As the sun walked across the sky, passing the zenith and falling down into the sides of the grassy knolls that had become our landscape, we had passed the Goblin Woods and now entered the Emerald Peaks. Green-encrusted hills stretched around us, encasing us in a dome of brilliance. Butterflies, lightning bugs, and more with names I hadn't unlocked fluttered through the sky in a harmonious embrace. They danced and sung for anyone to witness, the fee for the performance was surviving the woods before.
Beautiful, the words left my mouth without thought—a guttural reaction to a priceless view.
It's a damn shame it lies beyond those woods, if not they would be more popular.
Shadeo grunted.
To which Rafael retorted.
Views don't matter, you oaf. This place is as majestic as a golden waterfall but has no meta drops. Nothing worth farming or dying for. So, its landscapes will go unwitnessed for as long as the system deems it.
His words rang true. As the light caught the enchanted gardens that lay all around us, the oasis and its lily pads on which frogs leaped, and even more deadly mysteries no doubt hid underneath, I realized how capricious it all was. This place, like the ghettos of shark bites coast, was left to rot, to go unnoticed simply because the drops weren't worth our time.
Then what was worth our time? The repetitive cavern of souls in which the explorers set drops, or the hounds of Barrington in which the highest DPS bows can be farmed. Is that what we are meant to spend our time on? On gear that will only be replaced in months when higher-tier content is released? A perpetual cycle of growth and higher limits that send us spiraling until we can't any longer. Then, by that point, we've been burnt out by the journey, dead inside. We sell our skills, lackluster and rusted now but still higher than the NPCs around us, so we become bodyguards or mercenaries or, most likely, drunkards who do just enough quests to keep our heads covered as we drink ourselves silly.
From across a bend, we peeked at a party camped out in front of what could only be a dungeon entrance. Burrowed in an emerald hill was a pitch-black entrance with a Shinto-style gateway marker overhead; alongside the oak structure were white ribbons that fluttered in the wind, giving off an aura of prayer and hope. My eyes caught the men that rested underneath the holy monument; their faces did not tell of hope; their eyes said of something worse. Tattered were their travelers gear, their weapons whcih should have been sheathed were trembling in worried hands.
Slowing our walk, I turned to the party to see their reaction. All three of them looked shaken.
"It looks like we weren't the only ones who ran into trouble.''
Shadoe's words were communal as we nodded and continued our precession. We are no longer worried if they were angered by our tardiness, by the sight of the fire and the unpacked rolls; they had just arrived, beating us by minutes, if that.
Getting close enough to speak, I gestured with my hand a friendly salute. With darting eyes, the men did not match my jovial mood.
Standing up, a large man, disheveled but with a strong frame, forearms for gripping large weapons, and a chin that said he could take a hit, answered my salute.
"You him? The guy Jude said would come. From the council. What name did you go by again.."
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Not letting him find his words, I interrupted.
"Ronald, just call me Ronald."
Roger looked inquisitive but said nothing. Real names were unnecessary, and I didn't want the realm in a frenzy if my name began to traverse its winds and rumor mills. News spreads quickly, but rumors spread like wildfires in our realm. Whole tavern syndicates are kept alive merely by the kernels of truth, the false prophecies, the strange events that rumble but are never investigated.
"Well, Ronald, Jude is just over the bend looking over some matters. She'll be back shortly, after which my men will rest, and we will delve into the dungeon at first light."
He scanned with his eyes as if inspecting our gear as the system does with mystery drops. Then, he added.
"From the looks of things, I take it you guys are simply not punctual and weren't blessed by battle."
"Do our clothes reveal our tale?"
"They sure do."
Grinning that toothy grin of mine that got me in trouble all my laugh, I said nothing more with a hand holding back the eager Roger who wished for nothing more than to leave nothing to wonder.
May we camp along with your men, then?
With his index finger, his aim shot over to a hill that rested a minute's walk away.
Being rested and fresh, your group will take up the first watch. We trust you won't let us down.
Turning his back, the leader of the dungeon party went back to his men, whose eyes bulged with a fear that only surviving a goblin swarm could be placed on a man.
Once we were out of earshot, at the top of our watchpoint, I motioned for them with a look that it was okay to speak. Like loose dogs, they all went for the verbal gate at once.
Damn ballocks
Asholes
Can you believe them
The three of them let it out in harmony, and then, turning and looking one another in the eye, we laughed at it all.
Brilliant choice, captain; we shouldn't reveal anything to a group of mercs.
Rafael's words cut true. He wasn't a quiet man, rather, simply more reserved, but when he spoke, he meant every word.
I don't know if I made a choice out of intelligence. I guess it's time for me to fill you guys in, as we have a long path ahead.
Faces like stones, they read the tone and saw the look in my eyes.
I began with the village hidden in the time and leaves. Even then, I had surmounted the barriers of the realm; I didn't know it then. There, I would learn the words of the realm, which I didn't know then was a power that would aid me on the perilous journey. When I got to Ronald, to the quest in which I failed and sent me spiraling down the path of a bandit, I needed a break to find my voice.
Saying nothing, they motioned me on with their silence.
Then, I explained The Path, a guild meant to save the land by paving the way. Becoming a beacon of light in the shadows of the realm. When met by darkness, by Mercy, it turned out that light and shadow cancel each other out—leaving the light's champion on a shattered plain for six years.
Interrupting me, Shadeo mustered the courage to ask a question.
Sir, Captain, you mean to say you are uh, well, you are the man of myth. You are The Breaker.
Catching his eyes, I replied without thought.
I am a Breaker, not the Breaker. Mercy was also a Breaker. And it's not necessarily something that is limited to a select few.
My thoughts went to Roger, but I didn't voice them.
It's a changing of the times, a rift in the realm. Don't think that I know more than this; I am some savant who knows how to save the realm. If you do, you will be wrong. I've been given a task and a power that I can barely control.
Losing my words again, I stopped. Why was I saying all this? What was my point? In the recess of my mind, it was found. Simple and true, as the answers usually are.
I say all this for this and this alone. I need you. I need you, good men, more than the realm needs me. I've been given a task beyond myself, a power that breaks, but I fear it might also break the user. So, if I am to even come near to completing this unfathomable goal…well, I need the trust and allegiance of a few good men.
Their words were trapped behind their teeth.
You are those good men. I grinned as if it wasn't abundantly clear.
Shadeo was first to respond with a fist across his chest, an old soldier's salute.
Bards don't necessarily do such things, but the time calls for it.
Said Rafael as he joined in the motion.
Bright-eyed Rodger, the one with the most darkness hidden away, took his time, but he, too, made the sign.
Finally, I stood, looking over the distance at the realm and its rolling green hills. Across the wind, I could hear the cries of goblins as they battled a new war that had started with the death of a false prophet. Change was on the winds.
Rest up. I'll keep watch. I need the practice anyway.
Reaching back and holding the reaper in ready position, I walked into the woods towards the distant cries overhead. I felt a fire inside, a void that needed filling. Brimming with power, I went off to unleash some of it before the dungeon began.