As soon as Sera left the prison, a notification popped up:

You’re an escaped convict!

Instead of serving your time like a good little citizen should, you’ve fled the coop! You’re either really smart or really lucky, but it’s not going to be all laughs and giggles from here on out. If you possess the skill, Sneak (or even if you don’t), now might be a really good time to skip town! Cool down period for hitting the local wanted list is one in-game week unless your reward has hit four figures or your infamy has spread to another community.

Effect: 300 local infamy in Hearthwilde.

Alignment: 3% Dark

That added up to 500 infamy points now. She was very quickly getting on the wrong side of the law. Sera decided to heed the notification’s advice and get out of town as soon as possible. It was out of the question to stay in Hearthwilde with her reputation in tatters. The first person to see her would definitely react badly, just like that woman with her boy had, and she had no desire to find out what would happen if she got arrested again.

Sera glanced down the deserted street and ran across it to hide behind the shadow of a postbox before reading through another notification.

You received an Item from Thirsty Tessa!

“My middle finger’s been with me through thick and thin. I give it to people all the time, yet it’s a part of me I never thought I’d really lose. Keep it as a keepsake to remind yourself of the good times with me. Hugs and burpy kisses, Tessa…hic!”

Luck: -2 or was that an upside down +5? You know what? I forget.I guess we’ll just have to throw a dice and find out, won’t we? Hic!

Ugh. Well, it might be useful to have some luck, Sera thought to herself as she dismissed the notification. Though, knowing Thirsty Tessa, it was probably going to be bad luck.

She kept running from shadow to shadow, keeping as quiet and well hidden as she could, and gained Level 1 Sneak. She had chosen to cut across town rather than head for the nearest gate since most of the guards were headed that way, but when she arrived at the main square, she was surprised by an unexpected sight.

A pool of light lit a group beneath a towncrier who stood on a stage in the middle of the square. He was ringing a bell that clanged through the streets, causing candles to be lit in upper story bedrooms and people to lean out of front doors and windows to listen to his announcement.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” he called out, turning in a semi-circle. He raised the lamp dangling from his pole higher over the group and Sera saw to her dismay that it illuminated a motley group of townspeople and players. “Hear ye, hear ye! Prisoners have escaped! The streets of Hearthwilde are not safe! All of able body and mind are to gather and participate in a search to re-capture these fugitives! Women and children are to remai—”

Sera spun on her heels and retreated down the street she had come. She took the first back alley she came to and began to wind her way through the narrow gap between the houses, twisting and turning through them as she tried to put as much distance between herself and the square as possible. Her heart hammered so loudly in her ears, it sounded like footsteps and she kept turning around to look over her shoulder, scraping and earning bruises on herself as she ducked hurriedly beneath windows and around doorways.

Five minutes later, she looked up to find that she was utterly lost. In her panic, she hadn’t managed to keep track of where she was going. Cursing herself, she was about to look at her map when the sound of running footsteps scared her literally up the wall of the nearest house. Without thinking, Sera scrambled up a nearby drainpipe and hopped up onto a window ledge, then used the thick wire of a clothes line to give herself a leg up onto the roof.

“—apparently it’s two townsmen and three or more players. If we get just one of them we get money and a ton of rep with Hearthwilde!”

Someone was coming down the alley. What horrible luck! Sera nervously fingered Thirsty Tessa’s finger in her pocket as the footsteps pattered closer, cursing her bad sense of direction and poor decision making. She had had a head start when she left the jail, she should have just gone straight for the nearest gate or wall and climbed over it. Instead, she’d planted herself right in the middle of a manhunt! She clenched the finger so hard, it slipped out of her sweaty grip and fell onto the roof with a soft ‘flump’ and began to roll to the edge.

She suppressed a gasp and grabbed at it. The finger fragmented and disintegrated further under her touch. Gingerly, trying not to make a sound, she brought it up to her face and squinted at the tiny remains. The whole tip with the nail had come off while the rest of it had crumbled to dust, leaving behind a small eight-sided object with smooth flat surfaces. Sera stared at the side facing up. There was something written under the milky white of the nail… was that a… 5? Or… a 2? There was so much dirt around the bit of nail that it was hard to make out. Thinking that she really didn’t have time for Tessa’s stupid tricks, Sera frowned and pocketed the fragment of finger.

“—nah, already tried divination. Doesn’t work, we have to do this the old fashioned way. Where are you at? You got your hound with you?”

They were so close! Almost right under her!

Sera shivered and pressed herself flatter to the roof tiles. Whoever it was sounded like a player, and all they had to do was jump up to look at the roof and they’d find her. She glanced over her shoulder and made a quick decision. Very carefully and slowly, she began to crawl across the roof like a crab. If she was far enough away from the edge, they might not be able to see her in the darkness, even if they jumped up to take a peek.

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Thankfully, the roof tiles was flatter at the top and Sera was a good distance away from the edge when the sound of breaking glass shattered the silence of the night.

“Hang on! I heard something!”

Sera looked down towards the sound of broken glass. Below her was a skylight and in the house below…

Was Madam Delora, sitting in a steaming bathtub, staring right up at her with a stunned look on her face. Fragments of a broken wineglass littered the floor beside her. As they stared at each other, a little black cat sprang upon the puddle and began lapping up the wine.

Sera could have cried. In fact, she was crying, she realised, though it was masked by the cold rain that had begun to fall. It drizzled down her collar and onto the glass of the skylight. Sera shivered as she debated what to do next. The player hunting her was beginning to climb onto the roof. In a few seconds, she would be caught, clapped in irons and thrown back into jail. She could practically feel her infamy creeping up to new heights and her new found freedom in Elysia disappearing down the black hole of unending incarceration and community service.

Madam Delora’s face changed. She gave her a look of deep annoyance and beckoned at her.

Sera blinked in surprise. Did she mean… was she indicating…

Get down here. Now.

All right. Sera couldn’t really read lips, but Madam Delora was making it really easy with the exaggerated lip movements and beckoning finger.

Carefully and swiftly, Sera slid back the skylight, dangled from the edge of her fingers—thank god upper body strength was a given in the game, in real life she probably would not have made it—slid it close again, and dropped down to the ground beside Madam Delora.

The woman placidly waved her towards the wicker basket in a corner of the room, then snapped her fingers at the cat who was still mopping up the wine with its bristly tongue. It promptly hustled Sera towards the basket, waited for her to climb in as it whipped its tail, then hopped onto the lid and sat down to begin grooming itself. Sera peered anxiously through the gaps in the wicker, but Madam Delora ignored her and kept lounging in the bath as if she were alone in the room.

“Milady!” the player popped his head down the skylight.

Madam Delora gave an obliging shriek and began to toss bottles of shampoo up at him. “Get out!”

“No, you misunderstand,” the player covered his eyes, “There’s a prisoner on the loose! I heard a sound, I thought someone had accosted you and I came too—”

Thunk!

The woman had good aim, Sera had to admit. Maybe even better than herself.

“How dare you! You’re invading my privacy!”

“Oh come on,” the player replied, holding a head to his cheekbone. “You must have heard the glass breaking!”

“Yes, of course! I fell asleep and dropped my glass of wine,” Madam Delora swept a hand at the broken glass. “That doesn’t give you the right to snoop, you peeping tom!” She began hurling things at him again.

“But, how do I know they didn’t come in here while you were asleep?” Wow. What a tenacious guy. Sera was impressed, considering the amount of bubbles in the tub meant that the player could not possibly be getting a good view of Madam Delora. He must really want to catch her. She shivered and crouched lower in the basket.

“Nothing gets by my Lucifer, does it, Luci,” Madam Delora said in a smooth tone. She snapped her fingers again and suddenly the basket became very confining as it bowed under pressure. Sera frowned as the sides of the basket trembled under the weight of the suddenly humongous sized cat sitting on it. She lifted her hands up to the lid and felt a wide expanse of fur poking through the holes in the basket and a torrent of body heat radiating down towards her. Something released a growl so deep, it sounded like a tiger had entered the room. Sera gulped and removed her hands. Hopefully the basket wouldn’t collapse, she would be completely flattened. “In fact, you’re not likely to get past my dear Luci either.”

Another snap of her fingers and the cat—or was that tiger?—sprang off the wicker basket, sending it rocking to and fro on the floor. Sera squeaked and lowered herself further, hoping to maintain a low center of gravity and remain hidden within it. Lucifer, who had no such qualms about being seen, jumped up onto the rim of the bathtub, then leaped with his jaws open wide, aiming straight for the head of the player where it poked out from the skylight.

With a screech, the player drew back and disappeared. Madam Delora smiled at the frantic patter of footsteps over the roof, and then down the street.

“He’s gone. You can come out now.”

Sera slowly emerged from the basket. “Uh… thank you for that.”

Madam Delora chuckled and began to emerge from the bathtub. Sera turned her back to give her some privacy. She waited until the torrent of dripping water died down and turned to look over her shoulder. Madam Delora was clad in a beautiful burgundy bath robe and holding out a glass of wine to her. “I thought when I first met you, that you were a penniless, brazen, fool who had no idea of the ways of this world. And look what you’ve turned out to be?”

“Uhm…”

“A penniless, brazen, fool on the run from the law,” Madam Delora smiled knowingly as Sera bristled at her. “I could use such a person.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, I am not. I’ve met plenty of people like you. A few have managed to be of use to me, and perhaps you’ll be one of them. Will you accept my quest?”

Quest Alert!

Recommended Level: 3-6

Your unruly ways have caught the eye of Madam Delora. ‘I’ve been wanting to sell a rustic little cottage on the outskirts of Hearthwilde, but the current tenants refuse to leave! I can’t force them out—since we have a contract and I’m such a wonderful landlord—but perhaps you could find a way to convince them that the low rent they pay isn’t quite worth the trouble of living so far out of town and away from civilisation, hmm?

Reward: Your escape from this town and the happiness you’ll feel when you’ve realised what a good deed you’ve done for my tenants. Oh. And the experience you’ll earn from the effort. Accept/Decline.

Evict some poor people because they were clinging to their home and Madam Delora wanted more money? Sera frowned.

“But I’m not yet Level 3,” she replied, trying to decline the quest without provoking the other woman.

“Don’t worry, once you get into the forest, you’ll find lots of opportunities to train,” Madam Delora said with a smirk. “It’s the only way you’ll get out of the town, your current condition being as it is.”

She was right. Sera couldn’t possibly hope to outrun or sneak her way out of town with everyone looking for her. But still, she hesitated. Perhaps there was another way?

“If you’re wondering if there’s an alternative to taking this quest, there isn’t one. Not for you,” Madam Delora said, breaking into her thoughts. “Even if you find a way to defeat Lucifer and leave this room, I’ll report that you were here. And I won’t just stop at notifying the guards. I’ll let those players whose gear and treasure you’ve stolen know exactly who you are and where you’re heading.”

She chuckled at the look on Sera’s face. “Oh, you can’t be that silly? What Level 1 gains so much loot in less than a day? Of course you’ve robbed someone, you’ve got everything dangling off of you. If I were you, I’d take the most valuable things out of that bag and stick them down your boot or some other secret place so someone would at least have to spend time and have scavenging skills to get it off of you. And I’d lose that naivete and scruples. You aren’t going to get far in this world with them.”

Lucifer, who was still in his large form, nuzzled his head against Madam Delora’s hand. She raised her brow and held her fingers up, ready to snap them again in case Sera tried anything funny. “So, do we have a deal?”

Sera sighed and selected Accept. Madam Delora smiled a cheshire grin, then reached out to clink her glass against Sera’s. She drank all her wine in one satisfied gulp.