15 - Everybody Dance Now

  They crossed the small bridge over the stream merrily babbling on the rapids nearby and moved deeper into the forest. The trees thickened around them as they advanced. Like a bloodhound, Nura followed Bertha’s trail relentlessly. Sometimes she checked the hoof tracks on the ground, other times she checked unusually flattened grass, and once she stopped to take a deep sniff of the air.

  “Since we’re going into the woods to save that damn cow, would you mind giving me my runes?” Gaspard reminded Elanil “Who knows, maybe these abilities will be crucial in our mission.”

  “Have you deserved them yet?” Nura briefly interrupted her search to grumble incredulously. “What if everything you did was just to gain our trust and lure these runes out of us?”

  “Instead of just killing you?” Gaspard raised his eyebrows. “We’ve already discussed this—it’s too tedious and time-consuming, don’t you think?”

  “Who knows? Maybe you don’t want to get your hands dirty, ruin your reputation, or whatever else is on your mind.”

  “How naive,” Gaspard shook his head with an expression of a teacher disappointed by their students’ complete intellectual impotence. “Finding your own party has far more advantages than working alone, even if you think you’re super-professional. Even the fact that you’re currently eight levels below me doesn’t outweigh the future benefits in the form of ability combinations, accelerated experience and reputation gain, and many other perks. Plus, there are dungeons and quests where it makes no sense to go alone.”

  “You’ve been to many places, I see, since you even know about such dungeons,” Elanil remarked. “Considering you’re only level fourteen.”

  “I have my own secrets for bypassing the minimum level requirements of certain zones,” Gaspard remarked, not without pride.

  “Let me guess, Stealth?”

  “Most of the time, stealth suffices,” Gaspard nodded. “But not always. So, what about the runes?” he returned to his original request.

  Elanil opened her inventory, and her suspicions were confirmed—the rune information was now displayed, since Gaspard was a member of her party.

  Item: Rune – Elusive Motives (Venomous Bard)

  Quality: Silver

  Description: Ability upgrade.

  Enemies could swear they just saw Gaspard in front of them as he goes into stealth mode and strikes them with surprise blows. Strong physical damage + strong poison damage + inflicts necrosis. Each upgrade increases physical attack, poison damage, and stealth duration.

  Item: Rune – Enchanting Chords (Venomous Bard)

  Quality: Silver

  Description: Gaspard’s magical lute temporarily enchants enemies and subjugates them to his will causing them to attack each other. Each upgrade increases the duration and allows the enchantment to be applied to higher-class enemies and enemies with higher resistance to control abilities.

  “Both silver!” she marveled. “Someone’s lucky.”

  “It’s all my charisma and animal magnetism,” Gaspard chuckled. “See how strong it is that even before you met me, you already had these runes of silver quality.”

  “I think you’re just showing off,” Nura remarked. “It’s impossible that one person’s charisma could influence another’s actions before they even know each other.”

  “And I think you’re taking things too seriously,” Gaspard smiled. “Why haven’t you upgraded your abilities yet, Elanil? You’ve got two bronze runes, I see.”

  He was right; Elanil had completely forgotten about those upgrades. She was currently level four, while Nura was level six; the first bronze ability upgrade required a minimum of level three. She gave the two silver runes to Gaspard and one bronze rune to Nura.

  “Well, as usual, on the count of three?” Nura grinned.

  “Oh, you’ve already established a ritual for that?” Gaspard laughed.

  “Yep. So, ready? One, two, three!”

  [Ability upgraded: Explosive Arrow]

  [Ability upgraded: Boomerangs]

  [Ability acquired: Enchanting Chords]

  “Ah, can’t wait to reach level fifteen,” Gaspard muttered dreamily. “Then I can get the first upgrade to Elusive Motives. I like them—effective and elegant. Sometimes they can be quite bloody though.”

  “Have you already used them in practice?” Nura asked curiously as they walked deeper into the forest.

  “Correct. When some bandits tried to rob me on a forest path. Not the best day of their lives... their last, to be exact.”

  “I see. But if you ask me, your stealth tricks are nothing but cheating.”

  “That’s why no one asks you,” Gaspard laughed. “Listen, maybe we should run to the Sylvan Reserve? It’s not far from here, we’ll take down a couple of Bombardier Beetles, and maybe I’ll scrape together enough experience for level fifteen. I’ll be able to level up my abi—”

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  “Quiet,” Nura raised her hand. “I hear something up ahead.” She stopped and pricked up her ears. “Over there!” she said, quietly but quickly moving toward the source of the noise.

  Elanil tried to listen, but so far she could hear nothing but the usual sounds of the forest: the swaying of spruce branches in the wind and the tapping of a woodpecker on a tree trunk somewhere in the distance.

  Guided by Nura, they walked deeper and deeper into the wilderness. The landscape around them was gradually changing, growing menacing and gloomy. Here and there, their path was blocked by fallen larch trunks, moss hanging from them like beards, or by massive boulders clustered like mushrooms. Finally, Elanil heard what only the orc’s keen ears had detected until then. Growls, interspersed with desperate, guttural mooing, were already nearby.

  Something inside Elanil sank—they had to deal with wolves, after all. She hoped so much they would’ve ended up dealing with some nasty creatures, preferably constructs. The very prospect of slaughtering wolves, even for saving Bertha, made her wince with discomfort. Probably because she never liked fighting wolves in computer games—they always whined so pitifully when wounded. And from game to game, creators somehow made these whines increasingly more unbearable. At times, they sounded to her like a cruel massacre of puppies.

  After another turn of the path, they emerged into a relatively large clearing, flanked by rocks on two sides and a windfall on the other two. And there they saw Bertha—a pack of wolves had cornered her. The cow stood on a small rise and assumed a defensive posture, menacingly brandishing her horns at the pack. The wolves growled aggressively and snapped their teeth, but seemed wary of her willingness to attack, apparently genuinely afraid of the sharp horns. No one wanted to be ripped apart for the sake of the pack’s communal meal.

  Sensing the arrival of strangers, the wolves standing in the back rows, but closest to the party, turned and growled in their direction, their hair bristling. Nura drew her axes and assumed a fighting stance.

  “Let’s see which one of you will be the best coat,” she roared fiercely, almost mimicking wild animals. Hearing the orc’s battle cry, the entire pack instantly lost interest in the cow and turned on the party.

  “One moment,” Gaspard stopped Nura, pulling a lute from behind his back. “Let me try something first.”

  He struck a chord that made all the wolves flinch. He struck a second chord, and the animals backed away and stopped growling. Elanil saw the growing confusion in their eyes. Gaspard struck a third chord—Elanil and Nura gasped in surprise. All the wolves jumped up on their hind legs like circus dogs. The next moment, they paired up, each placing their front paws on their partner’s shoulders with a dull thud. Then Gaspard struck the fourth and final chord, after which the lute began playing the melody without his help.

  The most astonishing thing was the wolves’ reaction—they were dancing, extremely clumsily though, but that was hardly surprising, given that they could never have imagined they would have to do such a thing. Elanil watched this scene with a mixture of surprise and delight, as the inevitable execution of the cornered animal turned into a dance floor for toothy and ferocious predators. And the wolves, judging by the expressions on their muzzles, were simply panicking. If their bodies obeyed them, they would have fled in all directions from this terrifying bard and his diabolical musical instrument. But they continued to dance, following the charming rhythms set by Gaspard’s magical lute.

  “As you commanded, my lady,” he turned to Elanil with a humble bow. “Everyone’s safe and sound. What do we do next?”

  “Those [Enchanting Chords] of yours can make them tear each other apart, right?” Nura asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s the first time I’m using this ability. Shall we try it?”

  “Wait,” Elanil interrupted. “I think they’re already so scared that if you stop controlling them, they won’t care about us anymore.”

  “We’ll find out soon; the spell will wear off momentarily,” Gaspard shrugged. And indeed, the lute played a couple more bars and then fell silent. The final chord hung over the clearing for a bit and dissolved somewhere in the larch crowns. Immediately, all the predators were back on all fours. A moment later, they all scattered in different directions, yelping almost like puppies.

  “You were right,” Gaspard concluded. “Intelligent animals, these wolves. I’d do the same thing if someone forced me to dance on my hind legs against my will, and then, on some whim, let me go for a moment. I certainly wouldn’t attack such an enemy.”

  They descended the rocks to a flat area. Elanil stepped forward toward the cow, which kept standing in the corner. Step by step, Elanil approached cautiously, so as not to provoke the frightened animal with her sudden movements. But to her relief, as soon as she came close enough to Bertha, the latter calmly reached out and licked her palm, as if to say she trusted her.

  “Bertha, Amanda sent us for you,” Elanil said. “We came to take you home.”

  “I don’t think she understands what you’re saying,” Gaspard remarked. But the cow nodded as if she really understood. “Hmm, funny. Shall we go back then?”

  [Party Update: Bertha joined the Party]

  Quest: A cow in trouble

  Status: Updated

  Objective: Bring Bertha back.

  Additional Information:

  You saved Bertha from the pack of wolves. Now you should bring her back to Amanda… or kill her, to Clarissa’s delight.

  Reward:

  – XP

  – Money

  – Gift (conditional)

  – The Valley of Ringing Springs reputation

  On their way back, they animatedly discussed what happened in the clearing.

  “What a performance you gave!” Nura’s laughter echoed through the surrounding trees. As they approached the village, the forest once again became friendlier and brighter. “I never thought I’d see dancing wolves, and it would be both touching and funny.”

  “That’s the benefit of me joining the party. Hold your admiration, there’s more to come,” Gaspard assured her. “I bet, the fellas from the Buskers guild would kill to have such ability.”

  “By the way, you both have control-based abilities,” Elanil noted. “Perhaps you can do some particularly effective combos. Like, Nura’s battle cries could confuse enemies, allowing your lute to more effectively subjugate their will while they’re weakened.”

  “Perhaps,” Gaspard nodded. “We’ll see.”

  “Look, who’s that on the bridge?” Nura drew their attention.

  Ahead, they saw the familiar bridge over the stream at the edge of the village, the one they had crossed a few hours earlier on their way into the forest. Elanil squinted: two large, lumbering fellows were loitering near the bridge, as if guarding it. Roughly built, like ogres, they didn’t look neither friendly, nor intelligent.

  “Hey, you,” one of them barked. “This is our bridge. Pay for your pass.”

  “Yeah,” the other nodded with a goofy grin. “Turn out your pockets, we’re gonna mug ya.”

  Elanil, Gaspard, and Nura exchanged silent glances, assessing the situation.

  “Are you deaf or something?” the first one growled irritably. Both men drew their short, rusty swords. Pointing them at the party, he repeated, “This is our bridge. Give us all your money.”

  “I think we’ll settle this quickly,” Gaspard sighed wearily. This time, he didn’t even take out his lute—the instrument itself produced only a single chord, broken and dissonant. The bumpkins turned to face each other, panic on their silly faces. The next second, their swords sank into each other’s stomachs. With a gurgling wheeze they rolled eyes. Two heavy bodies fell onto the bridge like two dropped sacks of coal.

  +1 EXP