Exploding with enough force to decimate a two-hundred-foot plateau doesn’t hurt too much, but it doesn’t feel great, either.

The first few seconds were…warm…but luckily my limbs remained attached to my body, and the most discomfort I felt was from looking at the bright light cascading out around me. There wasn’t any noise at the centre of the explosion, or at least the game filtered it from my senses to protect me.

Exploding is peaceful.

The fall afterwards is not.

I hadn’t considered the fact that the complete and utter destruction of everything in my general vicinity would also include the ground I formerly stood on. Sure, the threat of the Asterians was temporarily quelled, but I had a new problem which was rapidly rising up to greet me.

Or I was descending to greet it.

With a crunch sound that I would’ve loved to purge from my memory, I crumpled into the base of the crater, well below the elevation the world had stood at previously. Less fortunate people, animals and crockery rained around me, giving gruesome context to the vast number of notifications I was receiving.

{You have defeated a Level 52 Asterian Swordsman.}{+220 EXP }

{You have defeated a Level 41 Asterian Swordsman.}{+182 EXP }

{You have defeated a Level 48 Asterian Archer.}{+222 EXP }

The messages littered my vision, and I noticed a level-up sneaking in there with them. I didn’t expect to level up so soon after the 400k EXP injection, but with enough firepower and Asterian fodder, anything was possible.

I nursed my undoubtedly shattered leg and berated myself for failing to ask for HP potions. My inventory contained a potion for water breathing, and another for goddamn voice amplification, but nothing for the most common situation one could expect.

My best option was dumping some points into Vitality, then buckling in for a long night. My character wouldn’t heal if I wasn’t online, and I certainly did not want to be here tomorrow morning when the first soldiers and looters came to investigate.

Attributable Stat Points: (53)(-15)

Strength (10) (+0)

Defence (10) (+0)

Vitality (20) (+15)

Affinity (0) (+0)

Restoration (0) (+0)

Endurance (16) (+0)

Agility (18) (+0)

The relief was almost immediate, and although I didn’t want to look at my wound, I could feel my bones starting to knit themselves back together. It was strange, like having a terrible cramp in your calf that fades from a debilitating, body-freezing ache to a nauseating woozy feeling of muscles moving involuntarily. The treatment was almost as uncomfortable as the condition.

“Ollie?”

“CRudulouS mAXimUs!” I cried, jolting painfully onto my side and trying to climb to my feet. My spear was gone, and without it, I felt naked. “Who’s there? I’ll blow this place up again, I swear!”

A figure walked to the edge of my pit and looked down on me. Sunlight glared into my eyes, obstructing my vision.

“No you don’t, stick-boy. Like I’d ever trust you with two nuke potions. Look what you did with one.”

Claire slid down the crater-edge, raising her eyebrows at my predicament.

“You’ve really done a number on yourself, you know that?”

I scoffed. “No, I actually didn’t notice that my leg was broken in about twenty places. Thanks for noticing that.”

“Glad you’ve got it covered. Guess you won’t need one of these then.”

She held forth an HP potion. My lips trembled and I felt saliva flood my mouth.

“Okay, Claire, please. This shit fucking hurts. Even you don’t hate me enough to put me through this.”

She dropped down next to me and handed over the potion. I sucked it down in a gulp, groaning as my ailments righted themselves. I flopped to the dirt, stretching out with the joy of being back to good old Ollie.

Claire surveyed the scene while I celebrated. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a job well done. The detonation, powered up by my Bard of the Yard buff, had carved a cavernous hole in the plateau, cleaving it in two and taking out the vast majority of Asterian defences. After the world had settled, and normal physics were reinstated, the cliffs fell away, slumping into a giant ‘V’ as the rubble and dirt filled the newly created gap.

“You know, Ollie, if you’d used the potion a bit higher up and avoided the massive crater down here, this would’ve been a perfectly usable road into Asteroth. The merchants would bless you for shaving an hour off their trips. Those switchbacks must’ve been rough with a horse and cart.”

She was talking as though it was obvious that she would be here. As though she hadn’t stormed off from the lab only a matter of hours ago, saying something about never seeing me again. I followed along anyway.

“Perhaps I should do just that — make them pay a toll or something for the pleasure.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I got up and started searching around for my spear. I’d been holding it just before I fell, so it couldn’t have gone far. On the other hand, if I’d dropped it before the explosion, I’d be heading back to Tren with a sheepish look and a request for a new loan.

“Looking for this?” Claire held {The Glass Cannon}. The point was aimed right at my chest, but I wasn’t worried. If I was correct, choosing the [Huntress] class would make her rather useless at wielding it. Tanking a 1 damage hit wouldn’t be too drastic.

“Thanks. I might be wanting that once I’m in Asteroth. Are you…coming with me? I’m confused.”

She was resplendent in full light armour and yet another bow I hadn’t seen before, but I still wasn’t sure. Our message history painted quite a different picture to taking on dangerous missions together like old chums.

“No. I just thought I’d spend four hours running out here with all my battle gear and a full lab of potions in my inventory. Just felt like it.”

“Okay, jeez. You can’t blame me for wondering.”

“I can and I will. Also, we’ll split the krad three thousand to me, two thousand to you. No negotiations.”

I debated for a moment, deciding whether I’d roll over on the payday. I’d originally offered her five hundred less than that, so it didn’t seem too steep. Besides, she’d already saved my ass once on this trip. That had to count for something.

“Done deal. But you gotta be with me all the way to the end. No pulling out when we have to go through a dark cave or a smelly swamp.”

“Piss off, stick-boy. I didn’t say we were going to be friends again, so hold the banter.”

I drew two fingers across my mouth in an innocent ‘zip’ motion, but I had no intention of obeying her order. I’d caught her fleeting smirk, and I was going to get another. I figured I owed her that much, considering I’d denied her father life-saving medication.

Saying it again really doesn’t make it sound any better, huh.

I tried to perk up. “Then let’s follow that trail! I’ve no clue where exactly to go, but I reckon something’ll come up.”

We strode off, gazing at what was left of the plateau as we passed through. There were a few Asterians camps still settled on top, and one tent teetered halfway between solid ground and the abyss. Whoever was still up there was not keen on testing their luck any further, and we entered Asteroth with no further trouble.

The landscape here was no different from the other side. I’d half-expected a complete overhaul of flora and fauna, but the grass was still green, and the sun still set in the west. The most notable difference was these large brown insects that flew over the tops of the fields we walked alongside. The road was wide and unsealed, traversing through farmer’s plantations if it had to and weaving around mountains or along rivers.

We stopped for a drink and a perusal of our maps. They’d expanded to include this region, and Claire showed me how to isolate one specific place and ‘zoom in’.

“You think we’ll get far before a run-in with the Asterians?” I asked.

“Are you saying that blowing hundreds of soldiers off a cliff doesn’t qualify as a ‘run-in’?” she replied.

It was a good point, so I zipped around the map for a bit while I crafted a response.

“I meant an encounter where we can’t bolt the other way if things go bad. Something where we have to fight or let ourselves be taken prisoner.”

Claire huffed. “If you think I’m gunna go to jail, you got another thing coming. Either we finish these quests, or we die and go back to the Yard empty-handed. And no, I think it’ll be about ten seconds until we have this ‘run-in’ of yours. Check it.”

She raised her head and nodded to a squad of soldiers setting up shop only a stone’s throw down the river. Two had broken off from the pack to check us out.

“Spear down,” she whispered. It was too late to go unnoticed, but I dropped it into the grass and mud anyway.

The {Asterian Swordsmen} I’d come to know and love looked nothing like these guys. My experience was with drab, grey soldiers wielding blunted weapons and spots of mud plastered along every part of their gear. Perhaps that was just what happened when you were stationed at Bill’s Yard, but these two were something else.

If their equipment was anything to go off, they were strong. It was hard to find similarities between them and the normal soldiers; the colour palette was different, the style of armour, their weaponry, everything. Without seeing them swing a sword or whatever it was tied to their waist, I wanted to steer clear.

“Pretty stream, eh? My daddy owns it,” said the first soldier.

His daddy?

“It sure is,” I replied. “Do you mind if we drink from it?”

Claire stifled a laugh, or maybe she was choking. It was hard to tell.

“You may. There’s no point having you pay for it. Daddy is already so rich it won’t mean anything to him.”

I was starting to understand what was going on here, and it was embarrassing to see my instincts be so far off the mark. If these two had ever seen a minute of battle in their lives, I’d pop a kidney. Probably never been swung at, either.

“Well thank you very much, my…lords. May I ask who your father is? I apologise for my rudeness; we are just travelling through.”

Claire had both hands clamped over her mouth and tears streaming from her eyes. She couldn’t have done a worse job of this even if she’d tried.

“Our father is Lord Piliton, and you may call us ‘Masters’. It would do you well to remember him. If the world rights itself someday, he will be king and we shall be princesses— pardon me, princes.”

I was almost too distracted by Claire bursting at the seams and the princess’s — sorry, prince’s — unfortunate slip to notice the familiar name.

Piliton. From Piliton’s Palace.

“Thank you, Master Sir. Does that name have anything to do with the Piliton Palace, by chance?”

The closest son’s eyes narrowed, and lines of suspicion crossed his face.

“You’re not after the Dallytongue, are you?”

I felt my face flush red. “The Dally-who-now? We just heard there was a beautiful palace that we had to see while we were here. Do the walls really glitter like opals each night?”

It was a decent bluff, I thought, and the soldier bought it. His suspicion was replaced by mirth as he turned to his brother, cackling.

“Ooo! You’ve gone and had your leg pulled, my poor chap! Ohhhh, you poor travelling sod.” He took a moment to dab at his eyes with a spotted blue cloth hidden in his pocket. “Piliton Palace is not a palace at all, no! Perhaps a pauper’s palace, you might say. No, no, no, but like you said, it is beautiful. I’ll tell you where to go, and you can see for yourself.”

Jackpot.

I wasn’t sure if meeting these two was some pre-set part of Otto’s quest, but if it was, I’d passed with flying colours.

“Simply follow the signs to Herayule, and when you get to the middle of Terkalon’s Bridge, look to your right. You’ll see it before then, but the Bridge gives you the best view.”

“Thank you, Master Sir. As humble travellers, we bestow good luck upon you.”

Both sons flicked a ‘Toodaloo!’ our way and returned to their camp. Looking at them now, their merry band was more like overdressed boy scouts playing at grown-ups, rather than some kind of elite force.

Claire finally let out her pent-up breath. “Holy hell, that was more difficult than the [Dark Naga] fight. They were frickin ridiculous!”

I completely agreed, but I didn’t want to show too much enthusiasm in case she remembered her ‘No Banter’ rule.

“Completely, but also extremely useful. Piliton’s Palace is where we gotta go for the first half of Otto’s quest.”

“And may I ask what we’re doing there?”

I picked up my spear and stood straight, facing her with a frosty glare. Putting on my most menacing, rusty voice, I let her in on the plan.

“We’re going flower picking.”