51. Day 2
You shoo everyone back out of the chamber, still sniggering.
“Well, that was an excellent way to pass the time. I'm not sure I believe you-”
You're cut off by two things; Firstly, Mercy's bark of laughter.
“It's true... enough. I'll take you there one day.”
And secondly, the notification that wood has been added to your stockpile. Not as much as you'd expect from an entire team's work, but precisely the thirty you need for a tree. You stand there, unsure as to the providence of your new stocks, until Sapphire comes riding into the room on Hyena.
“Did you get the advance team's wood sir?”
“I did. Exactly what I needed. How did you know?”
Sapphire waves her hand, opening her menu to you.
“We started getting these, after you accepted the quest about the tree. Feathers has one about protecting the lair until the full moon passes. She'd never tell you, but she's getting worried sir.”
You frown at the quest.
“And it's all... working correctly?”
In response, Sapphire reaches into her leathers and fishes out a simple, golden amulet – a disk of gold with a sapphire set into it.
“Seems to be sir. It took my – the sapphire you gave me. It says it will take enchantments well, but that's all.”
Mercy grunts, and shows you her own quest menu. At the very top sits
You go to close it, but something catches your eye; a brief glimpse of a word on a greyed out, failed quest.
With terrible force you find your gaze dragged downwards, past dozens of collapsed quests; Some the black of complete, some the white of active, and past great swathes of the grey of failed quests.
The one other quest open in her list is grey.
She snatches the menu away from you, her face morphing to one of demonic fury complete with black horns and red skin, but before the situation can deteriorate a soft cough from the door drags all of your attentions to Amanda.
“I... wasn't going to say anything, but I have a quest too.”
You find yourself trapped between the soft, hopeful smile of the apparently quite blind Amanda and the simmering rage of Mercy. A quiet ping flicks your eyes to the still open quest list of Sapphire.
Your eyes widen. Sapphire's do too. Mercy flicks her eyes over the quest faster than either of you can react. Ever so slowly, the tension bleeds from the room as she relaxes. Her skin fades back to pale green and her horns uncurl. Sapphire puts her bow away, causing you to jump a little – you hadn't even seen her draw it. Then Hyena steps back from behind Mercy, causing both of you to jump. Apparently neither of you had seen him move either.
“Come on Amanda; sir doesn't know anything about classes – lets go and find Feathers. Between us and you I'm sure we can think of something great for you.” Her voice isn't quite natural, a kind of forced calm cheer sitting heavy on her words. Amanda glances, unsure, between the three of you. You force yourself to relax.
“That's amazing Amanda; but Sapphire is right. I know it must mean a lot to you but, well, drakes don't get classes and it's still a little hard for me to think of them as anything but creative ways to die. Go have fun plotting and once you've decided on a path I'll do everything I can to help, OK?”
Amanda nods slowly, and with one last glance between you and Mercy turns and leaves with Sapphire.
You've barely registered their leaving when something picks you up with bonecracking speed and wraps around your neck. You whip around, trying to get a sight line to breathe flame, and something else pins your body in place. After a moment's panic, something hot, and wet, hits the side of your neck.
You freeze.
Mercy has wrapped herself around you, curled up against the far wall, and is sobbing. Great, silent sobs wrack her frame as she holds you like a drowning woman to driftwood. After a moment's indecision you carefully wrap your neck around her shoulders.
You don't know how long you stay there, just holding her, until she speaks.
“One thousand eight hundred people.”
You do the maths in your head and frown a little.
“Seventeen hundred and ninety two civilians. Eight players. Apparently the gods were so furious with them for 'hacking' that they even went after them in the realm of the gods, some sort of judgement between the gods so they were banished never to return. I was level nine. Because of my... heritage, I got the experience for 'luring away the faithful', 'causing the gods to smite their own' and two thousand kills. That's when I got the rest of my name.”
A gesture, however small as she is still wrapped around you, and Mercy's character sheet unfolds in front of you.
You read it slowly as Mercy calms down, until she eventually scrubs at her face and looses enough that you can pull back and look her in the eye.
She, of course, looks merely sexily ruffled as opposed to someone who has just come out of a hysterical crying fit, but you think, on balance, you can forgive her absurd appearance stat.
“I don't know what to say.”
She laughs, a little hiccupily. “Don't. Just. Lets just make this tree, yeah?”
You nod, and she lets you out of her bosom.
You turn towards the centre of the room, and open your menu.
You hit yes, and an almighty CRACK splits the air. Where you expected an outline, or perhaps just a progress bar, now sits a misty, tree shaped glow, shot through with purple veins.
“Is... is that meant to happen?”
“I have no idea,” you reply. “Let's go find out.”
AN: So! A few things.
Firstly – again a little shorter than I want. I know excuses ain't what you want, but there's a storm ravaging our apartment right now and there's a hole in the wall the landlord wont fix. It's genuinely too cold to type downstairs so I'm using my 5 year old laptop.
Secondly – there's no real nice way to say this? But I don't charge on my patreon when you join like a lot of people do. Just seems like a dick move. I only charge on the 1st of the month. So, if you only want to donate once, please stick around for a 1st. I don't mean to be a dick, but there's been a few people now who have got however many weeks of benefits and then not paid anything. If a one off donation thing would suit you better PM me and I'll set something up.
Finally, as always -
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlackBug
Discord: https://discord.gg/MFP9ejQ3gK
And a big thanks to my patreon Austin Beck