Might as Well

After leaving the manor, disguising himself, and losing at least two people who followed him after exiting the gate of the Silvercrest manor, Sam went around the city, periodically changing his looks, doing odd things, and walking in circles for a while.

Then, when he was sure that nobody was following him anymore, he shed his latest disguise, returned to his original look, pocketing the Chameleon Mask, Sam began to whistle gently and began walking towards one of the general shops.

The information provided by the Lord was somewhat vague, with the only thing being known about the Chalice, that it was hidden in one of the old ironwood forests around the city. This kinda of made sense, but also made his job much harder as all ancient groves of trees were either heavily guarded or so hidden, nobody knew where they were.

And if that wasn’t enough, Lord Silvercrest was sure that his enemies also knew that the only thing capable of saving his wife was the Chalice so they would either hinder him or search for the Chalice themselves.

Thankfully, there was a silver lining to the story.

Sadly, it wasn’t that he knew exactly where the artifact was. This was a completely unknown quest to him, as the other Sam only knew about the probable after-effects of the quest. But the other Sam spent a lot of time in Ironwood, and by the time he arrived in the city, the guilds had already explored big parts of the area and guides were available for cheap. And those guides were currently rattling around in his head, ready to be used.

‘Let us see what will happen!’ he thought as he continued his preparations.

It was getting easier to handle, but logging out still left him a little confused and with a little uncontrollable body. Thankfully, the exercises he had been doing, and knowing about the issue and how it was handled in the future made it so that Sam just did a few stretching exercises and other movements, and the confusion was gone and his appendages were back under his control.

After going through his usual log-out routine, he sat down in front of his computer dressed in fresh clothing, hair still a little bit damp.

He checked his emails and other assorted notifications, pointedly ignoring anything related to Shadowland. He knew what it was mostly about, but first, he wanted to deal with the general stuff.

A quick check showed him that the official stuff was doing okay. His shares in Future Unknown were doing really well, as well as several other investments in companies that would become bigger and more profitable with the rise of the game.

Another check at the official site showed that the timeline hadn’t deviated yet, as they hadn’t posted anything that the other Sam hadn’t seen. There were the usual video compilations of the funny, sad and awesome moments, and he spent a little time watching those, trying to spot people that would be important, but sadly the company did a good job in anonymizing the player without decreasing the quality of the videos.

There were even a few scenes of Lucky in action in one of the compilations…

Sam made sure to download that one.

Then, he turned his attention to the forums.

Aside from the local sections that were focused on the conflicts and actions of certain towns, the main page of the game’s forum was occupied with the Life of Blood skill.

It was a good skill. Hell, it was an excellent skill. Ten percent base health regeneration for practically free, plus the subskill at the tenth level? It was basically a godly skill.

If it weren’t for that minuscule drawback…

As Sam scrolled through the forums, reading people overreacting or praising the skill, while several people were calling for nerfing it, if not outright banning it. But the developers were silent. Probably because they knew about the blood magic aspect.

Then, as Sam read another jealousy-filled rant, he had a wicked idea.

Grinning, ear to ear, he switched over to the Shadowland website, ignored all the requests for more Life of Blood skill books, and began typing.

It was a simple message.

Trolls, you idiots.

Under it, he added a few Wiki-like articles about the mythology of trolls, highlighting and quoting the parts about their superior regeneration and blood, then set the price of viewing the post the lowest amount possible. He added a few tags, just to make sure even more people saw it, then clicked on the upload button, leaned back in his chair, and watched as the chaos unfolded.

For a moment nothing happened, then as people realized that he had posted, they began to flock to his post, while happily watching as the viewer counter ticked up. It was just the cherry on the top that he got paid for it.

He gleefully read the responses.

‘LazyPhoenix thx as always, you r the bro!’

‘As always, quality content. Thanks!’

‘Thanks, bro, this will allow us to dominate the area! MightyWolves Go!’

‘MightyWolves suck! RagingDucks are the best!’

And so on…

Eventually, as with all forum threads, it devolved into name-calling and other nice things, so the mods intervened and locked the thread, while Sam just cackled in his apartment, watching the counter tick up faster and faster.

He made a good chunk of money and even hastened the approach of the Blood Dance… Probably.

But at least most people would be concentrating on hunting down the trolls to make as much money as possible.

And wouldn’t you know? Ironwood had several areas around it, especially in the mountains, that contained trolls.

“A perfect distraction for my mission…”

Ironwood City was abuzz around him as he collected the necessary supplies for his quest. He eyed as the proto-guilds, mercenary bands, gaming groups and other collections of greedy players moved around him, tense, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation.

While he was enjoying a nice dinner in a restaurant near his home, a guild found the trolls around Ironwood. There was a brief clash with two other guilds as the information naturally was leaked immediately.

As of now, there was an uneasy truce as the guilds geared up for a fight.

And Sam couldn’t be happier.

He already saw several groups of soldiers belonging to the noble families that the Lord of Silvercrest named as their enemies leave the city, heading, presumably, to support a group that earned that privilege. Or to take the troll hunting ground for themselves. One can never know…

And while the chaos was brewing around him, he stocked up his perishables, had his armor and weapon repaired, got some potions, and copied the local and other maps he gathered into his grimoire.

Standing in the middle of his room he looked at the collected items, making notes, trying to figure out if he missed something while Lucky lazily lay on the bed, watching him with sparkling eyes.

After half an hour of internal debate, he finally decided that he had everything he needed, so he put everything away into his inventory and bags of holding. Turning to Lucky, he spoke up softly.

“Are you ready, Lucky?”

His answer was an eager bark.

“All right. Then hop into my shadow and we can go!”

The wolf nodded, then slowly stood up and rather comically jumped into the air and dived headfirst into his shadow. Which was followed by a small notification window.

[Thanks to the growing connection between you and your spirit companion, Spirit Link has reached Level 7!]

Smiling silently, Sam dismissed the window, and with determined steps left the room.

His first step was to find an old man.

At least according to the Lord of Silvercrest, the old man he found was an old ranger that used to walk the hidden woods around the city of Ironwood. The lord managed to get an approximate location at the eastern part of the town, but the remaining legwork was left to Sam.

Sam could have started to canvass the area, but why work hard when there was an easy way?

He simply donned a dark cloak, used the Chameleon Mask to change his looks, this time into a pretty blonde and sought out one of the darker areas of the city, where crime was still the king.

Not as blatantly as in many seaside cities, but there was definitely a stench in the air that told him that not everything was alright in the area. Even the mana in the air was tainted a minuscule amount with darkness.

He purposefully strode forward, not too fast, or too slow, just with enough speed to show that he knew where he was going.

And when he spotted what he was looking for, he slowed down and then stopped. Turning towards a small alley, he activated his defensive skill just in case and called out.

“Hey kid, want to make some money?”

For a moment there was no reply or even movement in the alley, but then a small voice, hesitant but with a hidden spine, answered.

“Wat’chu want?”

Sam, knowing the rules, instead of answering just raised a hand that held one lone silver coin. Thanks to his somewhat advanced stats he managed to hear a small gasp from the shadows enveloping the alley.

“Looking for a man.”

“Name?”

“No name. A ranger. Old.”

There was another silence. He added another silver to his hand.

“Might kno’ some-some…”

Sam simply nodded.

“Five now, ten if they are who I’m looking for.”

He had no need to negotiate here. He had all the money he wanted, so why not make use of it?

There was a flurry of sounds in the alley, and then, hesitantly, a dirty-haired head belonging to a young urchin poked their head out. Sam honestly couldn’t tell if they were a girl or a boy…

The look on the face of the kid was pretty serious. Sam could see the light of greed in their eyes. He just snorted and nodded. He wasn’t feeling pity for them, as he knew from his inherited memories that kids like these dressed up as street urchins to make money from clueless people. They had homes, were fed, and were surprisingly well educated. Mostly to be able to con even more people, the little monsters. And surprisingly, every city had one of these child organizations. The prevailing theory was that the developers didn’t want to show starving kids in a game…

“Ya swear, mistah?”

“Drop the horrible accent and I will raise it to eleven,” Sam replied dryly.

The kid didn’t even blink.

“Of course, mister!” replying with an innocent looking smile and a glint in their eyes.

Sam snorted. “Show me.”

“Yes, mister. Follow me, I’ll show the way to Old Marak!”

Nodding silently, he threw the five coins at the kid, who caught them, and they instantly vanished into their rags. The kid nodded, and they began walking with Sam following after the excitable kid.

‘Maybe they are not even kids, but fey…’ he thought as he went over what he knew about the KidConOrg as the forums called them. ‘Making deals, tricking people, showing up everywhere and just altogether being mischievous…hmmm, should I?’

They were in another dark part of the city, walking by dilapidated houses, old shops and generally areas that had a serious need for a facelift.

While the kid excitedly led him through the streets and alleys of the darker side of Ironwood, he couldn’t help but notice that they were somewhat walking in a circle.

“Kid!”

The little menace turned around, and he could see in their eyes that they were trying not to laugh.

“Yes, mister? Whatever is the issue?”

Sam couldn’t help but snort again.

“I thought fey tended to keep to their deals…” he said, finally taking a stab in the dark.

For a moment, it was as if time froze, and then the smile on the kid’s face grew into a disproportional size.

He couldn’t help but shudder a little.

“We do,” came the reply, though instead of the squeaky voice of a child, it was an eery and echo-y

voice.

“Then why are we going in circles?”

The fey in the kid’s body just shrugged, the freaky smile still on their face.

“You were being followed, now you aren’t.”

“And you’re helping me. Why?”

“I’m not helping you. I’m helping the city. This is where I store my stuff. I would like if it stayed as it is,” came the clipped reply.

Sam thought about it for a second, and in the end, he had to agree with the kid.

“That makes sense,” with that he motioned for the fey to continue towards their goal, but the kid didn’t move an inch.

“Ah, ah, ah! You asked a question! And there are no freebies here!”

He cursed internally, while also making a note to read up on the rules of the fey. But he didn’t reply, refusing to acknowledge his ‘debt’.

The smile, as if possible, got even wider on the kid’s face.

“How about a question for a question?”

Sam nodded in agreement.

“Excellent! My question is as follows: How did you know?”

He almost chuckled at the question.

“No street urchin behaves like you. Fey are notorious for making deals. So, I made an educated guess. You just confirmed it,” he answered with a smirk.

The eyes on the kid went round in surprise, but then the kid flashed him a smile that contained more teeth than what was possible, and once again between two blinks, the dirty street urchin was back before him without the creepy smile.

“Let’s continue our journey, good sir!” they spoke up as if the previous discussion hadn’t happened.

Sam looked around, but somehow nobody walked by or showed up while they had their conversation. He shuddered again, and while walking behind the kid, he berated himself for being careless.

That could have gone worse…

After a few minutes, they finally arrived at a surprisingly nice building. The kid stopped before the door, then turned towards him with a hand held out, waiting for their pay.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. The man you are looking for is inside.”

“Good.”

He pulled out the promised six silver and placed it gently in the kid’s hand. However, when he pulled back his hand, one coin seemed to be stuck to his skin. As he stared at it curiously, the kid spoke up.

“A little memory for our first meeting…”

He looked at the coin, which, instead of the seal of the kingdom, now was totally unadorned, except for a simple butterfly symbol. He looked up, but the kid was gone. Instead, he was greeted by several notifications.

[Congratulations, you figured out the secret identity of a Fey! You may choose to gain 1 WIS and lose 1 LUK, or gain 1 LUK and lose 1 WIS!]

Sam stared at the screen for a moment, then spoke up.

“I choose neither.”

There was a moment of silence, and another screen popped up.

[Congratulations, you made a smart decision! You gain +1 PER!]

Nodding proudly, he continued to read.

[You received a Token of Friendship from a Fey!]

[It is up to you to decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing!]

[Token of Friendship (Fey): A coin bearing the mark of the fey. Can be exchanged for favors with the fey. Be warned, they are not obligated to accept it.]

‘Well, that seems supremely useless…’ Sam thought, then with a shrug put the token into his inventory and turned towards the house.

He had a nice lady to save…