We were on our way back with a little bit of spring to our step to get the news about Players back to Elzare as soon as possible. We still had a bit more time to ourselves to talk some more and joke around. I feel it was much needed after everything, plus the idea that players finally came back scares me.

They can be a very real threat to me and everyone else. I’ve already sorta accepted that I’m a NPC and can’t respawn, but now I need to cope with the fact there are Players out there who can hold a grudge past death, who can level up over time and seek revenge when ready.

The thought of dying by the hands of a man called xXxGoldenshower69xXx in the future made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Trying to put the thoughts aside, I had the need to ask Bronzebeard some questions.

“Did you lie to me about your level?” He actually looked genuinely confused.

“What in sam’s blazes you talking about lass? A dwarf never lies about his level!” He held his hand to his chest, even to stop the brisk pace we were walking.

“Then how come you haven’t gotten past level 12? Surely with all those names you’ve written down they would equal well over 12!” It looked like he was starting to sweat a bit and his face was getting red.

“I lied..”

"I fucking knew it! You fuck, what level are you then?”

“Hey lass! I said a dwarf don’t lie about his level, I really am 12, but uhh” He was stammering a lot and looking away towards where we were walking.

“I lied about the list of names ya see. I thought it would uhh.. make me look “bad ass” as a certain lass put it the other day.”

“Then what are all those scrolls then if not names?”

He rustled around in the familiar big satchel and tossed me the shortest one. Unrolling it a bit revealed the shocking truth. The following scroll read.

“Yeah.. uhh.. UHH.. shove that long hard iron ingot deeper into my blazzing furnace, what’s that? Your sword needs cooling off? Ohh.. I think I know where we can get something to cool it off with.”

“Bronzebeard! You are writing a fucking erotic novel?”

“What!? How did you know lass?”

“I just fucking read a part of it!”

“No! That’s my smithing book I’ve been working on to help young’ns in the field.”

“How is sexually shoving an iron ingot in a furnace and talking about cooling off a sword going to help anyone?”

“Heavens to betsy, sexually? You’ve got a rotten mind there lass. If ya read the next line, it says to keep a bucket of water handy to cool the material of the sword”

“Who was moaning then!?”

“What do you mean? Ohhh that, well working on a forge can be quite exhausting and heated ya see, figured I’d give them young’ns a glimpse of that by having the character let out tired breaths on occasion.”

“Bronzebeard.”

“Yes lass?”

“I think you're full of shit and you know it.”

I could see a small smile forming on the corner of his lips as we walked. There was silence for a bit until a few more questions popped into my mind.

“You said you did have an erotic novel though?”

“Ohh lass.. Looking to get your jimmies rustled? You could always come to me! Why go to the trickled source of a book I wrote?”

“Fuck you!”

He then bent over stopping in his tracks.

“Well lass! Go ahead! The party you just promised won’t start till something starts bucking”

I decided to just keep walking ahead, he soon stopped bending over and caught up extremely fast despite his short legs.

“It’s called “The Secret Encounters of Mary Sue”, sorry for my poor tasted joke.”

“You must be kidding me! Fucking Elzare was reading that the other day.” His eye went bug eyed, his smile even getting even higher.

“Fuck’n grey ears!? Really!? You have no idea how happy hearing that just made me lass”

I think I might’ve actually knew how happy it made him, just by seeing how much more color his face gained. I wonder if they know each other well.

“You and Elzare friends?”

“Aye lass, that we are. Don’t talk too much, but got nothing but respect for ole grey ears. Saved me life more times than I can count. I usually smith him anything he needs for any newly recruited guards, you’d think the captain would be the one to ask that, but I hear he skimps out pretty bad like, you didn’t hear it from me though.”

Hmm, I actually thought the captain was a pretty good guy based on our few interactions. Guess looks can be deceiving.

“Last question beardo.”

“Ask away lass, never a bother”

“Do you have some sort of spatial magic or something? Like a players inventory, you know what I’m talking about?”

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“That I do, got me a spatial satchel here”

He pulled out the familiar tankard, I knew it! There was no way those fucking things fit in that.

“This one here is 2x2x2 feet wide, ya sorta just try to grab something from it and all the objects pop in your mind, then when you focus on one and grab, then it's in ya hand. Truly one of the more convenient magics worth havin, though they aren’t cheap.”

“My pants actually have spatial magic too if ya can believe it, doesn’t have to just be any ole boring looking container, but I hear it's harder to give more space the smaller the object. Spatial magic is the reason I can carry that shotgun you saw earlier without any awkwardness. Did ya think I just walked around with it strapped to me leg lass?”

“Maybe..”

It would also explain why he doesn’t worry about the grenade he keeps in his “Dwarven Vault”.

“So, how much space does your pants hold?”

“Lass! You don’t just ask a man that.. but since I’m kind an all, its 3x3x3 feet.”

“Can I have your satchel then?”

I didn’t actually want it, well I did, but I just wanted to see how he would react. I wouldn’t take from a friend, I’m not experienced in friendships, but even I knew it was wrong. To my fucking suprise, he had a sad look on his face, but was starting to unstrap it.

“I’m kidding Bronzebeard, stop!”

“Then why did ya ask lass?”

“I mean, I do want something with spatial magic, but I just wanted to see how you would react. I’m sorry.”

“If you want somethin with spatial magic, and I have two, then surely I could give ya this one? Isn’t that what friends do?”

“Yeah, but.. I think, I think friends also don’t ask for things unless they really need it, or don’t take away from the person they are asking in a big way. I can live without spatial magic for now, and you said that it was expensive. I’m sorry for asking, beardo.”

He didn’t stop taking it off though, he tossed it to me willy nilly like.

“Bronzebeard, I can-”

“It’s alright lass, after hearing you explain, and willing to not take it even when I offered, I know you will be a good friend, and good friends get a little extra special treatment.”

“Bronzebeard..”

“And by special treatment, I was thinking of maybe a massa-”

I learned my lesson last time, instead of punching him or hearing the rest, I just kept walking.

The familiar glow of the windowed cabin that is lit up from the candles inside started to enter our vision. Bronzebeard started running for some reason, I knew players coming back was big news, but he jetted off almost leaving smoke behind.

“GREY EARS! COME OUT IMPORTANT NEWS“

Holy hell, talk about subtle, but it worked. Elzare stood in front of him before he even reached the cabins door.

“What’s so important to scream at this hour, you perverted dwarf.”

“Perverted!? That hurts Elzare that really does.” I could see him faking his heart hurting and moving his hand to hold it.

“Speaking of perverted.. Hmm.. sooo.. I uhhh heard it from a rather tall birdie that-” He had a clear pause in his voice, huffing his chest up to point a finger into Elzare’s chest.

“You’ve read my book, does a little miss Mary Sue sound familiar?” He nudged his finger into Elzare’s chest multiple times, each time landing you could see the grizzled elf's face redden a bit.

“Ohh I bet cha love what she did in chapter 5, I put a lot of heart an soul into that scene, lemme tell ya, used all the vocabulary even the finest dwarven scholars would be jealous of, I bet your jimmies were rustled, cmon grey ears admit it!” He was nudging him now with his shoulder.

I have a feeling these two are actually closer friends than Bronzebeard let on. Surprisingly, Elzare never retorted, I guess he has his pride and acting out or denying it, might only hurt it more.

Finally breaking the silence, Bronzebeard turned serious.

“We had to kill a Player in the forest a bit ago. I’m sure you know the importance of that statement.”

Elzare looked clearly shaken up. I totally understood why too, he experienced the ability to respawn when I played as him, he surely knows the power behind that.

“This is bad fucking timing, the captain seems to have run with his tail between his legs during the goblin invasion, and the Elders from the Great Council just gave me this updated map of the undead’s movement.”

[There should be a map here, sometimes the image hosting sites go down, mobile users please go to landscape mode? I think thats what its called, sideways. It's likely to still be squished for most phones in my testing, look it up on a monitor if you really wanna see it well.]

[http://i.imgur.com/iNZwwvp.png]

Looking at the map he held out carefully, I could finally get a glimpse of the world around me. It looks like orange areas belong to dwarfs, purple to elfs, green to humans, and grey was the undead advancing. Looked like the undead were coming from ships based on the poor illustration.  

“Fucking dwarfs tip!? Really beardo?”

“Lass! I didn’t name it! Though.. I do agree with it. Hey! Human’s aren’t much better, you think “Humanities reservoir” is talking about water? Naye lass, that there bundle of territories on that landmass is some of the most secure possible, it's a backup plan for all friendly races.”

“Alright alright, whatever. Hey, I know this may shock you guys.. but uhh.. where are we at even?”

They kinda both looked at me funny, but sorta understood pretty quickly once they remembered I was fucking unconscious for 10 years.

Elzare finally spoke up.

“Let’s go inside first, settle down a bit.”

We all walked into the main room of the cabin, a long table stretched out for us, me and beardo sat on opposite sides while Elzare took the main seat overseeing the rest. I figured it was only right given it being his house an all, plus him being the highest level. Elzare laid the map onto the table for us.

“We are in the decent sized village Andril.” He pointed on the map towards the outskirts of Stonequake crater.

“Located inside of Stonequake Crater, we live near the outside of the main city people refer to simply as Stonequake. For some reason long before I was born, something caused a giant crater in the land around us, to many people's surprise though, the land flourished even more, as opposed to being destroyed. The surrounding forests started expanding to the very depths of the newly formed crater at an incredible pace. The crater provided lot of things, instead of taking away, it provided a flat center to work the new highly nutritious land with, jagged rocks protruding from the edges of the crater like artificial mountains providing even more natural defence, that alone plus the mountains that were already here to begin with, made the choice easy for humans to make this their capital. The place eventually got so much traffic, the city started expanding multiple times over and soon became the giant foothold humans have on this world. The walls are giant and well built, sturdier than even the mountains near its border. There probably isn’t a safer place in this world than inside the deep walls of Stonequake, even further backed up behind the military force reaching the millions.”

“So, what’s updated since the last map in terms of the undead then?”

“The undead have completely taken over the northwestern landmass, it wasn’t like this before, even advancing in blotches across the frozen anomalies towards Stonequake. The only undead space occupied before was the area you see near Khazaltin, but the dwarfs seem to keep them at bay from advancing further.”

“Aye!” Bronzebeard chipped in for his racial pride.

“But it looks like the undead have completely wrecked the Elves, all these sighted advancements lead me to believe there is a bigger undead camp close to us that hasn’t been sighted yet and took it upon themselves to enslave, transform, or somehow control the local goblins around us into undead minions and attack the village. That large force, was probably on the spot acquired and we were the small fries.”

“When was the map last updated?”

“About a month ago..”

Elzare's voice traveled. For them to have taken so much land in a month is astonishing and worrisome.

“Rosie, I need to leave. I need to tell help with defence for the Elves and stop them from getting into Stonequake. First I’m going to find whatever remaining undead there are that reside here, talk with the Elders, then go to the front lines, maybe get some backup from the dwarfs too.”

He paused for a moment.

“I hope I’m not wrong about you”

Silence entered the air as he vanished without a trace.

Title Earned “Keeper of Andril”