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Wolven canines crunched down on the tip of the wooden staff. Fierce yellow eyes frowned at her while deep-throated growls escaped the beast’s throat.
The large wolf tried to move sideways, but Jane turned, keeping the staff held out in front of her like a spear, fending the animal off, forcefully jabbing the tip in its mouth. Because if it got any closer, those jaws would tear into her flesh instead.
Quill came at the wolf from Jane’s right. After already having done so many times, he raised the mace high in his right hand and slammed it down on the wolf’s head.
The wolf’s HP finally ran out, and it sank to the ground, dead.
Jane pumped a fist into the air, face full of excitement. “Woo!”
“Yes!” Just as thrilled, he raised his left hand and high-fived her. “It feels good to have actual weapons when fighting.”
Jane, grinning, looked down at the staff in her hands. “So much more useful than a knife.”
“So this is what it feels like to get stronger, huh?” Quill laughed, feelings of relief and confidence flooding his body. He’d been feeling pretty helpless so far in this world. The fight against the rogue yesterday had gone very poorly. But now? Energized like an excited kid, he looked at Jane and nodded toward another wolf pacing in pre-programmed circles a dozen paces away, conveniently oblivious to them despite being visible. “Come on. Let’s take on another one.”
“Yeah!” With both hands gripping the staff and wielding a fierce grin of her own, she led the way.
They used their technique on three more wolves. Jane acted as the tank, going in first and drawing aggro, fending off the wolf with the length of wood. She was able to do this while not expending much effort so that her Stamina didn’t run out too quickly.
Then Quill would come in from the back or sides and slowly chip away at the beast’s health with his mace. While the work was very slightly faster than with the knife and felt a lot more fun, he still had low stats and had to work hard. But it got the job done.
After their fourth kill of the day, Jane picked up yet another pelt and slung it over her shoulder. They’d skinned all four wolves, and a single apple had dropped, which they’d shared. She shaded her eyes with one hand and looked out over the Green Hills zone. “Let’s go exploring. We need to find the Gold Crusade training camp.”
“You don’t want to grind for a bit first?” He was feeling the lack of levels. Despite four kills, his XP had barely moved, and it was frustrating.
Jane looked eager to move past grinding, though. “We don’t have bags. How are we going to carry anything? Feels like a waste leaving pelts behind. Even junk drops we could sell for copper.”
He agreed. They needed every coin. It felt wasteful leaving items behind. “Bags of holding are going to be expensive. You think we might be able to buy regular backpacks?”
She turned her head and gave him a look. “Once again, things that should have come to my attention — yesterday!1”
Hearing the old movie quote, he coughed a surprised laugh. Then he gave her a shrewd look in return. “That’s how it is, huh? All right, remember: alcohol equals puke, equals smelly mess, equals nobody likes you.2”
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no witty remark came out. Instead, she blushed and turned away, embarrassed.
The urge to tease rose within, and he leaned toward her. “You remember what you were like with the cat jokes, hmm? Relentless.” He lowered his voice to a flat, machine-like tone. “Relentless mode, starting now.”
She seemed to be fighting an embarrassed laugh and pouting at the same time. Biting her lips, she made no response.
Seeing that she did look honestly humiliated, he relented with a laugh and nudged her. “I’m kidding. I won’t be relentless. Promise.”
Blushing, she stuck her tongue out at him.
He threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her along. “Come on. Let’s try the village. Maybe we can buy a regular backpack there. Or sell the pelts. Or buy some thread and make our own backpack. Then we’ll go exploring.”
“Fine.”
“…just stay away from any alcohol.”
“Grr!” She made to hit him with her staff, but he leapt out of the way, laughing.
To make the trip efficient, they made a straight line for the village, forcing them to kill all the enemies in their path. They didn’t need to, of course, but it was an excuse to get more XP. While they ignored the adorable blue hedgehogs darting between bushes, they killed three more wolves. This dropped five copper, a half-loaf of rye bread, and three more pelts.
On the main road running through the few buildings making up this village, they found a house that doubled as both tavern and a general store. The inside was plain, hand-crafted wood that was worn gray with age. Half the small room had a pair of stuffed, green couches, a scarred table with some cards on it, and a brick fireplace; the area probably doubled as the owner’s own living room. The other half had a short counter and some shelving with general goods. One keg and a couple of glass bottles stood behind the bar.
The balding, middle-aged bartender/shopkeep had been one of those who’d assisted in chopping up the moss bear earlier, but he showed no sign of recognition, perhaps because he was a low-level NPC. “Greetings. What can I get ya? We’ve got some fine ale. I’ve also got a few trinkets you might find useful.”
At the suggestion of ale, Quill turned his eyes on Jane. “Staaaare…”
She scoffed, “Oh, shut it,” but also laughed before addressing the shopkeep. “Can we see your wares?”
“Here ya go.” The shopkeep pointed to a sign on the wall behind him with words and prices burned into it.
Quill approved. “Well, that’s nicer than a digital menu coming up.”
Jane brightened. “Oh, look! They sell sacks. Perfect.”
He spotted them on a shelf. “Not as handy as a backpack. We’ll have to carry them by hand.”
Jane scanned the board with calculating eyes. “They have rope. Unlike computer games, where all items are fixed, and you have limited interaction with the environment, here we seem to have the ability to make use of things in this world on our own, without officially crafting. Let’s try to make sling bags or a harness.”
“Nice idea. Pretty handy having that level of realism. Could do without the trauma of pain and dying, though.”
She shuddered. “Yeah.”
They bought a length of rope, heavy thread, and four sacks and then sold the pelts they’d brought for a few copper. Having a seat on the couches, they set to work. Well, mostly Jane worked. First, because the sacks were small, they unstitched them, and then Jane sewed two sacks together, making bigger versions.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Quill admired her work. “You’re good at that.”
She chuckled. “Thanks! Looots of practice.”
Cutting the rope into pieces, they sewed one end of a section to the top corner of a sack and the other to the bottom corner on the same side, making a strap. They repeated that on the other side.
Jane held hers up with pride. “And just like that — we have backpacks!”
“I was never into crafting and fishing and stuff in computer games. It always seemed like time-wasting and silly. But I have to admit, doing it yourself like this feels pretty cool.”
Jane danced in her seat, evidently pleased with herself or happy to be doing this. “Right? I love crafts. I like taking different materials and seeing what I can make out of them. I make all my own cosplay outfits.” She tried the backpack on and appraised it. “It works. The rope’s probably gonna cut into the shoulders, though. Might have to make some pads later. And I don’t trust the stitching to be all that strong, so we should be careful with how much we carry.”
Marvelling at the handiwork, he turned his admiration on her. “You’re amazing.”
“I know.” Despite the faux-arrogant response, a smile crossed her lips. “Now let’s find that Crusader camp and get ourselves some of that sweet, sweet XP.”
Outside the house/tavern/shop, they looked around.
Quill slipped his new backpack on. “Which way? Cross country and grind while we go? The road is probably always safe. Shall we follow it a while and see what we see?”
“Sure.” Jane led the way. “I get the feeling that we’re on a higher-level quest again, so the Crusader camp could be a ways out in the zone. Actually…” She broke off and looked apologetic. “I was thinking maybe me being higher level could be triggering quests out of your range?”
He sighed. “Yeah, it’s possible. And it’s going to keep happening.” He struggled to get the next words out. “Look, Jane, I really enjoy being in a party with you. And it has been fun. But if my levelling rate is slowing you down—“
She held up a hand to cut him off, looking annoyed. “Stop. You’re not slowing me down. Even if you level up slower, so what? At some point, I’ll hit the level cap and stop growing while you catch up, right? It doesn’t matter if you take longer.”
“Sorry. Just saying.”
“Well, you don’t have to.”
Seeing her even mildly annoyed made him feel pathetic, and he disliked himself at that moment. Was he really saying it was ok for her to leave him because he cared about her, or did he lack confidence in himself?
Surely, she would know that she could leave him anytime. He didn’t need to bring it up. Therefore, wasn’t this his weakness showing? Where was that weakness coming from? Had he been that affected by his stats? Or was it deeper than that? Something in his own nature? Self-pity? Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
They walked down the road for a while in silence, but it wasn’t long before Jane decided to restore the mood. She stretched and looked at the sky, her voice showing no signs of annoyance any longer. “I wonder if the weather is always perfect in this zone.”
Quill forced lingering feelings of self-dislike away. “In a way, I hope not. I don’t want to get caught out in the rain or anything, but it’s nice when games have changing weather.”
“I’m sure there’s probably another zone where it’s nothing but rain or snow. Let’s enjoy this while we can.”
“Agreed.” Something off the road caught his eye. “Hey. What’s that?”
They stepped off the beaten dirt path and walked through the grass. Several stone cubes rested on squat cylinders. One of the seven had strange runes that glowed from within with pink light.
Jane grew thoughtful as she meandered between the different cubes. “It’s a puzzle. I’ve seen this before.” Her tone turned wry. “I play this one game. When it first came out — wow. So much fun. They had puzzles like this all over the place, and no one had really seen anything like it. Half the time, you’d fight monsters, half you’d solve puzzles.”
“Sounds cool.”
She nodded. “It was. The first release. Even in the next expansion, it was still fun. Then the next expansion came out. And the next. And it was virtually the same puzzles, just slightly different, totally recycled. Ugh. They went from being a cool challenge to tedious.”
“That’s sad.”
“It was! The game is so gorgeous, though, and I love playing it. I stream it. And I get that coming up with new puzzles is hard. But when you’re a billion-dollar company, I kind of expect more, you know?”
He mock-gasped. “What? You mean you want them to reinvest in the game and IP instead of making shareholders richer? You must be one of those evil socialists.”
She grabbed one of the cubes and twisted it to the left. After two turns, this one also lit up, the rune glowing pink. But a seemingly random cube elsewhere turned at the same time. Jane pointed to a stone off to the side. “Try that one over there. Face it the same way as this one.”
He did as she asked, and the initial glowing cube turned, and the light vanished.
They tried turning almost every cube before frustration got to Jane. “Grr! I may have forgotten to mention, I also suck at puzzles.”
“Apparently, I’m not much better.” He stepped back a moment and took a look at the whole puzzle. “Try…this one, then that one over there.”
They moved the two cubes. All seven rotated the same direction, and the runes glowed delightfully pink.
Jane did a little jump and pumped both fists. “Yes!”
She looked good when she was happy. Quill was about to respond when the ground moved under him, and he fell off balance, landing on his butt in the grass.
A wooden chest rose from the ground where he’d been standing.
Jane exclaimed, “Loot! Nice!”
The chest opened at her touch. The contents fountained upwards and out: a rusted longsword, apples, loose pages from a book, a half-full waterskin, and a lot of sparkles.
Jane cried out and ducked, but the longsword hit her in the chest anyway. “That hurt!” She painfully clutched at her chest and spoke in disbelief. “I just lost half my health.”
Quill picked himself up. “And this stuff is everywhere. Seriously? Who designed this?” He brushed fading sparkles of light away from his face and bent over to pick up the apples and pages. Examining one piece of paper, he frowned. “It looks like something from a book?”
Jane perked up. “Treasure map?”
“No. More like lore.”
She picked up the rusty sword. Tsking, she discarded it as useless. “The kind of lore that’s just flavour and background, and we don’t have to care about? Or the kind where we have to collect a lot of pages, remake the book, and it gives us something useful? Like a treasure map.”
“You’re obsessed with treasure.”
She eyed him and swept an arm down her body, indicating herself. “I’m an adventurer. Hello?”
He took off his new backpack and opened it up. “Let’s take the pages. See if anyone back in the city knows anything.” He stuffed them inside, along with the free food. “Let’s get back on the ro—“
“Look!”
Quill looked over and saw Jane scampering across the grass, giggling.
“So many kitties!” She slowed as she arrived at a cluster of cat trees, little igloo-like caves of various pastel colours, paper bags, cardboard boxes, and slender tunnels made of fabric snaking all over the place.
Dozens of kittens of all colours and kinds crawled, played, jumped, slept, and cavorted in all manners amongst the little paradise. It was a display of unparalleled cuteness.
Kneeling with a happy gasp, Jane was enthusiastically swarmed by the adorable furballs. They tumbled into her lap, climbed up her back and arms to hang on her shoulder and nuzzle her ear, and purred as she petted them. “Quill. I’m never leaving. This is my happy place.”
He chuckled. “That’s a lot of cuteness.”
She picked up a snow-white thing that must have been six months old, all clumsy, oversized paws, and brought him to her face so she could rub her nose in his fluffy coat. “I want, I want, I want. Think we can take them back to the city with us?”
“Ooo, look at the big, bad adventurer. So dangerous. Taken down by baby cats.” It was a lovely scene, and Jane seemed overjoyed, so Quill was content to let her play and was even drawn into the kitten festival himself.
It wasn’t until the sun began to turn orange on the horizon that Quill realized that hours had passed. How had that happened without them noticing?
Male
36
QUILL KRAU
Class NONE, Level 2
STR
1
STATUS
DEX
3
Currently worried.
HEA
7
SKILLS
INT
2
WIS
17
ITEMS
STA
14
Mace (common)
CHA
11
Official Adventurers Guide
Female
26
JANE EULA
Class NONE, Level 4
STR
6
STATUS
DEX
11
Currently in kitty cat heaven of fluffy wonderousness and adorability!!
HEA
19
SKILLS
INT
18
WIS
18
ITEMS
STA
2
Gilded Armour of the Nature Goddess (unique); knife; staff (common)
CHA
5