Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Confrontations

Esther led the charge out of the room but wasn’t easy to follow.  Two steps out of the witch’s quarters, she vanished into the shadows.

“Cheater,” Delly said as she raced into the lead, taking the steps down to the balcony three at a time.  Jace was still adjusting to his new body size.  In the deity quest, he got the idea that Gandhi had given him an illusion so that everyone saw him as a human, but he still felt he was an orc.  Now he also saw himself as a human.  He had just gotten used to the massive strides of the 7-foot orc, and now he had to adjust to his standard height.  He could only take the steps one at a time, using his halberd to help balance him, and he felt back in rhythm when he reached the bottom.

Delly didn’t slow down as she reached the railing and vaulted over the balcony into the lower level, landing on a table and attacking the first person she saw holding a weapon.  Jace took a moment to examine the scene before diving in.  At least seven naked combatants were causing a ruckus downstairs.  A few others wore chain or leather armor with no pants, and half a dozen others wore light gray, knee-length tunics with a rope tied around the waist.

“What’s with the Roman slave outfits?” Jace asked.

{That is the starting attire in the game,} Gracie said.  {It forces you to walk through the armor and clothing tutorial or risk walking around looking like a newb.  It takes up an inventory slot, but some people keep it around just in case.}

A woman’s scream pierced the air as Jace saw a naked sixth-level fighter attacking one of the downstairs “hostesses.”  Jace guessed he had been with her when he lost all his stuff.  It looked like he had kept a backup short sword in his inventory and was standing over her injured form, demanding she return his equipment.  Jace was about to leap to her defense when a white streak of fur took the fighter off his feet.

“Good girl, Snowy,” Jace said appreciatively.  The naked fighter didn’t have a chance.  Snowy stunned him with a cone of frost and then let her teeth do the rest.  Instead, Jace turned his attention to another level 6 fighter who had Tami, the fourth of the lieutenants, backed against the wall.  He had on the Roman tunic with a longsword at her neck.  Jace couldn’t hear what he was saying but felt obligated to help.

Following Delly’s lead, he jumped over the balcony railing and aimed for a burly dwarf whose naked legs stuck out from under a chainmail vest.  The fighter took the brunt of Jace’s 15-foot drop, and the shaman rolled off him toward the pair in the corner of the room.

“Where is she?” the Level 6 PC demanded of Tami when Jace got close enough to hear them.

“Esther, I know she’s here.  I want my ring back.”

Blood dripped from a cut on Tami’s bare shoulder, and the man had already cut through one of her silver dress straps and threatened to do more.

“You looking for Esther?” Jace barked, not used to his new voice, which sounded remarkably like his normal one.

The man turned to look at him.  “You’ve seen her?”

“Yes,” he answered.  “She’s with me.”  Jace waited until the man turned a bit more and let him have it.  He no longer had a dial to work with, but he guessed the man was coming from a flat-footed condition, having been grappling with Tami.  Plus, the woman gave Jace a flanking bonus, so he didn’t have to be exact.  He got a triple crit and sent it all to damage, knowing the lower-level character would drop below half his Hit Points from it.

{Don’t finish him,} Gracie warned.

“Why not?”

{Too much experience.}

“I thought we wanted to get to level 10?”

{Not yet,} she said through gritted teeth, obviously trying to keep her voice down so the Germans wouldn’t understand her.  A few of the naked players were women, so the two horny men were glued to the screen and oblivious to the operator.  They were actually playing with the view settings to see if they could follow PCs other than Jace.

Jace understood Gracie had a plan and respected it, backing away from the dying player as Tami kicked him with her high heel sandals.  She didn’t appear as equipped for battle as the other lieutenants.  “Get to your room,” Jace instructed.  Tami nodded but gave the dying man one more kick before running for the stairs.  Jace took the time to heal the man, hoping he wasn’t chaotic.  The spell took, and his downward spiral halted at ten health.

Jace stood from the fighter, and Snowy leaped in to rip his throat out.  {Ouch,} Gracie said.  {Don’t rebuke her, though.  She is only valuable as a killing machine.  In all other situations, that was the right move.  But now, get out of there.}

Jace said hello to Snowy with a scratch behind her ears as she licked her bloody chops.  They turned as one to see a naked level 7 half-orc standing on a table, grinning at them.  A ring of fire surrounded the table, and Snowy whined and backed away.  Jace knew he was also susceptible to fire damage, which the half-orc guessed by the shaman's white fur-lined kilt.  A fireball might do them both in at this moment.

From the fire mage’s left, appearing out of nowhere, Esther flew in screaming.  She must have jumped from another table and hit the half-orc right before he cast, disrupting him and dropping his impressive Hit Point total from 160 to 120 while also dispelling the fire ring.  She then grappled him off the top of the table.  He fell at Jace and Snowy’s feet, prone on the floor.  The wolf attacked low, and Jace went high.  He was dead a round later.

{I said stop killing things!} Gracie screamed.  {Get the #$%* out of there.}

“We have to go,” Jace said.

“But I’m having fun,” Esther whined.  “Half of these people are here to kill me, and I’ve never seen them before.  I must have slept with their wives.”

“That’s not it,” Jace said but realized he didn’t have time to explain and didn’t think she would understand anyway.  “We need to leave now.”

“Wait.  Is this your wolf?”

Snowy instinctively knew that Esther was part of their party and howled in greeting, instantly liking the woman.  “She’s amazing.”  Esther sheathed her swords and dropped to a knee to properly greet the wolf.  Snowy gave her a quick sniff and then an appreciative lick to the side of the face.  The former vampire returned the favor, actually licking some of the blood off the canine’s maw.

Jace rolled his eyes and thought he might be sick.  “We are going!” He said firmly so that his familiar was compelled to obey.  Esther followed.  They were close to the door, and after navigating a few upturned tables, most of the action was now behind them — most of the action.

A naked woman blocked the entrance.  She was a level 12 elf with 132 health.  Without any clothes, Jace had no idea what class she was, but with only 132 Hit Points, he guessed it wasn’t a melee fighter.  Elves got bonuses to Dexterity and Intelligence.  If she were a thief or ranger, she would be hiding in the shadows.  Jace guessed mage.

“What do you have?” the elf said curiously.  “Something very powerful.”

{She can sense the crystal,} Gracie said.  {Don’t let her disable you.}

Snowy and Esther launched into an attack, running and jumping the twenty feet between them.  The elf calmly raised her hand and cast a spell.  Jace had to guess it would be a stun or paralyze attack.  It had to target all of them, or it would be useless.  Even though she was level 12, Jace knew he could beat this.  Seeing Esther flying toward this woman brought back the sight of her with angel wings, and he imagined her flying out over the ocean, basking in the sunlight for the first time in eons.  She was free, soaring, and alive.  A heavy sensation threatened to overwhelm him, and gravity took hold of Esther in his dream, threatening to pull her down to the beach where quicksand waited to hold her tight.

Jace fought through that pressure, willing Esther higher and higher until the weight dropped from her like someone had cut a toe line.  She soared toward the sun, and Jace opened his eyes.  Before him, his two female companions were frozen solid, only a dozen feet from their target.  The elf barely paid them attention and stepped between the pair toward Jace, who hadn’t moved since the spell was cast.  He let her take another step and then exploded into action, bringing the halberd down in a vicious attack.

He didn’t trust a Stun spell against the mighty mage and put everything into damage.  She must have had considerable defensive protection in place because his 142-point 4x damage strike only did 34, which was well under what he needed to knock her out.  His second attack did 30, letting him know that whatever protection she had on that first attack was mostly gone now.

The elf was paranoid and had no weapon to fight back with.  She dumped all her mana into an All-In cold damage spell, but that was her worst choice against a shaman aligned with a winter wolf.  It knocked a few Hit Points off, but Jace’s next attack killed the mage.

{Would you #$%&*@# stop it!  Just . . . just get out of there.}

With the elf dead, her spells ceased, and Esther and Snowy stumbled forward, attacking the open air.  They looked confused and turned around to see the dead elf on the floor and Jacen stepping over her.  “Follow me.”

Snowy looked forlornly at the wasted elf blood pooling on the wood, and Jace thought Esther shared the sentiment.  They each obeyed their party leader and followed him outside.  Night had now fallen, and Esther disappeared into the shadows.  Jace got the impression Snowy could still see her, and after he linked senses with the wolf, so could he.

{Get back to the travel node at the docks,} Gracie instructed.  {Try to avoid any more PCs.  But I fear even the NPCs in this module are waking up, and any of them are likely to go off-script.}

“I need to stop at the Tornsend house first.”

{You absolutely do not.}  Gracie looked over her shoulder at the Germans on the couch who had found a way to get the camera to stay in the first level of the Gilded Swan, which still looked like a porn parody of Gladiator.  She lowered her voice so they wouldn’t hear.  {Let me do that math for you.  You entered this module with around 120k experience.  I’ll use round numbers.  You got a full 10k for your stunt with Esther, the two of you split the experience for killing the witch, which was 5k, and then you got another 5k for helping Esther complete her mini-quest of killing the hag.}

Jace guided his group back to the docks, which was also in the direction of the Tornsend home.  {That puts you close to 140k.  Level 9 is 125k, so that is great; you’ve leveled up.  The game won’t let you actually gain the level until you leave the module.  Level 10 is at 250k.  Getting another 110k should take a while.  You basically started the game at 82k right out of the gate, and after two full modules, you got less than 60k.  So, I’ve got two other modules lined up for you to do where you can get a bunch of valuable loot and maybe even another party member before you have to face Drescher, the gun runner employing our two horny hosts.}

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Jace could see where this was going.

{Killing PCs is the fastest way to get experience.  You get their current level experience or the amount to your next level up, whichever is lower.  Back there, Snowy killed two level six fighters, one herself and one that you critically injured.  Esther killed a level 7 character before joining up with you, and then the three of you killed another level 7 fire mage.  Very impressive, by the way.  He should have easily killed you.  Then you took down a level 12 Control mage.  She had no equipment save for a damage reduction ring that she apparently left on for her tryst.  Good job accidentally picking that up when you stepped over her body.  Because you were still officially at level 8, you only got 63k for that kill; otherwise, you would already be at Level 10.  Either way, adding all that up, it comes to almost 160k.  You split it with Esther (not Snowy), putting you at about 220k experience, only 30k from Level 10.  I know you will get at least 20k from talking to the widow, but with all the changes you’ve made to the module and your annoying propensity for overachievement, who knows what will happen.  If you get to Ten, the Germans will demand you go to Drescher now, and you aren’t ready.  I mean, there is nothing you can do to be prepared to face off against them, but the longer we wait, the better chance you have to . . . well, to work your magic and think of something.}

“I understand everything you just said,” Jace whispered, the breezy night air keeping his words from his companions.  “I am going to the widow’s house anyway.  I’ve got this far playing my way.  If I vary from my convictions now, I do not trust Dexmachi will be there the next time I call.  I know you think the god is made up, but he is as real as Gandhi, and he is my ace in the hole right now.  I can’t abandon him.”

Gracie swore up a storm, and Jace was sure she threw her headset at the keyboard again.

 

---

 

The Tornsend home was designed to look unique compared to the others around it.  Jace asked Esther to leave the shadows as they approached, not wanting to frighten the widow.  The rogue did as she was asked, and Jace noticed she was wearing a black hooded cloak.  Because of their interactions earlier that evening, Jace was intimately aware of every article of clothing she had, and there had been no cloak.  They had passed a few street vendors selling goods and clothing, but he was sure she hadn’t stopped to buy anything.  When he asked her about it, she only said she was cold.  That was probably a new experience for the formerly undead, cold-blooded woman, so he gave her a pass.

Esther returned his look and said, “Your orc is showing.  You might want to change if you don’t want to frighten the widow.”

The combat had sped up the rounds they experienced, so the spell hadn’t lasted as long as he anticipated.  Jace agreed with Esther’s assessment and took a moment to question the woman.  “Everyone assumes I’m an enemy when they see me.  Why do you accept me?”

“You saved me,” she answered simply.  “I judge people on their actions, not what they look like.”

If Gracie were online, she would undoubtedly tell him this view was because of her Progressive nature.  Jace saw that trait as making her more open to life as an escort and a thief, but it also made her less racist.  Jace put that thought aside and dumped another 50 mana into the necklace.  He had been saving that for his healing ring, but it would be counter-productive if an Orc, a winter wolf, and the vampire responsible for her husband’s death showed up at Mrs. Tornsend’s door if the goal was not to frighten her.

Esther evaluated his new appearance and frowned.  “Is that the best you can do?”

Jace looked down and saw the same image as before: his earthly body wearing a kilt and boots.  It was less frightening than an orc, but still not proper attire to visit a woman to tell her that her husband was dead.

Esther didn’t ask first (Jace doubted she ever would) before placing her hand on the necklace’s gemstone and closing her eyes in concentration.  After a round, Jace’s image shifted.  He now wore black pants and a navy-blue vest over a gray button-down shirt.  The vest had gold stitching in it and a fancy crest.

“Thank you,” Jace said as he hid his halberd in his inventory.  Esther only shrugged and walked toward the house.

It was late, but Jace felt the game would allow the widow to come to the door whenever they knocked.  The middle-aged woman from the docks answered after a few moments.  Jace had asked snowy to wait in the street and keep watch for PCs that might be coming.  He couldn’t imagine any of them wasting their time in this portion of the module, but he didn’t know how magic detection worked, and it was possible someone could track him here.

Although he looked very different, the scripted module allowed Mrs. Tornsend to recognize Jace.  “Hello again.  Were you able to find anything out about my husband?”

Because this was quest-related, Jace saw the prompts at the bottom of his vision.  A Guile option said, “No, we haven’t found anything.  He might come back later.”  A Pragmatic choice said, “Yes, we found that he was killed.  I’m sorry.”  And there was an Honest option saying, “He went to the Gilded Swan, spent time with several of the women there, and was killed by the witch who ran the operation.  I avenged your husband’s death.”

Jace saw what the game was doing.  The most compassionate option was to lie.  Earlier, Esther had taken advantage of his honesty to get him to talk while enthralled.  Now the game showed him how callus the truth could be.  However, Jace didn’t feel the Honest answer was that accurate.  As he contemplated his response, he examined the emotion on this woman’s face.  It was real.  The over-acting and scripted request he had experienced on the docks was from the previous module.  This new Gandhi-controlled version should be able to react appropriately to what he needed to say.

“I’m afraid your husband has been killed.”  The shock this answer produced let Jace know he was right.  “He was poisoned, and then they cast a spell on him and fed him to a witch.”  It was brutal, but there could be no mistake that he was a victim.

Mrs. Tornsend had been expecting the worse and had already steeled her emotions against anything Jace could say.  “Who is ‘they?’  Who did this to my husband?”

“The Gilded Swan is a front for a powerful witch who lures men to their deaths.  Your husband rejected the charms of the women, so he was drugged and killed.”  Esther had said Henry Tornsend had resisted, so he felt this was truthful enough.  “We killed the witch, and the Gilded Swan will not be able to do this to any more families.  The brothel is being destroyed as we speak.”

The widow’s eyes kept darting toward the beautiful woman at Jace’s side, thinking her presence could not be a coincidence and realizing she had not been with Jace before.  When Jace said, “We,” Mrs. Tornsend felt comfortable asking about her.  “Who is this?  Is she one of the whores who murdered my husband?”

“She helped me-” Jace started, but Esther cut him off.

“Yes,” she replied.  “Yes, I am.”

The widow acted suddenly.  In the darkness of the house, she had hidden a butcher knife behind her back.  The attack was painfully slow to Jace and even slower to Esther.  The skilled rogue caught the widow’s arm while still high in the air and shoved her back into the house so the encounter could continue in private.  Jace saw the older woman was a level 2 with 12 Hit Points.  If Esther breathed on her wrong, the woman would die.

The vampire had no intention of killing her.  With a deft move, she wrenched the knife from her hand and grappled her to the floor.  Esther raised the blade in the air, and before Jace could stop her, she stabbed it down hard between the woman’s knees.  It cut through the dress and apron and stuck fast to the wooden entry, pinning her to the floor.

The widow was paralyzed with fear, but Jace didn’t think Esther had used any mana.  Instead, the agile woman sat on her prone victim’s waist and pinned her wrists to the floor.  “I helped kill him,” she said in a low whisper.  “That fact will haunt me almost as much as you, only for a lot longer.  I have to live with the knowledge that I was a monster.  You do not have to become one.  Grieve, find peace, and move on.  Let me carry this burden.  I was a prisoner in that hell hole, and part of me always will be.  You don’t have to be a prisoner too.”

It wasn’t the most sympathetic condolence, but Jace was impressed Esther cared enough to try.  The cloaked woman got up but left the widow pegged to the ground, her body rocking with sobs.  “We’ve done all we can,” she said.  “Let’s go.”

They closed the door behind them, and as Esther walked to Snowy, Jace checked his experience.  He got 25K for the quest and another 5k for aiding Esther in finding closure.  According to Gracie’s round numbers, that should put him right at 250k, the amount needed for Level 10.  As it turned out, her numbers had been a little too round, and he saw he was only at 249,850.  Plenty of room.  He winced at how close it was.  If Snowy killed a stray dog on the way to the docks, it might push them over.

Jace moved toward the coast, but Esther tugged him in another direction.  “There is a man, Zachery Hegai.  He officially owned the Gilded Swan and was responsible for selecting men to be fed to the witch.  He must pay as well.”

Jace agreed, but as he looked off in that direction, he saw fire and lightning illuminating the sky.  “I think he is already getting his just rewards,” Jace said.  “All the disgruntled clients probably think he can get their equipment back.”

Esther looked at him, puzzled.  “What does that mean?”

How could he explain this?  “When I freed you, it upset the balance of the Gilded Swan.  The magic necessary to transform you had powerful side effects, and the current clients were transported out of town.”

“I think it drove some of them mad too,” she added.  “Some said I had stolen from them, but I had never seen them before.”

Jace decided not to comment on that oddity.  She might remember all of the men that came before today, but those who had been with her concurrent with his visit and had not completed the module did not register in Esther’s memory.  Instead, he moved toward the docks.  Esther didn’t push the point and followed behind.

This part of town was vacant.  It was late, and with the reports of violence throughout Portsmith, the new Gandhi-influenced citizens were smart enough to stay inside.  It only took a few minutes to get to the travel node, and Jace was happy to see it wasn’t crowded.  Gracie still hadn’t reappeared, but Jace knew where to go.

Travel back to Kellington was instantaneous, but Jace wondered if Esther had experienced a ship ride.  It wouldn’t have made any sense since it was still nighttime when they arrived, but did she just ignore the fact that they traveled 50 kilometers in the blink of an eye?  Kellington was also on the coast, and Jace found the most upscale hotel he could, perched on a cliff overlooking the water.  He let Esther look at the menu and order anything she wanted.   It was well over 200 gold for the feast they brought to his room, and Jace tried not to think of it as equivalent to $200.  As far as he was concerned, he had $100k coming when this was all done, and once he found a safe place to sell the loot he was carrying, he would make that $200 back and more.  Within an hour after the food had arrived, Esther had stuffed herself silly and had cuddled with Snowy out on the balcony.  The two of them had fallen asleep to the sound of the ocean surf.

Jace was glad they found it comfortable enough to sleep out there because there was only one bed inside.  He sat at the large table in the room, just off the bedroom and connected to the balcony.  He had sampled some of the food, and it was bland.  This wasn’t a VR-enabled environment, but he found the food did improve his health regeneration.

“Gracie,” he said, looking at the ceiling where he assumed the third-person camera that tracked his movement was.  “I need your help now.”  He had heard the trilling sound that indicated he had leveled up as soon as he entered Kellington, and he had also taken a peek at Esther’s character sheet.  It looked like she had been demoted to Level 9 to match him, but there were dozens of choices since her character had to be rebuilt from the ground up like his orc had.  He didn’t feel comfortable doing that himself.

“Gracie.  I need your help.”

{Oh,} she said after he waited long enough.  {Now you need my help.}

Jace took a deep breath and said the four most dreaded words in any relationship: “We need to talk.”

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