We arrive in Riverwood, Sophia clinging to my arm like some kind of lost puppy.
No one questioned us, or the red rod I was holding. Sucks that you can't put it in your inventory, that was the first thing I attempted to do when we got it, but oh well.
It seems the lord has returned as all the guards are on high alert. Nick greets me at the castles door. "Loctrace."
I nod to him as he lets us in. But I am left in shock, on the old vamps face is a massive gauged out wound.
"Loctrace." He huffs. "The enemies general bested me." Was the old man trying to solo the whole enemy army?
"Why isn't it healing?" I ask with full curiosity.
"I am cursed." He touches the wound. "It won't heal until the caster is dead."
Sophia steps forward, kneeing before the throne. "Can such an enemy really exist?"
All vampires respect higher ranking vampires than themselves, it's like a town elder kind of thing. This stays even if they are not of the same bloodline.
I picked the bloodline of the strays, which means I have higher regen than other vampires. Where Sophia has the elder bloodline, granting higher physical strength. Drake has his very own bloodline, the bloodrain bloodline. It is something you have to do a quest to unlock, and on paper it is the best bloodline, it just has less regen so I didn't pick it.
"Should I summon our forces?" I ask, but he just shakes his head.
"That would be a mistake, for now we let them make the first move." He glances at the rod in my hand. "Why did you bring that here?"
I rub the back of my head, and yet I wasn't the one to speak. Sophia stands. "We wish to become stronger, and this threat should be the perfect challenge for doing so." There was so much pride built into that back, it almost amazed me.
"My lord, I wish not to stand quietly as the world gets destroyed, let us help fight against them." I speak.
He nods. "I agree with both of your statements, for now let me hold onto it, if the enemy gets any stronger, we may have an issue."
Something's off? But I still hand it to him, he takes it with a strong gaze. Sliding it into a pocket dimension.
"If that is all, I shall take my leave."
Leaving the same way I came, I head to the training hall, where I find Lock Slamming a wooden noginata into a training dummy. "Mmm." He greets us.
"Lock, is there something the matter?" I ask.
He shrugs, smacking the dummy even harder.
What was his lore again?
My sister wrote it.
From misty hills and forgotten dreams, Lock was a warrior of the third cataclysm, in those times he was weak, but ended up trapped in the forgotten library. In this place he didn't age, collecting all the skills he might need. Emerging from the library, he thought that no one could beat him, just to lose to Loctrace in a duel. From then on he decided to chase after the dream of defeating his rival.
Speaking of, is big sis also in the game? I can't believe I didn't think of it until now.
Well I call her sis, she is in fact my cussent. Second cussent. Yet she prefers I call her big sis, for god knows what reason, perhaps it is some fetish.
Opening up chat I click on Misty hero.
You online?
Was all I wrote before turning my attention back to Lock.
His gaze shifts from me to the dummy. He smacks it harder, and wind blows around the room. There is a saying in L&L, level means as much as you make it. Yes, being high level allows you to use more and stronger skills, and it increases your stats, but in some of the terminates I participated in, I found some of the max level players were quite shit. As if it was sheer will power, and not skill, that got them this far. Anyways, they swiftly lost, to even lower level players, it was a laughing stock of the community. The fact that members of the top one hundred lost to people outside of the top one hundred, was seen as a mockery. Yet some soon found out how wrong they were. PVP, and PVE, are two different fields, and those giants that fell in PVP, soon showed their might by clearing stages thought impossible in PVE. The point is, our level gap of twenty could be bridged through skill. So would I win, yes. Just based on his class. Well mainly because my damage is just that bad. It wouldn't matter if he reflects my damage at twice the strength, it is still shit damage. Zero times a million is still zero.
Going off that, I probably only beat him out of luck, even if he sees it as my skill.
Sophia walks with me entering the lord's garden. I plop down into the bench, staring up into the sky.
"Nice weather today." Is it? I can barely feel the difference between warm and cold in this body. I almost feel like a dall sometimes.
"It is." At least there is no rain. Speaking of, as a coastal town, shouldn't we get a lot of rain? Doesn't really matter.
"It was thirty years ago today, that we set out with our party to slay the Favored Worm." The favored worm? But that boss has never been defeated. "You were so much more chipper back then, and we believed we might truly win. I'm sure you remember the rest."
I don't. "Keep going."
She sits down next to me, leaning against my shoulder. "It hurts too much."
So we failed, not surprised. "Why didn't we retrieve their souls?" I ask.
She looks up at me, her eyes glistening with tears. "How, we barely made it there with their help, how could we, the cowards that ran away, have come back with their souls?"
That is how it played out? I guess there really was no way. I haven't even gotten to the arena myself, but those who have said it was one hell of a slog. The run back was harder than the actual boss fight, draining all their resources. That is how the boss remained undefeated to the end.
There souls should still be there. The only way a soul is not created after death, is death from old age, so… No, I would have to collect quite the team, just to please my NPC wife. That would be too much, even for me. If I still had my guild, then such a task wouldn't even be called challenging, but I don't. So I am left with few options, but giving up.
I turn to look down at her. "Maybe."
"Maybe." Jack mocks me as he walks in. "Don't tell me the all mighty Loctrace is flirting with an NPC."
"NPC?" Sophea tilts her head, but then her eyes become slits. "I smell blood on him."
He vanishes, reappearing behind me. "Heard from a friend you killed one of the new mobs, what were its drops?"
"That is none of your concern Jack." I stand up to stare him in the eyes. "Respect my boundaries, and buzz off."
"Jack." Sophiea repeats with fear. "Like the leader of the assassin group Crimson Scarlet?"
The what? What is crimson scarlet?
Jack laughs. "Like it, that is what this world gave me for my background. I am the number one assassin in Elith after all."
Now that I got close, he does smell like iron. I can even taste it. "Jack, don't tell me you killed someone." I rest my hand on my sword.
"Fine I won't tell you." He wonders off with his hands behind his head. "Just don't let me catch you flirting with the mobs again." He disappears in a puff of smoke.
I suppose not everyone can be happy go lucky.
"How do you know him?" Sophia's hands are visibly shaking.
"An old friend." My hand has still not left my sword.
She stares up at me, with questioning eyes.
It turns out a run in with a creepy man makes your wife super protective. She chose not to leave like planned, instead sending word to one of her lieutenants.
So here I am, pitch black, the city dead asleep, and Sophia and I just gazing at the stars.
In a world without light pollution, there sheer was a lot of them. So many grimmering jims. It comes the heart, you know what doesn't, Sophia snuggling up to me like we are something more than friends. It is strange, no matter how much I try, I just can't spark up a conversation with her. As if I was held back by some unknown completely known force.
Yeah, I think I am developing a crush. That happens a lot for a loner like me, the moment a girl shows any semblance of care. But I must resist.
"Sophia?"
She slightly eases off of me. "Yes?"
"Where were you born?" Why am I asking this?
She smiles. "In Farmere, I'm surprised after all the years we have known each other, this was the first time you asked that." Farmere is on the opposite side of the continent, so a visit there wouldn't be easy. "How about you?"
"I don't remember." I speak the truth, over making up some dumb easily disproven lie.
"Figered as much." She turns to face the sky. "You never had an answer when it came to your past, it kinda makes you misterrace, in the creepy kind of way."
I am really beginning to wonder, who does this world think I am?