“Ah, you see, I tried to reason with them. I warned them about the dangers of nonviolence, but they refused to listen to me! Then... oh, then a terrible attack was perpetrated by the Werewolf Clan, forcing us to escape and seek refuge here. Many of us died, and I lost my only child! Yet, our fool of a leader refused to agree with me! Now, though—now they will all pay until they change their ways! And this is where you come in!” the wicked woman said, dramatically sweeping her hands wide. “For you can be the final nail in the coffin for these foolish Druids! They follow their leader, a woman of immense power; while she doesn’t fight, she has a powerful protection amulet that stops any Troll from harming her. If you can bring me that amulet of hers, I will be able to finally kill her and take control of the group of these Druids, leading them to live a much safer life by teaching them about the supremacy of violence!”
That’s crazy! I will never help you!
What’s the pay?
Sounds good; I’ll be back soon.
Sang frowned as she looked at the options. She wasn’t really sure what she should be doing here. “Van, what’s the best choice?” she asked as she looked back at him.
He shrugged at her. “It depends on what you want to do. This game allows you to make hard moral choices sometimes. So, we can help the evil lady out and get some kind of reward, or we can help the Druids out by defeating her.”
“Is there any clearly superior choice?” Sang asked.
“Beats me. You usually have no idea until after you finish out a quest, so it’s more about the effects of the decision. If we defeat her, we can get admiration and praise from the Druids, but probably not much in terms of items. If we defeat the Druid leader, we’ll probably get something sweet from the evil lady, but definitely not any help from them.”
“Oh, well... we need transportation more than anything right now, so we should probably kill this woman, yes?”
“Yeah! There we go!” Van said excitedly. “Let’s buff up before we take the job! Just drink any useful potions and prepare for a fight!”
Sang nodded and brought up her potions inventory.
She chose to drink the Potion of Barriers, the Potion of Swift Aim, and the Potion of Magic Resitance, all of them capable of helping her fight against a Druid, whom she assumed would be some kind of powerful spellcaster. As the potions rushed through her body, she felt very prepared for a fight. This was going to be a tough one and she knew it. But still, if Van thought it would be a good idea to fight this woman, then so be it. The problem wasn’t that she was a spellcaster, but rather that she had a higher level.
Levels were kind of different in this game, she knew. Other games, she had heard, used levels as a way to keep players from ever being able to fight against certain classes of power, but in this game, there were always automatic ways to defeat an enemy. If an arrow struck a vital area, it could deal damage as normal, regardless of the level of the character it struck. Certain weapons or types of attacks would always do damage, and it was possible to kill a high-level character without being at the appropriate level. While this Druid was only a few levels higher than them, there was enough of a difference for it to be a little harder than she would have liked. Thanks to the potions and Van’s bluffs, however, she hoped it would be an easier fight.
The dialogue box still hovered in front of her, and Sang took a deep breath before selecting the first option, bring on the woman’s evil laughter yet again.
“You fools! You are just as naïve and idiotic as those Druids out there! You will pay the ultimate price for your decision! You shall die!” she shrieked as her hands created a powerful purple sphere of energy around her.
“Now, Sang!” Van shouted as he dove for cover, avoiding the blasts of energy that were firing out of the woman’s hands. The streaks of energy were each bright purple, and seemed to follow him as he moved.
Sang fired an arrow at the woman, cheering as she saw the words 150 damage! hovering above the vile Druidess’ head. A burst of purple energy crashed into Sang from behind, however, taking her down by 50 points of Health.
“Ahh!” Sang cried out as the energy seemed to sting her in the back. She felt her energy getting siphoned away, and saw that her stamina was rapidly dropping down, as well.
“I’ve got you,” Van said, throwing a few darts at the evil woman. The darts harmlessly bounced off the woman’s bearskin armor, though. “I mean, uh, get her!” Van said, pointing at Sang. The Druid ignored his banter and blasted him right in the face, chucking him into the wall.
“Ooof,” he wheezed as Sang watched his Health drop down to only 5 points.
“Van!” Sang yelled out as she leapt in front of him, cutting off Lady Soara from her advance. She fired another arrow, but this time the word MISSED floated above the woman’s head as the arrow flew into the wall. Another blast of energy crashed into her, but luckily her Magic Resistance Potion blocked the majority of the damage. The words RESIST 5 damage! appeared, causing her Health to only drop down to 295 points. She grinned and fired her bow again, this time hitting the Druid. 150 damage! said the display again, taking Lady Soara’s Health down to only 300 points.
“Ohhh, I think I’m dying,” Van moaned as he slumped over. “I think that cracked my ribcage. She cracked my ribs!”
“Don’t die yet, Van!” Sang called out as she dodged out of the way of another blast of purple energy. “She’s almost dead!” Sang snapped off another arrow, and this time the word CRITICAL burst above the arrow as it sailed right into the neck of the Druid. She screamed out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching her neck in agony.
“Yes!” Sang said as she threw a Health Potion to van. He caught it and immediately quaffed it, bringing his Health back up to normal.
“We did it!” Van said as he slowly stood to his feet. “You killed her while I distracted her from getting any more damage on you!”
“Oh sure, you definitely helped with those darts,” Sang teased.
“Hey, I took plenty of damage that could have gone to you instead!” he replied. As the two laughed at one another and drank their healing potions, the Druidess on the ground slowly began to laugh.
“You fools!” she wheezed as she started to die. “If I must die, then I will be sure to kill every last one of those Druids! You might have stopped me, but you will not be able to stop the hordes of Trolls that I command! My final act in defiance of peace… is violence!”
“Oh crap!” Sang said as she heard screeching howls of horror echo throughout the tunnels. It sounded as if all of the Trolls had been awoken at once... and they were all scampering frantically.
“We need to get to the tunnels, and quick!” Van said. “We’ve got to kill them before they reach topside!”
Van and Sang quickly made a dash for the tunnels, but as they moved, the vines seemed to animate in front of them, weaving themselves together firmly and barricading both Sang and Van inside of the well room.
“Ah crap!” Sang said as she pulled out her short sword and began to cut frantically at the vines. They were rapidly regrowing each time they were sliced in half, though.
“This isn’t working!” Van said as he used his new spell to try and set a vine on fire, but it seemed as if the fire would only burn for a moment and then fade away.
“We’re trapped!” Sang yelled as more vines wrapped around the entrance, creating even more barriers against their entry.
“Oh man, and I don’t see any other way out!” Van said as a timer suddenly appeared in the central room. It read 00:30:00.
“Great, just great, a timer,” Van grumbled. “That’s how long we have until the Trolls kill all of the Druids and we lose the quest.”