Taloc sat at a table at the Silver Penny and sipped his second ale of the night. It was bitter and reminded him of a low-quality IPA. He generally enjoyed a good IPA, but this one was not good, and to make matters worse, they only served it warm. All of the drinks had been served at room temperature. You would think that they would come up with a magical solution for the lack of refrigeration. Vultressant had a cold-based spell, but that would likely send his drink flying across the room. It might work on a barrel of ale, though. Well, that Oeister guy had told Vult that he could start a fire instead of casting his bolt of fire spell, so maybe cooling a beer with a cold-based spell wasn’t out of the question.
The inn was far busier than it had been the last two nights, and he was nursing his beer because had pounded the first drink, bad IPA and all, and then had to wait at least ten minutes to get his second one. He was kicking himself for not just ordering two the last time.
Vultressant made his way through the crowded inn, and Taloc made him out easily, even though most of the staff and patrons were either Dwarves or Gnomes. Vult was about the same height as most of the others in the room and tended to blend in, but Taloc’s senses were excellent. When the Wizard sat down, Isla motioned to one of the servers, who held up a finger, indicating it would be a moment before she’d be free.
“Now that you’re here,” Isla began, “I want to talk about my meeting with the council.” They all looked at her, and she continued. “So, the council is made up of two Dwarves, two Gnomes, and a Human, all male, of course.” She shook her head in a disgusted manner. “They offered us three things that they’d pay us to do. The cheapest is only 50 silver each; they want us to scout and possibly fight some Orcs. Apparently, the Orcs have been raiding and attacking people in the area. For 100 silver each, they want us to escort a delivery mission to a fort that the Dwarves have in the mountains. The third is a hunting mission. Some creatures are harassing a settlement south of here, near the river. They want us to find the creatures responsible and take care of them. That one sounds the toughest, and other groups have tried and not succeeded. Most were never seen again. The rest of the groups had all lost members, and when they came back to the settlement, they told stories of their defeats and the gruesome deaths of their companions. It does pay 500 silver each, though.”
“Presumably only if we succeed, right?” Vultressant asked. Isla made an expression and gesture that clearly indicated ‘of course’.
The delivery mission seemed to be the best idea, since Taloc had no idea what they might encounter if they chose the Orc task, and the trip south sounded dangerous. The pay for that trip was far better, but it was better to make sure that the task was one that they had a good chance of accomplishing. There was no point having some or all of them die and then not get paid because they had failed. The delivery mission seemed to be the only one of the three tasks that had a clearly defined goal, and they could also do some exploring while they were at it. “I like the delivery option,” he said. “I don’t like our chances on the southern mission. The Orc scouting mission seems a bit vague, and we don’t know how long it might take. Did you find out what we needed to do to get paid for that one?”
“They want information on the Orc numbers and locations,” Isla said. “The Orcs are hostile, and from what I gathered from the meeting, they’re more organized than Orcs normally are. It sounded to me like there would likely be some fighting if we took that job.”
“How far away is the delivery quest?” Vultressant asked.
“They said it would take us about four or five days to get there, but it would be quicker getting back, since we wouldn’t be slowed by an oxcart.”
“I like the delivery option as well,” Vanya said. “There are a few herbs that can only be found in the mountains. I can look for some while we travel.”
Vultressant looked to Taloc. “Did you give her the leaf?” he asked.
Taloc hadn’t given her the vargush leaf and, in fact, had forgotten all about it. “I was just waiting for you to get here,” he said, and he pulled out the leaf and handed it to Vanya, who was sitting across from him. “What do you make of this?”
Vanya took the leaf from him and inspected it. She rubbed it between her thumb and index finger, sniffed it, and then briefly touched her tongue to the side of the leaf. Taloc fought the urge to warn her not to ingest it, but from what Oeister had said, the blindness wore off in less than a day. She accessed her HUD for a moment and said, “This is vargush, and it can be eaten or made into tea to give someone resistance against cold for a short time, but it needs to be mixed with something like heavenstine leaves or you’ll be blinded for several hours if you consume it.”
“Is that what the information option of your interface told you?” Vultressant asked.
Vanya shook her head. “No, my herb lore skill triggered, and then I just knew what it did. I looked up something that could be used to remove the side effect from the leaf. I have a list that I’m keeping of all medicinal plants in this world.”
“What does your info say about the plant?” Maroftis asked.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She accessed her HUD again and recited the information. “Vargush leaves are located deep within forests in temperate climates. When consumed, they grant the benefit of resistance to cold damage. The duration of this effect depends on both the number of leaves consumed and the weight of the creature who ate them. Temporary blindness is a side effect of ingesting these leaves.”
Taloc reviewed his information on the plant when Vanya had finished reciting the properties of the leaf. He accessed his HUD, and the entry for the Vargush leaves was now identical to what Vanya had just read to them. It was clear to him that the information that showed up in their systems wasn’t to be fully trusted, but it wasn’t entirely useless either. Their skills were being used when they encountered things for the first time, and the knowledge that those skills provided showed up in the information system. Vultressant had been furnished with prompts that contained some information when he learned a new language, so it probably worked with other knowledge-based skills as well—the descriptions of the Anurans and Gnolls had been spot-on.
“What if your herb lore was wrong?” Vultressant asked.
“I have had times when the herb lore check listed a plant as an unknown substance,” Vanya replied, “so I would assume that I would get that result instead of a false one.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “Does anyone object to doing the delivery mission?” Vultressant asked, looking around the table.
“I would like to try the southern mission,” Ewtain said, “but I’m fine with doing the delivery first. When do we go?”
“It will be at least three days until we can start. I have to be present for the enchantment part of my sword creation, and that’s in two days. Hopefully it will just take one day, or better yet, part of the day.”
“That’s right!” Vultressant exclaimed. “I want to be there for that. I’m also meeting with Oeister tomorrow. He said that his class is Sage, but he seems to be mostly focused on summoning spells. I tried it myself today, but nothing happened. I felt like I was close, though, so hopefully I can learn how to do it with his help. And I’ll ask him if there’s anything that he needs from up north. Maybe we can get paid twice for the same trip.” The Gnome had begun speaking faster as he went on, so he was obviously excited about the chance to learn more about the magic system here.
“I’m supposed to be the one to learn stuff quickly,” Isla said in a huff.
“Maybe if you get a spell type, spells would come easily to you, too,” Vultressant offered.
“Oh my god, a spell hit you, and you learned it!” Isla’s voice began to rise. “Nothing like that has happened to me.”
“What did you feel when you tried to cast the spell?” Vanya asked after a spoonful of vegetable stew, completely ignoring Isla’s outburst.
Vultressant turned to Vanya, clearly excited to be talking about spell casting. “For a long time, there was nothing, but then I felt a sort of resistance. I don’t know if I have to break through the resistance or open it somehow. Oeister kept telling me to imagine what I wanted to summon, but I have issues with imagination.”
Vanya frowned. “All of the games that you play are imagination-based.”
“Other people’s imaginations. I’m good with things like exploiting rules to be in my favor, but creating a game, or a world, is out of my league.” Vultressant paused to take a bite of a chicken leg. “At any rate, I believe that I’ve made some progress, but even if I can successfully summon something, it might not be useful for a while.”
“Why not?” Maroftis asked. He was eating what looked like a small raw octopus or squid, and his words came out garbled. Two tentacles hung from his mouth, and Talok thought they were trying to make a break for it. He slurped them back in and swallowed before saying, “The spell either works or it doesn’t.”
Vultressant tilted his head to one side and made a gesture that indicated something like ‘not exactly’. “Well, we’re attempting the summoning in a protective circle, because apparently most things don’t like being summoned.” He considered it for a moment. “Whether or not they do, the object is to get the summoned creature to do what you want, or at the very least make sure that it doesn’t attack you. Oeister can summon several creatures safely. One creature follows his commands most of the time, but sometimes it tries to break his control. Oeister didn’t go into detail about what happens if it does break free, but I assume that it’s bad. I’ll ask more about it tomorrow.”
“That sounds interesting,” Vanya said skeptically, “but I don’t want something turning on us in a battle.” That made good sense, and by the looks of the others, they had similar reservations.
Vultressant held up his hands. “I’ll keep it small and mostly harmless.” He then turned to the group and said, “What do you think about not being the only players here anymore?”
Ewtain and the two women looked stunned. Taloc spoke up. “I was waiting until you got here to drop that news bomb.”
“Ah,” Vultressant said, “then I guess I’ll tell them. The caster, Oeister, is from our world. He said that he has been here three years and that he was at a Comic-Con when it happened.” He filled the other three in on the discussion with the Sage from earlier that day. “We didn’t get into the reasons why he thinks that this is real, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Three years! So, we’re stuck here? I’m never going to see my mom again,” Isla said dejectedly, looking like she wanted to cry.
“Sorry, Isla,” Taloc said. “We all have loved ones that we miss, and hopefully we can find a way back to them.” For some time, he’d thought that there was a good chance that this was indeed all real, and he had believed that Isla felt the same. She must have been hoping for there to be a simple way out, but this news would dash that hope.
“Oeister also said that he had died once and respawned with some items gone. He lost things from both his inventory and what he was carrying,” Vultressant said, oblivious to Isla’s obvious distress. “He said that items bound to him stayed with him, so we should research how to bind things to us. Rena, the Enchantress at the foundry, wants Taloc there during the enchanting to hopefully get the sword to bind to him, but there might be other ways too.”
Isla still looked crestfallen. Taloc looked around at the other faces at the table. Maroftis was munching on something, but Taloc couldn’t read his face anymore anyway. Ewtain had his hood up but didn’t seem agitated by the news. Vanya sat there calmly sipping from her wine glass, and she looked to be smiling. That was very odd. Is she happy that we’re stuck here? “Maybe we should drop it for now,” he said finally. “Let’s just try to enjoy the evening.”