6

When my eyes opened, I quickly noticed that I was surrounded by darkness. Slivers of light bled in from above. As I moved, heavy waves of vertigo rocked through my body. Something was splitting in my head, right behind my left eye, a merciless headache that showed no signs of relenting. I coughed, feeling a dry cracking sensation in my mouth. I tried to move my tongue around my mouth to wet it, but it felt like dragging a wad of cotton over the interior of my mouth. My helmet was still on, and it was blocking my vision now. Normally, I wouldn’t have any problems seeing with the enchantments. Now, I was all but blind.

I took a second to check my quest log. Things from last night were a little fuzzy. Both the Hostage Rescue and Oyster Bar Brawl quests displayed as failed in my quest log, the text crossed and grayed out.

I tried to lift an arm to twist off my helmet, but there was something on top of me, heavy and unmoving. Twisting under the solid mass, I struggled to position myself in a way that would allow me to lift an arm, freeing it for motion. My armor felt heavy though, and it was a struggle to move the freed limb to whatever was on top of me. The thing on top of me was too big to wrap a single hand around. I heaved with all the strength I could muster and tried to move the stubborn object. My efforts were in vain, it wouldn’t budge.

“Help!” I croaked. My voice came out little more than a dry wheeze. No one responded, and I strained again against my makeshift prison. I was surprised to see my health at full, especially with the headache. Magic in Stratus could heal wounds to the point where it was impossible to tell they happened in the first place. The best example, and one I was happy about, was the fact that I had all of my teeth again despite losing quite a few during the fight against Jason. My armor on the other hand was getting worse with each fight, and if we kept it up, I was going to need some serious repairs which wouldn’t be cheap, if they could even be done at all.

My helmet started twisting, and someone pulled it off. Bright afternoon sunlight burned through my vision, temporarily blinding me as I adjusted from the cloistering darkness of my helmet.

It was Gaz who was helping me, or at least trying to. His beard had chunks of food, dried blood, and other unidentifiable matter accenting it. He looked and smelled worse than I felt. I started wondering how that was possible, but then remembered how much he drank the night before. “Need a hand?” he asked.

“Please.”

With our combined strength, we managed to topple over what turned out to be a large, rectangular support beam of the building to the side. The massive piece of wood was charred to a crisp, and when we moved it, my armor was stained a sooty black where it had pinned me. “John?” I asked. I remembered his character dying, him being removed from the party, but maybe he made it somehow, even if he wasn’t showing up in my UI. In fact, Gaz was the only one in my party right now, perhaps Kirsten and Clarence were too far out of range to register.

Gaz shook his head, his features sinking. “He didn’t make it. We’re going to send him a letter through player mail—try to meet up with him in Brigstone or somewhere along the way. It just sucks because he lost all his stuff when he died and we have no idea where he is going to respawn.”

His words confirmed my fear. “Kirsten? Clarence?” I asked, fighting off the sinking dread pitting in my stomach.

“They’re okay. Most of Richard’s goons are dead, but Richard is missing. Kirsten farmed a crap ton of xp for us with her nuke. We got another level off it.” Gaz reached down and helped me to my feet. My legs wobbled beneath me, and it took a second before I was able to move.

“Any good loot from the kills?”

Gaz nodded. “Kirsten took the kobold’s staff, it’s magic, but the rest of what they had on hand isn’t so great. Clarence was excited about that automaton, but you smashed it up to the point where it’s only good for scrap. We’ll probably try to sell almost everything we looted here eventually, but the town isn’t happy about what went down last night.”

I sighed. “I can imagine they’re not happy, but this isn’t our fault. The Yellow Oysters were the ones who started the killing spree. Clarence is right, that is a really stupid name for a gang.”

“Ha. We didn’t start it, but Kirsten sure ended it.”

The wake of destruction caused by whatever Kirsten did last night was staggering. There wasn’t much left from the tavern. Well, that wasn’t right. Remnants of burned wood were strewn all over the street in a wide radius from the skeleton of the building. The entire town seemed surprisingly empty now. Even in an agricultural town like Briarthorn, there should have been people in the market, people walking the streets. The market stalls were empty aside from a few discarded wooden crates and half-rotted cabbage. The homes that were still intact from last night’s explosion had their shutters drawn closed, their doors no doubt locked. “How is Kirsten?” I asked.

Gaz rubbed his temples. “Not so great. God, I feel like an ass, and you wouldn’t believe this headache.”

“It wasn’t just your fault. Look, I’m sorry I haven't spent my points. I’m going spend them,” I said. I didn’t want to fight with him, not anymore. The easy thing to do would be to blame him for John’s death, for becoming belligerently drunk to the point of carelessness, but we needed to remain a team, now more than ever.

“Thanks, Edwin, but this one is my fault. If I hadn’t been so drunk, we would have never been fighting in the first place. Then that green creep wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on us.”

“It’s not just your fault, Gaz. We didn’t even have reason to think Richard was after us. Seems like he was more after Clarence than the rest of us, and that seems like something the goblin didn’t bother sharing with us. What happened to all the bodies?”

“They took them out to bury. They wanted to bury you, apparently, but thanks to our handy party icons, we knew you were still alive and well, even if you were unconscious and pinned under a support beam. It was too hot to lift, so we had to leave you to sleep for a while.”

“Uggh, you were still conscious for that?”

Gaz shrugged. “If I was, I don’t remember it, I only remember what I was told this morning.”

“Fair enough.”

Gaz gripped what looked to be a structurally sound chair and sunk into it. Had it not been for the terrible night, it would have been a very comical scene. A hungover dwarf sitting in a charred chair in the middle of a building which in a sense, no longer existed.

“So hey, if you know how Kirsten and the others are doing, what took you so long to get me?” I asked, more curious than angry.

“They sent me to get you sometime in the morning. By the height of the sun, it looks like I may have fallen asleep on the job. Anyway, Clarence and Kirsten were talking to the mayor of Briarthorn to get this situated. They said they would come back when they were finished.”

I considered this. “And they haven’t come back yet? You don’t think that’s a little strange?”

“Edwin, my head isn’t in the most pristine of conditions at the moment. Thinking isn’t really working for me right now.”

“Take a breather, buddy. I’m going to cast Temporal Control and spend most of my points so we don’t waste time. After that we’ll go see what’s going on with Kirsten and Clarence. You still think building tanky with some damage is the way to go, right?”

Gaz nodded. “You may want to save a couple character points in case you learn something new you want to upgrade right away, but I’d say you should spend at least twenty CPs in addition to the rest of your attribute points. You saved most of our asses last night, though, so thank you. I’m glad to see the extra astral power and willpower is helping you.”

“Will do.” I cast Temporal Control and Gaz froze as I pulled up my character sheet, taking a deep breath to calm myself. It was weird being able to bend time like this, but it was another certainty that made me sure I really was trapped in this game. Tanky with some damage, got it.

I would need endurance, strength and willpower for my kit, so it made sense to use my six attribute points to boost each one of them up one rank. We had yet to discover where tier 2 attributes ended and moved into tier 3, so I wasn’t surprised to see my modifiers remained constant as I hit eight endurance, eight willpower, and seven strength. Next, I spent five character points to upgrade my heroic ability, and the cornerstone of my class, Phase Shift. I could have used my hero point, but it seemed a lot rarer than the character points we were raking in, although we didn’t know if there was a hard limit to the number we would be able to apply to our characters as we approached whatever the max level was in this game. I pulled up my upgraded ability.

Phase Shift (Rank 1): Phase shift is a passive ability fueled by other Warpguard spells and abilities. Phase Shift is a sliding scale that begins at 0 and can move to -4 (fully dissonant) or 4 (fully resonant)

When using dissonant abilities, the character gains dissonance. For each point in the dissonant state of being, the character gains evade chance, player speed, and hit speed equal to their willpower modifier in percent (5%). When fully dissonant, the character gains evade chance, player speed, and hit speed equal to 2x their willpower modifier in percent (10%) for each point in the dissonant state. When using resonant abilities, the character gains resonance. For each point in the resonant state of being, the character gains bonus defense rating and strength equal to their willpower modifier in percent (5%). When fully resonant, the character gains bonus defense rating and strength equal to 2x their willpower modifier in percent (10%) for each point in the resonant state. Phase Shift charges will decay toward 0, 1 point at a time every 15 seconds. Using an ability that gives a point of dissonance or resonance resets this timer.

A through scan showed only one change, but it was a big one. Instead of a charge of resonance or dissonance decaying every 10 seconds, they would now last 15, a pretty substantial increase which would allow me to be a little more flexible on how I spent my astral power on abilities. Content, I leveled the skills and abilities that were most important to me for the time being, wanting to get a few of them ranked up higher rather than putting one rank into a bunch of different skills that might not be as important now that I had decided my play style and what my role should be for my team. I went with what Gaz and I had planned out, allocating the points quickly in my character sheet.

I spent all of my remaining character points moving Warp from rank 0 to 3, Astral Armor from 0 to 4, Dimensional Strike from 0 to 2, Matter Mastery from 0 to 1, Resonance from 0 to 1, and Astral Power from 2 to 3. When it was done, I was out of character points, but I was sure my new kit was going to be great. And if not, there was probably a way to refund my spent points, even if that came with a cost. I pulled up my updated character sheet.

Edwin

Level 11 Human Warpguard

44 HP (40+4 Brawn)

11/11 Astral Power

129/485xp

0 Unspent Character Points.

0 Unspent Attribute Points.

1 Unspent Hero Point.

Base Attributes

Endurance: 8 (7+1 Brawn)

Agility: 5

Strength: 7

Intellect: 5

Willpower: 8

Cunning: 5

Luck: 6

Charisma: 5

Traits

Brawn: Character has an additional point of Endurance, 10% extra health, and plus 1 base defense rating.

Devotion: Character discovers new non-magical abilities 25% faster.

Abilities

Second Wind (Rank 0): Physical. Instant. 8 hour cooldown. The character is returned to full health. Character gains 2X base defense rating for the next 30 seconds. Character cannot be affected by Second Wind again in the same encounter. Second Wind will automatically trigger if able when the character is reduced to 0 base health.

Warpguard

Astral Armor (Rank 4): Matter. Resonant, 1 point. Instant. 2 astral power. 45 second cooldown. The character imbues their armor with astral power, absorbing 28 damage ((willpower*strength)/2). For each rank in Astral Armor, the character has a 5% (willpower modifier) chance to refresh the shield when using other resonant abilities.

Dimensional Recall (Rank 0): Temporal. Matter. 10 minute cooldown. 0 points. The character summons or stores their armor from/to the Astral dimension, instantly equipping or unequipping all pieces worn. If the character unequips their armor, they will instantly equip all previously worn non-armor clothes. Requires Warpguard armor.

Dimensional Strike (Rank 2): Temporal. Matter. Instant. Dissonant/Resonant, 1 point. 2 astral power. 20 second cooldown. The character infuses their next weapon strike with astral power, dealing 200% + 10X the character's willpower modifier in percent weapon damage (50%) and generating either 1 point of resonance or dissonance.

Phase Shift (Rank 1): Phase shift is a passive ability fueled by other Warpguard spells and abilities. Phase Shift is a sliding scale that begins at 0 and can move to -4 (fully dissonant) or 4 (fully resonant)

When using dissonant abilities, the character gains dissonance. For each point in the dissonant state of being, the character gains evade chance, player speed, and hit speed equal to their willpower modifier in percent (5%). When fully dissonant, the character gains evade chance, player speed, and hit speed equal to 2x their willpower modifier in percent (10%) for each point in the dissonant state. When using resonant abilities, the character gains resonance. For each point in the resonant state of being, the character gains bonus defense rating and strength equal to their willpower modifier in percent (5%). When fully resonant, the character gains bonus defense rating and strength equal to 2x their willpower modifier in percent (10%) for each point in the resonant state. Phase Shift charges will decay toward 0, 1 point at a time every 15 seconds. Using an ability that gives a point of dissonance or resonance resets this timer.

Temporal Control (Rank 0): Temporal. Instant. Dissonant/Resonant, 1 point. 10 minute cooldown. The character enters player time for up to 20 minutes, pausing the game world for them (dissonant) or slows (resonant) their perception of time by 100%.

Warp (Rank 3): Temporal. 4 charges. The character consumes a charge of Warp to teleport up to 40 feet away, instantly appearing in the new location. The player generates 1 charge of Warp every 25 seconds.

Skills

[-]Weapons

Swords (Rank 0): Each rank in Swords boosts the character’s damage and critical strike chance while using a sword by 1%. Critical strikes with swords have an additional 1% chance to apply a debuff on hit for each rank in Swords.

[-]Armor

Heavy Armor (Rank 0): Each rank in Heavy Armor improves the character’s defense rating by 1% for each piece of heavy armor worn (Torso, Legs, Bracers, Greaves, Gauntlets, Helmet). In addition, for each rank in Heavy Armor, the character has a 1% chance to ignore a single source of damage while wearing a full set of heavy armor.

[-]Magic

Astral Power (Rank 3): Each rank in Astral Power gives the character extra points in astral power equal to their willpower modifier, 1% higher astral power regeneration, and 1% stronger spells and abilities for each point of astral power spent in an encounter.

Dimensions (Rank 0): Each rank in Dimensions improves the power of being either fully dissonant or resonant by 1% and gives a 0.1% chance each second to enter a superstate of existence, doubling all player attributes for 20 seconds and instantly refreshing all cooldowns.

Dissonance (Rank 0): Each rank in Dissonance increases the power and duration of effects of dissonant abilities by the character’s willpower modifier in percentage (3.33%). For each rank in Dissonance, the character has a 1% chance to gain 10% additional evade for 30 seconds when spending astral power while fully dissonant.

Matter Mastery (Rank 1): Each rank in Matter Mastery improves the power and duration of matter abilities by 1% and gives the character a 1% chance to recover all astral power spent on matter spells and abilities.

Resonance (Rank 1): Each rank in Resonance increases the power and duration of effects of resonant abilities by the character’s willpower modifier in percentage (3.33%). For each rank in Resonance, the character has a 1% chance to gain 20% additional strength for 30 seconds when spending astral power while fully resonant.

Temporal Mastery (Rank 0): Each rank in Temporal Mastery improves the power and duration of temporal abilities by 1% and gives the character a 1% chance to recover all astral power spent on temporal abilities.

[+]Non-combat

I canceled my active Temporal Control, resuming my perception of time. Gaz hadn’t even sat back down yet. “Points are spent just like we worked out. It feels really relieving that they’re gone, actually. Let’s go find the others.” My body ached more than it had any right to, and the interior of my armor was actually quite comfortable. It would be so easy just to close my eyes and go to sleep again, but there wouldn’t be time for that until we were back on the road—if we were going to press forward with getting to Brigstone to meet up with Monica and try to advance our quest with Ectos instead of waiting for John. Monica had given us a week to get to her before she would move and send her new location. We received her letter five days ago.

New Quest: A Wild Night in Briarthorn

New Objective: Find Clarence and Kirsten.

Bonus Objective: Learn more about Kirsten’s power.

“Glad to hear it. Let’s go get the others and see if we can get out of here,” Gaz said, following behind me as we navigated through the broken ruins of the tavern toward the cobbled street.

I looked down at my charred armor, trying to brush some of the soot off to inspect the damage. As I expected, there was a hole in the shoulder plate where I was stabbed by the short sword. There was also denting all over the chest and abdomen plates from the automaton’s crossbow minigun. Richard’s attacks, the source of most of the damage I had taken in the brawl didn’t leave any lasting holes in the plates, but it was terrifying that his blades had bypassed all of my defenses. He wasn’t dead, either, and now had more reason than ever to come after us again with greater numbers.

The stables next to the tavern were actually in pretty good condition considering what had happened right next door. There were the sounds of horses and mules moving around in their stalls as we passed. Gaz still had his hammer and was awkwardly using it to ease his wobbly walking, but my sword, the super evil one we looted from Jason when we had killed him was locked up in the wagon before the fight went down last night.

I didn’t have anything other than my armor which still wasn’t functioning correctly. My helmet enchantment wouldn’t adjust and provide better vision, and the rest of the suit felt like it was made of solid lead.

I remembered the spell I learned last night, the stroke of luck that had saved my life. I cast Dimensional Recall, storing my armor in the Astral dimension. That was the theory at least. Now, for the next 10 minutes, I wouldn’t have my armor if I needed it, but it wasn’t working correctly anyway. Perhaps storing it would automatically repair the damage, that was my hope at least. Fortunately, I was back in what I’d been wearing last night at the tavern, a simple tunic, some pants, and my traveling boots. Gaz wore similar attire, and until we could revisit Clarence’s wagon, we wouldn’t have access to the rest of our stuff.

“Oh, I thought I saw you do something like that last night,” Gaz commented. “That makes a lot of sense, actually. Ugh, where the flying hell is Clarence? I need him to brew me a potion for my head or something. Oh no…”

Gaz lurched off to the side and sunk to his knees, spraying the street with a fresh round of vomit. I waited for him to finish before I helped him to his feet, grimacing. “Yeah, we’ll take it easy on the booze next time.”

“Whoever said dwarves can drink a ton of alcohol and not get hungover is an idiot. And I’m an idiot for drinking as much as I did last night.”

I tuned him out. There was something strange happening in Briarthorn. Since we’d left the remnants of the tavern, we hadn’t seen a single person as we walked toward the center of the town toward the largest building in the cluster, the town hall. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t remembered walking past a cemetery on our way in. Maybe it was located outside the town’s immediate proximity and the people of the town were still burying their dead. “When’s the last time you saw someone here, Gaz?”

“I told you, it was this morning. They sent me to dig you out of the rubble and I fell asleep. That must have been hours ago.”

“Okay, do you know where the cemetery is?”

He shook his head. “If they told me, I sure as hell don’t remember. Let’s just see if anyone is in the town hall.”

We reached the center building and pulled on the heavy wood door. It was locked. The windows to either side were dusty, but the inside was dark, and it looked empty.

Gaz started to ready his hammer, looking like he wanted to bash the door in, but I raised a hand to stop him. “Let’s not do that just yet. Come on, let’s go knock on some doors.”

Fifteen minutes of knocking on the doors of houses and storefronts yielded no sign of life. All of the doors and windows were locked, and what buildings we could see inside were all dark and empty. I was getting a really weird vibe from this place that seemed to meet most if not all of the fantasy tropes associated with small agricultural towns in MMOs. “Gaz, why is it always the small towns in games that have something weird going on?”

He staggered to the side, bracing himself on the side of a building and somehow managing to keep himself from falling. “Kirstin sort of blew up the busiest building in what was probably a pretty peaceful town. I think this probably has something to do with that rather than anything specific to the town.”

I frowned. “It feels like more than that.”

“You’re complaining about quests and easy loot?”

“I guess I’m not, but I want to get to Monica in Brigstone. We’re running out of time to make it to her before she leaves.”

“Unless we send her a letter asking to wait,” Gaz suggested.

“We don’t know what she’s up to, and that’s a lot of gold to spend when Clarence seems to think we’ll make it on time.”

We reached the edge of the town which was empty to the point where I was creeped out. The dead silence was palatable—the only thing breaking it was the wind blowing through the town.

There were no guards at the gate, and the heavy wooden doors, standing at least 15 feet tall on a stone and mortar frame, were wide open, held in place by two log stumps wedged at the bottom of the two door halves to keep them in place.

“It’s ridiculously quiet,” I said.

“A lot of people died last night. It would make sense that the whole town would go to bury them.”

We walked past the gate, searching the expanse of fields sprawling in every direction. Off in the distance, there was a large mass of people gathered at what must have been Briarthorn’s cemetery. Clarence’s wagon, along with several others from the town, was drawn on the side, acting like some kind of morbid taxi for the dead. The cemetery was probably a half mile out, and I wasn’t really feeling up to the walk, though we didn’t really have a choice.

“See? Just burying their dead. Let’s go try to help and then get out of here. Maybe you’ll have better luck than me when you try to talk to Kirsten.”

My UI flashed as we approached the cemetery, and text rolled down my vision.

Quest Updated: A Wild Night in Briarthorn

New Objective: Learn the aftermath of the previous night.

Easy enough, I thought grimly.

We finished the walk to the cemetery, joining Kirsten and Clarence who were both plastered in sweat. Things were a lot worse than I had initially expected after counting 23 freshly dug graves. Briarthorn’s headstone maker was the only one who looked even moderately okay with what happened the previous night. The depth of emotion and pain on the faces of everyone from the town was a little too much to bear. They looked at me with confusion, anger, and pain. There was little I could do to protect the people who had been in the tavern against Richard and his goons, and I felt a spike of anger at the Storyweaver AI for making me feel like this. This wasn’t real, the deaths weren’t real. Yet one of my best friends was gone, and there was no assurance we’d ever see him again. I wasn’t exactly eager to take anything Jerry Anderson said at face value.

One hundred feet away from the cemetery a sinister fire coughing out acrid black smoke was stacked high with the bodies of the Yellow Oysters goons who had died in the tavern last night. The flames licked at the hot summer air, scattering whirling flakes of ash and burning matter across the plains. Thankfully, it was downwind from us.

I didn’t like that Richard wasn’t burning in the stack with the rest of them—he would be after us now more than ever. The Oysters, however stupid their name was, were now a legitimate enemy, and they seemed to be pretty influential to be putting up such a massive bounty on Clarence’s head. We needed to tread carefully, and it didn’t seem wise to stay in this town any longer. The Yellow Oysters could be back at any moment with reinforcements, ready to take the town by storm and avenge their dead.

Kirsten lowered her eyes as Gaz and I passed her and took our positions in the crowd. Clarence also wore a solemn expression, so uncharacteristic against his usual fun, quirky mood. There was something else about the demeanor of the townsfolk—it resembled subdued fear, maybe even toward us.

The families of the fallen each took a turn to say a few words over their loved one’s graves, some doing better than others. The Storyweaver AI was making me feel like crap, even as I actively reminded myself none of these people were real. They would probably just respawn in some other part of the game world completely unaware of their deaths or previous existence. In a way, it was as dark and convoluted as the situation my friends and I were facing with Stratus Online.

We remained at the cemetery until the last of the families left. The man I presumed to be the mayor of the town stared at me with glossy eyes, lowering his head and wrapping an arm around a grieving friend as they walked away. He had no anger—not toward us at least. The Yellow Oysters were responsible for this, not us. I reminded myself that we did our best to save the innocent civilians, that we were dealing with powers beyond our control. Kirsten was powerful—probably a lot more powerful than me, even with a legendary class.

Kirsten had yet to say a word to Gaz or me, and her silence said more than anything else could. We had let her down, let John down. She was right, and it sucked that it took all of this for me to realize just how much danger Gaz and I were putting her in by refusing to cooperate with one another. After talking with Gaz earlier, I knew we both had learned our lesson. Anything other than full cooperation would result in failure.

I decided to attempt the first of what would likely be many apologies to Kirsten. The guilt was congealing in my gut like a glob of acid. “Kirsten, I’m so sorry. We’ll find John, and Gaz and I won’t be fighting each other anymore.”

She looked away, suddenly taking an intense interest in an ant pile on the edge of the dirt road.

I took a breath to say something else, but Gaz put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head. She needed time, and it wasn’t fair for me to expect her to forgive me anytime soon. A wave of determination washed over me, powerful and resolute. I would help her through this, we would claim our lives back.

Quest Updated: A Wild Night in Briarthorn

New Objective: Talk with Mayor of Briarthorn or leave the town.

The two-day deadline on meeting Monica loomed. Briarthorn would be the last settlement we’d visit before getting to Brigstone, and if we left soon, we would be able to get to Monica on time and get some answers. I found fragments of her letter to us looping in my head, the letter I had read so many times I now knew it by heart. We had an objective from Ectos, one that was taking us to Brigstone already. Having been in the game a lot longer, it was reasonable to expect Monica to be a higher level than the rest of us—assuming she was real and this wasn’t some sort of trick to lure us into a dangerous situation.

The walk back to town was quiet and awkward. Gaz and I didn’t try to say anything to Kirsten, giving her the space she needed to work through whatever she was going through. We would need to get her recount of the previous night’s events eventually, to take a mental inventory of the power she had channeled on our enemies with such lethal might.

“What happened to John’s body?” I asked Clarence, keeping my voice low enough so that Kirsten wouldn’t hear me.

“Buried with the others. Richard reclaimed his gear. The crossbow and quiver are gone, but he left the rest of John’s gear behind. It’s loaded in my wagon. Speaking of which, where is your armor? You were still wearing it this morning.”

“New ability, I can store it in the Astral Dimension and instantly equip it, I’m hoping it will self-repair while it’s there, but that might be a bit too much to ask.”

“A powerful ability indeed. I believe that will prove quite useful.” Clarence gave me a brisk nod, speeding up to talk with Kirsten while I slowed to walk the rest of the way with Gaz.

“Did you get that quest update?” Gaz asked me as we neared Briarthorn’s main gate.

“Yeah, probably better to just leave, I don’t think there is anything left for us here anymore.”

I nodded, and we walked into the town, now showing signs of life and habitation where there were none earlier. Though I wanted to leave as fast as possible, the thought of Richard waiting on the road to ambush us was unsettling. How had he found us in the first place? I continued to run through the mental scenarios in my head as we followed Clarence and Kirsten into the town’s general store.

Though hesitant to sell us anything after the previous night, the store clerk sold us three big bags of coarse flour, half a pound of salt, a coil of thickly wound rope, and a crate of fresh apples. We refilled our drinking water barrels and filled them at the center well of the town, giving us plenty of water for the rest of the journey. Gaz rested in the back of the wagon, downing a concoction Clarence mixed him for his hangover while I loaded our newly acquired supplies into our spacious vehicle.

As I finished and wiped sweat from my forehead, Kirsten walked over to me, meeting my gaze with her crystalline blue eyes. “I don’t want your help, or Gaz’s.” Her voice was harsh.

“Kirsten, I—”

She raised a hand to cut me off. The expression on her face said it all. I clamped my jaw. “But I need it. What happened to John was terrible, but it wasn’t just on you and Gaz. We’ve got to be more careful going forward. All of us.”

I nodded. “I’m so sorry, I know Gaz is too.”

“I forgive you both, and I’m sorry as well. You and Gaz are stuck here too, and it’s not your fault that I’m at risk of permanent death. The Storyweaver AI is responsible for that.”

“We’re all in this together,” Gaz called from the back of the wagon. I wasn’t aware he could hear us, and by the look on her face, it didn’t look like Kirsten was either.

“Thank you, Gaz,” Kirsten replied. “About the letter to John. I think we should save the gold. He knows where we’re heading, he’ll know that if we don’t message him then we’re just trying to save the gold. He’ll be heading to Brigstone as soon as he can, I really believe it.”

Ten gold was more or less a drop in the bucket compared to our chest of over 700 gold, but ten gold was also ten gold. I knew John would travel to Brigstone, the letter always was about making Kirsten feel better more than anything else. “If you’re certain. I think the same thing, but we can afford to spend the gold if you’d like, it’s really no trouble,” I said, watching her face to try to get a better read on her.

Kirsten nodded. “I’m certain, we’ll see him soon, and if we need to leave Brigstone for whatever reason before we meet up with him, then we’ll send a letter.”

“I hate to interrupt, but are we ready to leave?” Clarence asked, returning the bag of oats he had just used to feed his mules to its slot on the side of the wagon.

I looked at Kirsten and she nodded. “There isn’t anything else left for us here. Let’s go.”

With everything loaded into the wagon, we departed Briarthorn, wanting nothing to do with whatever quests we might be leaving behind.

Quest Complete: A Wild Night in Briarthorn

Quest Objective Transferred: Learn more about Kirsten’s power.

New Quest: The Power of the Godsworn

New Objective: Learn more about Kirsten’s power.