“Sure,” said Damak. “Why not?”
Cline looked at Dakkon and gave an approving smile. Dakkon, however—though it may seem greedy, had not made up his mind on the matter.
The five submitted their lists and waited for their rewards. The boss’s chest disappeared, and three small, white orbs appeared on the ground in front of Dakkon. The orbs spun around, chasing each other as if tied by strings to a center pole. As they sped up, they moved higher until something appeared: an intricate pair of metal boots with little holes around a thick pad at the bottom. Similar light shows began to appear and spin one after the other for each of the others.
Dakkon equipped the boots by sliding his feet into them where they lay. Certainly, he could at least get a feel for the item before deciding whether or not he wanted to make a gift of it. Once equipped from his menu, he was noticeably taller. Dakkon went to take a step forward before falling flat on his face.
The other four burst out laughing at the unexpected face plant.
“Dakkon, you’re a danger to yourself,” chided Damak.
“What the hell?” asked Dakkon, confused. Though he was pleased to see he hadn’t gained another rank in the embarrassing trait ‘Thick,’ he could not move the boots aside from sliding, tilting, or rolling them. They were insanely heavy. “These are probably heavier than blocks of steel the same size!”
“Enchanted steel, maybe?” ventured Cline with a smirk.
“Who enchants armor to make it heavier?” griped Dakkon.
“I don’t know but I’m inclined to buy you a drink for scooping those boots up before me,” Damak said, patting his brand-new shield.
Before Dakkon could remove the boots, another three balls of light formed in front of Dakkon and one of the two warrior NPCs. Simultaneously they revealed the last two items. In front of the NPC was the Quiver of Plenty, and in front of Dakkon, the Dousebinders.
“What?” Dakkon said as he looked over to Cline. “You didn’t choose the quiver?”
“Nah. What I got is way more valuable,” Cline said as he shook a small vile.
“Right. 20 years of youthful life or a bag filled with arrows?” thought Dakkon. It wasn’t a very difficult choice and was probably a valuable item. If anyone asked Cline why he chose it, he can always claim that he acted on greed and drink it in private at a later time.
“Wedge, what the hell are you going to do with those weird bracelets?” barked Damak at the NPC warrior who had apparently chosen to take the bizarre cuffs which allowed one wielder to control the bearer of the other.
“Nothing sir,” said the warrior with a somewhat shaken voice. “I just don’t think these are the sort of thing that should be out in public is all…”
“So, you won’t be keeping them?” Damak asked.
“Not a chance,” said Wedge. “I’ve had them in my hands for seconds and they already give me the heebie-jeebies.”
“I’m sure that the guard can offer you a sizable reward for… keeping something of such a dubious nature from circulating in the public,” said Damak, hinting that he’d vouch for the warrior to get a proper reward from the quest.
The warrior, Wedge, perked up a bit and nodded. “Yes sir.”
The other NPC warrior looked around to the bodies which hadn’t yet disappeared strewn about the cave. “What a damned shame,” he said while shaking his head. The others’ attitudes soured a bit when they looked around. Dakkon knew that he was the least affected. Damak and the two other warriors had been acquainted with most, if not all, of the NPCs on their expedition. Most were brothers-in-arms. Cline was an NPC, too, despite all signs to the contrary. Had he been one of the majority which fell along the way or in the battle, then it would all be over for him.
Dakkon was just a player with no heavy ties to the deceased who’d stay dead. Still, he felt bad for them. Had Mary, the girl he’d given a pair of sheep to back in Greenburne; the street urchin he’d saved from being cut up in the streets of Correndin; or Cline, his oldest friend in the game died… he’d be furious. Those three were NPCs as well. In games, the loss of NPC lives was an ordinary occurrence. Initially, Dakkon had no feelings about the life or death of a game character in this world, but the more time he spent in Chronicle, the more that part of him was changing. He knew that the dead here were technically only simulations—numbers and code—but in this world, they were as real as he was.
The five collected what they could of the items that dropped from the fallen NPCs to be returned to their families or reworked for redeployment by Tian’s military guard. The bodies of players had by now disappeared, but the NPCs remained. Ritual burial was not common nor desired. The world of Chronicle itself would vanish the corpses after a time. The Tian natives cleaned up the shrine as much as they could out of respect for the fallen spirit, then they left through the entrance which they had originally intended to enter through rather than chancing the forest filled with unsympathetic shapeshifters. This time, with no pressing need to be at their destination, they’d take the longer route home. Fortunately, Dakkon’s new boots would be far lighter in his pack.
\\\\\\
On the journey back to Tian, Dakkon practiced thermomancy with his new Dousebinders. The theory behind using the water to create weapons, shields, and walls of ice seemed powerful, but getting the hang of freezing a large, quickly moving stream of water in a specific way was incredibly difficult and tended to drain his mana reserves well before anything useful took shape. Dakkon could make an ice cube or shoot slush the consistency of shaved ice without much difficulty—which might only prove useful if he were trying to make tropical drinks. Whenever he had the mana, he’d spend it all in his pursuit of slow, but steady, progress.
The five traveled the roads alone at first from hamlet to village, but soon joined with a caravan when they neared bandit country. The last small town that the five passed through on their return was abuzz with gossips itching to tell the guards of Dakkon’s caravan what they’d heard. Two major developments were keeping the town’s workers preoccupied with the excitement of rumormongering.
Settlements not a full day’s ride away had been burned over the past week by something ‘cruel and evil.’ The current iteration of the story was that the gods had a hand in it. As bold a claim as that seemed when Cline pointed out that the gods have never directly intervened in lives outside of legends and folk tales, one reputable know-it-all of the town dropped the real bomb that had the town in a tizzy: the gods had made a declaration. Or, at least, one god appeared to have. Altars everywhere honoring the god of destruction and chaos, who was typically prayed to when seeking misfortune for a rival, had conjured blood from stone—each altar displaying the same message:
1 2 0
There will be a selection.
Struggle.
The marked will compete.
Kill.
The culling will breed strength.
Lust.
The victor will be unstoppable.
Power.
Damak confirmed the message and claims by checking online forums. Even ChronCast was covering report after report of the message appearing in various locations, along with speculation about its possible meaning. Reports came from all over the continent within minutes of each other. It appeared the gods may have been at play, indeed.
The forums had plenty of guesses about the number, too. A date; the number of selected participants; a countdown until the start or the next announcement; how many could win; the number of things that could be won; et cetera. Everything was speculatory, but gave the five something new to chat about on the last leg of their trip. What was known was that the messages began to appear around three or four days before, so if it was a timer counting down days, there would be plenty of time before the event began. If, for some reason, the gods had chosen to use hours in their cryptic message, then… things might suddenly get interesting.