It's early evening as Elan and his new friend Twilly make their way down the road to the western gate of Falconreach. A stone wall surrounds the town, with thatched roofs peeking out above it and the stone Guardian Tower standing high on a hill above the rest.
A cheerful sign by the side of the road says "Falconreach" and then, in smaller writing, "Heroes welcome!"
The falcon statues are even cooler up close!
"Do you think that means there's more heroes in Falconreach than in other cities?"
"Yep! Heroes come to Falconreach from all over Lore, because it's on the way to lotsa places!"
"Lore is the whole planet, and the country is Greenguard," Twilly starts to explain as they reach the gates.
Two people in shiny gold-embellished armour are standing guard. Their weapons look very sharp and very real.
"Hail, adventurer!" one of them says. "Are you here to help us with the war effort?"
"Um… I didn't know there was a war on. I have a quest in the Surewould Forest that I don't know how long it will take, but I think once it's finished I'll be able to help with other stuff?"
"We've received word of a massive undead army on its way to surround the town," she explains. "We've already had a few skirmishes, and we're expecting a big attack tonight once the sun goes down. We'd appreciate any help you could give while you're here—talk to a boy named Ash in the town square."
"Oh! I helped drop a bunch of bombs on an undead army that was going towards Oaklore earlier. Undead and also slimy. But that was probably a different army…"
Elan goes quiet. He was already planning to spend the night in Falconreach so he'd have plenty of time for sneevil-finding tomorrow, so it's not like he has to choose between helping out tonight and trying to find the Black Dragon Box. But he's also not sure how much help he would even be, and what if the fight ends up being like Azure City?
"I knows Ash! Come on, Elan, let's go talk to him and find out more!"
Twilly leads the way through the gates and down the main street.
"Okay!"
Elan looks around at the buildings and people going about their day.
Timber-framed houses with cheerful whitewashed walls line the streets. Most of them are only a single storey, but they look cosy rather than cramped. There aren't many people out and about other than more of the armoured city guards, but as the light begins to fade, candles flicker to life in the windows, lending a warm glow to the evening.
Past a shop with a potion bottle painted on its hanging sign, they enter a wide open square at the centre of a crossroads. On the north side of the square, there's an inn (one of the few two-storey buildings) and a smithy, both identified by similar picture-based signs. To the south is a bank and a large, official-looking building that might be the town hall. The north road looks like it eventually winds its way up the hill to the Guardian Tower.
Twilly waves enthusiastically at someone standing just outside the inn.
"Hiyas, Ash! Meet my new friend Elan!"
Ash turns out to be a dark-haired boy of about 13 or 14, wearing a few bits and pieces of armour and carrying a sword that's a little too long for him.
"Hi Twilly! And...Elan? It's very nice to meet you! My name's Ash, and I'm going to be a knight one day! Are you an adventurer?"
Elan loves how cozy it is! And all the picture signs. It's pretty different from the big cities he's been to before (Cliffport and Azure City) and he likes it.
"Hi Ash! Yeah, I'm Elan and I'm an adventurer. The guards said there were a bunch of undead coming to attack the city tonight and that you would know more about what to do."
He's still apprehensive about this, but he weirdly feels better that the guy in charge is a kid.
"That's right! I've been running messages and coordinating volunteers," Ash says proudly. "I know I'm just a kid, but it's better than taking one of the Guardians away from the front lines. We need every able body we can get to help defend Falconreach! Will you help?"
"I can try! What kinda help do you need? I'm okay with a sword and I can do illusions… wait, I think those don't work on undead… but I can also play inspiring music that helps other people do their best!"
"Inspiring music sounds great! Does it work best if the other people are really good fighters already, or if they're not, or does that not matter at all? Sorry, I've not heard of a class that does inspiring music before..."
"…um, I'm not super good at math, but it gives a plus two. So maybe that means it works best for people who are already good enough at whatever they're trying to do that they do it right sometimes but not all the time? Oh, do you know if the undead attacking are the kind that can do magic fear? I can also play a different kind of music that makes people braver."
"I, uh...haven't had any reports about magic fear? Mostly people seem a normal amount of scared of the army of undead that's attacking the city! I think a song that makes people better at fighting is probably more useful than one that makes them braver. Most of the people fighting are Guardians or adventurers, and they're already really brave!"
"That's true… I think my bravery song helps for attack rolls and damage rolls? I usually use the competence song because it's pretty all-purpose."
A thought occurs to him.
"I'm not wasting your time trying to figure this out, right? I wanna do the most helpful thing, but if it would be better for me to start doing stuff right now I can."
"You're not wasting my time. This sort of thing is what I'm here for! It doesn't sound like the main attack has started yet, anyway." He puts his hand to his mouth in an exaggerated 'thinking' gesture. "If your bravery song and your competence song both help the same amount with fighting, I think you should use the bravery song. Being braver is never a bad thing!"
That thinking gesture looks pretty normal to Elan!
"Okay! The guards said that the undead were going to try to surround the city, so where should I go? Oh, Twilly, are you staying with me or doing something else?"
"Twillies go help in the healers tent!" He points to a big tent set up at the edge of the square. "Unless you wants me to fight with you, Elan?"
"Nah, the healers' tent sounds like a great choice since you're a healers! I think I'll be okay…"
He's still a little concerned, though.
"How long do you think the fighting will be? All night? A whole day? Longer?"
Twilly looks at Ash, who shrugs uncertainly. "I'm not sure. But it'll go a lot faster with your help!"
Elan really hopes that means he should be expecting something more like earlier with Glumbert than like Azure City.
"Okay. I think I'm ready. Where are the people I should play for? Or are there a bunch in different places?"
"There are teams of Guardians at the south and east gates, but the biggest group is gathering at the west gate. That's where all the other adventurers are going, so I guess it must be where they think the most undead will attack! Just follow the main road straight back the way you came. Or I can come with you and show you the way, if you want!"
Ash scratches his head. "I guess there is? But it's just the gate to the docks, so nobody really calls it that. Anyway, I really don't mind showing you the way to the gate! I don't exactly have anything better to do—I'm pretty sure Guardian Jenni just gave me this job to keep me out of the way."
"Well, hopefully there aren't any underwater zombies attacking!"
Elan's gotten very familiar with the trouble posed by aquatic enemies.
"My friends would do that kinda stuff with me, too. Make stuff up to keep me out of the way."
"But you're a grown-up adventurer, not a kid like me! Why would they do that?" Ash protests as they start heading back towards the gate. He seems to have decided to accompany Elan.
"Well, I am the youngest one in the party, even if you ignore the ones who grow up slower than humans. But that's only a difference of like three years, so I think it's probably more that I get into trouble a lot. Like, one time I blew up a castle, which was pretty awesome at the time, except then we all got arrested because of it. But then it turned out that the arrest was kinda fake in the first place, because the guy who sent his paladin to arrest us actually wanted us to work for him but didn't have any other way to ask us because of… I think a bunch of secret stuff and rules? I dunno, I wasn't there when he explained it to Roy and then Roy was still mad at him when he explained it to the rest of us. Because the whole getting arrested thing really sucked."
Pause.
"I forgot what we were talking about before this."
Ash is utterly fascinated. "Whoa! You've had such exciting adventures! ...I also forgot what we were talking about."
Elan laughs.
"That's probably okay! Let's see…"
A lot of his stories from the past year are more scary-for-real or sad than exciting…
"A few months ago, my evil twin brother switched places with me so that I would be stuck in jail while he messed with my friends. I got his half-orc… uh, I think they're called ogres here… buddy who was in jail with me to break the bars. And then while I was trying to figure out how to catch up to my friends, I met a really cool famous pirate who gave me a ride to where my friends were staying on his airship and taught me a bunch of cool swordfighting tricks!"
"Ohmygosh your life is so cool!!!" Ash exclaims, voice breaking in excitement. He's not really looking where he's going anymore, but the gate is in view. The armoured guards seem to be gathering there along with a small group of recognisably adventurer-looking types.
Elan beams.
"Thanks! I'm not even ten years older than you, so I bet that by the time you're my age your life will be just as cool, or even cooler!"
Elan tries to figure out what the other adventurer-types seem to be feeling about the upcoming attack, and also how much cool stuff they have on them. That first thing is pretty hard, though, so he'll probably have to ask when they get in talking range.
The adventurers are mostly either fighters in plate armour, magic-users in robes, or dagger-wielding rogue types in leather. They're a colourful bunch, most of the armoured types having apparently painted their armour and the mages wearing different coloured robes, although none of them have coordinated their accessories or weapons with their overall colour scheme. Some of them look excited to be here, some are playing it cooler, but nobody seems terrified.
It's hard to tell how cool their stuff is, given the unfamiliar magic system. A lot of it seems weirder than he's used to: a rogue has a pair of daggers made entirely of glowing crystal, a fighter has a green-bladed sword with thorns sticking out of it and roses growing from the hilt...just about everyone has a weird probably-magic weapon, and a solid half of them have belts that look far too unfashionable not to be magic. (He'll have to look closer to see if any are wearing rings.) The rest of their gear looks mostly normal, except that capes seem to be in fashion.
Elan tentatively concludes that the adventurers are expecting a challenge, but not a deadly one. He thinks their unfamiliar stuff looks pretty cool but can't draw any specific conclusions on what level they seem to be. The guys at the gate seemed to think he looked capable, though, so maybe Elan should also expect a nondeadly challenge.
"I'd ask if you wanna join in, but if something did happen to you then the Guardians might get mad at me. So… you should probably do whatever you were gonna do anyway."
Ash droops with disappointment. "Yeah, I'll just...see if the Guardians here have any messages they want me to take back. Good luck out there!"
"You too! Hopefully the next time something like this happens won't be until you're allowed to participate!"
Saying it out loud he's pretty sure that the next time something like this happens will be in like six months. Which sucks for a number of reasons!
Okay, well, he should probably get a better sense of the people he'll be working with before it suddenly turns into a zombie emergency! He tries to find a group that seems interruptible, and then:
"Hi guys! I'm Elan."
"Hello there!" says a man with long green hair and purple robes. "I'm Garth, and this is Yuraz and Fuyic," he says, indicating his companions in turn. Yuraz is a woman in blue leather with cherry-red hair, and Fuyic is a blond man in red-and-gold armour whose sword bears an uncanny resemblance to a large fish.
"What class are you?" Yuraz asks. "I don't recognise that style of armour."
"I'm a bard, mostly! This is actually just regular clothing; I used to have a mail shirt but then my evil twin brother stole all my clothes and when I got them back I had already had a significant costume change. Anyways, bards play magical music that uplifts people's spirits! I'm gonna play a bravery song that gives a morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws against fear."
"Awesome!" says Garth.
"Yeah, but you'd better get your Bard armour on already," says Fuyic. "The undead are already gathering out there."
"Oh crap!"
Elan's old stuff is in his backpack, but his mail shirt is almost definitely near the bottom. He can…try to get it out if it seems like undead are about to get close to him? For now, he decides to start playing, since that should help everyone around and not just him.
One of the city guards steps forward and clears her throat to get everyone's attention.
"Alright, adventurers, listen up! I'm Guardian Anna, and I'm in command on this front. For those of you who haven't heard the reports, we're looking at a large mixed group of skeletons, flying eyeballs, and deadwood trees. If you've got a Light weapon, get it out; if you can't use it, trade it to someone who can. We're going to move out as a group, taking the path to the north—that's on your right as you come out of the gates. Form up, let's get moving!"
Elan quiets down while Anna talks. The flying eyeballs and evil trees are unfamiliar. It's too bad Durkon isn't around! He would probably be great at fighting undead trees.
He starts playing again when the group gets moving. He wonders if he should get a bunch of elemental swords…
Their group heads out of the gates and up the northern path to a large clearing. Night is drawing in now, and the shadows beneath the trees stretch out across the grass with grasping hands.
From those shadows, the monsters emerge in waves.
First, a flurry of wings as a swarm of batlike shapes swoops down from the trees to harass the vanguard. Some merely slam full-body into the fighters, while others start blasting with their eye beams. In the flashes of red light, Elan can see that most of the body between the wings is taken up by a single giant eye, with only a little nub behind it to which the wings and tail connect.
Behind the flying eyeballs come the ground troops. There are the skeletons, armed with a mishmash of melee weapons from warhammers to katanas. Unlike the undead Elan is familiar with from back home, there's no telltale pinprick of light in their empty eye sockets, just a blank darkness. In amongst the skeletons are a few of the green slime monsters Elan saw back in Oaklore, although he's now getting a much closer look at them. Each slime is a blob about half the height of a man, with a blobby mouth opening and closing as it extends pseudopods to strike out at nearby enemies.
Alongside them shamble the deadwoods, walking trees with a few dying leaves clinging to their upper branches. In each trunk, the craggy bark forms the shape of a face, trapped in a leer, a grimace, or a scream of horror. The deadwoods pick their spots and root themselves into the ground with unnatural speed, sending their roots shooting back up in unpredictable locations to trip people up and grab at ankles. The heroes' advance slows and falters.
Gross, flying eyeballs! Elan had been imagining, like, lawyer-friendly beholders, not literal eyeballs with wings and… tails. The skeletons are, of course, spooky and scary, but mostly in a normal way. The evil trees are probably the creepiest enemies of all, mostly because of the expressions locked into their bark-faces. Elan can't help but imagine that these trees have human souls trapped inside them, forced to do the twisted bidding of some insane necromancer. Or something like that.
He should really focus on his courage song instead. Come on, heroes, be brave! Elan believes in you! It sure looks like there are a lot of scary monsters, but there are also a lot of heroes. And the heroes are working hard to defend what they believe in.
(Bardic songs don't necessarily have to be about whatever their effect is, since technically the effect is magical in nature. But it's a lot easier to pour your whole self into something if you're singing about something appropriate!)
The courage song seems to be helping! The defenders rally! These undead might be be horrifying and gross and so on, but ultimately they're just monsters that go down when you hit them enough times, right? They get on that.
A flying eyeball shoots up into the sky to get away from the fighter that had it cornered, and swoops down at Elan.
ew ew ew
Maybe next time Elan should play his song on the kazoo so he can have a free hand. For now, he'll switch from lute to sword as fast as he can… which is apparently fast enough that he can try to skewer the eyeball like a big gross cocktail olive. Neat!
It is stabbed! In retaliation, it attempts to slam its entire bodyweight into him. This isn't very effective, because its entire body is considerably smaller than his head.
Now he has a winged eyeball kebab skewered on his rapier.
While he was briefly distracted from the rest of the fight, the undead have pushed forward. The front line is closer to him than it was before, and if he doesn't do something about that, he might end up in melee with some non-flying monsters in the immediate future.
Oh, right, the part where there are a whole bunch of enemies. He flicks his rapier in the direction of the horde, because in his opinion it would be really funny if the eyeball bonked a skeleton on the head, then glances back for a free spot to retreat to because he'd rather play his song.
He can find a safer spot to stand and play his song!
The defenders push the undead back step by step. (Or, in the case of the slimes...squelch by squelch?) A few of them pick up the lyrics of Elan's song enough to sing along with the chorus when it comes around; this doesn't do anything to boost the magical effect, but it does seem to have a nonmagical effect on morale.
And after a while there are no more undead left standing! (Or flying, or squelching.) Not all the defenders are still standing either; the Guardians start coordinating efforts to help them drink healing potions if they're conscious or carry them back to town for healing if not.
It is literally the best thing ever when people start to sing along. Maybe he can learn some more local songs so the next time something like this happens he can get even more people to join in!
He makes a beeline to one of the people helping the unconscious defenders.
"I have a spell that can probably get up to thirteen people back on their feet!"
"Get the people you want me to cast it on together so that nobody's more than 30 feet away from anyone else. I can cast that specific spell once—and mana potions don't change that—but I have some other healing spells that work on one person at a time."
Sure, they can direct people to bring the unconscious adventurers over to Elan instead of back to town, it's closer.
Yay, he's helping!
After the first batch, he counts his spell slots. He can cast Cure Critical Wounds three times, Cure Serious Wounds four times, Cure Moderate Wounds four times, and Cure Light Wounds twice, if anyone needs that. He's probably going to bed after this anyway, after all.
Some but not all of that healing will be very much appreciated! Casualties were pretty light overall and nobody seems to have died. The adventurers seem to need a low-level-adventurer amount of healing, a bit more than the Oaklore knights but noticeably less than Elan's party members might.
And then they can all head back to town under their own power! The other adventurers are mostly in good spirits, even the ones who were previously badly injured.
One armoured fighter is showing off a kind of evil-looking axe with a skull on it. "—and even though it does Darkness damage I was still cleaving through skeletons like they weren't there!"
"Where did you say you got it?"
"From the inn in the town square! It was expensive, but absolutely worth it, this thing is crazy powerful."
Wow, being able to provide more help than needed (and not have this be a euphemism for "tried to help in a way that actually interfered and now the other guy is annoyed at him") is exciting! It's also good because it means everyone's doing okay!
That axe guy sounds significant! Elan lurks in an attempt to eavesdrop some more.
He's not the only one crowding closer to get a better look. A few people saw this guy fighting and can confirm that his axe seemed to do pretty well against the undead.
"Did it come from, like, a mysterious figure in a dark corner with a hooded cloak?" someone asks.
"Ha, good one. No, it was the innkeeper. Sarafina or whatever her name is."
"Sabrina?"
"Yeah, her."
"Oh, I got mine from her as well!" a mage puts in, waving a staff with a skull topper. "I was sceptical when she offered me a Darkness weapon for fighting undead, but it worked fine! And if it does that well against undead, I'm definitely making it my main weapon from now on, 'cause it'll be even better against everything else."
Hmmm.
The more Elan listens, the more significant it sounds. He should probably find out more about Sabrina the innkeeper, especially since he'll probably be staying at the inn tonight.
"Darkness is usually bad against undead, right?" he asks someone who hasn't yet proclaimed that they got an extra-special Darkness axe.
"Yeah, undead are Darkness aligned, so they tend to have resistance to it. The best thing to use is a Light weapon like mine." She holds up one of her glowing crystalline daggers. "Most people don't have a full elemental set, though; I'm lucky I had these. A Darkness weapon could easily be someone's best option if they were unlucky."
Elan nods.
"I wonder why these guys' Darkness weapons did so good, then! We probably weren't fighting… weird secret Light-aligned undead… maybe the weapons are just good enough that they overcame the undead resistance? Or maybe they're regular weapons that just look like Darkness weapons…"
"I think the story is they do more damage than other weapons, by enough that it cancels out the resistance? They can't secretly be some other element, you'd notice as soon as you used them. Just like we'd have noticed if the undead were attacking with Light instead of Darkness. Are you new to this or something?"
"Yeah!"
He's also generally quite silly, of course, but as long as it's true that he's new to this he doesn't see anything wrong with admitting it. It makes sense that you can tell the difference between weapon types, though, just like how Static felt static-y.
"Huh, okay. Well, you should get the hang of telling damage types apart soon. They're obvious when you use a weapon or see someone use it up close, and you can usually tell just from picking one up once you know what to look for."
Elan nods.
"That makes sense. Do stronger ones ever hurt to touch? I mean, if you're not being attacked by them. Obviously a weapon being used to attack you hurts."
"I don't think I've ever even heard of that. Who'd design a weapon that hurt to use? And who'd buy it?"
"That… is a good question. Where I come from sometimes mean people put curses on weapons as traps or just because…"
Shoot, did that make him sound suspicious?
"Thanks! I'm from a different planet with different magic and classes and stuff."
If he said the name of the country he was born it would probably turn this conversation into a Who's On First bit.
"Oh, cool," she says distractedly, not sounding like she really believes him.
Anyway, here's the town square again! It continues to have an inn; most of the adventurers head there.
Also here's Ash!
"Hi, Elan! How did it go? Did your courage song help?"
The great thing about low-stakes interactions is that it doesn't really matter if the other person believes him about where he's from.
"Hi Ash! I think it helped a lot. There was a kind of scary moment where a flying eyeball tried to get me, but I managed to get it first, and then when I started playing again the people around me started singing along! It was really cool and now I wanna learn some of the songs that people around here know."
"Awesome! Um, the best place to hear songs is probably the inn? You should get a room there for the night, anyway, it's pretty late."
(It's now fully dark; the sun finished setting while they were fighting the undead.)
"That's true! Plus, I overheard some people talking about how the innkeeper sells really good weapons, apparently? There were like two people who got sold Darkness weapons for tonight's fight and they said they cut through the skeletons like they weren't even there."
"Darkness weapons? That's super weird! Maybe I should investigate that..." He yawns. "...but maybe tomorrow."
Elan laughs.
"You said it!"
Off to the inn! Well, Elan should find Twilly first. But then it can be off to the inn.
"It went pretty good! Flying eyeballs are really gross. One was trying to get me, but I managed to skewer it like a nasty eyeball kebab. And then everyone started singing along with my courage song! That was awesome."
"Yay! We's been really bored in the healers' tent, so it must have gone well."
Twilly has his own place in Falconreach that he shares with some other moglins, so he doesn't need to go to the inn, but he can go in with Elan and introduce him to the innkeeper?
"That does sound like a good sign."
Elan appreciates this!
"Does the innkeeper also make weapons on the side?" he asks on the way.
"She sells them sometimes but I doesn't think she makes them herself? It's mostly adventurers trading in their old stuff for new stuff, I thinks."
Inn! The entryway has a hatstand and a big noticeboard labelled "Odd Jobs", which looks to Elan's well-honed adventuring eyes like a source of sidequests. Twilly goes right on through the next door and into the main room.
"Huh! I guess that pushes the question of the weirdly good weapons back."
Elan takes note of the sidequest board but follows Twilly in. Man, he loves inns. They're so homey! For obvious reasons, of course, but also because they're such an adventuring classic.
The main room is bathed in the warm glow of candles, and filled with the cheery hubbub of adventurers celebrating their victory with one last drink before bed.
A blonde woman wearing an apron stands behind the counter. "Hi, welcome to the inn! I'm Sabrina. Looking for a bed for the night?"
"Nice to meet you, Elan."
She will sell him a room and a meal for what Twilly can confirm are reasonable prices!
Hooray! Elan can listen to the other patrons talk while he eats his meal. Well, sometimes he gets distracted because something someone said reminded him of something else. But either way, he doesn't have to think about his looming responsibilities right now and that's fine by him.
The chatter in the main room is lighthearted, the adventurers in high spirits after their victory. Some of them are swapping stories: none sound very impressive to Elan, it's mostly low-level stuff like fighting sneevils, bandits, and forest animals, but some of them have fought undead before and are comparing stories about that.
Somebody is telling everyone about this really weird metal monster they fought in the woods near here. Someone else is complaining about the time they trekked through a really muddy marsh full of aggressive mushrooms and didn't even get any good loot. One guy is trying (and failing) to convince his drinking companions that he fought a dragon once.
It's kind of weird, listening in on all these low-level encounter stories. Elan's used to feeling lost and out of his depth, like everyone is more grown-up than him. Well, Belkar doesn't really make him feel like that, he thinks. And Haley doesn't make him feel like that in a bad way. But now he feels kind of the opposite. He wonders how long it will take for his adventures to catch up with him…
The guy talking about the dragon catches his ear and he loses his train of thought.
"—I'm telling you, it was taller than this entire inn! It could've eaten me up in one bite!"
"Yeah, right. Why didn't it, then, huh?"
"Because...I had very cleverly smeared myself with garlic!"
"...garlic?"
"They can't stand the stuff!"
"I thought that was vampires?"
"Well, uh, it works on vampires too, I guess. But it definitely works on dragons."
"I think you're making this up. I think if I covered you in garlic and offered you to a dragon it'd say Oh, how nice of you to season the meat—"
"Shut up, I'm telling you, it happened!"
"Yeah! That's totally it. It was a vampire dragon."
"Suuuure."
"Fine, don't believe me. Just don't come crying to me when a dragon eats you because you didn't listen to my expert dragon-fighting tips."
Elan giggles. He fought a dragon once! Well, he got pinned under a dragon's foot for a few minutes before it swallowed Haley whole and then spat her out because Lizard Vaarsuvius charmed it. And then disintegrated it when they were no longer a lizard. And also Haley told him she loved ukuleles because she chickened out of telling him she loved him at the last second.
… he should go to bed, probably.
There's a room waiting upstairs for him.
It's not large or fancy, but he has it all to himself. There's a fire in the hearth, a rug on the floor, and a softer bed than the one he slept in at Oaklore Keep last night.
Cozy! Elan sits in front of the fire for a few minutes, until he starts to get dozy right there on the floor. He gets into bed, which is just as cozy as sitting in front of the fire anyway.
"Good morning. I hope you slept well!"
Sabrina will serve him breakfast along with all the other sleepy guests. There are a few people in the inn this morning who look like normal travellers, but this mostly seems to be an adventurer hangout.
"Good morning! I did, yeah, and everything was really great."
Before digging into breakfast, he decides to ask about the weapons.
"I was in the defense party last night, and a bunch of people said they got really good weapons from you right before! Did some really powerful adventurer come in recently or something?"
"I do have some pretty powerful weapons for sale, and I sold a few yesterday to some adventurers who were about to fight the undead!" she confirms cheerfully. "Are you interested in buying one yourself?"
"Maybe not right now, 'cause I'm saving my money."
On account of only having started to earn any around here the day before yesterday, but still.
"Thanks for offering, though! Maybe sometime soon I'll come by and have more money to spare."
And now he can focus on the most important meal of the day!
Twilly shows up around the time he's finishing breakfast.
"Hiyas, Elan! What do you wanna do today? We could head straight to Surewould Forest, or we could go shopping in town first if you wants?"
"Hi Twilly! Hmm… do you think a map is something we could find in town?"
"Weren't we gonna see if someone had a map of Surewould Forest that was like the one Sir Valance had?"
Elan takes Sir Valance's map out, just in case he did something silly like not notice that the map he already has covers that area already.
(Sir Valance's map sadly only covers Oaklore Forest.)
"Oh yeah! Twillies not sure who to ask, though. Maybe the Odd Jobs board has something that could help? Or we's could go into the forest and ask my friend Robina! She knows loads about Surewould Forest!"
"Yay! Is there anythings else you wants to do first? We's could buy you some more weapons with different elements, maybes? Oh! And we has the moglinberries to sell!"
"Hmm, that is a good idea. I think I have enough for one weapon, if it counts as much as Static? Maybe I should ask Sabrina how much her stuff costs… it's kind of a shame I let the bear have all my berries, except for the part where it kept you safe."
"You can have half the money from my berries, Elan! We picked them together anyways, and it's my fault you had to feed yours to a bear..."
"That sounds like a good idea! Do you think we should ask Sabrina about her weapon prices before selling the berries, or after? Who should we sell them to, anyway? Is there someone who makes all sorts of jams and fruity treats?"
"Well, Sabrina is right here? Oh, and Spruce is also right here!" Twilly waves at a green moglin on the other side of the room, who smiles and waves back. "She makes moglinberry cordials and jams and things for the inn."
If Haley were here, she would probably try to figure out who would be likely to pay more.
"Well, does Sabrina usually buy everything she needs for the inn by herself? If it's usually her job to buy things then we should probably talk to her. And then maybe talk to Spruce later, just for fun? Ooh, but maybe if we sell Spruce the berries then she'll give us a discount on the berry products, or pay us in cooking classes! Except you can't buy swords with cooking classes, at least not from innkeepers. So probably we should just do all the money stuff with Sabrina today?"
"I thinks if we sold the berries to Sabrina she'd probably just sell them to Spruce to make delicious things with?" Twilly points out. "So it makes more sense to sell them to Spruce ourselves. And once we've done that and counted how much moneys you have, we can ask Sabrina about weapons and you'll know if you can afford to buy them!"
"Okay!" agrees Elan cheerfully. "I guess I assumed that she worked here, as a berry chef! That's probably too specific. A fruit chef?"
Twilly giggles as they make their way over to Spruce.
"Hiyas, Spruce! This is my new friend Elan!"
"Hiya! Good to meetcha, Elan!"
Spruce is only the third moglin Elan's seen up close, counting the blue one who set the bear on them. She looks pretty similar to Twilly, other than having green fur instead of red; if there are visible differences between male and female moglins, they're subtle.
"Hi Spruce! Twilly and I picked some moglinberries yesterday and he said that you would be a good person to sell them to."
"Oooo, moglinberries, yummy! And if you only picked 'em yesterday, they'll be nice and fresh. I'll take 'em for sure!"
"Hooray!"
Then the sale of moglinberries can proceed.
"Do you make healing potions with them, too?" he asks conversationally. "Or just regular food?"
"Me? Nah, I'm not an alchemist. If you wanna talk to one of those, there's a new potions shop around the corner that just opened recently. I heard the lady who runs it is a Master Alchemist all the way from the capital!"
"Whoa, that sounds pretty cool!"
It's a shame that Elan's so busy right now, since he keeps hearing about fun things to do and see! Maybe things will calm down a little bit soon and Elan can take a couple of days to really explore Falconreach. Although it probably wouldn't hurt to get his hands on some healing potions, in case he gets separated from Twilly or something.
"Hopefully we'll see you around!"
And now to see what Sabrina has for sale…
Sabrina has an eclectic selection of weapons for sale, most of which were apparently sold to her (or to the inn's previous owner) by passing adventurers. She pulls out a box from under the counter to show him the selection. Daggers, staffs, swords, a few axes, all in wildly different designs.
"What kind of weapons are you looking for, are you mostly a swords guy? You seem a little high-level for most of this junk, but I might have something that's an improvement on that Energy sword..."
"I use rapiers 'cause they're lighter and flashier! My total character level is fourteen but I dunno what system you guys use here—I'm used to epic levels starting at twenty, except the difference between level one and level two is smaller than the difference between level two and level three, so I'm not actually almost three-quarters of the way to epic. What elements do you have? Even if it's kinda low-level, it'd still be one more element than I have right now!"
"Hmm, other than that level 50 scythe on the wall, I don't think I have anything above level 10 right now..."
(Mounted on the wall behind the bar is a super fancy silver-edged scythe, with 3 concentric spinning rings encircling a floating gemstone at the top of its haft. It radiates magic strongly enough that Elan can sense it from several steps away.)
Sabrina starts rummaging in the box. "How about a level 8 Light sword?" she suggests, passing him a green sword wrapped in briars. "That'll be good if we get any more undead incursions! And I'm pretty sure I've got a level 9 Ice sword in here somewhere...or if you're looking for something a bit lighter, I've got daggers too..."
(That scythe is so cool. Elan is pretty sure that he's never going to buy it, even though it's so cool, because when would he even use it. But probably there are lots of different super-cool level 50 weapons out there! And probably at least one that's just right for Elan.)
"I've never used a dagger before," he says thoughtfully, "but maybe I should learn sometime?"
He holds the planty sword experimentally. Anti-undead is probably more handy than anti-fire, but level 9 is stronger than level 8. Maybe he'll go with whichever one feels cooler (…as in awesome, not necessarily as in cold) to hold.
The plant sword feels synaesthetically warm and bright, like being outside on a sunny summer day. It makes a bright shiiing sound when he experimentally swings it. It's broader than the rapiers he's used to, but it's lighter than a metal sword of its size.
While he's testing that one, Sabrina digs up a big sword with a strangely cleft blade, a small hunting knife, and a dagger that looks like it's made of ice. (The hilt is wrapped with leather.)
"Ice sword, Light dagger, Ice dagger," she says, pointing to each in turn. "And"—she lowers her voice a little—"you were interested in the other weapons too, right?"
Elan is immediately a fan of how the Light sword feels in his hand. The Ice sword seems a bit much; maybe whenever he gets an Ice weapon he should go for the dagger.
"Is it okay to look at them even if I can't afford them yet?"
He succeeds at having an inside voice.
"Sure. They are a good bit more expensive than the rest, fair warning! Hmm, you probably don't want an axe, so take a look at this one..."
From a different box hidden under the counter, she pulls out a weapon that certainly looks cooler and more expensive than the others he's been looking at. It's a curved single-edged short sword, like a scimitar, with a wicked-looking serrated edge and a decorative skull on the crossguard. A second blade, a little smaller but with the same curved, jagged shape, protrudes from the pommel (decorated with another skull), turning it into a double-ended weapon.
"The Twin Blades of Doom! Have a try, see what you think."
"Well, twin blades would be thematically significant," he says to himself.
He hesitates just long enough to ask himself if this seems like a trick to get him to touch a super-evil weapon that will possess or mind-control him. He decides that honestly it would be more likely that she'd use one of the regular-looking weapons if she was doing some sort of long con like that.
So he experimentally picks it up.
...well, his eyes don't start glowing red and he doesn't start chanting in Infernal, so he's probably fine on the possession front?
As Elan picks up the Twin Blades of Doom, a rush of power surges through his veins, cool and refreshing like the night breeze, washing away the lingering sleepiness of the morning. The weapon is light in his hands, and moves easily; it's not what he's used to, but it feels like it would fit his swashbuckling fighting style better than a broadsword or an axe.
Whoa that's cool. It immediately makes perfect sense why the people who had swords like this did a good job last night against all the spooky monsters.
"Where'd you get these?" he says, in less of an inside voice than before.
Shrug. "I don't really keep track of where I get any of this stuff. Adventurers come in all the time and sell me things they don't need anymore."
okay 💙 yay 💙
Elan almost definitely can't afford this thing, but he can still ask the price.
Sabrina will happily quote him prices for all the weapons he's been looking at! The normal swords or daggers are all within his budget, although he can't quite afford two of them right now, so he'll have to pick one.
...and then for the Twin Blades of Doom she says a number that has another couple of zeroes on the end. He super cannot afford it even a little bit.
Elan reluctantly sets down the extremely cool double-ended sword thing because yeah, he'd need way more money to afford that thing. It didn't hurt to ask, though!
He decides to buy the Light sword. It's always good to be prepared to deal with undead.
"Hope you have a great day!"
She seems nice! And definitely not suspicious.
"We're gonna meet your friend Robina next, right?" he says to Twilly on the way out. "'Cause we sold the berries and got a sword?"
"Yep! We's going to Surewould Forest to see Robina and ask her where to find the sneevil forts!"
Ash is in the square outside the inn! He has an old shirt stuffed with straw and tied to a pole, and he's industriously hitting it with a wooden sword. As Elan and Twilly exit the inn, he overhears the last part of their conversation.
"Oh, that sounds like a fun adventure! Would it be alright if I tag along? I won't be in the way, I promise! I've been practicing really hard with my sword, I'm sure I can handle some sneevils."
Elan thinks.
"That sounds okay to me. None of the sneevils we've talked to have tried attacking us yet, although there was that time they were gonna kick Twilly out of their fort. And they're kind of frustrating to deal with, but mostly because they're kind of self-centered. Anyways, I think it should be all right. What do you think, Twilly?"
"I think it's proooobably fine? Sneevils aren't very tough, and if Ash does get hurt, we's got lots of healing magic between us! But, Ash, you gots to listen if we tells you to run away because we met something too scary, okies?"
"Yesss—I mean, yes, of course, I promise!"
Eeeee he gets to go on a real adventure with a real grown-up adventurer! He puts his wooden sword away and hurries to follow Elan and Twilly, fumbling to attach his real sword to his belt as he walks.
"So why do you want to look for sneevil forts, anyway? Is there a bounty up on the jobs board? Are you looking for treasure to sell? Oh, oh, did they steal a super important legendary artifact and you're on a quest to get it back?"
Ash is so cool.
"Yeah! Or, I don't know how legendary it is, but I'm pretty sure it's super important. And I guess to be fair these particular sneevils didn't steal it, they just traded it with some other sneevils who did."
"Ohmygosh I'm on a quest to help find a super important stolen artifact!" Ash whispers to himself, not quite quietly enough. "This is so cool!"
Twilly leads the way east, the opposite direction from the way they came into the city last night.
Not far out of the town square, they pass a big fancy set of double doors that probably aren't solid gold, but are certainly gilded, and engraved with intricate carvings. Other than that, it's mostly houses in this direction, but right near the eastern gate is a shop with an animal paw-print on its sign and a birdcage visible in the window.
Ash's enthusiasm is infectious; Elan walks bouncily.
"Ooh, a pet shop! Or maybe a familiar shop?"
"That's Grams's pet shop! She's super nice, and she's really good at training pets. She pays me to help out with the animals sometimes, and some of them are really cool and rare! She even has a pit grinder that's, like, incredibly tame, even though they're supposed to be impossible to train. I got to pet it once, and look, I still have all my fingers!" He displays them proudly.
