Lieforged Gale

We reappeared inside the bustling taproom of the Galloping Willow, finding it much the same as it usually was. That is, filled with several dozen players, most of whom were just chilling and talking. A few were of the more rambunctious variety, with tankards of ale in hand and voices full of laughter.

Right as we were reappearing, I realized I was an idiot... Why had I been so concerned about catching up with the tree, when it was a damned inn now? It was a recall point the whole time! Wasn't it? Wait, when did it become a recall point?

“Let's go put the crafting equipment in the workshop,” Paisley said, turning me by the shoulder towards the exit.

I followed along without comment until we stepped into the workshop, which was full of swearing.

Jace, the Carnival Historica guild member who was an anthropomorphic tiger, was busy crushing a malformed copper pipe into an even less functional version. He threw it into a barrel near the forge, then looked up and gave us a very toothy smile of welcome.

“Ah, the young'uns!” He growled. “Come to watch me lose my sanity to these copper pipes?”

“You and me both,” I said, dumping the pipes that Mheitai had used as breadcrumbs, on a nearby work table. “Here's some extras.”

Frowning at the new additions to his infernal collection, he opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but I held up a hand. “Don't ask. The story is too long, too confusing, and I'm too tired.”

“Well, okay then,” he huffed, amused.

Paisley, being the only person in the room with a personality that wasn't grumpy half the time, cheerfully announced, “We found a cache of crafting equipment! Here, Keiko, let's line it up on those tables there. I don't know about you two, but a good loot pile always cheers me up.”

It took us a while to get everything out and set up, but when we did — well, Paisley might've been onto something. We had all the specialty tools we could ever need, provided they weren't the kind of tool that weighed a ton.

“Damn, girls,” Jace rumbled, surveying the spread. “Good haul. This came from a hidden dungeon area?”

“Yeah,” Paisley agreed with a satisfied smile. “Keiko has a knack for finding those hidden zones.”

I stifled a snort. This one was not my fault. Mheitai was the one to blame.

A voice from outside the workshop drew our attention away from the hoard. “Yeah, I saw them go into the workshop, Mrs Quinn.”

The owner of the voice appeared a second later — Noah. He wasn't alone, either. Mum, Elena, and Ethan weren't far behind.

“Oh, it's the whole gang,” I said.

Mum instantly gave me a look, like she was a drone that had locked on target. She crossed the room in like one, really

“No, I was just—”

I didn't get to continue explaining how an asshole SAI was toying with me, and how I was so busy all the time that I was forgetting things, and… well, the list was endless. Mum, having sensed that yeah, maybe I was being a little grumpy, picked me up and pulled me into a big, warm hug. I had no choice but to throw my arms around her neck.

“Sweetest daughter, take a deep breath, look around, and see that things aren't actually that bad,” she murmured into my ear. “Anything that is frustrating to you can be tackled after you've gotten a bit of zen back.”

Gosh, big-version mum gave really good hugs. Warm, safe, caring…

I felt myself relax — muscles releasing tension I hadn't even realised I was holding onto.

Placing me back down on the ground, she smiled. “That's my sprite.” Her attention shifted, sweeping over our gathered loot. “Now, what's all this?”

Paisley and I shared a glance, and wordlessly we agreed that she should be the one to tell the story.

Her smile grew wide as she began. “So, this dungeon…”

“So… this is all like, ancient fae stuff?” Noah asked, picking up a tiny hammer with a weird knobbly head.

Jace let out a sudden bark of laughter. “Ah, that's why all the handles are so small! Faerie hands!”

Smiling wryly, he took the hammer from Noah. In his big furry fist, it looked comically small, so when he mimed banging away at an anvil with it, we all laughed.

“I think the most important part is actually what the girls discovered at the end,” Ethan said. “Blessing of the Gloam, you called it?”

Paisley, who'd hopped up to sit on one of the tables, nodded. “Yeah, and those Rackids had it too. They were tough. Like, their base resistances were much higher, and their Strength seemed like it matched.”

“Intelligence too,” Ethan mused, glancing absently at Noah as he copied Paisley in taking a seat on a table. “They spoke the universal game language, too — not just their own one. That's usually an indicator of a high Int stat in NPCs.”

“Those rackids were smart back in Willow's clearing too,” Elena pointed out.

Ethan conceded the point with a nod to her. “True, sorry. What I meant was multilingual mobs generally have high Int.”

“I’ve seen something similar before!” Mum said suddenly, with a click of her fingers. “A buff that is active only in an expansion zone, and boosts the power of monsters and, assumedly, players too. It's what games will do sometimes when they have an established, max level playerbase — create an entirely new progression system that still rewards prior power gain, but forces everyone to start at ground level in the new area.”

“Speculation,” Ethan said, but he was nodding. “You're probably right, though. Which means that the cave system the girls found will probably reach all the way under the mountains.”

I blanched at the scale of the cave system he was suggesting existed. “I am not exploring that. No way. Exploring that much cave? It'd take months!”

Noah, who was nodding along with me, grimaced. “Yup. Not going to get involved in that.”

“So we won't, then,” Paisley shrugged, unconcerned. “This is Rell. There's always somewhere new that you actually want to explore.”

“Speaking of impending exploration.” Mum said, smiling. Gesturing vaguely toward the control room — which was up on the highest floor of the main building — she continued, “Assuming the rest of our little guild is okay with it, I'll be increasing Willow's speed so we can get through the mountains. No more stops — sound good?”

“Yeah, I'm sick of depressing fantasy Scotland,” Noah joked.

Later, after we hashed out the minutiae of the impending mountain crossing, Paisley and I headed for the tower that I shared with Elena. In the sky, the dark of twilight was just beginning to snuff out the last of the sunset. It’d been a long fucking day, and I was so ready to roll into bed and get some sleep.

“I’m so glad we’re finally going to actually cross those mountains,” Paisley said happily as I pushed the door open and held it for her. “It feels like it’s been just on the horizon, literally and figuratively, for weeks now.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, thinking back on all the crazy shit that’d happened. We really had been preparing for the expansion for months now. I wonder, how long had it been since I started this character?

A quick peek at my character stats told me the answer. Eighty eight days. Wow, that was simultaneously not a long time, and actually a really long time. Almost three months since I made the choice to become Keiko, and change my life forever.

“And there it is,” Paisley chirped, disturbing me from my ruminations.

She had her hands on her hips, staring at an innocuous rectangle made of various wooden beams, panels, and presumably, an ocean’s worth of magic. The library door.

Frowning, she approached the closed doorway, then peered behind it. “It’s not even fixed into the wall. It’s just… leaning there. Keiko — why is it just leaning there?”

Chagrined, I raised my hands in a shrug. “I don’t know, we just sorta dumped it there and forgot about it.”

“I guess things have been kind of non-stop,” she sighed as she pushed the doorway up against the wall. As she let go, she muttered a few arcane sounding words, and the door stayed where it was. “There, it should at least hold to the wall until the next faerie goes crashing into it.”

The last was said with a teasing look in my direction, so I poked my tongue out in response. Half a second later, we both had grins on our faces.

 “Okay, let's put these scrolls away,” she said, still smiling as she opened the door.