Jace had a feeling of deja vu as he began the climb into the rocky hills west of Crestfall. How many times had he done this in the past few days? Of course, he had barely been in the game for 24 hours of real-time, but he had seen several sunsets, so days and hours had little meaning. He had climbed into the mountains to rescue the pregnant girl, Caitlin before she could sacrifice her child to a demon. Then he had climbed into the mountains to kill some giants. Even climbing down from the level 50 cavern felt eerily similar to this. But what did he expect? He was a stone shaman and an orc to boot. The mountains were his home. The whole purpose of this mission was to give him a physical home in the mountains.
The only unique quest he had experienced so far was rescuing Esther from the brothel in Portsmith. Jace looked at the woman, stoically climbing up the winding trail, her features highlighted by the setting sun over the looming mountains. Surely, she knew what had happened the last time they had done this. She had almost died. Yet, here she was, walking beside Jace into danger with no hint of hesitation. He had been worried that he might have to roll her out of the diner after how much she had eaten, but the game didn't seem to account for the lethargy one usually felt after a big meal. Instead, she was as spry as ever, leaping up boulders and dancing around the loose stones, her dress and cloak flying about her legs in the breeze. She was certainly unique.
"So, boss," she said, pausing to catch her breath. In addition to struggling with the chill in the air and hunger in her belly, getting winded was also something the formerly undead woman needed to get used to. "What's the plan?"
"I don't know," Jace said. "I'm still working on it."
"Well, talk to Gracie and figure it out."
{Yeah, boss,} Gracie chimed in, mimicking Esther's unique accent. {Let's figure this out.}
"Fine, how are we supposed to beat this orc mage?"
{You can't,} Gracie replied. {At least, not directly. Most people don't. You have a few ways to approach this. One is that you can go to the spot where Brett's son was killed. If you had any skill at tracking, you would find orc prints. If you stay there long enough, orcs will attack you. It is a tough fight, but several players reported they were able to win. If you win, then more come until, eventually, Carrak arrives and defeats you. You are taken captive and put in their dungeon.
{You can also try sneaking in. There are a few openings into the cavern complex, and if you wait until night, you can hide in the shadows and enter undetected. If you try this, you will eventually be caught and put in the dungeon.
{If you walk up to the front door and say you want to speak to Garrison Deng, Carrak will come out in disguise. If you threaten him, he will drop the illusion, attack you, and put you in the dungeon. If you play along, he leads you inside to show you a few things, casting illusions the whole time, trying to trick you. Eventually, you see through it, call him out on it, and . . .}
"Let me guess," Jace interrupted. "He puts us in the dungeon."
{Right. No player in this module's history has ever been able to pass it without ending up in the dungeon at some point. While you are locked up, you will meet a troublesome gnome. He is part-scout and part-thief. He is a member of a search party trying to find their homeland. The gnomes used to live here until they woke the demon and fled, promising never to return. They had sealed the demon underground and taken the demon stone. Many generations later, the threat of the demon wasn't as pressing, especially since the stone was lost. The stone allowed the evil monster to extend his influence outside his prison.
{Gnome search parties were sent all over the realms looking for their homeland, and one small band arrived here. They saw all the signs and started to repair the collapsed tunnels. In doing so, they woke the demon again. It is still sealed inside but was able to reach out to its stone, which was now in the hands of Carrak. The demon's power was limited to giving the orc dreams, but it was enough to bring him and his orcs to the mine, and they easily conquered the gnomes.
{Mining isn't something orcs are good at, so they enslaved the gnomes and forced them to continue excavation of the caverns to free the demon.}
"How does the gnome in the dungeon play into this?"
"Topprican, or Topper as most players call him, tells you that his gnomes have a way to defeat the orc mage. They have been digging out the collapsed tunnels, but they have also been secretly rigging them to collapse again. If you can lure Carrak down into the mines, they will be able to bring them down on the mage and his minions, which also reseals access to the demon.}
"How do I convince him to follow me down?"
{After killing Brett's son, the orcs got smart and realized they would only draw attention to themselves if they kept killing all the humans that came for a look. So instead, Carrak brings them up from the dungeon to the primary audience hall and casts a brainwashing spell on them, so they go back to town and report that all is good. The orc promises you a horrible death if you resist, but you are given the opportunity to fight back before he casts the spell, and you can run down into the caverns. He will chase you, and the gnomes will drop the tunnels on the orcs. You are given a small alcove to stand in while the tunnels fall, so you survive, but all the orcs and gnomes die. Most of the gnomes are killed when you initially resist, but Topper escapes, and he is the one that executes the plan.}
"There is no other way to pass this without killing the gnomes?"
{I knew you would ask that, and I look forward to you figuring out a way, but no. There is a note here about one player who did find another way to solve this, but most people say she is lying. What did she do . . . oh, let's see . . . well, look at that, small world. It was Esther's favorite thief, Gweniffer. It seems like she did this before joining up with Drescher.}
"What did she do?"
{The demon stone is kept on a unique pedestal in the middle of the main hall. It is locked in place like it is part of some museum display. The lock is linked to the orc's magic, so the only way to get at it is to kill the orc. Gwen says that she was able to pump up her lock-picking ability, and she snagged the stone without killing Carrak. Then she ran out of the caverns. The mage chased her, but once the stone got far enough away from the demon, Carrak lost all his game-breaking abilities, and she and her party were able to kill him. When they returned to the caverns, they found all the gnomes dead because Carrak must have given an order to kill them before he left, but they didn't drop the tunnels.}
"What kind of 'Game-Breaking' abilities does the stone give the orc?"
{When he is in range of the stone, and when the stone is in range of the demon, it boosts all of Carrak's abilities to 24. This means he has a +18 base to all his abilities on top of what he gained from level advancement and the few feats he was programmed with. He is obviously a good fighter, but since he is a mage, his magic resistance is also top-notch, so he is impervious to almost every spell anyone has enough mana to cast. He doesn't cast many spells when you fight him, but he can heal himself quickly, and you rarely damage him. He basically keeps the fight going, showing you how hopeless it is and forcing you to flee to the lower levels so Topper can kill him.}
Jace nodded as he took in this information, trying to also concentrate on where he placed his feet as the climb became steeper. Suddenly, a large banner filled his field of vision, and he lost his footing, crashing unceremoniously to the ground. Esther and Snowy reacted instantly, running over to him to see if he was okay, but he could barely see them through the image that consumed his vision:
[Bounty issued.]
[Esther Xerxes, Rogue, Level 10. Last seen in the company of Jace Thorne.]
[Accused of murder, theft, and killing city guards.]
[200,000 Gold. Wanted alive.]
[Deliver to Ferrick Drescher in Ironfel.]
"What is that?" Jace asked, more shocked by the banner's sudden appearance than by what it said. It had been almost two hours since he had left Ironfel, and it looked like Drescher had finally figured out what had happened.
{Drescher put out a bounty on Esther,} Gracie stated the obvious. {This is pretty unconventional. People rarely put bounties on NPCs, and I am shocked Gandhi allowed it. Though, if he had enough evidence for all three claims, it has been done before. Usually, they make the bounty for two people: the PC and the NPC, but he obviously cares nothing for you.}
"I understand most of that," Jace said, allowing Esther to help him off the ground and finally finding a way to dismiss the bounty alert from before his eyes. "How will it affect our gameplay?"
{As long as you stay in MIMs, it won't. No one in Crestfall will see that bounty notice. There is no global law enforcement. Each stronghold and city has its own structure, at least on this continent. There are other kingdoms in the realms that have an authority system that spans from city to city, but most of those are also MIMs, so they aren't shared between players. Non-PVP zones like Olympia or Centerville are safe, and a place like Safehaven, a stronghold governed by our employers, is unlikely to harbor many bounty hunters. For now, don't worry about it. We can finish this quest, you can have another meeting with Drescher, and if you are still alive, we can worry about it later.}
"Did Esther see this notice?"
{No, she didn't. You are the only one who saw it go out. Any PC can look up the current bounties posted in the game, and you can set up notifications for yourself to see when new ones are posted, but you are the only Character in the game that just got a direct notice.}
Jace focused back on his surroundings and saw a concerned look from Esther. "What happened?" she asked.
"Drescher reached out to say hi. It seems he didn't like the chaos you caused in his city."
"I didn't like the company he kept," she bit back. "Dung attracts flies."
Jace lifted his hands in submission. "You don't have to defend your actions to me."
{She would if you were the Lawful Good alignment you initially wanted to be. You are now harboring a thief, a murderer, and a cop killer.}
Jace didn't bother offering his operator a response. He was beginning to understand what Gracie had been trying to tell him: there was no universal right or wrong in this game. He shook his head from the potential moral dilemma and focused on the task at hand.
"We are getting close to the orcs," Jace told Esther. She had listened to their conversation while eating pancakes and knew the general gist of what was happening. "I am going to need to use you as bait."
Esther cocked her eyes at him. "Really? How do you suppose that is going to work?"
Jace explained his plan.
* * *
Esther found the site where Alexander, Brett's son, had died. It had been over a week, but the remains were still there, as no rain had fallen to wash the blood away. She could tell little from the tracks or overturned rocks, but she understood that she didn't need to. All she had to do was wait. So, instead of examining the scene before her, she turned and looked back over the path they had climbed.
It was past dinner time, and the lights of Crestfall were visible in the distance, illuminating the valley below like fireflies. Esther tracked the river to the east as it snaked out of the hills and into a wide plane before finding the distant ocean. The sea wasn't visible in the darkening sky, but she imagined the view would be amazing in the bright dawn.
Sound yanked her out of her reverie, and she turned to see a group of orcs patrolling the outskirts of the central peak that rose behind her. They hadn't seen her yet, and her instincts told her to hide in the shadows, but she fought them, knowing she needed to be captured. Instead, she stood her ground and drew her weapons. Wearing her dark cloak over her black dress in the fading light of evening, it still took a while for the orcs to see her, but they exploded into action when they did. Two of them leaped down several rocky ledges, quickly closing the distance, while another orc pulled a crude bow off his back and began lining up a shot.
Esther was willing to play the part of the victim here, but she had no intention of getting hit with arrows and ran to her left to find the safety of a thick tree. As soon as she was hidden behind it, an arrow streaked past her. She kept contact with the trunk, peering around at the attacking beasts and preparing to defend herself. Three more arrows came flying, none close enough to hit the tree she braced against. The two charging orcs were now fifty feet away, still leaping down rocks and ledges to access the small clearing where Alexander's remains lay.
Another, much bigger orc took his time climbing down to her level, but he was shouting out orders. "Make sure to take her alive. Wound her, but do not kill her. Carrak will not be pleased if we kill any more humans."
The two charging orcs had finally reached Esther's level and slowed, their eagerness for battle tempered by their leader's caution. They also had a hard time finding the woman hidden behind a tree. It looked like the archer was done firing for now, with his companions ready to engage. Esther knew she had to be captured but decided to have some fun first and cast haste and invisibility spells.
The two orcs cautiously approached her hiding tree when she burst from the shadows, leaping at the one on the left. She chose to attack with her weapons and was glad Drescher had not trained this orc. He was only level 12, and while he carried a shield, he didn't use the Raise Shield action, nor did he have any associated feats. Esther did five crits against him and used one to make him drop his axe.
While he bent to pick it up, she got in three more attacks this round, all dealing multiple criticals. He was almost dead when he got his chance to attack back. Esther dodged but took a glancing blow for 23 damage, all going to her ring, and then killed him the same round after making him drop his shield this time.
The orc's friend barely had time to register the attack before the first orc was dead in less than two rounds. All he had seen were two swords flashing in the fading light amidst a swirl of black fabric with splashes of red blood exploding from his companion. Now he could focus on the woman that strode toward him, and he got the first strike, doing another 23 damage to her ring. She responded by forcing him to drop his weapon.
Without the initial damage boost her attack from the shadows gave, it took Esther a few more rounds to deal with this enemy, and her damage protection ring was depleted by the time she killed him. Three orcs remained: the chief, who was almost down to her level, the archer, and a smaller orc that looked magical. Neither of the distant orcs moved toward her, and the chief only smiled. He regarded his two dead fighters as garbage, hardly giving their sliced-up bodies a second look. He held a much larger axe and a shield, and as he raised it in preparation for his attack on the woman, Esther knew he wouldn't take criticals as easily. At least, not if she fought fair.
The chief was 20 feet from her when Esther disappeared. "Kreeynk!" the leader shouted. "Kreeynk, show her to me." The archer looked at the spell caster, whose name was Kreeynk, and the nervous shaman worked on a spell to reveal the hidden woman.
Esther didn't give him a chance. She leaped from a high rock with her arms outstretched, having sheathed her weapons. She latched on to the back of the orc and got to add her stealth score to her grapple check. Even with a shield, the chief didn't have a chance. Esther spent one of the crits to make the orc immobile and then used three more to snap his neck. Esther landed gracefully on the ground as the huge fighter fell with a crash. Her eyes never left the two remaining orcs, and even though she was standing in the clearing, an easy shot for the archer, neither of them moved. It looked like they were going to run, but their eyes went wide and focused on something behind her.
Esther turned to see an even bigger orc than the chief charge up behind her with a massive wolf by his side. Before she could react, the orc swung a huge halberd at her. Her instinct was to dodge, but the long polearm reached out and tangled her feet, so she fell flat on her back. The wolf was on her in a flash, pinning her to the ground and licking her face. "Snowy," Esther said as she pretended to fight the animal off. "You need to be fierce."
The intelligent wolf remembered her instructions, stopped licking, and growled viciously. The new orc was beside the pair quickly and placed his giant boot on her chest, threatening to crush the life out of her.
Esther grabbed his ankle and felt the angles and pivot points necessary to free herself and wrestle this monster to the ground. She could reverse their positions, having him pinned to the ground and Helpless in seconds. The orc felt the pressure on his calf and looked down. "Just lay there, Esther," Jace said. "Don't make me actually attack you. You shouldn't need to take any more damage." She lay still, but a smile spread on her face. It looked like she was about to laugh when Jace shushed her. "Be quiet. The other orcs are coming. What's so funny?"
"I can see up your kilt."
Jace growled at her to match Snowy, which was perfectly in character. He had returned his setting to their previous position after leaving Ironfel. However, he had left his Environment a little higher, seeing the benefit in having a sense of smell and detecting temperature changes. He had put his Sexuality back down again, but a few minutes ago, when he had resumed his orc appearance for this current charade, he found his muscles looked a little too plastic and unrealistic at the lower setting, and he had bumped himself up to medium. He didn't want to tip off Carrak that he was anything other than an orc.
He had no choice but to give the prone woman a show for the next few moments as the two peon orcs made their way down to him. "Looks like you had a bit of trouble with this one," Jace said in his deep voice.
The two orcs hesitated. Not only had this fighter taken out a woman who had easily killed the group's three best fighters, but he also spoke intelligently. "We would have caught her," the archer said cautiously. "Maybe need more orcs. But she no beat Carrak."
"Ah," Jace replied. "The great Carrak-Deng. Then I have come to the right place." He knew his speech was too refined, but it only lent to his air of superiority. "I wish to meet with your leader. We have much to discuss."
"You come to serve Dresth'Nal?" the smaller shaman asked.
{The name of the demon,} Gracie advised.
Jace had assumed. "I bring the stone of my own god," Jace said. "I wish to compare the strength of every potential allegiance. Two supreme beings cannot rule over the same realm if they oppose each other. Perhaps we might form an alliance."
Jace's proposal was too complex for these simple orcs to understand, but they nodded anyway. "We bring you to see Carrak," the archer replied. "You can bring the girl?"
"That shouldn't be a problem," Jace replied. He began to remove his foot from Esther and could feel her body tense. "It won't be a problem," he whispered, "will it?" He hoped her pride would allow him to restrain her, for he knew he couldn't if she didn't want him to.
Esther complied, for now, and let Jace lift her off the ground and secure her hands behind her back. He removed her weapons, but, as they had previously discussed, as he began to put them in his inventory, she let her elbow touch them, and they went into hers instead. The two orcs didn't notice anything, and Jace made a mental reminder to ask Gracie how NPCs understood inventories. Jace had Esther grappled, but since she did not fight back, he couldn't elevate the condition to Secure Grapple and had no way to pin her into a Helpless state. He wasn't sure in which states one could access their inventory, so he hoped the orcs thought she was at least secure, and thus the weapons could have only gone into his inventory.
Before they left, Kreeynk rummaged through the chief's body and found a pair of shackles. "So she does not escape," the shaman explained as he tentatively offered the restraints to Jace, keeping his distance from the wolf who still bared her teeth.
"Do you have the key?" Jace asked.
The other orc nodded and raised it in his hands, but he made no effort to hand it to Jace. "I will give it to Carrak," he said, showing how far his trust in this new orc went. After Jace had the shackles, the spell caster scampered further away and began turning to leave.
The archer didn't turn as quickly, and Jace was forced to shackle his prisoner in front of him. Jace looked at Esther pleadingly, as this had not been part of the original arrangement. She rolled her eyes but nodded. "I didn't realize our relationship had already escalated to handcuffs," she said under her breath.
"I thought it the logical next step," Jace quipped back. "After all, I bought you pancakes."
{Don't worry,} Gracie said as he put her wrists in the cuffs. {She has the Escape Artist feat and an unreal athletic skill. As long as you don't make them too tight, she should be able to slip out of them in seconds.}
Jace snapped the shackles closed and then turned to the archer for approval. He nodded, and the two orcs followed after the shaman with Jace's hand on Esther's arm and Snowy pulling up the rear.