CHAPTER 30

“You’ve never gone upstream to look?” Kopius eventually asked.

“I will admit I have been tempted. The experience points from a Ripple quest alone are said to be worth the risk. But, no, I have not journeyed up the river.”

Kopius looked upstream and wondered if this was the XP boost he needed. If seasoned adventurers felt the XP was worth it, then Kopius might have just found the catalyst he was in need of. But if it's been around for so long… Kopius wondered.

“Has anybody been upstream?”

“Oh, sure. Plenty, I have been told. Met a few as well.”

“And?” Kopius almost shouted, his hands making ‘’you gotta give more’’ gestures.

“And nothing,” Cici replied, returning his own ‘’that's all I got’’ shrug. “The quest is still active, so anybody who did go upstream didn’t complete it. As to their fate, well, I have seen fate stub a man's toe on a ranker tree and then have his whole leg rot off within the week.”

“Are ranker trees dangerous?”

“No. Not at all! That’s my point.”

“Fair enough. Okay. So, what’s the name of the quest?”

“Let me find it and read the whole thing.” Cici’s eyes began to dart around like he was trying to track a hummingbird. A few seconds later, he continued:

“Blight at the End of the Tunnel: the Tessel River has been contaminated. Find the source of the pollution.”

“That's all it says?” Kopius asked with notable disappointment.

“That is it.”

“I don’t know, man. It sounds kind of easy. Find the source…” Kopius trailed off. He found his gaze returning upstream and his mind homing in on some sweet, sweet instant gratification. He didn’t want to start splitting hairs but ‘‘find the source’’ and ‘‘fix/remove the source’’ were two totally different things. He also admitted that fixing the source of the problem generally comes directly after finding it in chain type quests.

“Are there chain quests here?”

“Eh?”

“Like you finish one quest, and another quest pops up right away. Sometimes the quests are numbered. ‘Finish part one to unlock part two,’ that type of stuff.”

“I still don’t follow.”

“Okay. If we go up the river,” Kopius said with some impatience, using arm motions to help tell the story, ”we get up there and find out that the Tessel is now the shitter for a bunch of monsters. We would have found the source of pollutants or whatever and finished the quest. Would then another quest pop up saying something like ‘Nice job, assholes, now fix the problem or else’?”

“Quests are usually not that aggressive, but yes, I think what you are—poorly—describing is called a Sequence quest. They are finished in stages.”

“Great. Can a Ripple also be a Sequence?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Perfect, let’s run with that logic.” Kopius’s palms felt a little sweaty, reminiscent of the days he would spend hours upon hours playing first person shooters before embracing VR gaming. He wiped them on his pant legs and took a glance at the sun's position.

“Do you want to try and complete this?” Cici asked as he picked up on Kopius’s body language.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I don’t know. I’m guessing we don’t have enough supplies for that?”

“I always pack for an extra day or two.” Cici said with a smirk.

“That’s not what you were saying when I wanted to burn that fleabag gleamer.”

“Eh, it would have ruined the meat.”

“Whatever. Are we going to do this?” Kopius asked, surprised by his own eagerness.

“Hold on there, shadow man. That’s uncharted territory, at least to these eyes. We need more than desire to get us there. Let’s have a look at our inventory.”

A quick check of Cici’s pack and Kopius’s ring gave them the impression that—if frugal—they had enough food and wood for three more nights. Food, they reasoned, could be found along the way, so it was really the wood that gave them pause.

Safety was another issue they had to hammer out. The fallen hoodoos gave them an elevated place to sleep the night in relative peace. If there were no safe places up the river, they had to decide on precautions ahead of time. Their discussion lasted for about an hour or so when they both agreed to make the journey but not until the morning.

With the sun past midday and camp already set up, the two men had time to kill. They meandered about the fallen pillar, Kopius collecting small rocks where he could and Cici whistling a tune. They stacked and restacked wood out of boredom, threw rocks, and tuned instruments multiple times. A mixture of lazy thoughts and anxious ones filtered in and out of the two, and Kopius could handle only so much serenity at once. The quiet finally got to him, so Kopius asked about the fallen hoodoos.

“This here,” Cici slapped the pillar they were sitting on like it was the hood of a used car for sale. ”This is the only known way across the Tessel, at least the only dry way. The old stories will tell ya that an army of earth magi brought the great pillar down, while some will say time is to blame. There are other versions as well, but at the end of the day, we have ourselves this bridge.”

“Which version do you think is true?” Kopius asked curiously.

“How was it felled?” Cici said slowly, like a person stalling for time. He scratched at his beard a bit and then responded. “Probably a little bit of everything. Usually some truth in even the wildest of stories.” Cici held a deadpan gaze with Kopius until the latter understood that he was one of those wild stories.

Kopius gave an I-see-what-you-did-there grunt that could have been mistaken for a laugh.

“As you might imagine, having fresh water and a lofted camp made this an appealing place to stop.” Cici continued.

“I thought you said the other trail markers were all cut down.”

“They were! One of the few times our ancient ancestors are said to have come together for a common goal.”

“And what was the ‘common goal’?”

“The untamed south, of course!” Cici said with a laugh, knowing Kopius had no clue what he was talking about. “Before, to get south, you had to survive the riptides of the mighty Torrent. It wasn’t until Escher found this route that adventurers could bring horse and wagon to cross the Tessel. Way down at each end of this rock are ramps carved for caravans, horses, women. and children—basically anything that could not cross the river without being lost or ruined.”

“What’s so special about the south?”

“The north has high mountains, dense forests, and swamps a plenty. In the southeast there are hills and flat lands, good growing lands. To the immediate south, the Mountains of Amoss are abundant in ore and adventure. To the southwest lay the dead lands, commonly known as The Long Walk. Beyond all these is a massive body of water, the Sea of Saidnah. The kingdom of Corundu rests upon its shores as well as many other small towns and villages. To the deep south, the Valley of Mist remains unexplored.”

“Is that it?” Kopius asked dryly, knowing he would forget all of this shortly.

‘Of course not.”

“I can’t remember all these names or places—or even directions for that matter.” Kopius groaned. “Are we even heading south?”

“Right, right,” Cici placated, ”I don’t want to overwhelm your budding intelligence. We are headed roughly east to the town of Cawbachu.”

“Ugh, sorry, man,” Kopius said, realizing that he was being a bit of an asshole. “I… just haven’t made any progress. Every second I feel like I am falling further and further behind.”

“Behind what exactly?”

“Where I am supposed to be.”

“Where is that?”

“Not here.”

“But you are here.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you now?”

There was more to what the big man was saying, but Kopius didn’t have the mental capacity to dissect it at the moment. His mind was antsy, and his body followed that drum beat. Any life lessons Cici may or may not have been trying to bestow upon him rolled off as Kopius climbed down to ground level and started to wander upstream.

“Best to be back before dark!” Cici bellowed from the top of the pillar, like some over-bearing mother. Kopius threw a peace sign over his shoulder as he kept walking.