“So, 1000 Grendel.” Aidan smiled. “That’s going to take about 20 minutes.”
Most of the expedition within earshot from Shadow Fall and WAR were nodding as if they expected much the same. The last final battle had proven that the Grendel could be slain in droves. Even though WAR hadn’t participated they had seen the streams and were over-leveled for the type of enemy they were facing.
“Why weren’t you guys at Blutonsi?” Amelia wanted to know suddenly.
Larkin had been loping along behind her and was the one to answer. Apparently War had exhausted his supply of words. Even now he was rejecting Raven’s demands that he take off his mask so she could see his face. She asked him constantly, with no remorse, pity, or sign of stopping. Amelia was secretly impressed he’d managed to keep it up. “We were in the secret area below the Caverns of the Deep.”
“Whoa, there’s no such place.” Hunter disputed this immediately.
“Yes, there is.” Larkin grinned. “It’s under the lake. You have to swim down through a flooded cave and then up into another area. It leads to floors below.”
Hunter’s face was one of shock, contorted at the impossible idea. “How did you find it?”
“War,” Larkin said simply. “He was staring at the lake. We’d waited until Ominous was done and reset the dungeon and we cleared it pretty easy for the 5th or so time. Then War is staring at this lake and he gets this look. I will swim in this lake, that look said. Without a word, he jumps in and he’s just… gone for like 10 minutes.”
War for his part didn’t seem like he was going to jump into the story. He was still telling Raven no, resolutely and with determination, with a long and slow continuous headshake.
“So he comes back up, wet hair and everything, and he makes this motion at us… then he’s gone again. Well, we all jump and follow him and he leads us through this 3 minute underwater swim. Felt like I was gonna drown…” Larkin sighed.
“Yeah. There was a drowning feeling.” Fate supplied, slipping up and interlacing his fingers in Larkin’s affectionately.
“Right, so then we go up for a spell and there’s another Cavern with a big worm in it. Like huge. War came out, killed it, looked around and then came back for the rest of the group. There are 5 more floors and they go to 350.” Larkin snickered. “So we weren’t in Blutonsi because we were too busy mapping the floors and talking about it in the evenings. No one even watched the streams that were going on and we didn’t go to town for like a week or two.”
Amelia blinked a few times, trying to process this. “Oh. I talked about you people.”
“You did?” Larkin blinked.
“Yeah. Someone asked me during an interview if I was the strongest player and I said that was ridiculous. That even if I thought I was the strongest I knew that there were people, somewhere, doing crazy hard things in the dark and out of sight who were just as strong as they were crazy.” Amelia supplied, smiling fondly at the memory. It was good to be proven right. “How does that account for 600?”
Larkin shrugged. “Well, we revisited a lot of the raids to see if there were other underwater entrances and there were a few. That was before Blutonsi. When the new continent opened up, Elysium, we ignored the first dungeons and started spelunking on the coast looking for hard dungeons. There’s a level 550 dungeon underwater off the coast of Blutonsi. You can only get there if your swimming skill is Intermediate Level 1.”
“Wow. You’re kinda awesome.” Raven admitted to War. He smiled at her, tight-lipped but pleased. “Now show me your face.”
“No.” War said, still smiling.
“I bet you have acid burns.” She speculated. “I have one arm. I’m not going to make fun of you. I’m just the person to mend your broken heart and your distrust of everyone. We should get married.”
“Sure,” War said easily. “But, no. I don’t have acid burns and you can’t see my face.”
“But we can get married?” Raven looked doubtful. “But what if you have a really mean face?”
“I don’t.” He assured her before asking. “Do you really only have one arm in real life too?”
She nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll keep you guessing as to which one.”
“Did Raven and War really just decide to get married?” Forsythe said, looking incredibly pained. He looked at Elisha. “This is what I was talking about. That. Don’t do that. Raven is a great friend for you to have as long as you understand she is absolutely not to be emulated.”
Elisha nodded, eyes wide and mouth open as if she were just humoring him.
“How is June?” Raven asked War.
“Warm.” He replied. They both nodded at each other as if this made perfect sense. “Flowers?”
“No way,” Raven replied, and they nodded at each other again. “Are you a lot of fun?”
“I don’t know,” War said, obviously swept up in the black-haired girl’s pace. “Am I fun?”
“Yeaaahh. You’re fun.” Raven decided and then smiled dreamily. “What’s your last name? I’m not gonna be Raven War.”
“Your real name is Raven?” He countered with surprise. “My last name is Tinker.”
“TINKER?” Raven sputtered. “That’s amazing. I am marrying the hell out of you.”
“June.” War agreed.
“You two are creeping me right out,” Larkin said, looking at a loss. “War, I don’t know what’s wrong with you but you never talk…”
“No. I swore I wouldn’t talk if I didn’t have to until I met real heroes to journey with.” War corrected her, his eyes were suddenly and unexpectedly incredibly gentle. “I have been considering now for some time that I should start speaking. You and Fate, you and the others, have been better heroes than anyone like I deserve to travel with. I know great pride. Then, while I was deciding, I saw the Last Sojourn heroes. It was time.”
Larkin and Fate had simply stopped, dumbfounded. It was several moments later before wordlessly they fell back in step, obviously unable to decide what to do with such heavy-handed praise from their normally mute leader.
“How did you get with this guy?” Aidan asked, his lips peeled back in his Cheshire grin.
“Well, we just sorta all started following him,” Larkin said softly. “Fate and I made Transients and we… got lost. We were in a desert, we were level 10 I think? There are level 40 monsters everywhere. We’d been running for hours and this… guy appears? He blows them all away. We try to thank him and he just… wordlessly nods, and then gestures. He wants us to follow him?” Larkin continued making motions with her arms to express how confusing the charades had been at the time.
“To a city,” Aidan said thoughtfully.
“No.” Larkin laughed. “We thought that too at first, but no. So he leads us into a level 50 dungeon and starts killing the entrance. We partied with him when we thought he was taking us to a city. So we’re getting these huge experience gains and we’re level 20 in no time. Then he stands back and points with his sword. You want us to kill these?” Larkin waved her hands, remembering. “So we fight for a while and every time something really bad is about to happen he just steps in and everything dies. He points and gestures and eventually we figure out he’s describing what we should have done instead of.. well… instead of being new.”
“Wow.” Raven was staring dreamily at War again. “Take your mask off.”
“No.”
“So we fight for a while and we’re 40ish in no time. I think it was 5 hours later. The time just flew. It was like playing charades in AA.” Larkin laughed and Fate nodded in agreement, though he didn’t look like the memory was that amusing. “So he leads us back to the top, un-parties us, and just walks off.”
“Guess we are powerful enough to walk out ourselves now?” Fate said, humor coloring his voice. He snickered as if he could remember saying it even.
“Yeah.” Larkin grinned. “So we did. It was a lot of fun.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Then,” Fate added. “We get lost again. Same way. Thanks, Larkin.”
“My sense of direction is legendary.” She warned him.
“Indeed love.” Fate said sweetly. “I don’t believe we have ever made it to a destination.”
“So we’re getting swarmed,” Larkin says ignoring Fate and showing her irritation by dropping his hand. “...and he shows up again. Same deal. Stares at us as if he sort of remembers who we were. He just starts laughing, but without the noise. Shoulders shaking. He offers to party with us and gestures to a cave…”
“Same deal? Leveled you up, showed you around, and then left you to find your own way home?” Aidan smirked over at War.
“Right. But this time we managed to friend him. I was working on tracking so we’d make a game of it. I’d track which zone he was in and we’d go out and try and find him. Like a mini-adventure.” Larkin grinned, and then she shrugged as if there weren’t much more to it. “Then… there were more of us. People we encountered, picked up, had fun with. Made a guild. Started going to dungeons. Before long I would look around and… everyone in the town’s just looked so… boring, so it was natural that we just sorta didn’t go back to them.”
Fate nodded. “Couldn’t wait to get back out. He just always seemed to be wandering. We always find the worst of the bad and we fight them. So we named our guild after his name since it seemed appropriate. A lot of advantages to a guild. There were a lot of us at that point and we needed larger than party size. Needed guild chat.” He made a motion with his hands. “War.”
“That’s a fantastic story.” Amelia breathed, impressed despite herself.
“I dunno. That just sounds like we were out and things and stuff happened and now we’re a guild.” Raven said, leaning forward as she walked and trying to peek under War’s mask. He didn’t seem bothered by it particularly and continued walking normally. “Take off your mask.”
“No.” He actually started smirking.
“We should get a drink later, and then married,” Raven said to him after a moment of staring at the smirk. She was walking with her arm held behind her back, peering at him inquisitively.
“Alright.” War agreed.
“So take off your mask.” Raven pressed.
“No.” War continued smirking.
“Tattoo of an ex-girlfriend?” Raven speculated again, wincing.
“On my face?” War asked, raising an eyebrow. “No.”
“Damn. Wait. Why did you ask about your face?” Raven demanded, suddenly squeaking with excitement. “Do you have a tattoo of an ex-girlfriend somewhere else?”
War paused, a bit dramatically, before replying. “No.”
“Uhh… How many was that?” Larkin asked as she pushed locks hair out of her face looking down at the Grendel littering the clearing. When they had met their first living non-imitation Grendel it had been kind of a letdown. The living ones were cowardly and deceptive unlike their undead counterparts in the future of the game. They pretended to run off and constantly used the shadows of trees to try and back attack people. They were strong level 250 creatures, but with the number of Halves and Transients who had already experienced them and out-leveled them decently(in WAR’s case a huge discrepancy), they were quickly dispatched when they were found.
“89.” Forsythe immediately replied, earning a few strange looks from the members of WAR nearby. Hunter merely smirked at them, bobbing her head a bit and tilting her chin looking quite pleased. To Amelia, it looked like she was a cat who had something that the other cats didn’t have and she didn’t mind them knowing that she knew. Any minute she might start preening.
“Thank you, Forsythe,” Hunter said sweetly. Forsythe stared at her as if he didn’t understand why she was so pleased, but was grateful for the praise regardless.
“War?” Aidan asked, poking a dead Grendel thoughtfully. “What are your skills?”
“I am a blacksmith, tailor, engineer, carpenter, bowcrafter, jeweler, and fisher.” Was the immediate reply. This seemed to surprise even Larkin and Fate. “You can have multiples as long as you are willing to put in the time and material.” He explained after a moment of silence.
“Besides the obvious that’s amazing,” Aidan allowed, “I meant what class skills? I haven’t seen you use any.”
“I don’t know,” War admitted. “I never looked. You have to say skills to activate them. I just fight.”
Aidan had stopped and he had done well to be the member of their party who remained mostly unfazed by War’s amazing and crazy but now his mouth simply hung open. “You have only ever used manual mode? Have you EVER leveled your class skills?”
“No,” War said after giving it a moment of thought.
The clearing was dead silent until Amelia started laughing. Everyone turned to stare at her, shock still on their faces, no idea why she was laughing. She pointed around at them. “That, that face! Oh my god, I forgot what it looks like. You three used to do that to people. Hahahaha.”
Hunter started snickering moments later, and then Elisha. Forsythe, Aidan, and Raven simply stared at her as if she had lost her mind. It wasn’t long before the snickering was contagious.
“How do you find it without skills?” Aidan finally asked, as if the idea pained him. Amelia sympathized a bit, for a wizard to never use spells was ridiculous, and not really an option for him. A melee class however could level strength and general combat mastery but if skills were never used then they would still be… Beginner, Amelia would guess. He was a level 600 Warrior Class of some type who had never died and who had Beginner sword skills, none of which he seemed capable of naming.
“Fine,” War replied as if it had never occurred to him to try it any other way. “My body moves. I move. I strike. Things die.”
“You and Forsythe.” Aidan looked like he was on the verge of hypoxia. “I don’t even know what to think.”
“Shh,” War said.
“Did you just SHH me?” Aidan exploded, still not having recovered.
“Shh.” War pointed ahead. “Listen.”
Through the bramble there was a clearing, and as Aidan calmed down everyone started to listen. Victoria had appeared near the edge and had begun walking confidently forward as if she knew what it was. It was a soft snuffling noise, almost an animal pain noise. Amelia hurried after her next and moments later everyone else began moving forward with the same curiosity. Their group was about 20 people, the rest having moved off deeper into the forest while Aidan was questioning War. Plenty of them to deal with whatever was in the clearing.
Which, Amelia stopped short, wasn’t all that necessary it seemed. Victoria was making soft gentle ‘come here’ noises at two large balls of fluff. She could tell that they were cubs or pups or something based on their shape and the noises they made. That was all. They were easily the size of Victoria herself. Reluctantly the balls of fluff snuffled forward and bent eagerly into Victoria’s soft pets and words of assurance.
“Aww. Skrilla Snow Wolf pups.” Victoria said softly. “They are lost. Probably running away from some Grendel. The wolves and the grendel hate each other.” She was stroking the smaller of the two of them, though smaller was just a way to differentiate them from each other and by no way actually described the enormous pups.
“Wow. Those are puppies!” Raven was already there. She had easily pushed one over and it yelped, startled, it made another noise of protest a moment later that melted into acceptance when Raven immediately began petting it’s belly with ferocity and purpose. “Good girl! Yes, you are!”
“Ugh.” Hunter said, quickly glancing at Amelia. They shared a moment. This was exactly like Queen Catherine’s behavior when they awakened a three-headed dog under the Eundrasyli’s Tree. “Dog people.” Hunter shook her head. “I like dogs, I do, but those are… wolves.”
“SKRILLA SNOW WOLVES.” Snarling erupted from the trees around them. Amelia had just been thinking that if the puppies were that big, the parents must be huge. She was mostly right. A huge white wolf with gleaming blue eyes stepped from the tree-line. She was easily larger than a Clydesdale, more like the size of a large cargo van. “What goes on here? We chase our young and you have captured them.”
Victoria stood up without any hesitation and stared at the Wolf. She took a moment to note all the fading and distracting movement in the trees around them. Despite their size, they were excellent at hiding and breaking up their shapes and their movement made it tricky to figure out how many were out there. “I am Half Queen Victoria. You are my vassal. You will identify yourself, then you will kneel.”
Victoria, Amelia decided, sounded furious. Like she couldn’t believe the audacity of the wolf for accusing her of stealing their young and was going to teach them a lesson. “Perhaps…” Amelia began, before being cut off by the ferocious canine response.
“KNEEL? I recognize you not.” The wolf snarled, lips pulling back. “I am Colourless, daughter to SKRILLA, and I will kneel before no Half. It is through my mother’s grace that we do not hunt the Half. In fact, we share Grendel as an enemy and that is all we share. Now if you are pup-thief, we will kill you.” Colourless trembled as if every muscle in her body was tensing. Her lips curled back revealing prodigiously huge fangs.
Well, you’re on your own, Amelia thought. Any idea of de-escalating the situation through speech was thrown out the window. Colourless had been too rude and she did not like it. Not a bit. Let her get smacked around by Victoria.
“You are wrong,” Victoria said simply. She took her sword and stuck it in the ground, dusting her hands off in front of her and blowing into them for warmth. “It is through the benevolence of the Half that the Skrilla Wolves are allowed to live in this forest. Skrilla, the first talking Snow Wolf, we have known of her for a long time. We do not hunt you because we respect Skrilla as a talking and intelligent creature, and I am much pleased that the trait carries to her blood.” Victoria took a step forward, literally having to look almost straight up as she approached the wolf. “But, you will kneel. For you have struck at my honor through accusation, and thereby the honor of the Half. You will kneel. Or I will kill you.”
Amelia heard Aidan let out a slow and very low whistle under his breath. They were all tense now, watching the giant wolf as it stared down at Victoria. They had come to save the Half and letting her get eaten by a Wolf would be bad. Raven was the only one unaffected by the scene. She continued to stroke and pet and hug the big fluff of fur in front of her, making little cooing noises. It seemed to be slowly getting to Colourless, making her dart worried gazes toward the pup.
“It’s fine. You better kneel though,” Raven said slowly without looking up. “Seriously. You’re gonna die.” Her tone was so sober that it immediately brought Amelia out of her dark thoughts. The Raven litmus test seemed to think everything was peachy dandy.
“Yes. It is best that you kneel.” Amelia said finally. Anyone who could stomp all over Raven wouldn’t be killed by a single wolf even if it were a wolf the size of a small indoor swimming pool. Everyone else who had seen Raven and Victoria fight were slowly relaxing as well.
“I will not kneel to you, pup-thief!” Colourless snarled and leaned down to puff a small cloud of steam at Victoria, sharp teeth inches from her face. “Release my kin to me and be off, before you become meat to be eaten!”
“So unwise.” The Hero Queen Victoria reached up with one hand and grabbed a large handful of fur from the underside of the huge jaw. With a quick pull downward Colourless plummeted like she had been yanked by a whale. Her huge body hit the ground with a sickening thud even though she had been toppled onto a good accumulation of snow. She groaned and started to open her dazed eyes when Victoria pulled sharply to the left and rolled the huge wolf over, holding her down with one hand by the underside of the jaw.
Upside-down wolf eyes were wide and staring.