-15 hp! No, wait, that’s not right, this feels more like a debuff than a wound. You have acquired the condition: You fell asleep on the sofa like a complete idiot, you idiot. Your neck will hurt all day and you will feel like death till you get some coffee. That’s more like it.

Coffee and walking around her flat managed to clear her brain enough to realise she’d entirely forgotten about the crown in her research last night, not to mention forgetting to ask Helgrim or Zwhatever about it.

“Oh, well, random high-level quest triggers aren’t going to be documented anywhere yet, especially super generic sounding ones like this. What’s a Royal Regalia consist of, anyway...”

Apparently, a Royal Regalia was a tautology which could mean anything from a necklace and a sceptre to a blunt sword, an orb, a cloak, a tiny vial of oil, a ring, a seal, a fly-whisk, a mirror, a wren, a scone, and an entire orchestra.

“So I need to feed scones to the orchestra, and possibly the seal and the wren, while keeping the flies off them. Riiiiight. Can’t we just have a council instead?”

“...what on earth are you on about?”

By dint of long long practice, Claire didn’t spill any of her coffee, but Jazz giggled anyway.

“I flew in late last night, and didn’t want to risk waking you. Is this more slashfic, or some weird dwarf thing?”

“Some weird dwarf thing. I found the Lost Crown of Somewhere yesterday. How was your flight? Do we have to sue anyone?”

“Nah, it was OK… usual nonsense that comes of Flying While Muslim, you know how it goes. How’s my girl? Been stuck in your new game all weekend?”

“Yep – made it out for coffee, though! And I ate a vegetable. Do I get a kiss?”

“That definitely deserves a kiss! Come here...”

“Mmmmm. Missed you.”

“Missed you too. You’d better not spend the evenings gaming too...”

“Nope, just while you’re at work, promise!”

“It’s an amazing game, though. I admit, I tried it out when I got in, since there’s no way I’d’ve slept after all that.”

“ONE! OF! US!” Claire gave her girlfriend a big smooch on the lips. “What’d you create? A sexy elf rogue?”

“Hey, don’t get your hopes up! I’m a forgewrought paladin of Thrakar, god of justice. A huge clanking implacable engine of retribution.”

“Also sexy! Bet you don’t have to hit people in the butt and hunt rabbits, either.”

“No, I KICK butt and hunt petty thieves.”

“You… you’ve turned traitor on us. Have you forgotten your roots? ACAB!”

The argument descended into giggling, and a tickle fight, and what with one thing and another, Claire ended up not logging in till after lunch.

This time, the loading screen was a dark, cramped forge, and Claire found herself working on an iron bar, hammer & tongs moving with a dreamlike surety. Heat, hammer, heat, hammer, over and again… quench and temper, grind and polish, and she found herself standing at the gate to the hunting lodge, a simple but serviceable hunting knife in her hand.

It took a few tries to convince the game engine that she wanted dry wood from the trees, but between her and the interface, they managed it eventually. Getting fat from boars, rather than kebabs, was a bit trickier – in the end it needed pinning shot and some very careful pinching, then a coup de grace with her skinning knife and some very intense concentration on the concept of lard and suet. So, an hour or so of lumberjilling and pig murdering later, she found herself creeping up on a what’s it called? Not a flock, definitely not a herd, being able to herd these things would make it much easier… a swarm? No, not horrible-sounding enough… a stabberation! of rot wasps, each one nearly a foot long, with a six-inch sting like a Gothically fluted stiletto. And creeping up on them from upwind, at that. Her stealth seemed to be holding, but that might be because the wasps were – not to put too fine a point on it – absolutely completely and utterly pissed on rotten apples, buzzing and wobbling drunkenly between the trees.

Here should be about right… Claire started pulling dry branches and boar fat out of her inventory, building them into a huge pile in between frequent pauses to stealth and avoid patrolling wasps, though she was pretty sure the hammer-and-anvil noise of her heart every time a drunken wasp nearly fell out of the air onto her gave her away.

Slowly and gingerly fumbling in her hip pouch, she pulled out a thick handful of leaves. This was the result of a bit more of this afternoon’s research – well, to be precise, it was the result of asking Helgrim Farhammer which local plants she shouldn’t put on her campfire under any circumstances.

“And they call this one grey stinkweed for a reason, lass. It smells pretty bad now, but if a single stalk of it got into yer campfire, ye’d best pray ye were sitting upwind, lest ye had to throw away all yer clothes. As it is, the stew would be ruined fersure.”

Seventeen stalks might be overkill, but that would be less than a twentieth of a stalk per drunken rot wasp. They were clearly less than a twentieth of her weight, or they wouldn’t be able to fly, but the whole stabberation still took up an alarming amount of airspace – and wasps had extra-keen senses anyway, didn’t they? So this was definitely a plan with no drawbacks.

Claire wormed her way back upwind slowly, till she was about a hundred feet away from the pile of dead branches, lard, and lethal stench leaves where it sat under the eaves of the orchard, and stood up. Brushing herself down, she readied her bow and nocked an arrow. Breathe out, focus on the targeting reticule, lay it gently across the firewood… and explosive arrow!

The pile went up in a greasy-looking grey-green whooooosh, and implausible amounts of smoke roiled out through the orchard, accompanied by an irregular series of soft thuds as rot wasp after rot wasp dropped to the ground, and a cloud of xp notifications obscuring Claire’s vision. The quest counter kept ticking up, until it finally stabilised at 302/350 rot wasps slain, and she pulled out her bow. With a series of longshots, wasp after wasp fell dead, and the counter hit 338.

Without thinking, Claire moved forwards to bring the last group of rot wasps into range, and fell to her knees, retching helplessly.

“Shaper, Stoker, and Nug-Herder, that – is – vile! This was – definitely a – plan with no draw – uuurrghhhhhh...”

Darkness descended, and she found herself choking and coughing on her bedroom floor, badly in need of cleaning spray, new linens, and a lot of airing out.

“I am definitely submitting a bug report for that. ‘This stuff smells so bad it made me vomit so hard IRL it crashed the game. Also, people could die choking like this. Strongly recommend fixing.’”

She went to shove a load in the washing machine and fix herself more coffee. Right, if I wait an hour or two, then most of the smell should have dissipated, and I can stalk the remaining mini-stabberation of rot wasps at my leisure. Maybe get a cool bandanna mask. Yep, definitely I should do that.