Open - Calamity Jane

It was a hot, sunny day in Norforva, and all was calm. The hum of black wasps buzzing peacefully around the corpses of the infested, the distant warbling of harpies—it was all just part of the everyday ambiance, a harmonious backdrop to a world most players never got to see. Overhead, enormous red birds of prey made high, lazy circles above the wasteland while below the bloodcursed wildlife snoozed in the shade, their extra eyes closed and their many limbs arranged in warm tangles around their sleeping bodies.

And then we see a black speck in the distance, coming over the western border. At first it seems to be chasing a small group of men, but on closer inspection (and as an enormous red-eyed Dire Stag erupts from behind the hill in hot pursuit, vapor snorting from its nostrils) it’s actually just lagging behind the others, desperately trying to close the distance between them. The speck is a player named Destiny, and until this day she prided herself (at least a little) on her ability to outrun aggressive wildlife. Apparently, today is the day which will put that to the test.

The men are in guards’ uniforms and are an absolute mess—a few of them still cling to weapons, but some have lost a glove, or a boot, or bear dents on their armor that look suspiciously like antler-marks. One of them has a crossbow bolt through his backpack. “Keep running!” The woman shouts after them as they falter at the edge of the wasteland and they mill around for a moment like deer at the edge of a highway. They look back. The Dire Stag lowers its rack, each wicked tip a stake ready to crush and impale anyone so unfortunate as to cross its path.

Back up. Rewind—how the hell—

Ah, right. Destiny Divebird remembered. She’d taken a Quest.

Admittedly, she shoulda known that thinking the words “this’ll be a breeze” would set her up for this. While it didn’t cross over much to the game world, she led hiking tours a couple times a month in real life in-between helicopter stints and hunting trips. Plus, they were in Brisshal—goddamn Brisshal, newbie central. She’d been up and down most of the wilderness there all the way into Pormont and even up into Astoria, and she knew her way around fine. Gotta kill some time this weekend. Why not lend a hand, help these guys out?

Des fiercely wanted to aim a crossbow at herself for having dared think that. Too bad she was already on her last bolt after getting ambushed by a damn herd of Dire Stags and unloading all her ammo trying to buy time for these spooked guard-recruits while they ran in circles and pulled their legs out of badger holes. Hell, this whole catastrophe had just been one miscalculation after the other.

Never mind why the forest critters had left the forest, though—they had a bigger problem on their hands, and it didn’t look like it was gonna stop dogging them all on its own. Destiny didn't know how much longer she could run. “Anyone else got any bright ideas?" The Yladian wanted to avoid a radioactive blood-magic hellscape as much as anyone, but she also liked not having antler-holes poked through her body. Not much of a toss-up in the end.

 

Prologue

The gold glistened from in the rough pouch, glinting in the dim candle light. Eryl couldn’t see much of her potential employer behind the wide-brimmed hat that hid his most of his face, save the single glowing red eye from the shadows. The rest of him was wrapped in a worn pancho, and he smelt strongly of old tobacco. If anyone saw this being who had merely identified themselves as “Fang” on the street they would have doubted they could have produced such a large sum.


Eryl leaned back, the worn chair creaking under her amply blessed form. Her dark eyes flicked from him to the money and back to Fang. She was always doubtful of the beings like this, and even more of beings that mysteriously had large sums. It either was due to bad game programming, or it ended badly. If he was a part of some criminal machine, then they’d try to suck her in as another cog. Or he truly was who he claimed to be; a middle man ranger who needed someone to establish the trade contact for him.


Eryl leaned forward, placing her elbows on the grainy wood, her red head giving a single, determined nod.

Norforva

Eryl crested the next ridge of the wasteland. Under her booted feet the rocky surface was unforgiving and refused to let Eryl pass by with ease. She could see the moving small figures come slightly closer along the horizon. Her lips pursed together as she gripped her sword. These were the first beings she had seen that weren’t monsters of some type. And behind them she saw the massive stag coming, snorting and charging like a storm. She tilted her head. It was far outside of its argo zone, at least by her understanding.


She pressed her forefingers to her temple, entering observation mode. That explained it. This was part of some quest. She saw something else. This other person, the PC, was a sort of ranger. Rangers were handy, especially when you were tromping through the doom lands looking for some tribe to set up a deal for their incredibly rare precious stone capacity.


Eryl crouched as she waited, watching the beast and the others moved deeper into the badlands. As they came near, Eryl pressed her thumbs together over her chest, with her fingers facing upwards to the crimson sky. A soft white glow emanated around her as she could see the dire stag moving closer. Her vision contorted, and like two frames over the other, she could see how it was moving in slow motion, and its likely future overlayed. Astral magic had its benefits.


The red head pulled herself behind a boulder with her blade drawn and waited. It didn’t take long for the stag, chasing its prey, to pass by. Exactly as Eryl had foreseen. As its back legs passed from Eryl’s hidden spot, she sprang from cover, her blade slicing through the air. But the stag was moving just slightly faster than she had anticipated, and though her strike was true, it wouldn’t cut as deeply as she had intended. Octagonal specks of synthetic blood were sent hurling through the air as Eryl managed to sever one of the stag’s hind leg Achilles tendons. The Stag stumbled, snorted, and recovered. Its rear legs was damaged, the beast wouldn’t be running any time soon, but as its snorting fury indicated, they were far from giving up. It planted its three good feet on the ground to put up a fierce last stand.


Eryl leapt from her hiding spot, her long red hair flowing behind her with the movement. She whipped her blade through the air, flecks of the blood were knocked back free from its shimmering surface. Eryl’s form was clad in loose breathing but form-fitting clothing. A long chain mail shirt reached down to her mid-legs, polished and gleaming as it hugged he curved form perfectly. Her shoulders were each graced with a single paldron bearing no sigil. Her legs were bare except for the leather brown boots that came up just shy of her knees that matched her elbow-length gloves.


“Finish it off,” Eryl said to the other player, her eyes hard with determination. “you take one side I will take the other.”

@Destiny Divebird

 

With every breath of exertion that heaved from Destiny’s mouth, a curse was right behind. “Damn quests. Damn deer!” It was not a dignified chase by any means—she and the guard-recruits were exhausted. They switched between limping, stumbling, and bursts of clumsy adrenaline like a kitten learning to run—legs akimbo, speed over grace.

The easiest thing to do would have been to break off from the guard-recruits and hope the stag kept chasing them instead of her, but some stubborn part of her refused to hear that idea all the way out. Hell, sure, they might be NPC’s. But they’d been her responsibility. Maybe it was her professional pride carrying over from real life, but a guide was someone you trusted to keep you safe—and Des’d get stomped into the dirt of Norforva before she betrayed that trust.

As she was looking back at the Dire Stag, gauging the distance between them and how many seconds gap she had before the beast overtook them, a miniscule plus sign appeared in her vision, zeroing in on a nearby boulder. She’d had Investigation Mode engaged since the start of this quest and its enhanced function warned her now, pinpointing likely locations for cover and concealment. Destiny’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared as she detected the hidden warrior moments before the stranger lunged forward and brought her blade down on the Dire Stag’s back leg.

Well, she’d said ‘stranger,’ but the trail of enhanced footprints left behind the woman had a name-marker. That meant Des had encountered her before—who the hell knew where, but it looked like the impossible had occurred: she had an ally. “Go, go!” she shouted at the guards, waving them on, and turned back. The stag had stopped, praise almighty, as this new threat locked it into combat. Chest heaving, the woman dropped to one knee as she assessed the animal. “You make that sound so easy!” she managed to choke out, raising her hand crossbow and sighting down her arm like the barrel of a rifle. Christ, she was shaking so bad. “Last bolt, you son of a bitch—” Its body was too well-muscled for a single strike to do anything more than wound it and enrage it further—she’d have to aim for the head. Focus, focus. The tip of her tongue wet her dry, cracking lips as she released the mechanism—

She’d been aiming for the eye, but as it tossed its head the foot-long bolt flew just wide, piercing the creature’s forehead instead. It was a pretty picture, but Des knew the bone there was too thick for it to be a killing blow. Skulls were tricky—if it’d been a bullet, it might even have ricocheted right off. “Damn!” And… now she was out of— “Quick! Take this!”

Incredulously, Destiny spun around to see the guard-recruits behind her, still catching their breath, expressions of determination written across their faces. The closest one was holding out the stray bolt which had been in their backpack. “What’re you—hell, I’ll take it.” Des clamped her mouth shut and took the bolt, loading it as fast as she could. She struggled with the mechanism, sweat pouring down her brow. Ahead of her, she saw the NPC’s fan out around the Dire Stag on the opposite side of the red-haired woman. The two without weapons jumped and waved their arms, creating a distraction so that the three-legged animal turned, lowering its antlers threateningly. At the same time, the other two ran around the back to give the armored player backup, harrying the beast.

What it meant was that the Yladian had another shot. Don’t screw it up this time, she prayed, bolt finally loaded, and aimed right at the Dire Stag. If you miss, that thing’s gonna charge and one of those guys is goin’ bye-bye. Hell, this wasn’t supposed to be a quest with fatalities. No time for that now. Their savior had told her to take one side—Destiny’s lips quirked humorously. In a coin flip between heads or tails, figured she’d have heads. She fired the crossbow.

Hit. The Dire Stag reared up, bugling in pain, as the bolt pierced through its eye. The weight on its wounded back leg caused the injured limb to give out and it collapsed, sides heaving, its simulated wounds spattering crimson. Des let out her breath and stood up, mopping dark tresses from her brow. “Whew. Close call. Thanks,” she clapped the closest guard-recruit on the shoulder and shakily made her way over to the woman on the other side. “You’re a real lifesaver. Bought us enough time to get our act together. Didn’t expect to run into anyone out in these parts, most players steer damn clear of Norforva.” Wiping a sweaty hand on her belt, she offered it to the sword-wielder. As she did, a blinking notification appeared in the bottom-left corner of her vision.

QUEST COMPLETE.

“Huh. Go figure!”

 

A problem, A proposal, A greeting

The other woman was moving into position, jockeying for a good shot. Eryl flourished her sword across the back of her palm, she had to do her best to keep that beast still long enough for her to hit it. The NPC’s were standing by, almost pointlessly. They looked tired from the sprinting and fleeing for their lives. Eryl didn’t know how far they went, but she could guess it was farther than they had intended to when they began the program this morning.


She moved in close enough to tease the stag, it lowered its horns and made a lurching attack at Eryl, thankfully she was skilled enough at dodging to stay just clear of the strike. She teased the stag long enough for the other woman to make the finishing strike as Eryl played back and forth, back and forth with the stag’s attacks. At last the monstrous beast went down and there was a moment of silence.


Eryl stood looking at its corpse for a second before it vanished in a pixilated burst. She watched the others silently for a moment, until the Player came over. Eryl studied her for a moment, she knew her from somewhere, but it took a second to register. She had been one of the players who helped kill the bandit king, what she had spent her second day engrossed in with this game. It had pushed her to the limits, and Eryl was hooked after that first binge session.


Eryl’s lips curved in a slight smile at the reference to her being a “real life saver.” She guessed she had just been at the right place at the right time to help. Part of her wondered if the game system had pushed them together for mutual benefits. Eryl accepted the stranger’s hand when offered, giving it a shake, “Glad to help.”


She flicked her blade, sending the digital flecks of blood off its end into the battered ground. Its long steel form was soon clad in its sheath. She cocked an eyebrow up slightly in surprise at the stranger’s statements. She hadn’t been around long enough to hear those statements. That reason alone could have been a factor into her own potential, and why the man had offered her such a sum to go into these badlands to negotiate.


“I didn’t know that,” she said placing her hand on the hilt of her sword, “I guess that’s what I get for being new to this system,” she shook her head, “I’m only on my second week in this game, that bandit venture into the snowy lands was my first real adventure here.”


Eryl shifted her weight to her back foot, her ample form shifting from the movement, “I was sent here on a quest, it did of course sound too good to be true. I must go find a tribe in these badlands that holds the knowledge to some special crystals and negotiate a treaty on behalf of someone named Fang; gold for the crystals on regular trade intervals. I don’t know my up from down, and it seems I am in over my head in this one.”

She flicked her long red hair with a toss of her head in frustration. Eryl didn’t like feeling out of control in a game. She was too used to that in the real world. She knew she could find a way to come out ahead on this too, she just had to look at it from a different angle, “I can negotiate a strong contract when I get there, there’s no doubt about that. It’s just a matter of getting there. It seems more like the work of a ranger for that leg of things than a swordswoman.”


Her gloved forefinger tapped the pommel of her sword for a moment, trying to think of where she could find a ranger that wouldn’t take too large of a piece from her pie. It had been foolhearty of her to set out from Brissel before finding one. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. In the heat of her frustration, Eryl realized she had forgotten her manners,. She gave a polite tilt of her head, “I’m Eryl Justice.”

@Destiny Divebird

 

Destiny’s brows rose. “Shoot, you’re that new? Doesn’t matter none, don’t get me wrong,” she added, scratching the side of her neck. “Just... not your typical walk through the woods. If you haven’t heard of it, just means you’re lucky. Wait.” She paused to revise this, “Mm. Take that back—no surprise you haven’t. Doesn’t seem like much about the place gets around by word of mouth. Guess people just aren’t talkin’ about it. Hell, even I couldn’t tell you what happened here, but the wildlife’s all messed up from some curse or another.”

For being a low-level player, Destiny had been playing the game for several months and had explored most of its regions. On her own, she was pretty good about avoiding (chickening out of, some called it) beast encounters and steering clear of anything too tough. The first time she’d gone wandering through the bloodcursed region, she’d witnessed a giant white leech suck all the blood out of a full-grown packhorse in about ten seconds. That was something I coulda done without seeing.

In any case, the information was all in. Des was silent for a few moments, tapping her foot and hitching her mouth to one side as she thought. “Mm.” She bent down to retrieve her two fallen bolts and dropped them back into her inventory, the ammunition disappearing in her hand. “Mhm. Gotcha. Ah-- and I'm Destiny.” So this Eryl had gotten herself stuck on a quest too. Hell, Destiny knew how badly those could go without another player around, and whatever the sword-wielder had gotten herself into sounded a hell of a lot more complicated than the little escort mission she’d just stumbled out of.

She rubbed the side of her jaw, hitching her mouth to one side. “Gettin’ regular business in and out of Norforva’s no easy job,” she said, “Must be quite the crystals—I said quite, hell—to spend risk that much gold and manpower. Make your guys’ job look like a breeze, I reckon,” Des addressed this to the guard-recruits still standing around, who looked at each other nervously. She had a little commerce sense and enough understanding of the area to know it’d be tough. “Might be worth scouting out a route, though. Actually—the one we took from Brisshal’s a straight shot here, if we can just get the rest of the way.”

It was right then that Destiny’s face froze. Hell—she’d just sounded like she was volunteering, hadn’t she? God damn, now she’d have to play it off. Hope the guards can get home all right on their own... She gave a little hmph, hitching her mouth to the side again. “Mm. Well, I’m no expert on Norforva, but I could probably get you where you need to go. Hate t’ leave ya on your own out here. You got a knack for that blade there, but things around here can get kinda...” Her eyelids lowered lazily, masking her unease as she trailed off. Honest to god, she wasn’t sure if she was over or understating the dangers here. "You got a location at all to shoot for?"

 

An invitation

Eryl smirked at Destiny’s reaction. Maybe someone with less VR gaming experience would have been less gutsy to go out this far or accept quests like this. She cocked her head to the side slightly, her dark eyes shimmering with mischief and humor.


“You don’t sound like you believe it’s not a bad thing,” she teased darkly. She crossed her arms, supporting her ample chest. “I’m not your typical gal either.”


If there wasn’t much information available then it explained to Eryl why she couldn’t find much. It wasn’t her fault then. She gave herself a slight break. Most games had their mysterious, evil enfused badlands, she guessed this was this game’s take on it.


“Curses and Mystery. Sounds to me like this is the prime pickings for some intense game development in the future,” Eryl said with a shrug, “I like those kind of things. I’m not too sure why this place hasn’t had more adventures and expeditions. I’m the type of gamer to ask ‘who cursed this’ and ‘how can I beat them?’”


Destiny. Eryl took the name under her mental registery. It sounded a lot like Destiny was volunteering. Eryl realized then that her armor build was a lot like the hunter’s choice. It made sense with her crossbow. Most hunter and ranger types would logically chose a ranged weapon as their primary.


“I suppose they are,” she said about the crystals. “They might have something to do with crafting magical items or alchemy. That’s my best bet.” She nodded. Eryl was certainly doing the legwork. Whoever had hired her made their job easy. Maybe the were the middle man or maybe Fang was craftsman. She had the feeling he wasn’t the construction type just based on his appearance. But looks could be deceiving, and she wasn’t counting on it.


“If this place ends up being even slightly worth the gameplay, then routes into its center will be vital,” Eryl agreed. “And if not, then the least it can be is a route for grinding in the future to cut down some monsters.”


Destiny said she could probably get Eryl where she needed to go, the redhead had the feeling they were more than coincidental in their meeting. It reenforced her first thought, the system had pulled them together to help each other.


Destiny said what Eryl had thought initially. She needed help. And even if the danger here wasn’t at the level it was, she couldn’t find her way though this alone. They might have made this quest with that intent. Eryl didn’t know.


“I have a basic idea,” Eryl nodded. “The quest log said the tribe is on some place called the ‘Shadow Plateau’ just past the Dark Valley. Wherever that is.”


She looked up to Destiny arching her eyebrow in a curious look. She didn’t know much apparently, Destiny could probably read into that how much danger they were in. Or if those were prominent places that people talked about apparently. She flicked her hand, bringing up her menu and the “Party” drop down menu. She could see the list of nearby players-the only name being Destiny’s. With a quick tap of her forefinger, Eryl invited her to form the party together and the quest. If she was going to do part of the work. It only made sense for her to get part of the reward.

“I’ll follow your lead,” Eryl said uncrossing her arms.

 

The black-haired woman felt the urge to grin sheepishly back, but kept her face under control. “Nah, that’s not it. Was more surprised than anything, t’tell the truth,” she admitted. Destiny didn’t think being a new player was a problem—but she didn’t usually expect to see ‘em swingin’ a sword like they actually knew what they were doing. If a two-week old player could get the jump on a full-grown Dire Stag like that, what the hell was Destiny doing? Really made a gal evaluate their life choices (game choices? Christ.) “Thought I was the only low-level player who tagged along with the Pride back then. You blend right in with the vets, ‘not your typical gal’.” She did allow that grin to appear for a moment.

Before they set off, she had one loose end to clean up. Destiny turned to the guard-recruits, pointing back the way they came. The stampede trail from the enraged Dire Stag was easy enough to follow back to the border, and after that… hell, all the crossbow bolts she’d emptied along the way ought to be enough of a trail of breadcrumbs for even NPC’s to follow. “Y’all think you can head on back by yourselves?” Much to her surprise, the four were eager to agree. She squinted at them, wondering if they were just glad to be rid of her. After a moment, she shrugged. Hell, why’s it matter—either way, they sure ain’t the same bunch who were too scared to walk by a badger hole before. Maybe that was why the quest had ended up completed. “Aw, all right, get outta here. Stay safe, y’hear?”

Sending the four guards on their way, Destiny dusted off her hands and shouldered her almost-empty quiver of bolts, looking perfectly relaxed. “You got it. Party accept,” she said, hitting the checkmark on the request before the two set off into the wasteland. Cut to the Yladian’s inner monologue, which was something more like Sure hope this is the right direction! and Never heard of those places, oh well!

To be fair, it wasn’t a complete shot in the dark. The fact that she didn’t know meant east—Destiny had covered most of the West on her trips back and forth from Astorea. That was nice country, and stopping at the oasis out in those parts for a hot spring soak had been a nice change of pace more than once. Any so-called valley of darkness and shadow plateau, though, had to be in the bloodcursed hellhole ghetto of Norforva. Lovely.

“Makes you wonder what kinda tribe can even live out here,” she commented after they’d walked for a little bit, covering some ground. She’d steered clear of an area she’d seen birds of prey wheeling over in the distance, sure that if they took that route that aggressive mutant scavengers would be all over the place. Because of that, they had to hike some more elevated terrain, scaling craggy rock formations with slippery tracks of loose shale.

“Hope you brought your own trail rations. Anything you hunt around here’s bound to have a couple more legs and eyes than it oughta. Mm!—” She held out an arm to stop Eryl and pointed at a crevice in the path up ahead, where a long, diamond-patterned body was visible. Quick as she could, Destiny flipped up her crossbow and used the cross-guard to scoop the body abruptly out of the rock. The snake coiled and thrashed, a blur of wild movement. “Cut it out, you! I’m tryin’ to make a point. See—” Destiny’s gloved hand closed just behind the snake’s jaw, paralyzing it, and held it up. “Careful of these—ow!”

Blinking a little, the blue-eyed woman stared at the back of her hand, where the snake’s two fangs were currently embedded in the leather. How— Incredulously, Des looked at the head still trapped between her fingers, and then back to the other. “Oh. Two heads,” she said as it dawned on her. Aw, hell. Shoulda seen that one coming. She scowled, screwing up her face as she carefully pinched the reptile’s second head and pulled it away. Her first instinct was to throw it, but with her injured hand she instead carefully brought up her inventory and selected Two-Headed Serpent > Add. With a pixelated shimmer, the mutated creature disappeared.

Stripping the glove, Des brought her hand to her face to inspect it. Two thin streams of blood dripped from the tiny puncture holes. A little puffy, but doesn’t look bad. She shrugged. “Sure hope that was a dry bite,” she said lightly, pulling the glove back on. “It oughta be fine. Let’s keep on, don’t want to hang around in one place too long.”

 

“I do have a fair bit of experience,” Eryl said prodding Destiny along a little more with her semi-subtle flirts. Maybe she was compensating a little for her lack of feeling in control by flirting, and the little power she felt watching her try to keep it composed. Eryl arched an eyebrow, “Surprised my skills were as good as my looks? How unfair.”


She did feel a lot better with the situation more under control that she had a few minutes ago. She smirked, tilting her head to the side at the statement that she blended in with the vets. The comment wasn’t lost on her, “I will take that with the highest praise then. I was sure I didn’t do as great as I had hoped I would. I guess the flaming red hair helps for motivation, it gives you a rep to uphold.” She winked. Eryl knew it wasn’t kosher to talk about real life in the game, but she figured it might offer a little perspective. “Growing up we moved a lot, my best friends I learned to get in the games, instead of in the classroom.”


Destiny dismissed the NPC’s and it was just the two women traversing the wastelands. Eryl could feel her confidence in Destiny rising with every step, which, with every step, was even more misplaced. If he only had known of Destiny’s lack of knowledge, she would have completely felt less on top of things, and less relaxed. Eryl nodded at the comment about the tribes that live here. She didn’t have many doubts about the types who would be attracted to a place called “Shadow Plateau” but all of her thoughts were most certainly filled with horror-driven imagery.


“Only the worst kind,” she said grimly.


Eryl was quick to stop when Destiny put her hand out. She saw the snake and gripped the hilt of her sword instinctively. As Destiny picked the serpent up, Eryl initially wanted to tell her to stop, but Destiny was the expert, so she relented, but didn’t relax. Eryl blinked as the beast bit into her through the gloves. She too was filled with wonder, not on how the serpent could have bit into her, but how could Destiny not see that coming. She supposed that they all had slip ups. When the serpent was put away, she released her sword and nodded, “Yes, I have rations.”


Eryl raised her eyebrow for a second in a questioning look as Destiny told her to carry on before checking or curing the hit. Eryl nodded. She supposed Destiny was the expert. She fell back in beside Destiny as they began to walk. There was a lot of wisdom in not wanting to stay in one place too long. It seemed like asking to be ambushed. She pushed on, she had a lot of questions from the brief encounter to be sure, but f or now they didn’t matter.


“I had sort of counted on this place being a little less than friendly,” Eryl said, “I’m not one of the hunter types like you. I don’t have the skill set to skin, cook, or gut what we kill out here. The only thing these local monsters are good for to me is the loot they drop and the Mastery Points I can gain from them.”

@Destiny Divebird

 

“So you said you moved a lot?” Destiny brought up the previous topic again, struggling to get her mind off the goddamn puncture wounds in her hand. What kinda gloves can’t even block a snakebite? Knew those Black Wolf bandits had lousy taste, shoulda figured by how fast they got cut down. Still, it’d just been a prick, and it only stung a little. Like gettin’ stapled. “I never saw much of early VR, guess I was too busy. You still ever play with your friends, or just solo?” Hell, she wasn’t usually the type of gal to pry—especially into convos that stepped over to real life— but the more she flapped her trap, the less she had to think about that two-headed-rattler who’d gotten his fangs in her skin.

Her mind wandered back to where they’d been chattin’ with the guard-recruits, wondering if she should ask what the hell Eryl had meant about being a redhead. What’s that s’posed to mean? Was there some stereotype she hadn’t caught onto? Well, probably don’t matter. Too late to ask now. “They drop loot?” She pursed her lips in a whistle. “I’m not too big on combat, so I wouldn’t know. Guess I oughta start actually killin’ monsters, hm?”

It was a lighthearted statement that Destiny had absolutely no intention of following through on. Wasn’t their fault these beasties had gotten programmed in here—she just wished the old “don’t bother them, they won’t bother you” rule applied when it came to often-aggressive fantasy aberrations. But hey, who needed fancy mastery when you could make your way through just fine by keeping your head down and your nose outta trouble? That Dire Stag had been one of the first things ever that mighta caught up to her if Eryl hadn’t jumped in, and that was only ‘cause she’d been bogged down with all those NPC’s she had to take care of.

Destiny’s brows raised again and she came close to grinning when Eryl mentioned how her skill set didn’t translate to skinnin’ an animal. She controlled it, lips merely quirking, and kept her head down. She coulda mentioned she didn’t have any kind of cooking vocation or hunter-sense that let her clean up a kill—that sort of thing was just Des’s knowledge. “Aw, it’s easy,” she said instead, giving her companion a little slap on the pauldron with the back of her hand. The snakebitten one. Son of a-- Playing it off with a grimace, Destiny spoke through her teeth. “Game cleans up most of those mechanics—just turns into raw meat for your inventory once you make the kill, then you just gotta get ‘er roasted.”

They had ascended high into the cragwastes by now and finally reached a vista point, which is what the black-haired huntress had been waiting for. “Hoo! Look at that. Somethin’, ain’t it?” In the shade-filled valley stretching below them, small steaming pools of brightly-colored water could be seen dotting the basin. The foul odor of rotten eggs, the telltale stench of sulphur, wafted up to them. “Ever been to Yellowstone? Reminds me of it. Hey, look out there!” Shading her eyes, Destiny pointed to a distant shape, where the faint silhouette of another tall landmark was a black smudge on the horizon. “Reckon that’s your plateau? Onward!” She stepped confidently off the side of the vista and immediately slipped on loose gravel, windmilling her arms as she slid gracelessly down the slope.

 

Momentum and the Real World

Eryl nodded as Destiny asked about her real life. She didn’t exactly want to go too deep into her past, or what happened outside of the game. Eryl didn’t really have much that she enjoyed in the real world. For her the Virtual was plenty. The real hardly ever offered her anything but embarrassment, awkwardness, and feeling left out of pretty much everything.


“Yeah, a whole lot,” she said nimbly stepping over a boulder. “Dad worked as a construction executive for Durasynthex for pretty much all my life. So I was pretty used to always being that ‘new kid.’ It wasn’t exactly helpful for making me popular. I learned to not get too attached and all,” she sides stepped a pothole in the ground, “especially since I rarely spoke the same first language as the kids around me.” Eryl shrugged, “Mostly solo. Early VR wasn’t that great in hindsight. But like all genesis tech, it takes time. It wasn’t as horrible as the media claimed it would be. At least I turned out ok.”


Eryl blinked at Destiny’s surprise that the monsters dropped loot. “You’ve never killed the monsters here before?”



The redhead could hardly believe that was possible. They were, after all, game constructs. They were no more alive than the avatars people had here. It was all fake, you could kill, cut down, craft all you wanted and just take the headset off. That’s what attracted Eryl to it, after all. Nothing here mattered. You could be anyone, anything, anywhere. No one could stop you or judge you. The virtual sky was the limit, and how much time you were willing to skink it the game. For someone like Eryl who had little in the real world, that was a lot of time.


“Well I mean,” Eryl gave a shrug, “I would guess so. That is one of the primary ways to get Mastery Points and gold in this game. How else do you plan on upping your Masteries here?”


Eryl’s face twisted in a sort of grimace as Destiny said it was “easy.” Eryl in real life was very much a city girl. She liked her internet, her soft bed, soft blankets, and microwave. At least the game wouldn’t make her try to do all of that if they ran out of rations here and had to revert to what they were hunting. She was about to reply when she looked out and saw the view. It was spectacular, in a gothicly twisted way. Her gloved hand went to her mouth and nose, covering them both at the stench of sulfur. She had only smelt it once before, and that was from a gass leak that had happened to catch her very much off guard. She nodded vigorously at Destiny’s statements. It was something, if it wasn’t for the smell. Eryl hoped real hot springs didn’t smell like this. And yes, it was probably where they needed to go.


“Destiny!” Eryl shouted after her companion as she began to slide down the cliff. It looked steep, very steep. Her eyes caught some of the falling gravel that had been knocked loose by they fall. A flash of premonition came to Eryl; at this rate, she would continue to pick up pace and momentum. With her would come more gravel, then eventually rocks, and finally boulders. A flash of a pile of boulders at the bottom, with Destiny’s battered hand sticking out from the pile bloody and lifeless appeared before her eyes. All of it took fractions of a second at the most. “Hold on, I am coming!”


Eryl jumped spryly to a nearby boulder, her foot barely had a second on it before she catapulted herself off to the next a few feet away. Her acrobatic skill propelled Eryl forward as she landed on the side of this one. As her heel landed, the boulder came lose, but Eryl was already springing from it onto the next. She landed with a slight ungf at the impact. Eryl lost control for a moment and was sent forward. Her right hand extended instinctively, breaking her fall. Eryl shoved off it, summersaulting into the air with a flurry of red hair a few more feet to the left that she had wanted, but several feet ahead than she had anticipated. She grabbed a twisted, petrified branch from the ground before her and limped forward. She was on the edge of a ledge that boarderlined a dry gulch. The redhead thrust the branch forward for Destiny to grab, “Here! Take hold!”


If and when her companion managed to get a grip on it, Eryl pulled back with all her strength, her back and arms clenching. Hopefully she had the strength to bring her up onto safety.

@Destiny Divebird

 

Falling was a shock. It shouldn’t have been—hell, she should have been expecting something, honestly. A venomous animal camouflaged into the crag face. A cannibal waiting just below to shoot her with a blow-dart. A magical land mine, left over from some ancient fantasy war. Destiny literally could have stepped on anything, but this damn world had the gall to catch her with something simple. Loose gravel: usually the bane of cyclists and reckless diggers in Minecraft.

“Son of a—” Her hoarse shout broke off as the fragile rock gave out altogether. Destiny had always wondered what kind of scream she’d make in an actual life-or-death situation. Not just when you spotted a rat in the kitchen, or someone jumped out to spook you. A person didn’t know their real scream until it happened, and today Destiny found out hers was more of a “—ngh.” Ah, hell. She’d shouted and hollered and yelled her head off plenty of times out in the wilderness, and now—with her life on the line—about to tumble like a cartoon character off the side of a ravine and break every bone in her body—all Destiny could manage was a pained whine. She’d had bigger reactions to stubbing her toe. It was a ngh like people made in their sleep when they were having a bad dream.

…Though with that in mind, this was more like a bad dream than anything else. One thing that was real was the goddamn Investigation Mode damn near giving her a migraine on top of everything else with its constant readout as she flew by pieces of the landscape. POTENTIAL OBSTACLE it read helpfully as she tumbled past a boulder that would have smashed her skull in if she’d hit it head-on. COVER. ANIMAL TRACKS. EDIBLE HERB. “Stop it!” Des yelled, shutting her eyes against the overload of appearing and disappearing text windows as she tried desperately to claw at the loose rock and slow her fall. Damn Inquisitive Eyes! She wouldn’t have taken Hunting if she’d known it was going to give her a seizure in her last moments. ANIMAL TRACKS. ERYL JUSTICE.

Eryl who? Dazed, Destiny barely comprehended the words before a branch flashed out in front of her and she heard the redhead’s shout. INCOMING LEDGE her Hunting ability warned her a moment later and the woman threw her hands out to reach for the lifeline she’d been given. But she didn’t make it. She fell to her death, did not pass Go, and did not collect $200. Eryl would meet her again several months later with her newly-acquired death affliction “Gravelphobia” that caused her to instantly flee any small rocks in her path, and would shake her head at the sad, sad little wannabe ranger, and Destiny would have to leave Terrasphere in shame and go back to playing Wii U, forever and ever, and ever…

Hell no. Destiny snapped herself out of her vision of the future (oh, she didn’t have Astral magic, she just liked to think about her inevitable doom) and grabbed onto the tree limb. She gritted her teeth as her snakebite flared up with pain again, but managed to seize onto it with both hands. “Jesus Christ!” she panted as Eryl yanked her up to safety. The woman took a moment to collapse on the stone, wheezing. “Whew, close one! Nice save.” She looked up—well, at least they’d covered some ground. Blowing her hair out of her eyes and brushing the dust and rubble off her clothes, the Yladian stood up again, looking around. “And look at that, we’re already on the valley floor.” She stretched, popping her back, and tried to ignore all the scrapes and bruises currently screaming at her. One on her cheek was currently oozing blood. “We’re makin’ good time.”

 

Rescue and Gags

Eryl felt her hand contact Destiny’s, her other hand gripped her companion’s and with both she pulled. Eryl pulled with all her might, her back, arms, and legs contracting with everything she had. This was just a game but in the moment she was so into it she didn’t dare let Destiny go down. Besides, the pain it would have been for her to respawn and travel back would have been too much for this mission.


Covered in sweat from the exertion, the redhead leaned back against a rock once Destiny was safe. Her chest heaved with pants as she regained her bearing and strength. The smell of sulfur was even more noxious, and with each gasp Eryl struggled to not gag on the air.


Eryl pushed herself to her feet and looked Destiny over with a raised eyebrow. The woman was in bad shape, but she seemed confident enough to want to carry on. Eryl opened her mouth to object, then stopped. She closed her mouth firmly and nodded. Her faith had wavered some in her “expert tracker” at the gravel incident but she wasn’t about to question her judgement-yet.


With the back of her forearm, Eryl cleared some of the glistening sweat and soot from her face. The gravel had kicked up a lot of ash, silt, and black sand, a thin layer of it coated Eryl’s top-heavy figure now.


“I suppose we are,” Eryl agreed. She stepped forward, “Hold still.”


Her gloved forefinger gently cleansed some of the crimson blood oozing from Destiny’s cheek, she was careful to not exacerbate the injury with her movement. “You have some blood there.”


Following Destiny, Eryl did her best to not gag on the foul odor in the air as they came closer to the hot springs. She pulled off a bit of crimson cloth that matched her hair and folded it across her mouth as a rough filter. It helped-but not much.


“What about you?” Eryl asked, trying to take her mind off the stench. “You don’t seem to play VR that much,” she hopped over a small crag in the ground, landing Lightly in her booted feet. She turned to make sure Destiny made it over without tripping over her own bodice laces. “What do you do in your free time then?”

 

Was nice havin’ someone who had her back. If Destiny ever had to play the damsel in distress stuck up in some tower or surrounded by wolves, she knew who to call. Nothin’ wrong with needin’ a little help, she thought, perfectly comfortable in Eryl’s presence. She’d be kidding herself if she said she wasn’t a little shaken from the whole experience, but as they moved on it just became a vague memory of another close call in the back of her mind. Just like the snakebite! Though that one, unlike her scrapes, was still buggin’ her. At least a little. She thumped on the center of her chest with a grimace. Her heart hurt a little, but that seemed like a detail too specific for a game (even in Realistic mode) and Des just dismissed it as heartburn. Probably shouldn’t have had chili for breakfast, come to think of it.

She tilted her head to look up towards the sky, deceptively blue and clear above the hostile landscape. Too bad it stunk to high heaven. “Hm?” She hitched her mouth to the side, holding still for the other woman to wipe away whatever she’d spotted on Destiny’s face. She closed the eye on that side as Eryl cleaned the bloody scratch, the redhead’s fingers warm against her cheek through the glove. “Aw, just that little thing? It’s all right, it’ll close up.”

The close contact with the other woman felt natural, stirring nothing more in her than a pat on the back or a high-five might have, but it occurred to Des for the first time that Eryl might actually be puttin’ some moves on her. Pretty slick if she is, the Yladian thought, lifting a hand to finger the scratch and wincing as it stung in response. Can always respect a good flirt. Hell, she’d hardly expected that kind of treatment in this game—she’d made her long-limbed avatar the way most people made Spore creatures—but sure, she’d take it where she got it. “Wanna borrow my scarf?” Des offered, making a vague attempt to return the gesture. She could see the stench of sulfur was really affecting Eryl, the sour tang of rotten eggs growing more and more difficult to ignore as they passed through the toxic valley.

She unwound the article from her neck—was a little too hot for it now anyway, with all this steam and hydrochloric acid about—and gallantly offered it to Eryl in a bundle like a handful of dirty laundry. “Aw, who? Me?” Destiny did indeed trip and caught herself, stepping over the ledge with a smarting toe to reward her clumsiness. “Nah, not a big gamer. Hell, I don’t even know how we got this game, I’ve never seen it in stores. Just somethin’ my pal got ahold of.” She rubbed the side of her jaw, flexing her fingers a little bit. “Free time? Hike, fish, try to explore. Watch birds. Do chores. Same as here, really.”

Her gaze had wandered to one of the thin streams that seemed to track between colorful acid springs, the waters reflecting a coppery red. “Huh. That look funny to you at all? Magic?” Her Inquisitive Eyes had nothing to say about the unnatural taint. “Hm.” Her shrewd gaze traveled up, wondering where the water source came from. Somewhere higher up, she figured. “Might be a waterfall up ahead,” she said, trying to stay lighthearted, “That’d be something, mm?” That was still hopin’ they were in the right place, but Des had a pretty good feeling. She tapped Eryl on the pauldron and pointed ahead, where the valley opened up and the distant cliffs rose in a high plateau. A shimmering, blood-colored smear on its side—the falls Des had been hoping for—was faintly visible. “Aw, see, there y’go! Almost there. Just gotta cross this…”

She trailed off. The way ahead was clear, flat, and lacking any loose gravel. However, as they watched, a pressurized burst of steam issued from the ground as a geyser of boiling water erupted from a crack in the earth. A few seconds later, another burst almost fifty feet away from the first, disappearing again after a few seconds. The droplets hissed as they splattered across the stone. "Mm. Well. That’s tricky,” Destiny finished, scratching the back of her head. Just perfect.

 

Faith is Blind

Eryl furrowed her brow, but ultimately nodded in agreement with Destiny's assessment about the scrape. She supposed that the wound would eventually close up, but what would get in it between now and then was something she wasn't too keen on thinking about. It could get infected and God alone knew what sort of pathogens were out here in this cursed place.

The redhead took Destiny's scarf and wrapped it around her mouth and nose hastily too, over the crimson coth that covered her nose and mouth now. It helped a fair bit more.
The smell of Destiny's own body odor wasn't exactly appetizing, but it was much better than the sulfur that was dense in the air. It covered most of the stench for now.

Eryl was (at least in her own opinion) a fairly good judge of character. There was a fair chance that Destiny was flirting with her. Under the folds of the fabric, she smirked. Destiny was trying at least and she was sort of cute in her own sort of country, rough and tumble way. Having traveled a lot, Eryl had come to appreciate many forms of beauty of both men and women. She guessed Destiny's avatar reminded her somewhat of a country girl she had a crush on during a summer camp she had attended (unwillingly) as a teen.

"The same as here?" she asked, muffled from behind the folds of fabric, "I guess I can understand that. If you like something, go for it. I'm still not too sure how you could do all of that through this game and not get into killing something." Her brown eyes flashed at Destiny with a hinting flash, "I wonder what other skills you have."

Eryl looked over the red river before them and nodded about the waterfall. She didn't exactly want to fall down one like some TV show. It looked good on the screen, but it rarely ended well with VR. The valley seemed safe enough, until there was one of those nasty flashes. Eryl could almost swear the smelt the sulfur again, thicker, as it ejected the vent of steam from the geyser. It couldn't just be simple, now could it?

"We can do this," Eryl said confidently, "But we are going to have to work together."

The redhead closed her eyes for a second, stretching out as she envisioned the valley before them in her minds eye. With her premonitions she could see some of the possibilities with where this was going to erupt next, but she was hardly good enough to know with certainty. And this place was full of random modifiers that threw her abilities completely off.

She sprang suddenly, her eyes remaining closed as she did. A hot jet erupted right behind her. Eryl twisted gracefully on her heel, spinning away from the crack she had just landed on to another in time to avoid a superheated jet of scarlet water.

With her hair whipping behind her, the redhead took two quick steps to the left in time to dodge a third eruption. Beads of sweat formed on her brow, not just from the heat but also the exhertion it took her to concentrate on the possibilities of the valley. Eryl's legs sprang, launching her high into the air with a summersault. As she arced through the air gracefully, a fiery jet of steam blasted behind her. Eyes closed, the Redhead was so focused on the Geyzers she didn't even realize where her trajectory threatened to take her--right into the claws of a dog-sized scorpion, its tail was poised to strike her with paralyzing venom.

 

Tricky. Tricky, tricky. Well, wasn’t any use tryin’ to time the spurts—this wasn’t Old Faithful, and hoping she could spot some kinda cheap pattern-loop in a game literally banned from the open market for its realism didn’t seem like a smart thing to do. What other skills do I have? Definitely not any of the kind Eryl had been hinting at, and probably nothin’ that could get them through this mess. GEYSER, her Investigation Mode read helpfully when she shook off the mental trauma from her earlier fall and checked it. Shoot, no kiddin’. Couldn’t tell. Now would be a real nice time to whip out some earth or water magic, but go figure, Destiny didn’t have none of that either. Had never occurred to her to pick anything so fancy on the main screen—hell, that was Crane’s gimmick, not hers.

Startled, her eyes darted towards Eryl as the other gal spoke up confidently. “Can we?” she echoed dryly, more than a little dubious about whatever the redhead had in mind. Well, as Des found out a moment later when her stalwart protector darted off into the geyser minefield, “working together” apparently meant running after Eryl and sticking damn close because there were steam vents going off right and left and the swordswoman was barely avoiding them. “Real close calls there!” she called with an edge to her voice over the hiss of boiling water, jerking out of the way as some of it splattered on her boot. “Aw, hell!” The acid spattered ugly, bleaching spots across the dark leather. Just got those, too. Damn it.

She looked up, still posed shaking one leg with its ruined boot like some kind of twisted hokey-pokey step. Since she’d been one step behind Eryl, Destiny had time to see something the other gal did not—from one of the holes almost identical to the geysers, a segmented, insectoid face emerged instead of boiling water. The scorpion pulled itself from its den almost as quickly as the erupting vent behind Eryl. Christ, it’s got a nest here. It was like a trapdoor spider—waiting for the deadly water to scare its prey close, then striking. Destiny didn’t have time to shoot. “Ngeghh!” It was a strangled sound which burst from her mouth, one that lacked her usual lazy, give-or-take air. The Yladian lashed out with one unnaturally long arm, seizing and yanking back on the end of the purple scarf she’d lent Eryl.

It couldn’t have been comfortable—pretty much getting clotheslined around the neck—but the glistening stinger missed the redhead by just that much, the tail of its bearer moving as quickly as a whip. “Christ, it’s fast!” Dropping the scarf (and probably Eryl) with no more grace or dignity than Destiny did anything in this game, the elf reached over her back and drew her longbow, notching an arrow in the string and drawing it back in a single motion. Unlike the crossbow, which she clearly just lacked full proficiency in, there was something more practiced about the larger bow in the ranger’s hands. I ain’t a gamer, sure, but I’ve shot a damn bow more than once.

Twin carapaces, the shiny black skin of the giant scorpion versus the black ant-chitin of her bow, faced one another for a moment before Destiny let fly. The huge arachnid shrieked, a sound almost too high-pitched for human perception (Destiny’s elf ears heard it, however, a noise like an off-tune dog whistle) and rolled over, curling its legs and tail around the arrow buried in its thin exoskeleton. “Go, go! No time for your damn loot, we gotta clear this field!” Swearing, Des shoved at Eryl—it was worth mentioning that the giant scorps were actually useful predators who took care of worse pests like giant spiders and giant centipedes—and made a run for it as another geyser burst just behind them. Destiny was pretty proud of her signature sprint-from-danger and she poured on the speed now, acid droplets sizzling at her ankles, the end in sight.