The trek through the woods wasn’t too challenging, they had a handful of battles, but none were close. Snowy gave them plenty of notice each time an animal was near, and since it was a normal forest biome, they didn’t have to deal with demonic creatures or giant salamanders. Bears, panthers, wolves, and a few snakes were the worst the environment could muster. Esther used her new acid spell to soften their targets while Jace engaged them head-on. Nothing could get through his impenetrable blade, and Esther snuck around behind the animals to backstab them with her new short sword. If they returned her strikes, she got to practice dodging out of the way while holding a shield, which was a new experience. They didn’t take much damage, and when they did, they all had methods to heal quickly.
It took longer than two hours, as they were delayed half a dozen times for fights, but Gracie let them know they were getting close. Jace figured it must be about 3 am, but the sky brightened as they neared their target. Gracie told him that as long as Psycho’s quest was a MIM, it wasn’t on global time and always started at midday. Jace saw the curtain surrounding the module ahead, and the sun emerged behind the darkness of night. He had never seen a sunrise in the middle of the sky before, and he took a few moments to backtrack and proceed again to rewatch the spectacle. As with anything else that proclaimed they were in virtual reality, Esther was programmed not to notice.
When they prepared to breach the module’s border, Jace got a notification about how many players were already inside and a prompt asking if he wanted to join any of them. He didn’t recognize the dozens of names, and they would all have the opportunity to block him if he tried to invite himself into their private sessions; though, if they knew who he was, they would probably jump at the chance. He declined and led his group into the elven forest.
The entry point was a disaster. It was blurred through the curtain, but now he could see charred and hacked-apart trees, green and red blood scattered on the ground, with torn pieces of clothing and equipment lying in piles. There were no bodies. Instead, animal tracks obvious enough for Jace to see crisscrossed the war zone where predators had hauled away the remains.
“What happened here?” Esther asked. The way she said it sounded scripted, and he imagined this module might trigger several utterances from his NPC companion.
“The elves and orcs fought,” Jace said. He had explained it all to Esther before but wanted to ensure he played this module correctly. He was here to solve it, not break it for a change, so he wanted to go by the book. “The portal to the elvish homeland must be near.”
They followed the path of carnage, Snowy with her nose to the ground giving out needless directions until they came to a small clearing that didn’t look as ravaged. A thick tangle of brush and trees stood at the far side and looked impenetrable, but several tracks disappeared into it. Jace guessed the portal had been opened here, directly before the thicket. He saw two carved tree trunks, one on either side of the foliage wall, and moved closer to examine one. It stood four feet high, with an angled cut, so he looked at a 45-degree cross-section. Intricate carvings decorated the two-foot-wide stump with an oval depression in the middle. Jace retrieved the mana stone Psycho had given him and held it up to the wood. The emerald gem would fit perfectly in the depression, and he felt magic tugging it from his hand. He tightened his grip on the stone and then handed it to Esther.
“It’s best if you carry this,” he said. “And it is time to get into uniform.”
Esther rolled her eyes, stowed the stone into her gem bag, and switched clothes to the brown dress. Jace had let the enchantment on his necklace expire on their march through the woods, seeing no reason to waste mana on it, and handed it to Esther. They traded, and he took her Athletic medallion. Esther first disguised the illusion necklace so it looked more like the elf maiden’s pendant. It wasn’t an exact copy, but it was close enough, and if Psycho could magically examine her, he would sense the actual item in her inventory. Esther retrieved the pendant, squeezed it in her hand, and closed her eyes as she fell into the illusion magic and began transforming her appearance. Since she didn’t need to worry about the clothing, she poured all her energy into her physical form.
Jace watched her features reduce. She grew shorter, her muscles slimmed, and her figure fattened. Her hair changed to brown, her skin darkened to light olive, and when she opened her eyes, they were green. She looked up at Jace. “How’d I do?”
“You are a beautiful elf,” he said.
She looked down at herself and shrugged in indifference. “If you say so. You and Psycho are the only males I’ve met who aren’t infatuated with my appearance. I guess that won’t hold now.”
“Just remember,” Jace said. “You are supposed to be his sister. I don’t want to sound like Gromphy, but you better not try to seduce him. Understand?”
Esther gave him a sly smile. “You are no fun.” The level 20 charm she had memorized was an All-In spell, and without an excess of mana from feeding, it would cost her entire pool, so she didn’t want to try and use it.
“Snowy,” Jace said, turning to his wolf. “Psycho should have been here before. In the original version of the module, this is where he found his sister’s pendant.”
The wolf barked an affirmative and started hunting around for the smell. Snowy had met the elf over a week ago in Ironfel, but she would never forget his scent. The mixture of orc and elf was unique. A few moments later, she barked again and started off to the north, following a narrow trail.
{Or, I could have just told you where to go,} Gracie said. {I didn’t get a chance to play this one before Drescher broke it, but I have all the walkthroughs right in front of me.}
“Sorry,” Jace said. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, but I wanted to try and solve at least one module in the game the right way, and we will be going off-script pretty soon. Still, let me know if I am about to do anything stupid.”
Gracie bit her tongue as a dozen sarcastic replies flew through her head.
Jace initiated the Follow ability on Snowy, so he could go into his inventory without stopping. He stored Diamond Etcher and got out his tower shield and the explosive axe. He wasn’t proficient with the weapon, would suffer a -10 penalty if he used it, and couldn’t do crits, but it was more fitting for an orc. Etcher looked out of place on a monster’s hip. He took advantage of his cloak’s ability to store a few things outside his inventory and then returned to the forest path.
Jace briefly reviewed his plan with Esther to ensure she knew the scenario and what was expected of her. Hopefully, Psycho didn’t want to reminisce too much, but if he did, maybe the module would prompt Esther with the correct responses.
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“Let me know when we are getting close to his hideout,” Jace said. “I don’t want our first interaction to be an arrow through my skull.”
{You’re likely to get that whether you want it or not,} Gracie replied. {Not too many players approach Psycho looking like an orc.}
Jace acknowledged it was a risk, but he was walking beside someone that looked like the archer’s sister, so he hoped it would buy him a chance.
{You’re within 500 feet now,} Gracie advised. {He could shoot at any time.}
“Snowy,” the orc called. “Run ahead through the woods. Try to be quiet and sneak up on Psycho from a different angle.” The wolf acknowledged and disappeared into the trees off to the left. At level 16, Snowy was finally bigger than when Jace had first met her, and slinking through the woods was not the large winter wolf’s forte. Still, Jace had seen Psycho’s character sheet, and he had spent all his skills and character points on killing things. He didn’t have great perception or animal awareness. He could probably see them already, and the chance he would take his eyes off an orc leading his sister to examine a rustling in the woods was minimal.
Jace hung his axe on his belt, not wanting to look armed, and he told Esther to swing her arms freely so it was obvious she wasn’t shackled or restrained in any way. In the distance, he began to see irregular shapes emerging in the forest, and a massive tree house was taking form. Psycho would be near the top with a clear line of sight on the path they walked. Jace had survived an arrow shot at 400 feet before, but that had been while Psycho had been using Rapid Fire, which gave a -10 to each attack. Now he would be using Aim, which added ten, and firing from the shadows, adding another 38 at least. He didn’t know if the archer’s hideout gave him any bonuses. And, if he shot from the shadows, Jace wouldn’t see it coming, so he couldn’t react. With that thought, he raised his shield, forcing him to slow his walk.
He couldn’t see around the shield, so he took a few glances to pick a spot on the ground about 400 feet from the distant fort and cast a Summon Stone spell he had designed earlier. It cost a lot of mana and created a 50-foot sidewalk from the center of the path sideways into the woods. Jace had enough mana left to cast his Armor totem at the far end of the stone path and picked up his pace, so he was soon standing on his creation. His Mana Generation jumped from 14 to 24, and he felt a strong connection with his magic again. The stone shaman did not like being in a forest.
“Nal Saikol Gladekin!” Jace yelled, but it only came out as a harsh whisper. He tried again, but with the same result.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Esther said, her volume fine. “Would you like me to try?”
{You can’t converse through a raised shield,} Gracie said. {You need to lower it if you want to shout at him. You can’t do anything through a raised shield except defend.}
Jace could reach out to his familiar, and he asked if she had eyes on the elf yet. Psycho was hiding in the shadows, but that didn’t stop Snowy if she had someone’s scent.
she replied after a few moments.
Jace slowly lowered the shield and peered out into the distance. It was like looking from one endzone grandstand to the other, but instead of a clear football field, he had to look through leaves and branches. But with Snowy’s help, he could just see a shadowed figure high in the trees 400 feet away. If he tried to attack from the shadows now, Jace would have the initiative and time to raise his shield.
“Nal Saikol Gladekin!” Jace yelled again. This time his orc voice boomed through the forest. “I come in peace. I have freed your sister from the orcs who held her. I am not with them. I wish to talk with you.”
His response was an arrow streaking through the air. Jace saw it and raised his shield, catching the projectile in the center. He had to lower it again to talk. “Please! Don’t shoot. I only want to talk.”
Another arrow.
“Nal!” Esther shouted. Jace had heard Psycho refer to his sister as only Mur, so he hoped the shortened use of their names was shared between them, and he had coached Esther. “Nal, stop it! I am unharmed. We can trust this orc. Come down and talk.”
No arrow this time. Instead, Jace watched the figure in the distant perch hesitate and then move about until he disappeared. Jace guessed he was coming down a ladder or stairs to ground level. A minute later, the elf appeared on the forest floor, still at a great distance. “Mur!” he shouted. “Is it really you?”
A few sarcastic responses flipped through the woman’s mind, but she settled with, “Yes, it is. Come here so we can talk.”
“Why are you with an orc? Why haven’t you killed him?”
Jace imagined that if an orc had rescued the real Mur Calumis, saying that she could trust him and that he would bring her back to her brother, as soon as they were away from the orc encampment, she would have killed her rescuer, no questions asked. Jace hadn’t considered this hole in their plan.
“I trust him,” Esther said. “He killed several of the orcs when we escaped. And cast healing spells on me. He returned my weapons and armor the other orcs had taken and hasn’t touched me since. If he meant us harm, would he have done any of that?” Esther was a much better liar than Jace was.
“He is not from their tribe,” she continued, telling the truth, or at least the story Jace had given her. “He has come to kill them. I can sense that he is truthful.”
“I don’t trust orcs,” he said, walking forward slowly, his bow raised and loaded. While he was still outside the weapon’s natural range, Jace thought he should be able to raise his shield in defense. But once he got inside 100 feet, the level 20 archer would have initiative, and Jace didn’t know what would happen. “It is a trick.”
“No,” Esther continued. “I have the stone,” since she now wore a longer dress, the game simulated her gem pouch on her hip, and she pulled the glowing teal stone out and held it up. “He wants to help us kill these orcs. Then we can call back our people.”
At the sight of the mana stone, Psycho faltered. He was 200 feet away now, close enough to properly analyze the illusion being cast in his presence. He failed. Critically.
“Mur, is it really you?” His bow lowered slightly. “I had lost hope. I thought you were . . .”
Esther ran to him. Psycho lowered his weapon completely now and caught his sister in his arms. He was nearly a foot taller and yanked her off the ground in a firm embrace, his muscled arms bulging under his green, sleeveless tunic. While he bore a resemblance to the elf maiden in his arms, to Jace, it was obvious something was different. The hug lasted a few seconds, and then Psycho released her and picked up his bow again. “Why shouldn’t I kill him? He’s an orc.”
“He wants to help us kill the orcs,” Esther said again.
“You and I can handle them,” he replied.
“I have this,” Jace said, reaching into his cloak with his free hand and pulling out his own green gem. It was the life stone he had gotten from the lich’s lair. “You can use it to restore your forest.”
Psycho’s aim faltered a little in the presence of the powerful magical item. Since he had focused all his talents on combat, his magical abilities, especially concerning the forest around him, would never have allowed him to restore the burnt and torn trees. His hesitation was only momentary, however. “I can kill you and take the stone off your corpse.”
Jace surprised everyone by tossing his shield aside and raising his arms wide in open invitation. “Then do so. I have come here for a purpose. I rescued your sister, and she trusts me. My god sent me here to bring justice to these wayward orcs that have invaded your home. It is not our way to live in the trees. We belong in the mountains and hills. Thor Shorshth is misguided and must be corrected.” Jace realized he should have practiced saying the leader’s name with this orc mouth. He almost cut his tongue on a tusk. “My god demands an orc, not an elf, carry out his vengeance. I come here to garner your trust to allow me to operate without fear of an arrow in the back. If that trust cannot be earned, so be it.”
Esther reached a hand up to Psycho’s arm to pull it down, but he was strong. In reality, the vampire could easily wrestle the weapon out of his hands, but she thought it might be a bad idea.
“You speak well for an orc, and I cannot deny that you have rescued my sister whom I have been searching for, but . . .” He paused. “Is the wolf in the trees yours?”
Jace nodded.
“She speaks highly of you as well.” Finally, the archer’s arms relaxed, and he lowered his bow. “If I find you are lying, you will get that arrow in the back. What is your plan?”