Chapter 7: Avoidance and Anxiety

I wish I could say I woke up to the fucking golden embrace of the morning’s first light, unfortunately my awakening wasn’t anything so gentle.

No. It was my shit luck to wake up winded, gasping for breath as I jerked upright. The reason? A fucking ball of fur and pure malice launched itself at high speed into my bloody stomach.

“Sister Aisling wake up! It’s morning! There’s a really really really tall girl waiting for you outside the room! She’s waiting for you! The Head Matron is even letting you go off without doing your chores! LUCKY!” gushed the small Alrec cub as he wriggled in my lap, every shrill word a shit-slathered knife in my prematurely wakened brain. 

“Arrrrrgggghhhh,” I groaned into my pillow. Even rolling over wasn’t protection from Pamph’s racket. Why are brats’ voices so loud and piecing? Learn some volume control!

“—your friend gave me a silver lion to make sure you’re awake, even said to shake you! Do I need to shake you?” Paph said, as he attempted to wrench my pillow away from under my face.

“Huh? S-she what?” I stammered.

Giving up on his attempts to wrest free my pillow, Paph pulled a large silver coin from his worn boots with a cheeky flourish.

“...tor,” I mumbled under my breath. Roxi put a price on my sleep time’s head and Paph the little traitor sold me out. “I surrender, I surrender. Hop off me and I’ll get up.”

The moment Paph turned his back to me, I enacted my revenge. The most heinous torture known to mankind.

Tickle torture!

“Ahhhh ah hahaha, Ais-Aisling. Hahahaha, please, hahaha stop. Hahaha noooooooooo,” the bear cub begged breathlessly struggling to get words out amidst tortured laughter.

“No mercy for traitors!” I declared in my most evil voice, renewing my assault on his unprotected sides. I was actually a struggle to keep tickling him, Paph was wriggling and writhing under my hands and his arms and legs were flailing as he tried to shake me off. Fortunately and unfortunately for Paph, the only thing he shook off was himself off the bed.

Before I could even check if he was alright, the alrec was scurrying out of the room on all fours, crying out that Sister Aisling was being mean to him for all to hear as if it was bloody murder.

“Looks like the villain has bed hair,” came a familiar throaty voice, as Roxi rounded the corner with the lazy confident stride of a stalking tiger.

Roxi!? Bed hair? “Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!” I cried out as I hastily patted at my hair to flatten it and half falling out of the bed in the process.

A pair of hands slipped into my armpits and caught me. Deja vu. Hoisting me back up onto the bed, Roxi sat down beside me and did her best to mess up my hair again. “Woah calm down there, kitty! Your ears are all set back against your head and your tail is bushier than fox grass flowers. Calm down, catch your breath. In and out. That’s it.”

Any hopes I had of fixing my bed hair any time soon was thwarted by the hand repeatedly dragging its fingers along my scalp. With every stroke further messing my hair and turning my breathing into a low rumble.

My mind was on the verge of shutdown when it finally stopped and that husky voice broke through the encroaching bliss haze, “Come on! Get ready, I’ll be outside on the street waiting.”

Moooooow… Fuck!

* * *

It was almost another ten minutes before I managed to put myself back together again and pull on the thin leather boots from my inventory. Emerging from the orphanage, I found Roxi casually leaning against the wall next to the entrance.

“Took your time,” she teased with a smirk. The corner of her mouth tilting upwards as if directing my gaze to those glacier blue eyes.

“No fair,” I mumbled trying not to pout. “Caffeine and freshly baked pastry would have gotten me up and ready waaaaaaay quicker, than that rude awakening.”

“Yeah yeah… You’re up now, aren’t you?” she rebutted, pushing herself off the wall and walking off, leaving me to jog to catch up. “Come on, morning’s wasting you lazy cat. We still need to share the loot from last night, turn in the quest, pick up a new one and go buy you some gear and supplies.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” I replied with a mock salute. “What’s first on the agenda? Breakfast?” I replied hungrily, remembering I hadn’t eaten anything since the berries yesterday.

Spinning around to face me, Roxi paused as if to think for a moment, before switching into her tutorial mode, “Well food, supplies and gear aren’t going to be cheap especially with this region’s civil war driving up prices. Before we can buy anything we’ll need to split up last night’s loot and collect our reward for the bandit bounty, might as well grab our next quests while we’re there. That sound alright to you?”

She might be threateningly goth, but when she was like this I could totally imagine her at the front of some lecture hall, in a skirt suit with her blue eyes behind a pair of half-rim glasses. 

“Aisling? Is there a laser pointer stealing your attention?”

Shit! Teacher caught me not paying attention! “Ah right. That umm works, so loot then?” I asked trying to… actually I don’t know what I’m trying to do here.

“So yeah most of what I looted was crap, junk. If it wasn’t for the fact that the town was short of everything, I wouldn’t have bothered. We’ll get a few coins for the junk and the rest we can leave to the villagers. I also filled my inventory with their smoked and dried meat rations and a collection of swords, daggers and crossbows,” Roxi grimaced and looked at me with worry.

“The rations, we can keep those, the weapons we’ll have to hold till we get somewhere we can sell them, I’ll get you to hold half to free up some inventory space.  

Now coins, banditry seems to pay well and being in the forest it doesn’t seem like they had a chance to squander it yet. We got three large gold crowns, twenty three gold hawks, just over a hundred silver lions and couple loose handfuls of bronze acorns I can’t be bothered to count. We’ll split all those, no worries. Ok when you see the pop up click accept,” Roxi explained, her fingers dancing in the air as she interacted with her UI.

[Roxadice Umbrial wishes to trade with you. Do you accept? YES/NO]

Hitting yes, the pop-up shifted into a trade window with Roxi’s side already set up and confirmed, with nothing to offer on my end I clicked confirm and then accept.

“Done!” she exclaimed with a small smile. “Now The interesting loot came from that pile of excrement in npc form Zessus, an athame that for darkness abilities; returns a portion of ability’s mana  cost to the wielder upon causing damage and a crystal butterfly hair clasp that minor bonuses to power and capacity, along with buff boosting urgency for a ten seconds that has a chance to proc on arcane damage.

Unlike the rest of the bandits he seems to have counted as a boss, that meant loot windows and what seems to be tailored loot. The athame seems like it was made for me, I’ll need to get a sheath made for it,” she said pulling an ominous looking dagger from her inventory and tucking through her belt.

That just left the hair clasp. 

She hadn’t traded it with the rest of the loot earlier, so I was wondering if I had missed out on loot for dying before we killed Zessus. I’d got him with my exploding decoy at the start but he had survived to kill me when my guard was down.

I felt something teasing up my shaggy hair at the back and then a slight pinch of pulled hair, followed by a sensation of weight on my scalp. Roxi had taken the opportunity while I was spacing out to slip behind me and fastened the butterfly hair clasp behind my right ear.

“Perfect,” she smiled, brushing a thumb tenderly across my fringe to straighten it.

“What!? Why? You killed Zessus without me, it’s your loot,” I protested.

“Are you an idiot? Your decoy took a chunk out of his health, I just finished him off while he was distracted, after he… you…” she grinned, then faltered as she mentioned my death. Her eyes flicked to the side for a moment as she continued,  “Anyway, I couldn’t have done that bandit quest or gotten this loot without you. It’s a group quest! I grabbed it in the hopes I could solo it, but I’m not sure I could have. It was still really risky with only two players, especially with one that was below the quests recommended level.” 

“You did amazing, if it's anyone’s fault you died it’s mine for taking you out of your depth. I’m—” Roxi’s mouth opened and then closed as she choked back a sob. “I’m sorry.”

Our walk had devolved into and awkward silence as we made our way across the village to the inn. This sucks. My social skills had kind of stalled since dropping out of school and living on my own, so I was kinda at a loss as to how to fix this.

That said I tried to clear the air by discussing what we’d buy once we’d collected out reward. It worked, at least at first as we discussed things like packs made of leather and oiled cloth, sleeping rolls, water skins and tools, then Roxi brought up getting me some armor and it all fell apart as if it had taken a crossbow bolt to the chest.

For the rest of our walk Roxi felt distant, her gaze wandering everywhere but me. How can someone right beside me, feel so very, very far away. Was she regretting teaming up with me? Am I dead weight? Was she planning to break up the party?

* * *

Our mood had mostly recovered by the time we finally reached the inn. Mostly. I was still feeling slightly anxious.

The Bear and the Beekeeper was once again almost empty thanks to the early hour, I’d bet my newly acquired coin that this place saw most of its patronage in the late afternoon and evening. That said almost empty isn’t empty, which meant more people than my first visit, we’d caught the last stragglers finishing their breakfast of an unidentifiable stew, that they were mopping up with chunks of brown bread.

This time however Janus was behind the bar so rather than returning to the job board we made a beeline for where he was absentmindedly stacking flagons on shelves.

“Look what dragged the cat in. You’re back in one piece, did you have any luck hunting?”

“Hello to you too Janus,” she laughed, then introducing me, “the cat is called Aisling and apparently she came round yesterday and you weren’t in. Shame for you because she just might be my lucky charm, together we cleared out that bandit camp off the east road.”

“With just you two? You better have proof and I just hope you haven’t only killed a couple and scattered the rest.”

“What’s this a pile of rags?” he asked picking up and unfolding one, “Yellow Hornets, that is their mark, you got what twenty-five?”

Raising a single finger to point upwards, Roxi replied, “Higher, twenty-eight.”

"As far as proof of completions go, this is the least grisley. I’ve had heads, ears, noses, thumbs and hands brought to me in the past. Some requests specify what they want, but they’re all verified the same way,” he explained almost conversationally as he pulled out a crystal wrapped in runed bands of metal. Waving the stone over the rags, twenty eight shadowy bandits, Zessus included materialized over the pile of armbands before fading away.

“That’s probably all of them then, which means…” he Janus trailed off as he pulled out a ball of coins and dropped it on the counter with a chink and a thud, “it means you can collect the entire reward, I don’t have to remove any coins. Congratulations, I’m impressed.” 

We quickly split the reward, each gaining another five gold hawks. It seemed kind of cheap compared to what we Roxi looted from the bandit camp, but the real reward was probably the experience we gained with the turn in. The little flashing icon in the corner of my UI had began to flash even more urgently, I’d probably gain another level or two and all the points to allocate that comes with it, on top of what I had already gained last night. 

Janus seemed content to wait for use to share our reward, standing there with him hands on the bar in front of him. He probably had more to say when we were ready.

Noticing we were finished, he Loudly clapped his hands and cleared his throat.

“So you two sure you want to be adventurers? I’m not saying this because you’re women, some of the greatest adventurers in history have been women. You’ve had your first taste, but y’know it ain't an easy life, you’ll have to get your hands dirty, fight, kill, risk your bodies,” Janus warned, lifting his right arm and pulling back his sleeve to reveal a deep and jagged scar that ran up from elbow to his hand, where he was missing his last two fingers.

Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Don’t stare!

“Impressive isn’t it girly?” he chuckled as he covered it up again. Shit! “Adventurers and mercs have a fairly low life expectancy, mercenaries usually fight in bands and prioritise their lives to maximise their survival, same as adventurers with their parties and guilds. That said you’re both Blessed right?”

Roxi nodded. “We are, you don’t have to worry about that. Ruin won’t be taking us for quite some time,” she added firmly, leaning into her character’s background.

“Good for you!” he cheered. “You Blessed tend to not stay dead and that means you can take the riskier and higher paying jobs. Anything that kills you, is a lesson you can come back from.”

He’s joking right? I’m not planning on dying if I can help it, it hurts and there was a weird lady there. That guilty expression of hers had been sitting there, a source of anxiety, in the back of my mind ever since I woke up.

“You’ll be wanting to pick up more jobs yes?” asked the innkeeper gruffly.

I was going to ask for him to recommend something safeish, but apparently the question was rhetorical, as I barely got a chance to open my mouth before he barrelled on.

“So right, let me tell you what you're in for,” he began distractedly, as he bent over and began rummaging under the bar’s counter. “Currently there is a lot of work out there for adventuring types even if the pay can be somewhat iffy, between the ongoing civil war and the war between our neighbours spilling across the north of our Duchy, there are a couple dozen nobles hiring adventurers and mercenary bands to pad out their forces. Then there are all the jobs the noble militias would normally take care of like monster and bandit hunting that they are too busy to do.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Janus as he popped back up from behind the bar with a ragged and creased roll of vellum. “Found it!” 

“You might also get a few foraging or hunting jobs for townsfolk in various villages, but— they are poor as dirt and won’t be able to pay you much,” he said with a shrug, before unfurling the vellum and pinning it flat on the count with a trio of empty clay flagons.

A map! Well a really basic one it seemed, more like an approximation of a map made from chicken scratches. Not that Roxi and I weren’t leaning over it with fascination. It was centered on a Duchy shaped like a stubby, upside-down capital T straight from a Rorschach blot test called Parcosia. Bordered by the sea on both its Eastern and western edges, it was bisected by a spine of mountains called the Corugh highlands, from north to south along the T’s length. 

Near the Duchy’s center, in the western foothills of the mountains below a pass was a what seemed to be a large city, Santarriral. To the north of the Duchy of Parcosia on either side of the mountains were the Duchies of Chigmeinon and the Jingan. Off the western coast of Parcosia was what at first looked like a small inkblot, labeled the Isle of Mists.

When I was sure I wouldn’t be noticed, I watched as Roxi gazed intently at the map, her eyes flickering back and forth across its surface as she took in every crude line and label, committing them to memory.

“There isn’t much crafting work either unless you plan to follow the armies around or go to the capital, if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise you’ll probably have to travel to the Duchy’s south of here or across the sea. Mind you, blue ears here should stay clear of the Pagutum Empire. While I’m sure an Aes Sifv like yourself can hide your characteristic features, their war wizards are said to have experience unmasking those they consider inhuman.”

This is… a lot. My plans before logging in had only gone as far as escapism. A chance to escape from my life and submerge myself in the full immersion vrmmo, to live a different life. Faced with the games sheer scale, it’s realism and freedom of choice, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. “Roxi…” I murmured, lightly tugging on the hem of her tunic.

“Hmmmm,” she hummed in response, before her pupils widened, “Oh right, we could quest around here for a bit and just meander aimlessly across the countryside exploring and picking up quests whenever we can. Or… we can take the classical path for this type of thing.” 

“Classical path? Do you mean—” It was a strange way of putting it after all, but neither of us wanted to break immersion while with Janus and we had talked extensively about past games we had played, during our trek to the bandit camp.

She had to be referring to a certain philosophy in quest and zone design used in old mmorpgs, you would have clumps of quests localised in specific areas called hubs, but there would be leading quests that would guide you between these clumps in a specific route across a zone or between zones. Starting zones tended to have a common route. “You want to quest our way to the capital and then decide where we go from there?”

Roxi nodded. rewarding me a dazzling smile for working it out. I think I’m getting used to how easily this character I’m roleplaying blushes, Aisling seems to be really susceptible to embarrassment. That said I’m not sure what the toe curling or butterflies meant.

Turning her attention back to Janus, she quietly tapped an elegant finger on map, where it said Santarriral. “How far is it to the capital?” she asked.

“The capital? Did they not teach you that in… wherever you’ve been?  It’s about three days from here on foot. The nearest town on the way is Fort Brightspring guarding the road to the capital, its two days from here.”

“Two days away!” I blurted out. Surely there was somewhere closer we could stay along the road, after seeing the giant wasps and ants from yesterday I wasn’t as keen on camping outdoors if I could help it. I would have to wake up in the night to find a giant spider over me or a giant roach rummaging through my belongings. 

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m used to spiders and roaches in my shed home, but they are far easier to squish when they are small. 

“Why do you think they named this village Spot, did you think it had some sort of great story behind it? It’s short for a spot on the backside of nowhere. Not much out this way but a few scattered farms and a couple dried up mines,” he guffawed loudly, causing the bar’s few patrons to look up. 

“I did tell you it isn’t an easy life,” he said, giving us both a reproachful look. “If you want to reach a new town each day, eat home cooked meals and sleep in proper beds  each night, you best do your adventuring closer to capital, in the highlands or along the east coast. The Duchy’s west is wild country, it’s villages and baronies are few and far between. Not that that hasn’t stopped them taking part in the civil war.”

”We can handle sleeping on the road!” I snapped, probably sounding like a brat. I didn’t like the insinuation we were too soft. “Sorry, I mean sleeping rough is fine, I was just surprised by the distance, I’ve never left the village before.”

Reaching underneath the bar, Janus pulled out a large package wrapped with grey oilcloth and string and placed it on the counter.

“Well since you proved you can handle yourself by taking out that bandit camp, I guess I do have a quest you can do on your way to the capital. How much do you know about how mail is delivered?” he questioned as he leaned forward and looked at each of us in turn.

“Umm, peddlers?” I hesitantly offered, causing me to receive a half nod from the innkeeper.

“Yes and no. Sure, while you can always hire a courier or pay a trader to carry a letter for you if its on their way, there is an official postal service. The Post between towns is and was handled by the military, sometimes by a single horseman, other times by a patrol. 

Now most of the Duchy’s military strength is levied and commanded by the noble houses, but there is a permanent enlisted soldiery that handles the defense of the capital, as well as overseeing tax collection, the post and patrolling a few major roads and borders. “

This was a lot to follow for a simple quest intro, but a quick glance next to me revealed an enraptured Roxi, she was very obviously lapping up all this lore.

“Unfortunately with the civil war going on they have been stretched thin and the post has suffered as a result. This bundle is mail due for Fort Brightspring and it’s village, it was left here along with a commission to deliver it by a passing lieutenant from one of the noble militias. Jobs simple, you just need to deliver this to the fort’s Post Officer. That means do not lose it, protect it with your lives and above all do not open or tamper with it,” he warned gravely.

Ok that doesn’t sound good. Why do I have a bad feeling that this quest has some sort of  extreme fail condition or is flag for something we’re not expecting?

“Not that I expect you to open or tamper with them,” he sighed, looking apologetic. “Sorry the request required me to warn you, mail tampering is a serious crime. A long time ago back when the Duchies were all apart of the Kingdom of Parcosia, there was a time when it became such a problem that the Queen had to declare all mail property of the crown until it is delivered. Theft, interception or tampering are all considering petty treason at best, high treason, depending on the extent or who is prosecuting.” 

Wow… That is something…

Glancing in Roxi’s direction, I could even see her pale complexion was a shade lighter than normal. I probably looked like I’d seen a ghost after hearing those stakes, that had to be a flag.

“Great!” Janus said cheerfully, as he pushed the package into Roxi’s arms. “Glad I could find a couple of competent girls like yourselves.”