Mark of the Witch

4

^^ Rollo ^^

There was something of a ruckus, following my shout at the front door of the bar, as many of my grandkids who were in attendance rushed over to me, introducing themselves so I could match their voices to how their characters looked now. One of them, a young-looking man with shaggy brown hair and leather armor, introduced himself as Rollo, giving me a tight hug for a solid minute or so and instigating a round of group hugs.

Pulling back finally and guiding me to a seat in the more exclusive side of the tavern while secretly rubbing his eyes to halt any stray tears, Rollo soon sat across from me stoically. "So, Mimi, how are you doing? How do you like the game so far?"

"Not much has changed since we talked this morning, to be honest, though I've learned a few more things about the city since then. 95 factions... we have our work cut out for us, if we want to either ally with or remove all of them... I'll have to form my own Faction, though, I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation if I joined yours."

He grimaced, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I would've advised you not to choose that Mark, had I known, but what's done is done, and you've already got a very interesting character build, so let's focus on building your reputation up enough that people will leave you alone, first."

"I agree completely... How does one do that?"

"One completes Quests, firstly, and clears dungeons. Killing monsters earns a little Reputation every time, and quests give a whole lot of it, but the issue is that if your reputation is too low, you can't take quests in the first place, so probably hunting in a dungeon is our best bet. In fact, I have a few Hunting Quests already, so I'll just take you along and you can get the hang of it along the way! Sound good?"

"Hunting in the first dungeon couldn't have been too advanced, I imagine, so I'll be wary of danger until I understand how powerful I am, yes. When do we start?"

"As soon as I gather a Raid Group. Aster, Amir, David, Uriah, Let's go challenge a dungeon to get her used to combat and gain a little Reputation, yeah?"

The people who he'd called out to nodded and started changing their equipment to more combat-ready attire and various stages of medieval armor, and within a few minutes we were out of the door, walking northward out of the city and into the vast rocky planes that surrounded the hill the city was built upon. Several roads spread outward from the gates, going in every cardinal direction and splitting off at times as they reached for the horizon, and I'd been informed that each of these lead to another city, town, or village, except the one that went northward, which were actually towards the Ports, of which there were three.

Hearing this part, I frowned thoughtfully, watching my feet so I didn't trip on the rocky, dusty path we were traversing as a group. "I wonder how three different Port Cities manage to have stable trade without fighting every ten minutes and disrupting trade routes?"

A young woman to my left, who'd been introduced as 'Aster', chuckled at the question and answered with a smirk. "They don't. There's actually a Quest Chain for solving the endless fighting at the docks, but no one has ever managed to even reach the second quest in the chain, and it's already been a year and a half since the game started."

"No one has tried burning down all the docks except one?" I hummed, already building plans, and raised an eyebrow at the incredulous gazes of the other members of the party. "What? That'd solve the fighting, lickety-split."

Aster nodded cautiously, then responded slowly. "And... financially ruin hundreds of people?"

"The game is called 'Conquest', young lady, not 'Political Rule by way of Polite Democratic Values'." I shook my head at their total naïveté, then gestured at the small rocky foothill in front of us, our apparent destination due to the tall stone archway visible from several dozen meters away. "Regardless, is this the Dungeon?"