Open - Knight Duties

But…I’m a sworn knight now. Don’t you have anything, I dunno, a little more…dangerous? Or befitting of a knight?

Savannah’s slender ears flicked backward as the steely blue gaze of the tavern keeper settled on her again. There was a pipe between his lips, a bushy mustache hiding his upper lip and his red-orange hair was wild all over his head. He had the distinct smell of bread and ale wafting from his clothes – or was that his normal body odor? – and the halo of light behind him made Savannah shrink within his shadow.

“Lookit lass, either yeh clean ‘em out o’ ye dunna. One’ll get ye paid and one’ll not. Choice is yers.”

And he walked away, simple as that, back into the tavern proper with its loud boisterous music spilling out of windows and doorways.

Rude, Savannah said while clicking her tongue.

She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her gauntlets rubbing against the worn armor that she had purchased. Sure, it wasn’t the greatest, but she felt more protected now than the threadbare shit that she had had when starting the game. She could take a hit and survive in this stuff which had given her the confidence she needed to go and try one of these killing quests! Perhaps leaving the city would’ve been a better idea first though. The only thing that kept coming up on her event tracker was this infestation of rats.

Sighing, she looked at the steps leading down under the tavern to the cellar and winced. She had said she was a fighter and she could do most anything – ugh, why did she have to go bragging in the first place? Tilting her head back, she sighed and let the cool night air caress her cheeks and ruffle her blonde pigtails. She could do this. How hard could felling rats be, anyway?

But maybe if she just stood there for five more minutes, someone else wandering the city might see the event and come help? Unlikely, sure, especially considering all the pre-war stuff going on and, yes, it was very late in the game but, nothing bad ever came from being optimistic, right?

A true-blue knight, cleaning out rats from a tavern’s cellar. Tch. ​

 

"After you are done with that, could you shine my armor and perhaps give my feet a good rub?" Came the voice from out of the shadows. Behind the Faerin came the enchanting and ever so wicked smile from none other than Vivian Cruz! The female malefimancer who... well, she had yet to make a name for herself but she had her own goals.

With that smirk on her face, her blue eyes looked down at the small girl and squinted, "Ahh. Are you like a mouse-girl or something? Do they even have that in this game?" Vivian placed both hands on the long ears of the girl and pulled gently on them, "Oh so they are real. Not really a mouse, huh?" Came the honied voice carried by the female.

Vivian let the girl be as she took a step back to examine the small girl, she titled her head to the side and looked at her more like a stare as if trying to figure out exactly what she was. Then she simply shrugged, "Were you talking to yourself? Perhaps you are just psyching yourself up to go and slay some rats? Ya know..." her voice trailed off as he curled her long purple hair with her index finger, spinning it around and around as she looked down at the girl, "How about I help you out? It would get done twice as quickly AND you share a bit of the reward with me. I won't ask for much, say sixty-forty? In favor of myself... of course." Vivian knew how to play people like a fiddle, but she had a feeling that provoking the girl would be a bad idea.

But, this was Vivian after all. The lush vixen had no filter on her mouth, nor did her brazen movements towards other people. Making them feel uncomfortable was half the fun after all! And of course getting a little something out of it was even better! So, the busty female folded her arms over her chest and leaned over with that rose red smirk on her face, "My name is Vivian, by the way. We have a deal, Little One?"

 

Huh? Savannah asked as the voice penetrated the shadows at the opposite end of the alleyway. As the figure came into view, the Faerin couldn’t help but look her over…twice. The human female who stepped toward her – tongue wagging mind you – was very attractive. Savannah was, in this game and in real life, as straight as they came, or so she liked to believe, but she couldn’t help admiring the striking image that the other player presented.

Of course, like all things, it was ruined when the woman continued to talk down to her. To add insult to injury, she even had the audacity to pull on Savannah’s long and extremely sensitive ears. The knight hissed loudly and yanked her head away, taking a full step back from the woman and rubbing the tips of her ears with a scowl painted across her face.

Hey! You can’t just put your hands on other people like that. Didn’t anyone ever teach you boundaries?! Her voice was a high-pitched squeal, the adrenaline from this meeting already coursing through her and mixing with her anger and, though she didn’t want to admit it, her embarrassment. For your information, I’m a Faerin, duh. Don’t people ever read the freaking lore behind their characters before they create them, geesh.

Under her breath, she continued to mutter darkly about being called a mouse. Faerin were adorable and she was both adorable and deadly! The Fairy of Death…or something like that. She couldn’t exactly remember what the title was that Lady Lucia had granted her.

To her offer, Savannah snorted and narrowed her lavender eyes at the woman. Not to be trusted, surely, but help in killing rats would be appreciated. Not like she couldn’t handle it herself – she most certainly could! – but the quicker this quest was over, the sooner she could leave and find something more befitting of her skills. Still, working with the woman was going to be a hard lesson in patience…

I’m Savannah, she said grudgingly and didn’t bother sticking out her hand to make nicey-nice. And if we work together, then we should split the loot fifty-fifty. It’s only fair. If you’re not interested in that, then, well, … we don’t have to work together. You can do this quest alone after I’m finished. It’s only a ten minute respawn…I think.​

 

"You drive a hard bargain..." The female shifted placing both hands on her hips and leaning again to look down at the girl as her lips parted into that wicked smile, she was about to call her Mouse Girl but it looks like she was already about to burst at the seams anger. Vivian erected herself, placed one hand over her mouth and started to laugh at this girl's behavior.

The laughter was a bit bubbly, something you might hear a teenage school girl do when mocking others. It was Vivian's sarcasm and her silver tongue that made people upset with her. The mixed voice with that poisonous, sultry tone, seemed to aggravate a great many of people she met. But it seems they had established named, "Well Savannah, am I saying that right? Fifty-fifty works fine with me. Since we are going to be working together, we should probably get on the right foot about things..." There was that glint in her eyes that made the world snap to attention when she spoke; Vivian was up to something.

The woman placed her hands behind her back and smiled as she began to move forward. The tavern cellar looked rather sturdy as she stared at it. Big wooden doors with sturdy, yet rusty looking hinges. Her cold eyes looked at both the door and the hinges and she shook her head, "I don't wanna get my hands dirty, be a cute lass and open up the cellar doors, yes?" That smile on her face never seemed to fade, she then laughed and placed both hands on Savannah's shoulders and rubbed them gently, abolishing the idea of boundaries from the girl's earlier comment altogether.

"Don't be so tense, Annah." She used the short form of the name, neglecting if it was ok to even call her that, "I am only teasing. A quick lesson if you don't mind. I am quite the teasing woman but I am also friendly. Just think of it as two sister's pal-ing around or something, kay?" Vivian took her hands off the girl's shoulders and moved for the latch of the door.

Her fingers moved with ease to unhinge the latch, and then digging her foot into the opening, she kicked open the door as it sprang open and slammed down on the other side. The cool and musk air from within began to creep out like a foul smog as Vivian took a step back and waved her hand in front of her face, "Mmm, I have smelled a lot worse. Well, after you! Age before beauty." Again Vivian assuming the little girl was some toddler by the way she squealed earlier.

 

Her laugher grated on Savannah’s ears. If she were a turtle creature, she would have withdrawn into her shell and waited until this Vivian woman left her alone. Then she would go do the quest herself and if she failed, she failed. There were lessons in failure…or something.

The Faerin’s slender ears pressed back against her head, similar in reaction to a pissed off cat. The only difference here was the lack of hiss coming from Savannah’s lips. It was tempting, especially with the sudden glint coming from Vivian’s eyes. Just what had she gotten herself into by choosing to party with this woman.

Watching her with narrowed lilac eyes, she could not stop herself from shaking her head. Don’t wanna get dirty? You know we’re going to be killing rats, right? Like, blood, guts, brains and intestines, yeah? Maybe her colorful language would be enough to scare off Princess Vivian. Heh, that was a good one.

She bounced her shoulders and took a step forward away from Vivian. She didn’t want that woman’s hands on her. You’re not my sister and I’m not your sister. We are…comrades working toward a similar goal. That’s it. Her voice was cut and dry, businesslike to the last syllable. This isn’t to say she wouldn’t have wanted that connection with another woman – she most desperately did – but not this woman. Any woman but this woman...

Walking forward into the musty smelling cellar, Savannah opened her inventory with a swipe of her hand and pulled forth a torch. Selecting the option to light it, the flame blazed from the head of it and lit the way for the two females. First, they had to descend a stone staircase and at the bottom, well, it led into darkness.

Moving down the first two steps, Savannah gave a noise and grumbled loudly. They’re dire rats…

Sure enough, if Vivian looked at her newest quest objective, it had changed from slay ten rats to slay ten dire rats. ​

 

Vivian had that all too familiar glint in her eyes as she squinted at the small woman, laughed and laughed some more. "You are absolutely adorable, ya know that?" Despite trying to be dominant or intimidating, the small Faerin girl was nothing to be scared of. Unless she was about to rip the throat from her body, Vivian nearly chuckled and mused about her antics. With her arms folded over, she watched Savannah equip a torch light and started to move down the musty cellar.

Half way down though, the girl had piped out something about dire rats. "Oh, are those supposed to be bigger than normal? Rats are still rats after all." Vivian responded with that almighty tone of hers, so nonchalant about it as though it were nothing. Moving to the flicker of the flame, the female Malefimancer continued down the steps, her eyes twinkling with mischief as she wondered if this girl spooked easily.

So, she set her magic to work. A vile cloud of began to shift around them as Vivian's fingers danced spouting out a mysterious fog. She chuckled to herself as the foul stench began to weave itself in the musty air. "Now don't be scared, I just let out a small whiff of Weakening Cloud to help our chances of victory. Mmm, it's pretty dark down here. You gonna be alright? You want me to hold your hand or something?"

Her laugh erupted in the stillness of the dark around them, despite the heavy light of the torch, it was almost suffocating to not know where that last step would put them. The cellar was roomy enough however, Vivian could see old crates, broken glasses of wine bottles and the excrement of their quests subjects.

"Well, I can safely say I have seen a lot worse." Vivian felt at peace with the darkness, she was accustomed to such dreary senses that she figured she could see better without the light. But if it would help Miss Mousy, Vivian simply shrugged.

"So, how do you wanna go about hunting them down? You have any cheese? Or...did you eat it all?" that laugh again spilled from her lipsticked mouth, saturating what would be a creepy cellar room into a fit of giggles just as equally as creepy. Vivian took a step forward and narrowed her eyes, "Watch out for things that go bump in the dark," and just as she said that, her healthy hips swayed and bumped into the girl as she laughed once more.

The sound of her sword being unsheathed had stilled her laughter moments later.

 

Bigger? Try the size of corgis and twice as mean as a regular rat. Just talking about the damned things had Savannah’s aqua skin rippling with a thin layer of goosebumps. Hopefully, none of these had filth fever or things were going to go south very, very fast.

It was hard for Savannah to stay quiet, but she figured staying quiet was the only way she wouldn’t turn around and slam her halberd into this woman’s face. The tone of voice, the incessant laughing; it was enough to drive the Faerin Knight up a wall. Glancing at her from the corner of her eye, Savannah internally scoffed and continued to trek onwards. She didn’t even look like a vet or anything so where the hell did her ‘more superior than thou’ attitude come from?

Maybe Vivian was just naturally a bitch.

At her partner’s question about how they would find the rats, Savannah stopped and perked her ears forward. There was nothing silence all around them and the low drip drip of water from a source she couldn’t see. The cellar stank of rat droppings and old cheese, but the Knight tuned that out, and instead tried to listen for the tale-tale signs of her quarry coming to get them.

More likely than not, they’ll find us. We’re the ones trespassing on their territory—

Before she could finish speaking, a large mottled grey rat pounced from the shadows and slammed in Savannah’s back, forcing her face first into the cold cobblestone floor. The torch left her hand and skittered across the floor, throwing the immediate area where she and Vivian stood into total darkness. Pairs of red glowing eyes emerged slowly from the darkness toward them accompanied by the sound of gnashing teeth and high-pitched squealing.

 

Vivian waited until the Faerin Knight spoke, only to hear her getting smashed in the back by one of those festering, ill bred dire rats. When her body got pushed, the force had knocked the torch light from her hand as it spun around in circles across the cellar ground. Vivian stood there in the darkness- being the bitch that she was and made a comment, "And what...?" Vivian asked waiting for her to finish her statement, but she was already laughing at the girl's misfortune and didn't bother to help her up.

When the older female piped down, she looked into the darkness and saw many pairs of glowing red eyes. She sighed, flicked the hair from her face and brought a hand up as a spiraling ooze of darkness began to twist and turn around her hand, "Yada, yada..." she said nonchalantly. Then as the power began to build and spin around her arm creating a sort of vortex, the air in the room began to twist and turn.

Power sweeping over her hand as it rose towards the air as her eyes once blue and pristine, now an eerie blaze of purple. In a low tone she began to speak with ominous words. "Ill bravado san veetus. Co-arache say vontis domina!" Those words, even when spoken in whisper had cut the air like a wind of sword slashes. Squeals of the dire rats seemed to come from all over as their ears were exposed to her curse.

"There. That should piss them off enough. A curse to anger them. This way, they won't think when they attack." Maybe...not the brightest idea for the two players who were outmatched by giant dire rats. But Vivian was an edgy player. Who needed the bright?

 

They already don’t think! They have an intelligence of like 2!

Somehow, Savannah managed to flip over onto her back and struggling with the heavy rat on top of her. Its breath stunk to high heaven and she could see the fleas crawling around under its fur while a few congregated in its ear. In their struggle, she even felt a few fall off of the creature and onto her. She yelped in dismay and gave a mighty shove, the muscles in her arms straining as the beast was thrown off and landed about five feet away.

Quickly – well, as quickly as someone in heavy armor could manage – Savannah scrambled to her feet. A quick movement of her hand placed her halberd (which was taller than she was) in her hands. A yell precluded the downward arc that brought the weapon crashing into the skull of the beast, stopping it in its tracks. A gout of blood sprayed from the impact as it crumbled onto the floor, motionless and dead. Panting from the excursion, Savannah could only cringe as she yanked the weapon free of her enemy’s skull.

One down, nine more to go.

She glanced at her party member with a scowl. Of course Vivian was a magic user and of course, it was the same magic that her Lady Lucia used. Just when Savannah was beginning to appreciate the aftereffects of death – mostly because Lady Lucia made it beautiful – this witch came along and altered everything. Tch.

Suppose you don’t need any help, right Princess Vivian?

Arg, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud! But it was hard for her to think when another two creatures were rushing toward her, fangs dripping and ruby eyes glowing in anger.

 

"Princess Vivian...I actually like the sound of that." Her not so enchanting laughed echoed out in the darkness. The female wasn't a mobile person so when the rats lunged, Vivian would go for a grasping claw like motion to catch the rat in her hand. The weight caused her body to be pulled down by gravity, but she would give it a fling as she spun on her heel and whipped her blade across the face of the second lunging dire rat.

"Ah! I actually got a piece of it with my sword. How about that?" She said half amused by it. Her hand had a fistful of rat hair clutched between her fingers. This was good, she could use this to her advantage. The greasy hair started to glow as Vivian spoke once more setting off a deadly curse.

A long verbal command came from her lips, the rats were frozen in place while they were rooted to the ground by dark, inky tendrils. An invisible force held two of them down, for easy cleaving while Vivian continued to chant. Her eyes opened wide, she was getting the attention of the rats while her voices commanded them to still. However, this weighted curse would only last as long as she could continue to chant the spell.

Vivian would point with her blade telling the Faerin Knight to crush as many as she could. The female witch rolled her eyes as her mouth was getting dry and she could not longer continue the chant. Hopefully Savannah was able to get a few extra hits in while the forces of darkness held the dire rats in a minor frozen state.

 

There was that damned laugh again. It made the hair on the back of Savannah’s neck stand on end. It made her crush her molars into each other and lift her shoulders up around her ears. Her fingers grasped the haft of her weapon tighter and she imagined that instead of gripping it, she was gripping Vivian’s neck. Was there a way to shut up that infernal laugh, perhaps? She’d have to search her options later.

As the two rats lunged at her, Savannah spun her weapon out from the side, cleaving into one and carrying the momentum to cleave into the other as well. The sickening sound of blade meeting flesh, fur, and bone made her wince, but this was basically life or death. She didn’t want these things getting close and biting her nor did she want to fail this quest. Once the rats had been knocked to the floor, it took all the strength in her arms and upper back to cleave their heads from their bodies, blood pooling around their corpses for a moment before disappearing into the ether.

It was Vivian’s chanting that caught Savannah’s attention, her chest rising and falling quickly beneath her battered breastplate. The Faerin Knight watched quiet amazement as a few more rats were rooted to the ground, the inky tendrils keeping them stationary. Not for the first time, Savannah confirmed that magic was really fucking cool. It wasn’t too late for her to switch her build path…but then she thought of the conversation she had had with Lady Lucia. She wanted to be – no, had to be – Spear-Like-Dragon.

The movement of Vivian’s sword sent Savannah into action. Her muscles took on a life of their own as she went from rat to rat, cleaving and attacking, making sure to aim for vital areas or decapitations. Blood and guts splattered against both weapon and armor and there was a distinctly metallic smell emanating from Savannah that she tried her hardest to ignore. Blood didn’t scare or intimidate her, but the stench of rat excrement, blood, sweat, and internal organs was enough to make her want to vomit.

Hack and slash fest completed, she was winded. She doubled over, her hands on her knees, her weapon falling from her grip, her mouth open as she sucked in lungfuls of air. Fighting was exhausting~

 

Vivian made her way for the torch light while Savannah went Hammer Time on the dire rats.Going into a roll, she flicked her hand and caught hold of the blazing item. She did a quick sweep around the room as she blew a magical breath into the fire. A hazardly red flame engulfed into a massive black fire as it was spewed from the mouth of the woman. The black flame drew close the rats as she slid her blade out from right to left. Lucia was a magic damage dealer and had only a few points for basic slash attacks with her weapon.

But it was enough to do some minimal damage. Enough to blast the dire rats back into a corner for a moment. Vivian swept hair from her eyes with the back of her hand, "You are doing good, Little One. Just a few more and we can wrap this thing up. I'll take the lead for this one while you take a chill pill." Standing up straight, Vivian watched as the rats crowded towards her. Their beady red eyes met her azure blue as she smiled and looked down at the nasty rodents.

"Disgusting things!" She said vehemently. Her voice sounded like a boom of thunder, it was another start for a curse. The blood in one of the rats began to heat up. Eyes began to bulge and its putrid skin began to twist and rot. "So fuckin' ugly!" a spout from her wicked mouth caused the injured dire rat to twitch as its limbs began to bulge with hot blood. Its eyes filled with pus and liquid. The lack of hair on its dermis began to fall out as the dire rat took a few extra steps only to explode a moment later sending chunks of rotten rat meat in all directions.

But it was not a spell to be explosive. It sent out a warning to the other Rats, this was a Fear Curse. They would flee at the sight of the woman as she stepped in turn and roared like a menacing demon as the torch moved left and right to add more flavor to their intimidated eyes. It would give enough time for the Knight to ready her weapon and to stomp these pests out.

 

She now understood why the very few other Faerin she had met within the game were all magic users. Wielding a weapon with so small a frame was…a task. The amount of muscle control and usage that it required was enough to make Savannah squint at the sight of her weapon there on the floor. Maybe a race change was in order, even if this was the cutest race in the entire game.

Gritting her teeth, she took another deep inhale and pushed herself to her feet. Her hands once again gripped her weapon while her eyes carefully assessed which ones Vivian’s dark magic would eventually kill off and which ones needed a push from her to cross over to the other side.

Because of the fear that Vivian instilled within the beasts, they were cautious when approaching and tried, to their dismay, to scare the two humans off instead of further engage in battle. This worked to Savannah’s favor. She cut through the more frightened ones, cleaving off limbs and opening arteries. When her whirlwind of death finally stopped, she was again heaving as she breathed, and blood dripped from hands, armor, and weapons.

Are they all dead? she panted in question. ​

 

From her fingers to the air, her spell had drifted to the lone beady eyed rodent before its head exploded into chunks of matter. Vivian sighed and swept the long purple hair from her face and nodded, "I think so. Unless we gotta kill the mother of the pack or something." Vivian held the torch out to see if there was anything left in the darkness.

The remaining sounds of the rodents was just her footsteps squishing into rat guts as she gave a low groan of disgust. Not one for too much gore, the stench in the cellar was enough to make her dry heave every few steps. Holding a hand up to her nose and mouth, Princess Vivian moved with continued grace of her swayful hips.

Breathing through her mouth, although wishing she had not done so, the woman kicked away the remains of a rodent only to find its mutilated body parts sprawled into different corners of the cellar. The musty scent was delivering a punch to her senses as she made her way back to the Faerin Knight. Holding up the torch to see her small frame, Vivian smiled under the blaze of that hot light, she gave off a rather creepy grin from the shadow cast by the whipping flame.

"I have to admit, for such a cutie pie such as yourself, you really know how to work the big shafts." Vivian could not help but laugh at her own crude joke, sweeping her hair and allowing her scented perfume to mix with that disgusting air. No matter how well she smelled, the dank cellar room was suffocating with the scent of dead rodent.

"I suppose we just turn in the quest now or something? Or, we can raid the cellar if there is any treasure in this room. Slim chance, but hey, you never know what we might find." The female shrugged her shoulders leaving the decision up to Savannah.

 

The small Knight waited patiently with her weapon at the ready as Vivian went further into the cellar to check for a matriarch. Her lavender eyes were directed on her UI, watching the little quest tracker to see if there was any sudden change. When the Malefimancer returned and was standing near Savannah, she watched as the quest finally said complete. She exhaled a breath she hadn’t be conscious of holding.

Maybe it’s a random spawn, she murmured, glancing around and seeing no other foes and no matriarch to fight. Of course, instead of Vivian saying something semi-normal, she had to tread on Savannah’s toes with her double entendre. Cherry coloring suffused Savannah’s cheeks and she immediately turned away with a harsh shake of her head.

It’s actually quite difficult to wield this weapon, she replied, her voice an octave too high. Clearing her throat, she continued. My size makes this quite difficult. I need to either get better or pick another weapon. There were the undertones of harsh criticism in her voice.

Turning toward the steps, she shrugged her shoulders and placed her weapon back into her inventory, leaving her hands free. You can raid if you want. I’m going to turn this in and log out for the night. Nice working with you.