Lorenz carefully eased around the trunk of the tree. On the other side, three bison roamed around a meadow, eating with occasional looks around them. They were known in the beginners' villages as mankillers because with just one hit, they caused around fifty damage which was more than most of the current players.
Players only got 10 HP per level up. It didn't vary or go lower because Constitution was always raised by 1 every level and that was worth 5 HP as well as the level up bonus of 5 HP itself. Most of the players in the beginning village were rank newbies and hadn't made it past level four yet. If you didn't look on the forums and find any 'cheats' about skill combos, then you would be stuck with the beginning 10 HP at level one.
Lorenz thought the skill combos and the way they worked was fascinating. Certain skills only worked at certain times of the day, but when you discovered the combos to activate a new skill, then you got a one time bonus of points to some stat. He was sure that there were skills out there that were permanent with no time restrictions. Lorenz could vaguely remember skills called 'passives' in other games he'd played when younger that never turned off at all.
Lorenz looked up into the branches of the tree he was hiding behind. They didn't look thick enough to provide a decent handhold or even be able to temporarily hold his weight.
Just beyond the meadow was a tunnel through the forest, long overgrown from disuse. If not for the fact that the trees had been shaped to form the edges of the tunnel, it would be easy to dismiss. Even the pavers that had once made up its floor had been buckled and broken by tree roots and grass over the years. A few scattered ones coated in moss were all that remained.
If he hadn't had the map, he'd have thought that it was just another anomaly in the forest. It seemed that there were a lot of those lurking around. The very idea sparked interest in him. Surprisingly enough, there were few resources about the history in the game in the beginners' villages. There was nothing that resembled a library, though some of the older NPCs would tell stories if asked.
He'd found that he earned experience from listening to the stories. He wasn't sure if anyone else had discovered this since there was no mention of it anywhere on the forums. Lorenz had the suspicion that the people who'd discovered it before him thought that everyone knew and had therefore not bothered posting that little snippet of information. Instead, the forums were a morass of combo notes, adventuring notes and quest hints.
After listening to Nate for an hour, he'd discovered that players posted those things in hopes of gaining Glory in the game. The game itself would grant random points of the attribute every so often without any rhyme or reason, according to Nate. After thinking about it and listening to the rambles of the older man, Lorenz had come to the conclusion that people just hadn't been paying enough attention.
There were abundant mysteries in the game. They were just there, waiting to be ferreted out. Lorenz wanted to be one of those people doing the ferreting. A good mystery just shouted for someone to solve it.
There was a rustle from the woods. Lorenz risked a look past the tree trunk to see a party of adventurers stumble into the meadow. It was made up of a ranger, two warriors and a rogue, all boys. Another female rogue stood at the edge of the meadow, frowning in disbelief after them.
"Ah, crap! It's river bison," one of the warriors cried.
He was loud enough that even the bison paused in their grazing. The largest looked over at him with mild eyes, grass dripping from its mouth. The party was backpedaling hastily towards the safety of the woods as the other two turned their big, shaggy heads in their direction.
"Hey! Whatever you do," the female rogue called.
The ranger let loose an arrow towards one of the smaller bison. The largest one watched its trajectory which fell far short of the little bison. The medium sized one seemed to huff, reminding Lorenz weirdly of Heidi after her parents once again explained why all the expensive dumplings she'd hoarded in the fridge had disappeared. It wasn't like Heidi didn't know that her parents and relatives had absconded with the food; that was half the reason she bought so many.
Lorenz almost couldn't bear to watch what happened next. The two older bison chased the adventurers away, trampling them almost nonchalantly when they weren't fast enough. The smaller bison just stood there, chewing its cud.
Afterwards, the three bison wandered away into the woods, walking past Lorenz as if he didn't exist. The small bison did throw him a curious look as it went by before hurrying after its parents.
"Well, that was worthless," the female rogue said, climbing down from the tree she'd scuttled up when the carnage began. "They didn't even bother to listen to me."
Lorenz watched as she casually looted her comrades' corpses, pocketing the random items that dropped. It didn't look as if it was anything more than a few potions. Equipment didn't drop on death in the beginners' areas. Once you hit level 10 and were able to explore farther, the limitation was lifted.
"Aren't you going to come out?" The rogue asked, carelessly twirling a dagger.
"Hello," Lorenz said, finally coming out. From what he could tell, she didn't mean him any harm. He was still baffled as to why her teammates had been so stupid.
"My name's Juniper. You can just call me June," the rogue said as she watched her friends' bodies turn to sparkles. "It's going to take forever for them to come back."
"Why would they even try?" Lorenz asked, glancing around the meadow. From the look of the grass, it was clear that the bison frequented the area.
"I'm here for a quest, and those idjits just tagged along. Something about protecting me," June said with a roll of her eyes.
Lorenz nodded.
"So, you already know which path you want to take?" Lorenz brushed imaginary dust from his clothes.
"Wherever you're headed," June said, giving him a bright smile.
"Me?" Lorenz could feel a cloud forming over his head, threatening rain.
"Yep! Megan's Quest, right? Flowers and stuff?" June chirped.
"You have the same quest?" Lorenz asked.
"Not exactly," June admitted as she dug a little hole in the dirt with the point of her boot. "Everyone knows that you just have to go pick those stupid daisies and give them to her, but you got some weird variant! If I hadn't been hiding, I wouldn't have ever known!"
"Hiding from what?" Lorenz was taken aback. Was he experiencing the infamous quest stealing he'd heard about on the forums?
"Another group who wanted to protect me," June grumped. "Families are so annoying. Why they can't just let me play, I dunno!"
Lorenz thought of his mother, sighing internally. From what he could gather, she'd already charged out of her beginners' area and was building a name for herself with a group of similarly minded females. If she'd just stuck to being a warrior, it would have been a little okay, but she was advocating that whole cheesecake, retro-fifties comic book look. He'd caught a glimpse of the armor she'd had made and still shuddered from the memory.
Andrea had just patted him on the head, cooing about how cute her little boy was. Then she'd promptly relogged into the game and started hunting for a guild order.
The whole thing gave him a headache whenever he thought about it. Sure, she was a young mom, but she was still his mom! She should wear long sleeved shirts, baggy sweat pants and no makeup! And carry mace! And a taser! And a sign that said 'permanently unavailable!'
Lorenz forced the dark thoughts away as June stopped grumbling and flashed him a happy smile. For some reason, he was reminded of his mother.
"Why don't you let me tag along? You haven't even chosen a path yet, so your stats are bound to be lower than they should be." June pulled out a treasure chest from her inventory and dropped it near the tree line. She deposited the looted items in it, closing the lid. "There! Sent a message for them to get their stuff here."
"Is that even safe?" Lorenz asked.
"As long as they get here in the next couple of days," June shrugged. "I'm not too sure how this all works, but I set it for just them. I guess if they let it expire, then it'll be free goodies for whoever finds it."
Lorenz found himself distracted by those words. Just how would that work? Was it some quirk of programming or a temporarily assigned value?
"Quest, remember?" June prodded as she watched his face go blank.
"Can it even be shared?" Lorenz returned his attention to her.
"You have to bring back either or, right? Why can't you do either and I do or?" June stowed her dagger away and looked at him hopefully.
Lorenz just shrugged. Two hands were bound to be better than one. Even if she tried to betray him, Megan wouldn't accept her attempt until she got his, either as a successful attempt or an unsuccessful one.
"I think we go down that path," Lorenz said, nodding towards the tunnel.
June looked at the dilapidated tunnel with gleaming eyes. She reminded him of Heidi finding some new unusual dumpling.
"Let's go! There's probably some awesome plants in that old greenhouse!" June said, walking forward with a jaunty step.
Lorenz felt another quiver of disquiet. He knew that tone of vegetation enthusiasm. That tone had haunted his childhood. He could also feel the dirt under his nails and the scent of growth in his nostrils. Lorenz sighed.
Why couldn't he meet normal girls?
*****
"That's not a greenhouse," June whispered from beside him.
Lorenz was forced to agree. In his mind, a greenhouse was like a little cottage made out of glass, fogged with condensation. This was no little cottage.
It was a veritable castle made of glass. Plus, it was being patrolled by goblins. Actual goblins! They were supposed to be a monster you only found in those dungeon caves. These looked heartier than the descriptions of those goblins.
It didn't help that occasionally a bigger one would stomp out of the castle gates and harangue the little ones who were patrolling outside. It was better equipped than the little ones and gave off a certain amount of danger.
"It's like a glass castle," Lorenz whispered. "Like in the fairy tales." He caught June's baffled look. "You never had to read Grimm? At all?"
Lorenz fought off the bitter feeling. He'd had to read one of those stories every day without fail when he was a kid. There were enough that it took over a year to get through them all. The ones he hated the most were the pious ones. While Ms. Jerry had patiently explained that they were cautionary so people would learn to act better, he'd still hated it.
He still missed Ms. Jerry, probably a little bit more than her actual grandniece, Cora.
"In the stories, it holds some sort of treasure," Lorenz explained. "I still don't get how we're supposed to get in there, though. Not with that giant one stomping around."
"We find another way," June said, tugging him away. "There's probably another entrance that's not that guarded."
They cautiously circled the castle, dodging the goblin patrols. Finally, at the back of the castle, they found a potential entry.
The kitchens located in the back were wide open, their walls smashed open.
"Well, this explains how the goblins got in," June whispered, her nose wrinkling at the damage.
Lorenz nodded. The glass walls were thoroughly demolished at this point. Shards of crushed glass littered the ground, making it almost sandy in texture. There was only a single patrol placed here, walking from one end of the broken wall to the other, dodging around hills of discarded bones and hides.
"This is doable," Lorenz said, tugging at the collar of his beginners' armor. He'd never bothered to change it, wanting to wait until he'd chosen a profession. "If we wait until they're halfway through, we can enter from the other end and use the hills to hide behind until we get to the castle."
June nodded after a moment. They watched as the goblins marched by, grumbling. With a quick jerk of his head, Lorenz ran for the hill near the far side. The goblins were going in a weird figure eight pattern and so missed their charge.
A few minutes later and they entered the kitchen. Crouching behind the biggest hill yet, they watched as a giant goblin nonchalantly brought down an enormous cleaver onto a chopping board. The board quivered and green blood poured down.
Lorenz frowned at the smell of the blood. It reminded him of bruised roses. He looked around and snagged a butcher knife lying forgotten on the floor. June shot him a worried look as he crouch-walked to the goblin.
Lorenz shook his head and brought the knife down on the goblin's neck. His free hand snaked around to cover the goblin's mouth as he kept stabbing, keeping his eyes firmly closed.
When he opened them a few minutes later, he found June staring at him, wide-eyed, next to a cage that held a bunch of little flower people who were also staring, but their eyes held nothing but admiration.
"Our hero!" One of the flower people piped, nearly dancing in place.
They were interesting to look at. Roughly half the size of the goblins, they could only be about a foot or a foot-and-a-half tall.
"Got a lot of aggression to work out there, huh?" June quipped.
Lorenz shot her an aggrieved look before eyeing the chopping board. A poor, broken flowerling laid there, body limp and grievously injured.
"Do not worry! They have gone back to the Mother," one of the flowerlings said.
Lorenz went to the cage. It was made of roughly bent bars of iron. It was barely big enough to hold the three flowerlings stuffed into it. He yanked on the door, barely budging it.
` "Weakling," June sneered, picking up a heavy bone from the ones scattered over the floor. She wedged it into the door and practically stood on it. "This is how you do it," she said as the door slowly opened.
The three flowerlings tumbled out of the cage. One of them darted into the depths of the kitchen while the other two stood in front of June and Lorenz. Their appearances were intriguing. Their limbs looked like entwined vines decorated with different flowers for each; one had pansies while another had violets. The one who'd run off had daisies.
"Are they eating you?" Lorenz asked, fighting off the reaction to the cuteness. If Ms. Jerry was still around and playing the game, he could see her leading an army of them. Still, the thought that someone would try to eat the flowerlings sent a surge of anger through him. "Are there any others we should rescue?"
"Lorenz! The quest," June hissed at him.
"We'll get to that. We can't just let those goblins eat them," Lorenz returned. He surreptitiously snapped a pic of the flowerlings to send to Heidi and Cora. "So, are there any more captives?"
"There are, but are you really willing to help?" The missing flowerling showed back up, arms full of strange wooden weapons.
Lorenz grinned. This game was turning out to be a lot more interesting than he'd ever thought.
"Yeah, so what do we do next?" Lorenz asked, glancing at June who grinned and shrugged at him in return.
"We liberate the captives, of course," the missing flowerling said, handing out the weapons to the remaining flowerlings, "and then we kick the goblins out of our castle!"