“Glad I could help,” Van replied with a small sigh of relief.
“Don’t put your hopes into some magic future, ” Sang said as she walked up to the edge of the trail that they had been walking down. There was a riverbank to the side that went over a cliff. She looked down the waterfall and saw that the path resumed at the bottom. “It can vanish in a single moment.”
“We’re probably gonna have to jump to get down there,” Van mumbled. He looked at Sang. “I am sorry that life isn’t working out the way you planned. But, it’s far from over, right? If we play our cards right, we’ll find some alien stuff! They’ll stop worrying about my criminal record and they’ll probably forget all about your last mission!”
“Here’s hoping,” Sang said. Van didn’t have any deep words of wisdom for her, but it felt good to just express herself. She had been taking out her frustration on him for almost the entire mission, but he had been relatively congenial with her. She knew she had to stop treating him so poorly; it wasn’t fair to him.
“So, we done bonding or what? Aliens aren’t going to find themselves,” Van asked.
“Yeah, we’re good. Let’s get going,” Sang said as she peered over the waterfall.
“Great, let’s jump on three!”
“Can we survive the fall?”
“No fall damage in this game if you land in water!” Van replied. “See you at the bottom!”
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s clearly a trap,” Sang said as Van pointed excitedly to the treasure chest which had simply been sitting in the middle of the road when they approached.
It was a beautifully ornate wooden chest with a golden lock attacked to it, and Van knew in his heart of hearts that he was destined to open that chest and get whatever was inside. “How is it a trap?” Van asked as he checked his character sheet.
There were still no trap dodging powers. He knew that bards would get some higher-level damage dodging at some point, but that definitely wasn’t today. Yet, as he looked at the treasure chest, he knew that he wanted to open it up.
“It’s a trap because it’s a treasure chest just sitting the middle of nowhere, completely unguarded and on a main path,” Sang argued.
“I agree with all of those things... but at the same time, it’s a treasure chest. We, as players and gamers, are morally obligated to try and open up the chest!”
“Morally obligated? To what, get skewered by some horrible trap? No thanks,” Sang replied.
Van shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I need to open that chest. Cover me!”
“Are you serious right now, Van? Are you seriously going to kill yourself over a treasure chest?”
“I won’t die, I’ll be fine!” Van insisted as he crouched down and began to inch towards the chest. The developers had probably left the chest in plain sight as a way to scare people off from getting the treasure. It was an anti-trap, he thought. It wasn’t really a trap at all, but was designed to look obvious enough to be avoided by most everyone. He was smarter than that, however. He would get the treasure and prove Sang wrong in one fell swoop.
Van reached the chest and knelt fully down to look at the lock. Picking locks wasn’t hard when you were a bard, because Van could always play the “Song of Lock Rattling”. He grabbed his bagpipes and began to play a jaunty tune, causing the lock to rattle until he saw the words UNLOCKED appear over the chest. He grinned widely, dropped his bagpipes over his shoulder, and hastily opened the chest. The chest made a creaking sound as it swung open, and a massive blast of a greenish liquid splash all over Van’s face.
“Ahhh!” Van said, leaping back in surprise. The bright words YOU ARE POISONED! appeared over Van’s head.
“See! I told you!” Sang said as she cautiously walked up to him. “Well, your face didn’t melt off, so I think that’s good.”
“My display’s saying I’m poisoned, but I don’t see any damage to my Health or my stats,” Van mumbled as he frantically checked his UI. There was nothing presently indicating that he was in any kind of trouble other than the POISONED status.
“Hmm, there’s a note in this otherwise empty chest,” Sang said as she reached in and pulled out a letter. “It says, ‘Congratulations, you are poisoned for your stupidity.’ Ha!” she exclaimed, only pausing to stick her tongue out at Van. “And it says that the poison works on a 12 hour timer. When 12 hours is up, you die.”
“That’s… not great,” Van said.
“Um, yeah, tell me about it,” Sang said as she analyzed the note. There was an outline for some kind of a way to find a cure. “Well, the good news is that this is some kind of a quest. Look! There’s a cure that we have to get to. It’s located inside of the jungle. It’s a kind of root that’s edible. Looks like it’ll cure any kind of poison.”
“So, you’re saying we found some kind of trap with a quest in it?” Van asked as he looked at the poison status. He noticed that, indeed, a timer had appeared... and it was counting down from 12 hours.
“Looks like it. At least I didn’t get any on me,” Sang said. “And a quest means there’s going to be experience points, and maybe even some more items. I say it’s worth doing. We’re not too far from Verrata, but getting more levels is never a bad idea, right? Especially when we still aren’t at the recommended level for the city itself.”
“And, of course, it would be good if I didn’t die and lose all of my gear and stats,” Van replied.
“Eh, you did this to yourself,” Sang said as she examined the scroll for a few more moments.
“I’ll admit to my mistakes. When I’ve made one. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m the hero because I found us another quest,” Van replied. He brought up the map and took a look at where they needed to head toward. It wasn’t too far from where they were located, but there was a problem. The entire area was a wild zone, meaning that other players would be able to attack them. “Well, isn’t that great?” Van muttered. “We’re gonna have to trail-blaze through a whole wild zone to get to the cure.”
“We should be fine as long as we use stealth and avoid the main roads,” Sang said as she put her new arrows on her bow. The arrowheads would occasionally light on fire, which was a neat effect. “Besides... if we run into trouble, I’ve been wanting to try this new weapon out.”
Van nodded and grabbed his flute, which would also come in handy against antagonistic players. They spent a few moments charting out their plan for moving. The root was located at the base of a massive tree known as the Bladed Noose Tree. It was only two miles away, but the denseness of the trees and foliage meant that travelling on foot would be a real challenge. Still, they didn’t have any choice. Due to his incredibly minor screw-up, they would have to journey into the mangroves and into a small marsh-like area.
Sang waved Van on and the two began to walk down through the thick jungle. They were off the trail, but not too far from it. Van didn’t have the Stealth skills that Sang did, though, so he just kind of hoped no one would notice him. But as they travelled on in silence, he heard a strange roaring sound up ahead, followed by some shouting.
“Come on, men! Fight them! Fight them!” cried a loud voice. There was another roar and then the sound of steel and thunder clashing together.
“Should we check it out?” Sang asked.
“I don’t know—this is still the wild zone, so we could get ganked if they don’t like us, but if they’re in trouble, helping them might spur them to return the favor,” Van said. “I made the last poor decision... your turn to pick.”
Sang shrugged. “Let’s scope it out. If they’re in trouble, we can bail them out, and otherwise we keep moving.”