NOVEL NEXT Book 3 Ch 25: Gerda - My Map Stalking the Duke
When the message came through, Henrietta immediately went into full hero-mode and wanted to make sure I was going to be ‘safe’. She was especially particular because I was a target.
“If I’m going to search the city,” She reasoned aloud, “I’ll need you to stay here so I don’t worry!”
We walked to the guard house nearby. Henrietta wasn’t exactly happy to leave me there, but I refused a ‘ride’ back to the palace.
I wasn’t about to get princess carried by the Dark Lady across the city and waste a portion of her fast travel skill.
“I’ll be fine!” I reassured her, again. It was true, but there was no sense explaining the finer details.
“I still think you should teleport back to your bridge.” She frowned. I waved her off.
“And have to walk back all that way?” I asked. It was a bit of a misleading statement. I had already claimed one of the castle sky bridges that arched between the West Wing and the North Wing. I wasn’t about to explain that I was actually refusing because I didn’t want to waste the mana.
I wasn’t a min-maxed class, and it was important that I budget accordingly.
Also, at this point John’s shadow found me. The nice part about my inhumanly high perception is that I easily noticed these kinds of things. The hard part about it was that it was distracting.
“Just, stay here.” My queen ordered.
“Alright,” I lied.
She hesitated only once before nodding. “[Quick Step].”
She was a blur that I could actually perceive running off into the distance. Henrietta was a highly trained scout and attacker; she would grid pattern search the entire city streets within the hour. I paid mind to the direction she was headed in so I could time my own actions going forward.
“Miss?” The guard looked up as I entered the guardhouse, John - or perhaps one of his shadow copies - still following me.
“Hello.” I waved at the elf. “I’m wondering if I could wait here for my friends to come get me?”
The guard shot me an understanding look, “Of course. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
The small guard house, one of many that were stationed all around the city, consisted of a small receiving area with a chair on either side, a defensive booth with a guard stationed behind it, and the door into an enchanted holding cell beside the booth.
I took a seat. Since John was still attached to my shadow, I was limited in what I could immediately do without revealing too much to the rogue. I chose, “[Map].”
[You have activated the Perk: Map, a mini-map revealing the area’s you have explored is available. System assist [Zoom] unlocked. System assist [Track Troll Riddle] unlocked. System assist [Danger Area] unlocked. System assist [Quest Item Area] unlocked. System assist [Sooth Area] unlocked. System assist [Locate Bridge] unlocked.]
With my [System] skill level 6, I had been able to add 6 features to my mini-map.
[Zoom] was obvious, allowing me to zoom in and out on the map.
[Track Troll Riddle] was connected to a specific ability I had using the [Troll Riddle] Perk that allowed me to give delayed riddles. You have three days to learn my name, Rumplestilskin style. This was also designed to let someone who couldn’t answer or pay cross with a timed debt. If they couldn't answer the Riddle, I could be magnanimous enough to let them cross to get their money and pay me back. They could return and pay, or I could hunt them down - the perk itself came with a general ‘they went that a way!’ feeling, but having an icon on my mini-map was much more helpful.
[Danger Area] was also pretty intuitive, and shaded out areas of the map that were dangerous with a soft transparent red. This was more hit and miss than it seemed, because I was now so powerful that a lot of things no longer registered on my map. I could walk around the first few floors of any dungeon and not have it go off at all.
[Quest Item Area] shaded out areas in green that had an item I’d accepted a quest to find. It was helpful, but if the item was in a dungeon or in someone’s spatial ring then it wouldn’t show up on the map at all.
[Sooth Area] highlighted an area of the map that was directly related to any of my foresight foretold game scenarios.
And the last [Locate Bridge], I’d picked up just in time to start my quest for world-bridge domination! And by that, I meant I got it around the time I’d claimed all of the Dark Enchanted Forest bridges and was starting to link ones in other kingdoms.
“Gotcha.”
The city lay sprawled out on the map, and two areas immediately caught my attention.
The entire Coral Palace was shaded a soft sunshine yellow with a tiny yellow exclamation mark to show that it was quest related.
The second thing that caught my attention was a red exclamation mark in an area of the city I’d never been to before.
It was a [Sooth] marker.
Julian now showed up on my map. Or, to be more specific, his locket did. The last item in my quest was trapped inside a spatial pocket in the locket, which was why it hadn’t appeared on my map previously, but now that I was aware of the locket as the item, the system considered that good enough and started tracking it.
I don’t know how I felt my map stalking the duke, but with all of this turmoil was going down it wasn’t the worst thing.
I didn’t want Julian in the palace when I teleported there. John's shadow was going to immediately report on me teleporting to my bridge. If for any reason they spotted me in the palace before the left, then they would put two and two together that I had an illegal travel point in their home... so while it irked that I had to wait, wait I did.
In the meantime, I checked my logs, and made a battle plan.
Fifteen minutes later, Julian’s marker finally left the palace and I could make my escape.
A group of festival goers was walking past the guard house. I stood, “Thank you, that’s my friends.”
“Have a good night, Miss.” The guard waved kindly and I smiled back.
“You too.”
Then I slipped out into the night, following the crowd as they walked up the street.
Now if only it were that easy to escape my shadow, then I wouldn't need to teleport at all.
I wasn’t too happy about having to waste the mana, but it didn’t seem like the rogue was going to leave me much choice. None of my items could help.
I sighed. “[World Bridge].”
[You have attempted to use the Perk: World Bridge. You have succeeded. You have the ability to travel between bridges you control with World Bridge. All +Troll Magic [Dimension] captured bridges are included. Select bridge from the available options…]