I reminded Lithia that the quest reward included no gold, I had none of my own to offer, and I was drastically under levelled and out of practice - but she said she did not care. We agreed on splitting the XP, and at my insistence, a free item of her choice from the store.
The first hurdle was that I had no clue how to track down an orc. Before this I’d only ever accepted quests with location makers, or with more experienced adventurers who led the way. Initially I assumed that a stake-out was the only logical option, but it turned out Rockburg had multiple shops that might buy a black market relic - a fact that didn't particularly put me at ease.
And so, I found myself meeting a vampire ranger at midnight.
“Chin up Fanwen!” Lithia assured me. “I wouldn’t associate with anyone too unsurly, I promise you. Plus, Kragen owes me a favor.”
Easy for her to say - it was elven blood highly known to be a vampire’s favorite, not goblin.
Kragen met us at the fountain in town square. During the day, it was highly populated, as people often made wishes before the start of a quest by throwing the coins in the water. Now it was just us, and a couple rebellious kids clearly proud to be out after curfew, splashing water and laughing. They ran the second the vampire down next to us.
I jumped, for I hadn't seen him approach, but most vampires used [Shadow Walk] pretty consistently. "You summoned?” Hid voice was monotone. He wore a hood covering up the majority of his face, but I still saw a bit of fang as he spoke, as well as a slight red tent to his brown eyes, which he was using to glare at Lithia.
She laughed, not put off by his demeanor at all. “Sorry to drag you away from your evening recreation, but if you remember, after that close call in the mountains, you said you’d owe me a favor.”
He glanced at me, and then back to her. I urged my heart rate to slow down, as vampires had heightened hearing, but he paid no mind. “Yes, which I assumed you would correctly save for a time of peril, not a casual night-time chat.”
Lithia shrugged. “You’re the only high-level ranger I know, and we need to find someone.”
He sighed. “Get on if with it, then.”
She filled him in on the nature of our quest and then handed him the scroll from my journal.
He reviewed it carefully and then cast [Locate Target]. After a moment, the scroll began to glow and the coordinates loaded themself neatly to the bottom of the paper. “Is that all?” He handed it back to us, sounded utterly bored of the whole thing. I urged myself to say thank you, but couldn't get the words out, still staring at his fangs.
“You could always come help,” Lithia teased. “Another fight for old time’s sake!”
He scoffed. “I have no interest in assisting the church, as would the be answer you would receive from any of my kind. But you already knew that." He finally acknowledged me. “Careful, this one has no sense for detecting danger. But she’s a decent battle partner, none the less.” He almost smiled. “Regardless, remember we are now even.” And then he was gone, faster then I could blink.
“How did you get a vampire to owe you a favor anyway?” I asked, catching my breath a bit from the encounter.
“Ah, that’s a story for our next drink at the Torchlight,” she responded with a casual shrug. “Go on now, where’s our mark?
The new line on the bottom of the paper read: [Location - X 320 Y 25]. But…
“It keeps moving,” I realized. “How odd.”
Lithia laughed. “Oh yeah, this is your first quest without a marker. That’s because this isn’t as set in stone, this is the actual location of an individual. But the important thing is we’ve got it, and if memory serves, the priest was right and this was is right outside of Rockburg. See you in the morning?”
I nodded, putting the scroll back in my inventory. “In the morning.”
**
I woke up to Rune walking across my face. It’s not like I’d had a particularly restful night any way - I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a quest I was so underlevelled for, if ever. I kept having the same dream - I would go to the window in front of the shop to turn the sign from “closed” to “open” and suddenly an orc was punching the window, the glass spreading everywhere as the townsfolk pointed and whispered among each other. Enos was even there, shaking his head in the corner, as if my failure came earlier then even he expected.
Lithia however, was nothing but smiles that morning as we shared some fruit in the store and packed our supplies for the trip. “Orcs are easy business, you’ll see," she assured me. "They tend to go it alone in the cities to not draw attention to themselves, and they’re truly more reasonable then people give them credit for. In fact one time-”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
We began our journey to Rockburg as Lithia told me a vaguely believable story about how her and her brother convinced an orc to let a farmer go who had accidently stolen some of their cows, confusing them with his own. The most interesting part of the tale to me was the inclusion of Enos, back “before he was a prick.”
The Enos in this story was helpful, and seemed more worried about getting the farmer home safe then people even knowing he was involved, offering his half of the quest rewards to the man’s family, who hadn’t been able to start the harvest in his absencce, and were struggling to get by. That certainly didn’t sound like the man I had met. What had changed?
The day at least, was nice, and the road uneventful. After a couple hours, we reached Rockburg and the fog on that area of my map began to clear. The town was smaller than Windglen, and then buildings needed a bit more restoration, but it wasn’t as unscrupulous as I had initially worried. There were the normal stream of townsfolk walking about, and even a quest board, albeit smaller.
“Alright, those coordinates ready?”
I nodded, showing Lithia the scroll. Yes, not too far from last night's spot, he was probably in an inn.” I matched up the location with the newly unveiled ones on my map. “That places him at…” I paused, not believing my eyes at first. “Apparently our orc is getting a cup of tea?”
She grinned. “See, I told you, more reasonable then you think. No one unreasonable bothers to drink tea.”
The tea shop , a converted cottage with bright blue trim, was luckily quite populated, with over half the tables full. It also featured large windows and was therefore brightly lit. Maybe we’d get lucky, and with my decently high charisma score and Lithia’s confidence, we’d get out of the whole venture without any combat at all. I certainly hadn't expected to have this encounter in such a non-threatening location.
The orc grunted as we approached, lifting a cup that was absolutely too small for him. “I’m busy, 'aite?”
We sat down anyway. Since this was a quest involving persuasion, there were a few recommended dialogue options automatically populated, based on my charisma level and the summary from the quest scroll. One of them was threatening, which I of course avoided. I decide to select: [“We’re merchants interested in some of our more…rare offerings.”]
I showed my summary card, since my profession would help would match my story. He didn't need to know I only sold things I crafted myself.
The orc put down his cup. “What makes you think I’ve got anything?”
“We know people who know things,” Lithia responded confidently, although her sentence was rather nonsensical. “And they tell us you do.”
“And you got gold? Lots of it?” He asked, still clearly suspicious.
“Would we really approach you if we didn’t?” I was surprised by how confident I sounded. My father had always told me that if you needed to use deception, it was better to do so without lying at all. We certainly didn’t have the kind of gold he was inquiring about, but I was hoping a little temporary cloning magic was going to finally come in handy. It was one of the tactics Lithia and I had discussed on the walk over.
“What you looking for exactly?” He pulled his large bag closer to him, as if guarding it.
“Oh well, any spiritual goblet would do really, the older the better.” I kept my tone casual as I could.
After seemingly taking a moment to assess if we were suspicious or not, he grunted and started to look through his bag.
Suddenly I saw a [Poison] option appear over the orc’s tea cup. Poison? I didn't have anything like that on me. Regardless, I realized I had to move quickly, with no way to alert Lithia of the changing plan. I was certainly no alchemist, but something in my inventory was triggering this. So I pressed the pop-up.
A small selection box came up, showing the corresponding item:
[Item: Passion Flower
Type: Consumable
Effect: When combined with tea, Passion Flower leads the drinker to fall asleep for somewhere between 1-5 real-time minutes, varying based on size and constitution of the drinker.]
I could hardly believe our luck. I had only picked up the passion flower because it could also be turned into a beautiful purple dye I liked using on scarves. I had forgotten it was even still in my inventory and not a chest back at the store. I double selected it, watching the flower fall into the drinks and disperse quickly as the orc partly pulled the goblet out of his bag, so it peeked out, but was not completely visible. It matched the image the priest had included on the quest scroll/
Lithia raised her eyebrow, clearly having noticed my move, but she wouldn’t have seen the same interface as me to know exactly the effect, just a quick flash of the flower as it fell in. Clearly I was on my own now.
“Yes, that looks exquisite,” I said. “Could we…see the whole thing? And then of course, we can discuss your price.”
The orc frowned. “I’m not dumping my black market items in the middle of a blasted tea shop, we need to go to the alley to make the exchange. Let me throw this out-”
That was the last thing I wanted. “Oh, of course, the alley. But first, we’ve got to have a drink of this tea ourselves, I mean we’ve come so far! Go ahead, finish yours off, Lithia, would you pick us something?” I gestured towards the front counter, trying not to sound too eager.
She nodded and stood up, leaving me alone with the orc, who grunted once again. “I mean might as well get my money’s worth I ‘spose,” taking another sip. He didn't seem to notice the very slight purple smoke that now emitted from the drink.
His head fell to the table almost instantly and started snoring. I jumped up and grabbed the goblet, ignoring the stares of the other patrons. Mostly people didn't trust orcs, so no one was likely to intervene. “LITHIA, time to go!”
She laughed, leaving the line and rushing over to me. “You sly dog! Why didn’t you tell me you had sleeping draught on you in the first place?”
A timer had appeared above the orc’s head, very quickly counting down the time until he woke back up.
“That’s a story for our next drink at the Torchlight,” I yelled. “Now let’s go!”
And so we ran from the tea shop in Rockburg with a twice stolen religious artifact from a sleeping orc.