Jack poked at the ground with a stick as he surveyed the woods.

Something was ending. Or maybe it was beginning. Tough to say. It was changing; that much was clear.

He looked around the campsite. At all the death. This wasn’t how he wanted to spend his waning years, but you played the cards you were dealt.

“What happened?” Eliza said, pushing herself up. Nochd had made it sound like she was ready to sit up the moment he left, but that was a good twenty minutes ago.

“Nearly died,” Jack said plainly. “You didn’t, in case you were wondering.”

Eliza pushed herself up with a shiver, then looked down and froze.

“Jack?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Why is there a dragon egg in my lap?”

“I put it there so you wouldn’t freeze to death,” he said. “As for where it came from, looks like we were wrong about these folks not having one of the things. I suspect that’s not all we were wrong about.” He waved a piece of paper at her. “Take a look at the quest.”

Eliza summoned her Tome and flipped to her Quests section, her brow furrowing as she read the words within. They probably weren’t identical to the ones in Jack’s Tome, but the expression on her face suggested there wasn’t much difference.

Quest Opportunity: “The Dying Dragon” Part 2

During a brief fight with a group of people involved in the theft of Val’s eggs, one of them seemed to let something slip and then accidentally killed herself trying to stop you from acting on those words. Darn rookies.

You have two paths before you: Do you continue your pursuit of the eggs? Or do you go to Palmyre and uncover the mystery the woman was trying to hide? Choosing one path will close off the other, and your decision will have significant and far-reaching consequences.

Reward for Success: XP. The favour of a dragon. Other, undefined rewards.

Penalty for Failure: Ignore the eggs, and incur a the fury of a dragon. Neglect the Palmyrian mystery, and forfeit knowledge of the greater conspiracy at play.

“This is not good,” Eliza said, shaking her head. “Choice quests are extremely rare and never have a good outcome. They only happen when you’re picking between two bad options, and considering that one side of the equation is infuriating a dragon, the other outcome must be equivalently terrible to balance it out. I don’t even want to conjecture what that might be.”

Jack waved her off. He had an idea of how to handle that obstacle, though he was loathe to do it.

Choices, Nochd had said. Looked like this was one of them.

Jack flicked the stick into the fire. He was hesitant and didn’t like the feeling, but it was time to accept that his reticence was about fear and not intelligent decision-making.

“I got a question for you,” he said, glancing at Eliza. “Nochd asked if I’d be his cleric. What do you think about that?”

Eliza laughed, shaking her head. “‘The god of Death asked me to be his cleric,’ he says. As though that’s no big deal.” She looked at him pointedly. “You have no idea, do you? Of course you don’t. How would you?”

“No idea about what?” he asked.

She gave another shiver and pulled the blankets tighter around her. “Jack, Terrestrial gods have clerics. The Eternals? Death? Whatever Nochd wants you to be, it isn’t a cleric. Not in the Arenian sense of the word.”

Jack frowned. “You think he wants to turn me into some kinda zombie monster?”

“Zombie…” Eliza’s eyes went wide. “Gods, no! Undead go against everything Nochd stands for. It’s one of the few uncontested things we know about them. I don’t know what they want of you, but I know two things for certain: It won’t involve you being undead, and it will almost certainly require you to kill any you encounter.”

“Huh. Okay, good to know,” Jack said. His daughter had loved the Evil Dead movies, so he wasn’t keen on siding with the bad guys from those films.

Wiping off his hands, Jack got to his feet and moved over to the fire. “Alright then, simple question: You’ve seen the change to Val’s quest, and right now, I don’t have a class. If that quest is as important as it seems, what do you think are our chances of success if I don’t have a class?”

Eliza didn’t hesitate. “Nonexistent.”

He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

Before Jack did what he had to do, there was one last thing to take care of. Taking out his Tome, he jotted down a message on one of the pages, then tore it out. Folding it into a paper airplane, he tossed it into the darkness.

A moment later, a notification appeared. As expected, it was on a thick, heavy bond of paper:

Request accepted. Your Boon has been fulfilled.

- Verna -

Jack nodded. He hadn’t been sure that would work, but he was glad it did. It made the next step a lot easier.

“Alright, Nochd,” he said to the darkness. “I accept. Don’t make me regret this.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a cracking peal of thunder rolled across the sky like the heavens themselves were tearing apart, followed by Jack’s skin glowing brightly for a good ten seconds. When it finished, a paper appeared in his hand.

New Class Alert: MORTAL

Gods help us all.

Jack frowned at the paper.

“You ever heard of a class called ‘Mortal?’” he asked Eliza, holding up the paper. As soon as he mentioned the name, the woman’s eyes widened.

“Gods help us all,” she whispered.

Jack nodded. “Yeah. That’s what they said, too.”

Mark leaned against the wall as Naomi finished answering his parents’ questions. Despite the woman’s protestations that she needed to leave right away, she had patiently stuck around to alleviate whatever concerns she could, even if it meant listening to his mom ask the same question for the fifth time.

Angela came over and sat next to him. “You okay?”

“You mean mentally or physically?” he asked wryly.

“We can work out your mental shit when we get our hands on some beer. For now, let’s focus on what those hands will look like.”

In response, Mark took off his gloves and held up a normal pair of hands.

Angela leaned in close and frowned. “That’s unexpected. Are there other fingers left in the glove or anything?”

“Nope,” he said. He would know—he definitely checked. “They were all messed up; now they’re not. I don’t know what to say.”

It had been the weirdest thing. One minute he was panicking over the feeling of his hands in his gloves and wondering how he was going to hide them, then they felt fine. It was as though nothing had happened.

“Super weird, dude. How long?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they went back to normal? I’m wondering if—”

All of the chatter was cut off by the simultaneous appearance of Tome messages for every family member in the room.

Mark stared at his curiously. It was different than he was accustomed to. Not the thin paper of a notebook, but a heavy bond, like a wedding invitation. What’s more, everyone’s was identical. Even Angela’s, which seemed significant.

“Does anyone know what this is about?” Mark’s dad asked.

“No idea,” Mark said.

Naomi, meanwhile, looked like she wanted to burst. “Remarkable! Those are atypical messages, and all of them are the same. I’ve heard of such a thing but never seen it before.”

She started rummaging excitedly in her satchel, presumably in preparation for doing something magical to the letters, so Mark wasted no time in opening his:

Jack Milsom has offered to share the Quest “The Dying Dragon Part 2” with the Milsom-Sullivan family and ‘whoever the spell person is that you’re with, assuming they ain’t trouble and you trust them. I’ll leave it up to you, so don’t screw it up.”

Your great-grandfather Jack has a branching quest that requires two parallel investigations: One in Palmyre, the other towards the Bookspine Mountains. Rather than give up one thread, he has decided to use his Boon to “offer” it to you, though I didn’t get the impression you were allowed to turn it down.

Should you accept the quest, more details will be given in accordance with the Boon. And for the record, you have 5 minutes to decide if you will share this with Naomi, so I’d recommend you hurry.

- Verna -

SHARE QUEST? YES/NO

Mark looked up at Naomi. “Uhhh…mind stepping outside? I think we need to have a family meeting.”

Deep in the woods, an animal lurked in the darkness beneath a tree. Or hid. It was tough to say. It mainly depended on what was nearby and how dangerous it was.

There was a brief light, then a piece of paper appeared. The animal couldn’t read, but it could make out the squiggles on the page:

Jack Milsom has offered to share—

Oh, for the love of…CARL!

- Verna -

QUEST AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPTED

Turkaletta stamped one foot on the ground, turned, and began flapping her way eastwards.

The Sullivan family will return in Book 3 of the Legends of Arenia series