Psycho, Draya, and Snowy stepped away from the travel node and into Neverspring. NPCs could only travel to areas they had been to or where another player personally invited them. Psycho had been here before, and he didn’t have fond memories of the city.
The cold wind whipped at the characters with a bite that reminded the elven archer of an orc’s axe. He pulled his cloak tighter against him, wishing it had a hood. Beside him, Draya engaged the curse on her magic dress, and the red gems pulsed with mana as it dealt 100 points of damage to the young woman once every six seconds. The dragonkin mage absorbed the fire without a thought, allowing it to heat her against the chill. Snowy was a winter wolf and preferred the icy gusts.
Psycho grumbled to himself when he saw his companions effortlessly adjust to the harsh climate. The ranger had a reputation for being surly and short-tempered. That attitude had shifted in the past week since he had joined Jace Thorne’s party, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to laugh. Now, his hard stare returned as he trudged through the sparse streets, leading the group toward a large building on the edge of the town.
The ease with which he reverted to his old self had much to do with their destination. Neverspring wasn’t a large city in the realms and had only one real claim to fame. Debauchery could be found in many different flavors and styles all through the Realms of Infamy, but as in the real world, it often focused on exploiting beautiful women for men’s entertainment. Neverspring boasted one of the few establishments that turned that stereotype around. Psycho would have preferred a meeting place just about anywhere else.
“Anna’s Frozen Bananas,” Draya said as they approached the large building, reading the sign above the main door. It was built in the classical style of a Viking longhouse, a simple rectangular structure made of logs and pitch with a steeply angled roof covered in snow. Smoke rose from several chimneys, promising a warm environment inside.
“Do they serve frozen desserts here?” Draya asked. “I love a good banana split with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Though, it hardly seems like that would be a big draw in a place like this.” She looked around at the piles of snow everywhere.
“They don’t serve frozen desserts,” Psycho said. “However, they do have chocolate sauce and whipped cream. You might never see those things in the same light after your experience here. I’m warning you.”
Draya stopped walking and looked hard at the mysterious elf. “Why? Are they really good here? Maybe I should come back and bring Esther.”
Now Psycho stopped. He focused his eyes narrowly on the young woman. “Promise me you will never bring Esther here. Never tell her or Jace that I brought you here. Understood?”
Draya had become too comfortable around the broad-shouldered ranger to be frightened by the elf’s gaze, but she softened her eager expectations and nodded.
“Good,” the elf replied and continued toward the door of the building. “Just remember, it wasn’t my choice to come here.”
Two burly barbarians stood guard at the door, wearing far too little given the winter weather. They gave Psycho and Draya hardly a glance but did linger on the enormous winter wolf. Snowy was refused entry into many indoor establishments, but Anna’s Frozen Bananas was pretty loose on the rules, and the men didn’t prevent the characters from entering.
Once inside, Psycho felt instant relief as the warm, fragrant air washed over him, but then the sights and sounds assaulted him, and he hunkered deeper into his cloak. With Draya’s dress providing her heat, she didn’t notice the temperature change, but her other senses were quickly dialed to overload.
The vast hall was filled with tables of raucous men and women, but mostly women, waving frothy mugs in the air and screaming obscenities. Several more barbarians, dressed in little more than loincloths, moved about the tables, miraculously balancing drinks and food on large platers with one hand while fending off the voracious women with the other. Draya couldn’t deny the attractive qualities of the men, with their chiseled upper bodies and long blond and white hair, but she did think the women were being a bit excessive. Then her eyes moved to the front, where a four-foot-high stage spanned the width of the building.
“Oh my . . .” she gasped, one hand covering her mouth while the other went to shield her eyes. “What are they doing?” She turned away from the gyrating performers on stage yet tried to look past her red hair and splayed fingers. “Where have you taken me?”
“To Anna’s Frozen Bananas,” Psycho said dryly. “I already told you this wasn’t my idea.” Psycho let the young woman deal with the sights before her while he looked for their contact. He had gone to Safe Haven yesterday and talked with several people about what he needed. They were each curious why Jace wasn’t with him, but they had helped him out and eventually directed him to a man named Jasper. He was a human PC fighter at level 11. He agreed to help Psycho get what he wanted and set up this meeting.
Psycho found the man toward the back of the room, far from the stage where few people sat. He sat positioned with a view of the entry without having to look at the action up front. Psycho made eye contact with him, and the man raised his mug in greeting, unable to call out to the elf over the noise in the room. “Let’s go,” Psycho said as he moved toward Jasper. He noticed that only Snowy followed him, and he had to reach out and grab the shocked woman. Draya was too busy playing reluctant peek-a-boo with the dancers at the opposite end of the building.
The ranger dragged the mage behind him as he dexterously wove between the rowdy patrons and girthy waiters until he found some breathing room next to Jasper’s table. “Glad you could make it,” the human said, offering his hand in greeting to Psycho. The surly elf didn’t take it.
“Of all the places in the realms, you chose this one to meet,” he said, guiding Draya into a seat facing away from the stage. She continued to toss glances over her shoulder and shuddered with a mixture of revulsion and awe each time.
“You wanted the most powerful ice core in the game,” Jasper replied as Psycho took a seat. “Of course, I was going to bring you to Neverspring, a land magically kept in a perpetual winter.”
“I was hoping for a fight with an ice dragon,” Psycho replied. “But even so, surely there are other meeting places in this town. Why here?”
“This is where you have to go to initiate the module,” Jasper explained. He was only level 11, but this was his third character in the game; the previous two got to the high teens before they were killed. He was a game veteran, and while he was a bit in awe of one of the most famous NPCs, he wouldn’t let Psycho intimidate him. “I didn’t take you here for cheap thrills. Though,” his eyes wavered toward Draya, “your companion seems to be getting a kick out of it.”
Draya had lost much of her inhibition as her gaze settled on one of the dancers who had moved directly onto a table of three women. True to Psycho’s prediction, one of the women had a ladle of melted chocolate while another had a piping bag of whipped cream. They attended to the dancer while the third woman . . .
“Draeklynn Ember!” Psycho growled.
The young woman spun in her seat and looked between the other men. “Sorry,” she said. “I know we are here for business. I just . . .”
Psycho cut her off with a look. “We are here for Jace. You need to focus.”
“Yes,” Jasper said, “where is your leader? I was hoping to meet him.”
Psycho wondered how much he should tell this player. During their last major fight, the group had killed a lava-spewing monster that should have been beyond their fighting abilities. Jace had executed a perfect plan to take it out, and Gromphy, their goblin crafter, had harvested the mana core from the creature. It produced stone mana, which Jace, as a stone shaman, could use effectively, but it was also intertwined with volcanic mana, and the fire would kill Jace as soon as he tried to access the core. They needed ice magic to negate it.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Gromphy had suggested that Esther go hunt down several minor ice creatures so they could harvest those cores, but when Jace wasn’t in the game, the vampire rogue was never in their stronghold for long, often going out on her own missions and adventures, and Psycho wanted to complete this task himself. He was the best archer in the game and could hunt and kill anything the realms had to offer, but Gromphy had insisted he needed an active ice core, which meant the creature had to be living.
Powerful monsters like dragons or the armadillion they had faced had cores that would resonate power for weeks after they were killed, but smaller, more accessible monsters would lose their potency quickly after death. Psycho didn’t feel confident he could hunt down and trap multiple ice monsters without killing them, so instead, he went to Safe Haven and asked about the game’s most powerful ice core.
Gromphy had also told Psycho not to tell Jace about this. The goblin still wasn’t sure how he could fashion the armadillion’s mana core into something his master could use, and he also knew that Jace only went on sanctioned missions, so something exploratory like this probably wouldn’t be approved. Gromphy and Psycho were pretty aware of the game they were in but had no idea how the CIA operated in Jace’s dimension, so they felt it best to handle this mission on their own.
“He has more important things to do,” Psycho explained, returning to Jasper’s question. “Now tell us about this ice core. Is this a dangerous mission? How powerful is it?”
Jasper took a long drink from his ale before responding. “I’ve known very few people who have died attempting this module. In a previous life, I did it once to see if I could pass it, and I was never in any danger.”
“Wait,” Psycho grew suddenly cross. “You tried to pass it but failed?”
“Well, yes. No one has fully passed this module yet. That is why the ice core is still available.” Jasper saw the angry look on the elf’s face and refused to be intimidated. “Look. You asked for the most powerful ice core in the game. Are there other powerful magical ice items out there? Yes, but they are either at the end of SIMs that have already been completed or part of MIMs and are thus not as powerful. Unless you want to kill some random PC so you can loot their valuable items, my only option is to offer you a module no one has completed yet. That’s why I was kind of hoping you would bring Jace. He has a knack for solving puzzles no one else can.”
Psycho bristled at the implication that he couldn’t also find a way through complicated modules. But he knew Jace was on another level. He also knew the difference between a SIM (Single Instance Module) and a MIM (Multiple Instance Module). Virtually every MIM out there had been completed hundreds of times, and any experienced player could find a walkthrough to guide them safely to the end. But because of that, the loot for those was nothing special. The type of item Psycho was looking for would only exist at the end of a SIM. And with a Single Instance Module, once someone completed it, their finished version was locked into the game, and no one else could attempt it.
There were ways to reset SIMs by killing the NPCs involved or destroying or deleting the unique magical items found in them. Psycho knew he was the loot from his own SIM, and Jace had reset that by convincing the elf to kill himself. While Psycho didn’t wholly understand Jace’s purpose in the game, he knew that if he went out and killed other PCs to steal their stuff, it would create a ton of strife for his leader.
Psycho eventually nodded toward Jasper. “Okay, so what is this module, and why is it so difficult that no one has passed it?”
Jasper smiled. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? We are in a land that is trapped in a never-ending winter. The owner of this club is a woman named Anna. Isn’t it obvious? This is the movie Frozen.”
Psycho gave him a blank stare. “What’s Frozen?”
Draya matched his look. “What’s a movie? Is that why this place is called the Frozen Banana?”
Jasper slapped his forehead. “Sorry, guys. I forgot who I was talking to. You aren’t from my dimension. Many of the modules in this game . . . uh . . . in the realms are based on tales and legends from my world. Frozen is a children’s story about two sisters who . . .”
“This is based on a children’s story!” Draya shouted. She took an opportunity to look back over her shoulder where two of the female patrons had joined one of the men on stage and were . . . she had to look away again.
“No,” Jasper was quick to clarify. “This building is just the realms being infamous. It is not in the children’s version. But the idea of a land being locked in perpetual winter is.” He paused and tried to think of the best way to explain it. “You know, why don’t I just have Anna tell you.” He looked up from the table and gestured toward one of the few women moving about the establishment who was not singularly focused on the activity on stage.
Psycho had picked out this unique woman a while ago, always alert to his surroundings. She had been moving through the tables methodically, usually laughing and joking with the women but also frequently sitting down and having a serious conversation with a table of adventurers. Now, she was at a nearby table talking lively with a few women who happened to be pointing toward their table. Anna made eye contact with Psycho and smiled but also saw Jasper waving her over, and she made a quick trek over to their table.
“Nice to have you folks here in out of the cold. I hope we are doing an ample job warming you up on this chilly day. However, you might want a table further up. It gives a better view. Seems like your fiery lass would appreciate that.”
“What?” Draya said. “No, I just . . . I mean . . .”
Anna put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, girl. A little curiosity never hurt anyone. Any of my men strike your fancy? For a small donation, I can have one of them make a personal visit.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Psycho said. “We are just here for information.”
Anna turned a speculative look at Psycho. “Are you now? So, it isn’t like last time?”
Draya was suddenly laser-focused on Psycho. “Last time? You’ve been here before?”
“He certainly was,” Anna smiled. “He put on quite the performance.”
“Performance?” Draya asked.
Anna was lucky the Frozen Banana was a combat-free zone, or she would have received an arrow through the chest. As it was, Psycho’s stare nearly killed her. “That was different,” he said coldly.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Anna replied. “A few of the women present saw you come in. There’s a hefty sum of gold requesting you up on stage. You don’t have to take everything off like last time, but if you do, I think I can collect close to 1,200 gold.”
“Everything off!” Draya was beside herself.
“I was enslaved by Drescher,” Psycho growled, referencing his old master that Jace had killed. “I came here with his mage and priestess. They used mind control spells on me.”
Draya didn’t know what to say.
“Red,” Psycho stressed, “if you breathe a word of this to Esther, I will turn you into a pin cushion in your sleep. I will have Gromphy craft an adamantium sarcophagus for you and toss you in the deepest ocean. I will . . .”
“Ahem,” Jasper said to interrupt. “Anna, why is it always cold here? Will spring ever come?”
The words transformed the worldly business owner into a shy, frightened young woman who took a quick seat at their table and seemed to shiver despite the balmy temperature of the building. “It’s my sister,” she said in a hushed tone. “Elsa did this.”
Psycho and Draya ceased their fight, and all eyes turned toward their guest, evaluating her appearance for the first time. Anna had blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and long, strawberry-blonde hair tied into two braided pigtails. She had a streak of platinum-blonde on the right side of her head.
“Ever since we were children,” she continued, “Elsa had always had a propensity for magic, especially with ice and snow. It was fun to make snowmen and go ice skating in the summer, but her powers started to scare us as we got older. After our parents died, her demeanor changed, and she became very protective. People kept their distance from her, and I knew she felt alone. I promised I would never leave her, but when Hans proposed, I think she thought I was leaving her too. She lashed out in anger and did this.” Anna pointed to the streak of white hair.
“Her magic almost killed me, and I feel the chill in my heart even now. I am weaker all the time and this cold. . .” she coughed. “I don’t know how much longer I can last. Please tell me you will help me.”
Jasper nodded sincerely. “That is exactly why we are here. Please tell us where we can find your sister.”
“Elsa ran away after she attacked me. She went up the mountain, and that is when the land froze. We haven’t had a day above freezing since. I can feel it in my soul. Please go up to her. Convincer her to release us from the spell and save our land.”
“We will,” Jasper said. He got notifications that he was initiating a quest but didn’t bother sharing them with the NPCs.
“What about Hans?” Draya asked, having been drawn into the story.
Anna turned to her. “We’ve delayed the wedding until all this is sorted, but . . .” Suddenly, the young woman’s demeanor shifted back to the confident business owner from before. She sat up as she exited the scripted portion of her character, and any sign of weakness or chill left her. “But he works here now. He’s actually on in a few minutes. You should stay. He’s our top banana, if you know what I mean.”
“Banana?” Draya repeated slowly, and then the eureka moment hit her. “That’s what it means! Oh my!”
Psycho saw the script was over and turned to Jasper. “Do we need anything else here?”
The human shook his head.
“Good, then let’s leave.” He stood from the table and reached for Draya. He missed. She wanted to stay and see Hans. “Red, we are going.” He grabbed again, latched onto Draya’s arm, and dragged her back out into the cold.