisible at least to everyone under level 100, or that was what I had been told about my robe, now I realized that I hadn’t tried it out. So I threaded really lightly from shadow to shadow, even if it was night, it was not as dark as I was used to back on earth, so I was happy with my robe. And happy that there were no streetlights here or at least if there were any, they were not on at the moment. The village was quiet, as it had been since we came close to it a couple of hours before. It almost felt like there was no one left alive in there. But I had seen movements behind draped windows from time to time.
“Arrrgh, what are you doing to her! No, no! Not my daughter! Take me instead!” I heard a voice cry out, and after that I heard more distressed voices scream in despair.
“Yoerus, can you locate where those voices came from?”
“They are close, go half a block and then turn right, should be a door into a large warehouse.
I wielded my sword and took a deep breath and then walked quietly the distance and took a sneak peak around the corner, there was an alley with a door just as Yoerus had said. I stood in front of the door and was thinking about how I should get it open when I heard a small baby crying out of pain, and I just acted. I did what I failed to do last time I tried this, I ran into the door with my shoulder first, but this time it worked. The door was probably barely holding together as it were, so with my extra strength it was made into splinters and I tumbled into the warehouse. Inside there was a large room filled with wares that was stacked along the walls, and in the middle there was a tall hooded man standing holding a small child upside down by one of its legs. And around him in a circle there were more hooded men or women. He held the child in one hand and in the other he had a dagger that was dripping with blood. I realized it wasn’t wares along the walls, but cages filled with people of all ages, children, women and men. On the floor besides the hooded man there were corpses of all kinds of humans. They were doing some kind of blood rite. “Yoerus? Do you know anything about this? What is it? Is there anything I should know before I kill them all?” Because if it was anything that got my blood to boil of anger it was when someone hurt innocent people.
“This is an ancient blood rite, with the purpose to bring more people from other worlds to fight for them.”
All focus in the room was on the man in the middle so no one had noticed me, not so strange because the child was screaming out of fear and the people in the cages were wailing, the cult people were singing or chanting something I couldn’t understand. Something changed inside of me, gone where the afraid boy from earth, and replaced with me, a robe bearing man wielding a great short sword, and ready to use it. I saw in one of the cages a man and a woman screaming for their child, so the first thing I did before the hooded man had the opportunity to kill the child was to focus on [Copy, slot 1] and teleport the child from his hold into the arms of the parents. Then I tried my new skill and used [Roots] on all the followers, then I rushed forward and started to hack and slash all my opponents. In my haste to kill them off before they had the chance to resist, I forgot to use [Roots] on the man in the middle. But just as he was to attack me with his dagger, I used [Telekinesis] and pushed his own dagger towards him. pressing against his body where the heart usually sits on a human. That was mistake number two. This was not a human. If he had a heart it wasn’t located where a human had the heart. I just made him more angry, and mistake number three, the now not so gentle people in the ring had started to hack off the roots. And all their focus had turned to me. I looked around frantically when Yoerus calmly said.
”Green Raven, use the knowledge you have been taught, use your sword and your skills”
That somehow calmed me down as well so I dodged the first attack, sidestepped the second and ran my sword straight into the third. And he was human, because he didn’t get up after I hit his heart. But no time to celebrate that, I felt a searing pain when a dagger hit my left arm, it was one of the followers that attacked me.
Damage taken
130
Damage negated
120
So not so bad, but they hit hard. I got an idea, I used [Roots] once again but now together with [Telekinesis] and brought all my enemies, screaming and shouting together in a heap. And then went back to hacking and slashing them. When they all lay still on the floor I heard and sensed something behind
me and I jumped, but not high enough to get clear from the cult leader, he hit his dagger in my calf and dammit that hurt for real.
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Damage taken
130
Damage negated
120
With that much pain I landed back on the floor and stumbled and fell over one of the followers, but that was probably what saved my life. The dagger occupied the air where my neck should have been had I not stumbled. I now lay on my stomach on the floor among the now very much dead followers. The leader was about to let me join them when I remembered and said out loud “one strike is all it takes” and then in a last effort I rolled over to my back. And as he was about to stab me with his dagger I forced my sword into his body. All his being went still and stiffened up and then fell backwards dead. Pulling my sword with him. This was at the time when my hearing and other senses came back and I realized that I was screaming and swearing for all my might. I stopped as I tried to sit up. This was when I remembered my healing potions in my [Inventory] and took out the small one and drank.
Health healed
50 HP
Got me feeling marginally better but after a large sip of Canfee the pain was more manageable.
Congratulations, You have defeated 20 followers of Marurade , level 35, and received:
2000 experience points
Congratulations, you have defeated 1 leader of Marurade, level 40, and received:
200 experience points
Congratulations, you have finished the quest ‘Madness at every turn 2’, and received:
1000 experience points
An item of your choosing from USERUS
A level up of an existing skill
Wow, so this is a quest chain? I asked myself quietly. I didn’t have the time to read and decide all this now, but a quick level up to heal myself up I had time for. I also looted all the kills.
Loot all
5000 gold
10 keys
20 daggers low quality
1 dagger unknown quality
Congratulations you have reached level 29
You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
Same as always I got a nice feeling in my body and everything was okay again.
After doing the necessary I called out mentally to my pet, Jojo and let her know I was fine and that she could fly back to our basecamp.
That sorted I turned to the cages that were full of people. I used the keys and unlocked all of them. And said, “my name is Green Raven, I’m sorry I didn’t come here earlier.”
“Thank you, thank you” a man on his knees called out. “I thought this would be it. We have lost many of our friends and family the last couple of days, but hadn’t you appeared when you did, all of us would be dead by now. Can we pay you or help you in any way for doing this?”
“No need, this is what any decent person would do if they were in my shoes.” That got me thinking, I need better shoes when it’s possible to get some.
“Can’t we at least give you dinner or in this case an early breakfast?”
I felt that it wouldn’t be nice to say no to that so I accepted graciously. After helping the elderly and more severely wounded people to, what they called hospital here on PAERD. The man that had first talked to me and later introduced himself as Gunnar, took me to his and his wife’s house. The dinner we had was easily the best thing I had since I was in Ostvik. The meat was succulent and the bread was freshly made. How they even managed that while just being held captive was a mystery even after asking and only receiving a smile and a small laugh. Most of the dinner was held in silence because even if the food was great I could see that they were taken after the incident. After getting thanked once more and thanking them for dinner. I went to see all the villager’s and let them know that should they run into trouble again they only needed to send a mental message to me and I’d come help them. After that I got hugged by almost everyone, and they gave me food in the form of ready made sandwiches. The goodbyes were long and hard to do. But after some time I was on my way back to the basecamp. And along the way I called out to Jojo and she let me know that she had arrived at basecamp. And as soon as I got there, even though it was morning already, I felt totally beaten and needed to get some rest. I asked Yoerus to keep a lookout and then I crashed in my sleeping bag. Didn’t even take the time to bring out my tent. I woke up later that day and after doing my business and drinking some water I started to ask Yoerus some questions. “Yoerus, what the fuck was that? A blood rite? and where was Marurade?”
“You see, Green Raven, when Userus need people to fight the good fight for PAERD, he gets them through the game, same as you got here. Marurade doesn't have the possibility to go via the game, instead he needs to get people from other worlds to come here through an old ancient blood rite called ‘Blood summoning and a half bottle of Bork’, I know the name needs some work but apparently that’s how it’s named. And the people that he gets from this method are people that are evil in its core. Thankfully that is not too common, so most of his army of followers contains Shadow Warriors, since they are easy to convert with all the good stuff he is able to give them. There are Shadow Warriors that for some reason or other don’t fall for him, and they fight in the name of Userus, but sadly that is not common at all. The advantage of Shadow Warriors is that they don’t die, but come back. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes, why didn’t you tell me this was a quest chain? How many parts are there?”
“The main reason was not to scare you, since the attack in the woods was not that easy for you. But the more you grow up the more I will tell you.”
At this I mumbled something along who the fuck do you think you are, but also realized that he was probably right, I would’nt have felt better knowing it was a quest chain, better to get it as a happy suprise afterwords. So I told Yoerus nothing, just nodded and packed away everything asked Jojo if she was ready to get moving.
“Yes Green Raven, I’m ready when you are.”
“So Yoerus, what’s the next quest or where do we go from here?”
“I have mapped it out for you and Jojo, just follow the signs. We are going to a small town, where you can level up in safety and at the same time sell your junk and maybe buy some new stuff. If my calculations are correct you should be getting some more Canfee-money in the next day or two. The trip is going to take us at least a couple of days but I’m thinking it’s worth it.”
I agreed with him, it sounded good to sleep in a proper bed again, maybe get some better boots and if I was lucky some long distance weapon. I was curious if crossbows could be something to add to my arsenal of growing weapons. Something that worked from faraway.
“Jojo, let's go!”
“Yes Green Raven!” I jumped up on her back and we took off.