SAVE POINT 39
Three Hours Earlier...Loading Rainer's Side Mission...92%
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1108411272535490710/914f828f-2755-44ab-a354-f96b494c6608.png][https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1108411272925565019/72cfb19f-d8fe-4a8e-a22c-7e463c5ad121.png]
Rosabella
***Welcome GAME MAKER ROSABELLA & GAME WARDEN RAINER to the Side Mission***
SIDE MISSION: Honor and respect.
I stare at the gray, pop-up bar with confusion. 'Honor and respect?' What does that mean?
Ca-Thunk!
Ca-Thunk!
—What?
I blink, squinting into the streaming sunlight which is so bright it bites through my pupils, shining over the horizon and off of a glinting—
Is than an ax?
Is someone swinging an ax high over their head—?
"Rainer!" I shout at the man right beside me as I recognize him.
It's Rainer! He's...chopping wood?
The burly warrior hears my cry, but he won't look at me. His face turns away, tucking near his chin as he lowers the ax from its next wood victim on the cut tree trunk, makeshift, slicing bench. ...He looks different. His beard is grown out...no longer stubble or clean shaven. Its bristling wires are long like his brown, flowing locks, and his face looks...
Younger? Even though it's still lined with wrinkles and freckles.
He's clad in layered deerskin with the arms of the shirt cut off to reveal biceps shining with sweat. A pile of jumbled, different-sized wood pieces surround his legs, evidence that he's been at his wood chopping for a long while, and droplets of rain spit down on my cheeks from a navy-blue sky overhead where the surrounding evergreens don't quite reach the Heavens. I glimpse the outline of small, sleepy town through the break in the trees. It actually looks rather peaceful and quiet here—a sentiment which conflicts greatly with the wincing pain on the warrior's face. Is that a—tear?! Rolling down his cheek?
He quickly swipes it away with an urgent, weathered hand before I can determine.
"Rainer?" I try again, more softly this time as I approach him. I cast a wary glance at the enormous blade of the ax, but he lets it slip from his fingers and thud into the dense grass.
"It's no use," he huffs, his deep voice gruff and deeply troubled, "I thought it'd let me stop it, but I know this scene. This was afterwards—"
"After what?" It feels a little strange to be reaching out to put a comforting hand on the man's huge shoulder, but something inside me knows he needs it this moment. His face is tortured—twisted in emotions I can't pin down. I notice, all at once, that his hands are shaking. From where my hand touches his shoulder, I feel him take a shuttering breath.
"It was me," he admits sullenly, shaking his head, "I didn't mean to, but I did it—"
He's speaking rapidly and rapidly losing me.
Did what? What did he do?
My fingers clamp down on the skin of his arm if only to get the man to breathe for a minute. His face is rapidly sliding into hyperventilation.
"Rainer, I don't understand—hey—hey, breathe for a second," I tell him, leaning in, hoping that he can see me—hold onto the image of my face—even as his eyes gloss over like all he can see is whatever is tormenting him.
"It was my fault, Rosabella," he pants, running a huge, frazzled hand through his hair as his face shuts down even further, "Oh Grand Dragon, it was my fault! I didn't mean—"
"Rainer!" I grasp the huge man by both biceps, trying to shake him back to reality and not the churning thoughts it seems he's facing, "Tell me what's going on."
This is a side mission—Rainer's world. The Grand Dragon said I don't have much time. I have to figure out why the darkness is so concentrated on Rainer's heart and fix any negative skill points that might be clogging up my own magic in trying to fix The Game world...
But the man is despondent.
His chest convulsing.
This huge warrior, reduced to mush before me—a freaking out puddle?
What am I going to do?
"Rainer," I try again, speaking into his face with a leveler tone, "Would you happen to have any negative skill points?"
The man's face hardens then.
And cracks open.
Simultaneously.
He's shaking his head back and forth, his beard twitching with the movement, "Rosabella, I never meant—"
"I know that, I know," I coo—while suppressing every sudden need to shake him again and demand what the fuck is going on. "Tell me, Rainer," I say instead, "Please tell me."
Tell me why we're in these woods, near this town?
Tell me what I'm doing out here chopping wood, and how a great warrior with infinite weapons can be reduced to a sobbing child?
Please let him tell me.
He swallows; I watch.
His jaw clenches—his fists clench. Finally, he speaks, "It's—the creator points."
And my head suddenly feels light.
"You—" I trip over my own tongue, "You did black magic?" I hate the way the words sound, coming off my tongue—far too accusatory as an image of Goran and the birthday cake he made for me flash before my eyes. My jaw hardens.
Rainer grabs my shoulders this time. His gaze is earnest. "It was a mistake! When the Grand Dragon took away the creator magic from all humans and gave it only to two, they banned creation. They mandated no one could create. But I was a blacksmith; it was my trade—my life."
Tears swim in the big man's eyes; I see the emotion there.
"I was young, I didn't know there'd be consequences! I snuck out in the dark of night and made myself a sword. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever created but—" his gruff voice breaks, "An earthquake started right as I finished it. And the ground split between my two legs—a zigzagging crack that ran through town. And, after that, disease ravaged the entire population here—black spots that itched and burned, and everyone died. Everyone except me. And I did that. I killed—children."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
He hates himself.
I can see it in his eyes. A tear escapes them, running down the folds of his face.
Oh my God. He's been living with this shame—the guilt of being the death of his town—for years now. ...Something that was an accident? We can fix this. We can fix this together.
"How many negative creator points do you have?" I ask, wincing and mentally preparing myself for the answer. ...Because the amount of points that he's negative has to be repaired...and I can only repair it by giving him mine—which I need to fix the whole world...
—But I can't fix the whole world if I don't have enough creator points.
This is a circular argument. My head hurts.
"See for yourself," Rainer swipes a fist in the air and his stats box appears:
GAME MAKER RAINER Strength - 99/100 Endurance - 80/100 Agility - 60/100 Intelligence - 55/100 Emotional Intelligence - 60/100 Empathy - 75/100 Determination - 80/100 Prophesy - 10/100 Creator - -10/100
-10 Creator Points
Yikes.
Almost half of what I'd taken from a dragon.
Can we fix this together?
Rainer's face is listless. He gestures at all the wood, spanning around his ankles. "I was so angry," he starts, his brows creasing, "I chopped wood for days after the last death, trying to understand what had happened—"
"It was a mistake," I start, interrupting, but the man won't let me.
"Yes, but the next part wasn't." His face is solemn. "I took all this wood and I—I couldn't look at everything...this place...all the damage. I had to get rid of it—of the evidence that I'd killed...that I—" he swallows. "I burned it. I burned my whole town and all of the bodies in it in one giant bonfire. I tried to cover the place up like a town had never existed here. And the bodies—I mean, if they have relatives, they will never know where their loved ones are buried. And I did that on purpose."
His face is hard.
And, suddenly, understanding dawns on me.
"Rainer, bring up the side mission objective again," I tell him.
He swipes it into view half-heartedly.
SIDE MISSION: Honor and respect.
"I think I get it," I tell him slowly. "You weren't brought back to this memory to save your town. What happened, happened. It truly was a mistake. But you were brought back before you burned the town. Maybe you're not supposed to—maybe that's the regret that's hurting you most. Maybe you should make a different choice this time."
The warrior's head shoots up, "Bury them?"
I nod, "With honor and respect."
And something changes in Rainer's eyes then—something shifts. And, although weariness is evident in every crease in his face, something else is too. ...Relief?
"It will take all day..." he gripes, wringing his hands, like trying not to convince himself.
But I suddenly know that this is the right way forward. We have to do this. I smile grimly at him, "We'll do this...together."
We work in silence in the still morning.
As the peaked silhouettes of the town's roofs hang over us like the shadows of the past. Rainer grabs the head and shoulders. I grab the feet.
Of the bodies.
And we tow them outside, one by one, onto a grassy field on the outer perimeter of the town, laying them each down with dignity in the tall grass...as our backs ache and our feet complain.
We search every nook and cranny in each house, double-checking wallpapered rooms and unmade beds, making sure we've got them all. And, when we're sure, Rainer hands me a shovel.
And we dig.
The only metal here is not sharp swords, digging into flesh, but the blades of our shovels, meeting dirt. Over and over. In a rhythm. And, although my shoulders pinch and my back complains, there's something soothing about doing the right thing...even when it's finally doing it. ...And helping a friend.
Rainer doesn't talk, and I don't push him.
Not as we ease the bodies into the holes.
Not as we cover them with mounds of earth, carefully piling it on and over flesh.
Not even when we finish and he does open his mouth.
"I don't have any flowers or anything to adorn the graves with," he tells me sadly. "They were all too sick to keep the gardens up before they passed."
But I have something better than flowers.
I wait to tell him; I think it over one last time.
The Grand Dragon said that the people around me influence my magic and that negative skill points damper my ability to fix The Game world, so I have to fix Rainer's negative creator skill points. ...But, if I give him my points, I'm lessening my magic.
Is it worth the trade?
Or is this one decision dooming their whole world?
I take a deep breath and look back at Rainer. His face is layered with twisting emotions, and I suddenly know that it's not a choice after all.
I'm here in this side mission to help him. I have to do that.
"Here," I don't know how I know how to do it, but I hold out my hand and a glowing star of magic bobs there. I offer it to him, "Take this. Close your eyes and make what you would if you could. For them." I nod at the graves of the people he must have loved very much indeed.
And I watch surprise creep up Rainer's face. Still, he hesitates, "Are you sure?"
I nod.
And he reaches out a shaking, calloused hand.
And the star absorbs into his palm.
***A Gift for a Mourning Friend: Rainer, Creator Points +10***
And, even though I feel my power lessen, I know it; I've done the right thing here.
"Close your eyes," I whisper, as a reminder.
And the warrior does.
I watch him focus.
And I watch, in wonder, as he does what he's probably always done best—create.
Green shoots up from the ground between the grave mounds—lush grass. And a white lily, freshly cut, appears on the crest of every burial place. In front of each dirt mound, wood signs materialize, engraving themselves with the names of the deceased. Then, purple and pink flowers begin to bloom in the grass, shooting up tall and more beautiful than I've ever seen.
And yellow monarch butterflies trail among the flowers.
"It's beautiful," I murmur.
And, when Rainer opens his eyes, his face is different. Its creased folds are smoothed out in a calm sort of acceptance. "It's what they would have wanted," he amends, "Thank you."
There's such gratitude in his eyes as he turns to me.
And there's an electronic beep.
***Honor and Respect Obtained. Victory Established. Side Mission Completed.***
I know what comes next.
I stand there patiently as Rainer's world disintegrates in front of my eyes. Replaced by—
***Welcome Back to The Game GAMEMAKER ROSABELLA & GAME WARDEN RAINER***
***Side Mission Passed!***
GAME WARDEN RAINER Strength - 99/100 Endurance - 80/100 Agility - 60/100 Intelligence - 55/100 Emotional Intelligence - 60/100 Empathy +3 - 78/100 Determination - 80/100 Prophesy - 10/100
I notice that Rainer's slot for Creator points has disappeared and is no longer negative. Thank goodness. But I barely have time to check the rest of the stats out because Callen's in my face, shaking me, squatting down to peer into my blinking eyes, "Rosabella? Are you there?!"
And, as I watch, something hits him in the back.
An arrow?
I see the shaft quivering from over his shoulder as he slumps towards me, shock and confusion on his face.
"Callen, no!" Is that Joy's scream from somewhere to the side?
I try to swivel my head to see, but Callen's face is so close, his fingers clutching both my arms...
As crimson blood drips from his mouth.
"Rosabella," he mouths, gurgling, his eyes glossing over as more blood comes up and down his chin. He gasps for breath, "Save us all."