The scene inside the bookstore was very different from before.
A body lay on the ground, torn apart by some horrific beast. Several shelves lay topped over with hundreds of books strewn about. Broken glass, pieces of wood, and several weapons decorated the floor. And to top it off, it looked like Jackson Pollock had lost an argument with a bucket of red paint. Beside her, Wallace heard Vithium gag. She would react the same way in real life but was too experienced in the realms to let this bother her.
Three men stood around the gruesome scene, two of them clearly city guards. The third looked like an officer and barked orders to the other NPCs to stand clear of the blood and not touch anything. Wallace and Vithium had entered the store before the officer had opened the door to ask for help. One was typically drawn into this quest by hearing the man call out into the streets that they had found a dead body and needed help identifying him. The officer would do this every thirty seconds until someone responded. In a city like Mizzeray, calls like this were common, making this quest look like one of the other generic offerings. Wallace beat him to the punch, ensuring no other PCs would be alerted to the reset.
Once Wallace and Vithium left this store, the scene would reset, and he would start calling again. Hopefully, it would take a while for another PC to respond to that call, and when they did, Wallace counted on it being a random person who was just out looking for a quest rather than someone familiar with this specific module. If it was the first, they could take at least fifteen minutes solving this opening scene, giving Wallace and Vithium the head start they needed.
“Thank you for responding to my call,” the officer said, his script not programmed to handle such an early entry into the building. “I don’t know how we are supposed to identify this body. Do you know whose shop this is?”
{There is a ledger in a safe behind the main counter,} Brodie advised. He had the walkthrough open on one of his screens. {An average lock pick check will open it, but since neither of you has that skill, you can find a key on a chain around the dead guy’s neck. Ugh. Avoid the entrails.}
Wallace wondered if Vithium’s operator was as helpful as she walked past the body and pretended to search behind the front counter, finding the safe immediately. “There is a locked safe back here. Vithy, see if that guy has a key around his neck.”
The monk scowled at the nickname but went about the key-extraction process anyway. After a few bloody fingerprints and a controlled gag, he had a chain off the man’s neck and tossed the dripping necklace toward the paladin. Wallace let the gore-covered jewelry bang against the wall behind her before deftly snatching the key and opening the safe. The ledger was inside. After a few moments of inspection, Wallace had a name. “He is Garrison Hamley. He’s owned this shop for several years.”
“You don’t say,” the officer said. “He’s Albert Hamley’s nephew. He died two nights ago under similar circumstances but lives out in the country. People just assumed it was a wolf.” Many three-toed footprints covered the wooden floor.
“This wasn’t a wolf,” Vithium said. “It was something else.”
“Maybe the creature that got Albert was something else too,” the chief guard offered. He turned to look at Wallace, still going through the ledger. “Any evidence Garrison here was into dark magic? Maybe he summoned this thing. I believe he’s the son of Lord Byron Hamley, a powerful local mage who died about a year ago.”
“That’s a lot of dead Hamleys,” Wallace said, steering the conversation in the direction it needed to go. “Maybe something is after them.”
“Could be, could be,” the officer said, stepping back from the eviscerated remains now that he thought a summoned demon might be involved. “People said Lord Byron was involved in some unholy work. Nothing you could prove, I think, and his money was good all over town, so no one complained too much. But especially once he died, people started to talk. Now this. His brother was killed two nights ago by a beast, and one of his sons . . .”
“His oldest son,” Wallace interjected, closing the ledger and putting it in the safe. “Are there any other children?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
The officer nodded. “Several. He had a big family.”
“Well, if it killed his brother and then his oldest son, maybe this monster is doing it in order,” Wallace reasoned, taking a shortcut to the punchline. “Who is the next oldest?”
“Elisabeth,” the officer said. “She lives in Lord Byron’s old estate, several miles out of town. It’s quite a trek, and it’d be almost night if you went there, but I assume someone has to. If she is in danger, she should be warned.”
“We will go,” Vithium said, easily catching on to the plot of this module.
“Good,” the guard said. “I will put it on your map. Should save you some travel time.”
Wallace walked toward the guards from around the counter. “Anything else we need, Brodie?”
“Eh?” the officer said.
Wallace didn’t care about the confusion.
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{No, I think you got everything. You can leave, and you better hurry. Someone online just alerted the game that one of the other NPCs Jace released is available. It won’t be long until players connect the dots and rush your location.}
Wallace wished she had a familiar or pet she could leave behind to keep this location occupied. She knew that it would reset as soon as they left and allow others to initiate the module. Without another option, she opened her map screen, found the Hamley Estate, requested Vithium to follow her, and initiated travel.
----------------------------------------
Wallace and Vithium appeared before a massive property, many acres in size. It looked more like a compound than a single-family home, with stables, equipment sheds, and several storage barns filling the fenced estate. The house stood out prominently and looked like any modern dwelling one might see in the wooded lands of the US. Built from logs, stone, and brick, the mansion stood three stories high and covered an equivalent area to half a city block.
“The Hamleys have done well for themselves,” Vithium stated the obvious.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet,” Wallace said, “Lord Byron Hamley made a deal with the demon he serves. He was granted wealth and power beyond his wildest dreams, but the cost was that the demon would send a servant to ‘collect’ all his remaining blood relatives a year after his death. Each night, the next oldest of his kin will be killed.”
The monk nodded and looked to the west. Though they had arrived at this location in seconds, many hours had passed in the module, and it was quickly approaching night. Wallace followed his gaze and then turned to look behind them. The path from the estate was well-worn with wagon wheel ruts and snaked into the hills dominating the horizon. She took several steps in that direction until the environment changed suddenly.
Instead of the sun setting in the west, it rose above a line of trees in the east. This was global time, but the Hamley estate was within a section of the game reserved for this module. It was far from any other city or settlement, and while you could walk to it, the only way to access the travel node they had just used was by getting directions from the Mizzeray city guard.
Also, unlike the bookshop, which could only hold one group at a time, if others came to this location while Wallace and Vithium were still inside, the game would create a second copy, ensuring that no matter when you arrived, it was always dusk.
Wallace walked back into the module-specific location, getting and accepting a prompt that told her she was rejoining a player with whom she had an alliance. “So, the daughter is going to be killed tonight?” Vithium asked. Wallace didn’t turn to answer him but moved at a brisk pace toward the entrance to the home. The monk got the hint and jogged after her. “And we have to stop it?”
“Not exactly,” Wallace said, moving up to an ornate brick arch supporting an open iron gate.
{The entrance isn’t warded against intruders yet,} Brodie advised, {but a security spell will activate in a few minutes, and the gate will close.}
“I don’t know how to save her,” Wallace said, addressing Vithium’s question, “but we have to keep her alive long enough for the brother to show up.”
“Is he the next target?”
Wallace shook her head. “No, he is the youngest son. The favorite. His father told him this might happen, and he has a plan to stop it.”
The wide path designed for wagons and carts veered to their left, but they stayed on a narrower stone-paved walkway that led them under a flower-festooned trellis and beside several gardens as they approached the house.
Vithium had to jog to keep up with the tall paladin. “And what is that plan?”
Wallace turned to give the shorter man a smirk and to let him catch up. “What, you don’t want to be surprised? You want me to spoil the whole module for you?”
“I thought avoiding the unexpected was the best way to survive,” Vithium said, wondering if he was being tested. “That’s what all the walkthroughs are for, right?”
Wallace laughed and kept walking. “And doesn’t your operator have this walkthrough open?”
“You haven’t exactly told me what this module is yet. You just invited me along for an adventure.”
“You need a name for the module in order to find it?” the incredulity in her voice was barely restrained. “You can’t search ‘Lord Byron Hamley,’ or even ‘Module that starts in a bookstore in Mizzeray?’”
Vithium cursed and spoke inwardly. “See, I told you there were other ways to find it. . . . I don’t know, find a search page . . . Well, I’m in here and can’t help you.”
Wallace chuckled at the argument, climbed a few steps to the front porch, and pulled a cord to ring the bell. Behind them, she heard a metal squeal as the main gates magically swung closed. The sun had just dropped below the hills to the west. Vithium stopped arguing with his operator and joined the paladin on the porch. Wallace slipped her +2 Wisdom ring onto her finger. The door opened a few seconds later, revealing an elderly housekeeper in a dress.
“Good evening, gentlemen. It looks like you made it here just in time. What can I do for you?”
Wallace smiled at her. “Thank you, ma'am. We are here to see the lady of the house, Elisabeth.”
“Ooh,” the woman said, her hand on her chest. “That is quite unconventional. Two men coming to see the lady after hours while her husband is away. I don’t think that . . .”
“It is nothing like that, ma'am,” Wallace said quickly. “It is a matter of life and death. We have news of her father and brothers. We must speak with her at once. Her life is in danger.”
The woman paused, but Wallace had boosted her Wisdom, and her Negotiation skill was good enough to get the job done. “Well, okay, but you better meet in the study where I can keep an eye on you.” The housekeeper allowed them entry and led them over hardwood floors, through a marble kitchen, up a flight of stairs, and into an oak-lined, red-carpeted study filled with books and scrolls. “Have a seat in those chairs, and I will fetch Elisabeth.” The older woman left down a hallway.
The room was open to the level below, looking down on the kitchen and dining area. Large windows on the rear of the house rose two stories, looking out onto a backyard where horses roamed about in the darkening evening. It was peaceful and serene, like a log cabin in the mountains where rich people went to escape. Wallace knew that calm was about to be shattered.
She sat beside her monk companion, curious about his expertise in the game. He was level 12, a feat not achievable by everyone, but by his own admission, this was his first playthrough. Most new players died at level 10 when they entered PVP areas for the first time. Wallace had made it to level 12 half a dozen times but ended her character on purpose, so she didn’t know how high she could go before running into something she couldn’t handle. She could hear Vithium constantly muttering to his operator to give him more information and realized she would probably have to discern his competencies sooner rather than later. This next combat encounter they were about to endure would tell her a lot.