Chapter Three

Thursday, November 28th, 2052, 17:42 OWO Server Time

We found Faversham’s singular inn near the center of the village, a large two-story wooden structure with a fieldstone foundation and brightly lit windows across the first floor. From outside, we heard the dull murmur of the raucous pub we were hoping for, raised voices, the clatter of dishware, and the light strumming of a stringed instrument partnered with a male baritone. The sign hanging over the door proclaimed the inn to be The Laughing Puppet.

“Someone should check it out first,” I said. We didn’t have much to worry about from the generally docile NPCs unless we got hostile first. However, taverns and inns were also natural gathering spots for players.

“Shit a dick! I keep telling you this is the ass end of fucking nowhere. If we’re not going in, can we just go make camp already?” It seemed Macha was all out of patience.

“Last time you were here was over a year ago,” I said. “And you weren’t carrying the MacGuffin.”

“It won’t hurt to take a peek first,” Elias said with a reluctant sigh. Nevertheless, it was clear that the cleric was eager to get inside. I was reminded that when we’d first met him, only a few days ago, Elias had been drunkenly passed out behind The White Horse, and it hadn’t even been noon. Since joining the party, Elias had been a sober and reliable companion, but we’d also been out in the wilderness and away from temptation for that entire time.

Gotta remember to keep an eye on him tonight, I told myself.

“I’ll slip in and take a peek.” Bryn’s tone was light and casual as she stepped towards the door.

Macha, Bolton, and Elias looked at me for a judgment, making it clear that it was my call whether to trust Bryn or not. The reaction of the other three didn’t go unnoticed by Bryn, and she turned her ember eyes to me. I had a flash of a memory of those same red eyes in that gorgeous if slightly familiar face that had dazzled me while she tried to pick my pockets clean the night we first met.

If she’s going to stab any of us in the back, I’m the most valuable target. Or, more precisely, the MacGuffin is, so it's my ass on the line and my choice. I told myself. It’s still weird to feel like the others have decided I’m in charge. It would’ve been nice for someone to tell me!

“Go,” I said, giving her what I hoped was a trustworthy and reassuring smile. “Give a shout if you run into trouble.”

“As you wish,” Bryn said with a shallow mocking bow.

The dark elf assassin spun away and activated her Stealth skill, fading away once more. I squinted my eyes and kept my attention focused on her with an effort. She wasn’t much more than a silhouette and a blurry one at that. On silent feet, Bryn’s shadowy form slipped up to the door of the inn. There she paused, almost fading away entirely in a deep shadow. If I’d had plain old human vision or even a slightly lower Perception skill, I wouldn’t have been able to see her at all.

Bryn lurked in the shadows beside the inn’s entrance for several moments until a couple of NPC villagers opened the door to depart. Swift and graceful as a cat, I caught Bryn slipping unnoticed behind the villagers and through the door before it closed. The rest of us waited, holding our collective breaths and listening for any disturbance in the sounds of activity coming from the inn.

After what felt like an eternity of tense waiting but was probably less than five minutes in actuality, I broke the silence. “That’s it. I’m going after -”

The door to the inn swung open, and Bryn leaned nonchalantly in the doorway. The dark elf’s hood was thrown back. Bryn’s thick silver-white braid of hair draped over one shoulder sparkling in the firelight of the room. A stemmed wooden wine cup dangled casually from her right hand, and a cocky smirk was spread across her red-painted lips.

“Miss me?” Bryn inquiried before taking a sip from her cup.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

Bryn winced and glanced at her cup, then shrugged. “It’s drinkable. Barely.”

“Cocky bitch!” Macha’s knuckles crackled as her hands clenched to fists, and she took a step forward. Bolton put a gentle restraining hand on Macha’s shoulder and murmured something to her I didn’t quite catch but halted the monk’s advance.

Bryn laughed, the sound somehow merry and mocking at the same time. “It’s a ghost town. Nothing but villagers. You were right, Macha.”

The assassin stepped back from the doorway, holding the door for us, and swept out her arm in a welcoming gesture. I took the lead and my friends, including Archer, followed. The common room of the Laughing Puppet was more or less what we’d all expected. A squarish room with unpolished, wooden-plank floors. Rough plaster walls, smudged from years of grunge and smoke.

To the right of the door stood a large fireplace of mortared stones, the glow from which filled the room with warmth and light. To the left, a staircase led to the second floor. Beside the stairs sat a short wooden bar lined with wooden stools. Behind the bar, a hefty, middle-aged NPC barman was filling ceramic mugs with beer from the spigot of a wooden barrel. Long tables with benches, the wood polished smooth from years of use, crowded much of the floor.

Eating and drinking NPC villagers - each with a gray tag floating over their heads - occupied most of the bar stools and tables. Our arrival drew a couple of uninterested glances from the dead-eyed villagers before returning to their scripted behavior. If this was a movie, my friends and I were the stars, and the NPCs were merely background extras. From a door on the back wall of the common room, a woman emerged carrying a tray of plated food.

Natalie Walton, Level 5 Barmaid, Human

Like any good restaurant server, Natalie took note of our arrival. She beamed a megawatt smile at us in greeting while moving to deliver her tray to her fellow NPCs. Natalie’s wheat-blond curls fell past her shoulders and framed a slender, attractive face. She wore a simple green dress and stained white apron combo that still accentuated pleasant curves.

“Quaint as fuck, right?” Bryn observed snidely between sips of wine.

“It’ll do,” I said while pulling down my hood for the first time since leaving the OZ. Only NPCs had handles floating over their heads within inns and taverns.

“Let’s grab a table,” Bolton said from behind me.

“I’ll get the first round and see about accommodations,” Elias volunteered, eagerly moving towards the bar

“Separate rooms!” Macha shouted after him.“We’ve got the money! I’m not sharing!”

Elias made a beeline for the bar, and I suppressed the urge to lend him a hand while keeping an eye on him. I wouldn’t know if he needed bar-monitoring if I didn’t give him a chance first. So instead, I turned my attention to the tables. A group of villagers near the fireplace were getting up to leave. I wove my way through the room to claim their table. It was probably the nicest table in the place, and I wondered if our conversation had triggered scripted behavior in the NPCs or if we’d just had fortuitous timing.

While I shrugged out of my pack and rested it on the floor, Archer sniffed out a spot beside the fireplace. The pony-sized wolf turned in three tight circles, then, with a sigh, dropped to the floor. I sat on the bench as Macha and Bolton claimed seats across the table. Bryn slipped into the open spot at my side, immediately snuggling close while eliciting foreboding looks from Macha and Bolton both.

I held my breath and my tongue. If I had thought for a moment that Bryn was doing anything but trying to annoy my friends, I might have been titillated, but I knew better. Or at least I thought I did. Bryn slid closer to me. Her shoulder slid under my arm until our sides were pressed together.

With her nearness came the drifting scent of lavender with just a hint of sulfur. It shouldn’t have been nearly as enticing as it was. A torrid memory flashed through my mind. Glimpses of how we’d spent our last night in Elmore together. The combination of her touch, her smell, and the memory they evoked caused my body began to respond. I let out a long slow breath and tried to think about baseball before things became uncomfortable.  

Damn high Charisma stat, I mentally grumbled. Without a perception filter, I was almost as susceptible to Bryn’s Charisma-based skills as any NPC. Need to raise my Wisdom more.

An uncomfortable silence dropped between us until Elias arrived, somehow managing to carry a large jug of wine and four wooden wine cups. “Rooms are taken care of. You each owe me 5 crypts.”

“Wine?” Macha frowned with obvious disappointment.

“Feel free to go get something else.” Elias started filling and distributing cups, then topped off Bryn’s cup before sitting on the bench beside her. However, he left himself plenty of elbow room.

“Maybe next round.” Macha produced a stack of five gold coins from a pouch and slid them across the table to Elias.

The rest of us each followed suit. It was nice having a decent chunk of change to my name for once. Parting with 5 crypts would have been a severe blow to my budget in the real world. After our loot from the tomb, it seemed like almost nothing.

“Should we toast or something?” I suggested as everyone was about to take their first sips. They all paused and looked at me expectantly, but I suddenly realized I had nothing to say.

“Here’s to those who wish us well,” Bryn raised her cup and saved my butt, “all the rest can go to hell.”

Everyone started to lift their cups to clink, but Elias spoke up with a toast of his own. “To absent friends.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Macha said.

We clicked our wooden cups together then took deep sips of the wine. It was my first experience with wine, and I tried not to wince at the sharp, bitter tang of it. Was this really what rich people made such a fuss over?

“So, what’s next from here?” I set my cup down and considered making the trek up to the bar for some beer.

“Corvin, first I’d guess. It’s a long way to Hickman from here,” Bolton said.

Hickman was the biggest city in Gygax and our ultimate destination. Many of the best quests started in Hickman. It was also the best place to blend into the crowd of other players.

“Lots of quests and treasure between here and there,” Macha threw in. “Does anyone have a map yet?”

“I do.” A long leather tube appeared in Bryn’s free hand as she withdrew it from her inventory. She uncapped the tube and slid out a rolled parchment, which she then spread across the table, revealing a map of Mancour, the biggest continent of Gygax, and where we currently found ourselves.

“Is this a RadiantScribe map?” Bolton ran a claw tip almost reverently over the map’s edge, “This must have cost a fortune!”

“It was a gift,” Bryn said with a shrug that brushed against me again. Then beneath the table, I felt her delicate hand come to rest on my thigh.

“Someone just gave you a RadiantScribe map?” Macha asked with apparent skepticism.

Bolton leaned forward. I watched him pinch and spread his clawed fingers over the surface of the parchment. In response, the map zoomed in and out, revealing incredible detail or broad landscapes. He tapped on a village, and a little box of flowing handwritten text appeared beside the settlement. He swiped the box away, then continued to poke and prod the map experimentally. It wasn’t that different than looking at maps on a tablet or widget out in the real world. Still, after just a month in the technology-free Gygax, the sight was a little wondrous to me.

“So, what’s the best route to Hickman?” I asked before Bryn and Macha could start sniping at each other.

“Depends on what you mean by best,” Bolton said as he adjusted the view of the map so that Faversham and Hickman were easily visible, along with the territory between. Then he pressed the index finger of each hand down on the map, his right on Faversham and his left on Hickman. Dotted lines appeared winding along various routes between the two points. The individual paths began to glow with noticeable differences in brightness that I realized denoted the directness of each route. The shortest routes were brightest, fading to the longer routes, just simple lines with no glow.

Bolton traced the pointed tip of one claw along the brightest and most direct route. It was nearly a straight shot between the two points. “This is the King’s Road; it picks up at Corvin, the small city just outside the southern exit from Rowling Valley. It would take us about ten days to walk it. Less if we got some mounts.”

“It’s also heavily traveled,” Elias said while refilling his wine cup from the jug.

“And choice hunting grounds for PKers,” Macha added.

“How do players of our level usually make the trip?” I asked.

“They either hang out around Corvin for a while, farming EXP until they level up enough to make the journey, usually 15 to 20 makes you pretty safe if you’re in a party,” Macha said. “Or larger groups of lower levels will form a caravan for safety in numbers, A lot of times, those are organized by clans for their new recruits. If we had exited Rowling from a more popular route, clan recruiters would have been all over us.”

“Clans?” I asked.

“Player run groups,” Elias said. “Usually dedicated to a particular aspect of the game, questing, dungeon delving, crafting -”

“- Also mercenary companies, bounty hunters, thieves, bodyguards, and assassins,” Bryn jumped in. “Aside from the Megas, they’re the biggest organized player groups in OWO. They share play guides, info, equipment resources, and provide protection to their members.”

“Bunch of stuck-up pricks making exclusive clubs,” Macha said with a bitter edge. “They’re as greedy and corrupt as the Megas. We’d do best to steer clear of them. Best case, they’ll try to twist your arm into joining them just to get the Swor -”

I cleared my throat in protest, and Macha corrected herself, “-The MacGuffin. Of course, they wouldn’t mind buying it either, but worst case, they’ll wipe us all out and take what they want.”

“I hate to say it, but she’s right.” Bryn leaned in closer to my side as Macha shot a dagger-filled glare at her across the table. “At least until you’ve got forty or fifty more levels on you.”

“Hard to reach the high levels as a solo,” Bolton muttered. “Gonna be a real grind.”

“So our plan should be to avoid other players,” I said. “Even solos might have hidden allegiances.”

We all retreated into our own thoughts for several minutes until Bryn leaned over and tapped Corvin on the map. “There’s a portal terminal in Corvin, could get us straight to Hickman or any of the other OVR World settings if we wanted. They’re fucking expensive, at least five-thousand crypts for each of us for an instantaneous trip from Corvin to Hickman.”

“Pricey,” I said. After the tomb, we each had over sixteen thousand in crypto-currency, represented as gold coins in the game, attached to my character’s account. So a gate would cost almost a third of my current reserves.

“Let’s rule out the King’s Road and teleportation for the moment,” I said. “What else is there?”

“The Grind-again Trail?” Macha suggested.

“The what?” I asked.

“Sounds like my kind of place.” Bryn smirked, and her hand on my thigh slid a bit higher, then squeezed to punctuate her not-so-subtle innuendo.

Macha rolled her eyes before peering over at the map. She pressed a slender finger down and held it to a dotted line that was glowing moderately. The path turned brighter in response to her touch, and the route turned green. Like the King’s Road, it started in Corvin, but it took a twisting, meandering path over the intervening land, passing through several forests, mountain ranges, and smaller settlements along the way.

“That’s what players call it, the Grind-again Trail. It doesn’t have an official name,” Macha said. “It’ll take a month or more, depending on our pace and how many quests we detour for. But it gives us lots of EXP to level up along the way. In addition, there are countless little off-shoots and alternate paths we can choose if we need to or feel adventurous.”

“PKers to worry about?” I asked.

Macha pursed her lips and shrugged. “Nowhere is completely safe out here, but it’s less juicy to Player Killers because players tend to be less packed together. The trail also has more wandering monsters. Great for grinding, not so much if you’re just looking to pick off noobs.”

“From what I’m seeing on the forums, casual players tend to not bother with it since it takes so much longer.” Bolton’s eyes were closed, indicating he was looking through screens on his HUD. I suppressed a surge of jealousy at his easy access to outside information that inmate players like Macha and I were locked out of.

“Alright, everyone good with the Grind-again Trail then?” I asked, then looked around the table to gauge the group.

“Seems like our best option,” Bolton said. Beside him, Macha nodded her agreement.

“Agreed.” Elias stared down into his wine cup as he swirled the contents.

“I’m in,” Bryn said cheerily, drawing fresh scowls from Macha and Bolton. I was sure the two had hoped that Bryn would volunteer to cut ties with us and part ways. However, I was also confident that annoying Macha and Bolton was at least half of the reason Bryn was sticking with us.