World of Fantasy

Adventurer's Guild

QUILL

Quill was not having a good day. Well, sort of. But not really. He was honestly happy for Jane because she'd defeated the bear and levelled up. He was rather down on himself for doing pretty much nothing to help out. Other than give the bear something soft to land on when it had fallen on him.

He was covered in blood. Drenched. His clothing was soaked. It stunk, it was sticky and gross, and it attracted flies. Worst of all, Jane kept looking at him and giggling.

The three of them, Jane and Sapphire and himself, rolled the huge bear head through the forest. They wound their way around trees and did their best to avoid the high-level rabbits and spiders moving about. But a bear head is not perfectly round, nor does it always go where you want it to, and they were constantly fighting to stay on course. It was smelly, disgusting work.

Ah, the other side of being an adventurer. They tell you about the glory and the gold. They don't tell you about the blood and guts and embarrassment of pushing dead monster parts down the road while the entire village comes out to watch and point. Or about how all the other adventurers stopped and stared in awe or laughed at them.

A small stream ran next to the village. Quill left the moss bear head and walked right into the water without saying anything to the others. Tired and sore and feeling filthy like never before, he sat down in the water and let it wash over him. A cloud of red drifted downstream.

Jane stood on the bank, watching him with a smirk on her cute face. "So. That time of the month, huh?" she shouted.

He just groaned in response. He sank his head beneath the surface and scrubbed blood out of his hair. When he'd gotten what he could out of his clothes and hair and most of his skin was clean, he stood up and splashed Jane.

She yelped and dodged. "Missed me."

He mock-glared. "So you want to tease, huh? Heh, I'll get my revenge on you. Oh yes, I'll have my revenge. Mark my words..."

Her eyes narrowed. "Hey. Are you trying to steal my lines? Also, you don't understand the line at all. Psh." She dismissively waved at him and mock-haughtily looked away.

He snorted at how adorable she was and looked over at Sapphire.

The young woman in blue stood next to a villager, tapping the middle-aged man on the shoulder. She spoke with a worried voice. "Excuse me. Mr Borony? Mr Borony?"

The villager made no reply. He didn't acknowledge her presence in any way, just stared at the moss bear head and muttered something to the woman standing next to him, presumably his wife.

This only seemed to stress Sapphire out again. She whimpered and backed away, shaking her head.

Quill nodded in Sapphire's direction and spoke to Jane. "Let's keep going. It's not good for her here."

Jane looked over and saw the scene too. "Yeah." Her voice turned hopeful. "Maybe things will be better in the city?"

"Maybe."

It took several hours to go a relatively short distance. Quill and Jane saw very few players out in the field, fighting and levelling the way they had been. A few they did see seemed just as intent on growing. Others seemed reserved and hesitant before getting into battle. But when they saw the giant bear head rolling around, many other players pointed and laughed or called out, the sight raising their spirits.

"Holy shit! What is that?"

"Hey! You know bags of holding exist, right?"

"You gonna eat that?"