Neophyte

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Chloe smiled heartily as Tag precariously stood on the long bench in the tavern. Already those crowded were raising their cups and demanding an encore. The dwarf had been on fire since they’d arrived, and now the hungry crowd wanted more.

“Fine! You want to hear stories, huh? You want to know about my first love?”

A raucous cheer from the crowd.

Tag cleared his throat, wobbled, then began to sing. His voice turned from the rough bark of trees to the pouring of spring water.

Harken ye round and I’ll tell ye my tale

Of ale that’s gone bitter, of bread that’s gone stale

The bestest of things do go rotten with time

But never me wine, lad. Never me wine.

While girls can run off in the dark of the night

With some prissy-ass floozy who calls him a knight

I know that red liquid is much more sublime

No, don’t take me wine, lad. Don’t take me wine.

Tag began to dance around the table, grabbing a jug of wine from its end and sloshing red liquid into the many cups that were held in his direction. Chloe, Ben, and Gideon laughed with teary eyes, their cheeks flushed from the open fire and their own healthy measures of drink.

Nights turn blue, and days turn dead

While dragons and flames soar overhead

But once the sun comes before and aft the bed

The sky will turn the color wine-red

Now, never delay as I chug this away

and fill up my gullet and liver and lungs

Never run short and never run dry

or pack up your homes ‘cause I’ll grab my guns

I’ll sing it once more just in case you ain’t heard

That wine is my last and was always my first

As long as I’ve throat and lungs that may dry

I’ll soak them with wine, man. I’ll soak them with wine!

Tag repeated the final line, bringing the song to a crescendo as the entire tavern erupted in a reflective chorus. A large goblet of wine made its way from the nodding barmaid and was passed through the crowd to Tag, who raised it high, cheered, and drained the thing in one go. Dark-red liquid soaked his mustache and dripped down his cheeks.

He raised the goblet once more and cheered. The crowd echoed his excitement as he jumped to the bench, caught his foot on a wet patch, and flipped onto his back.

Chloe wondered how many HP that fall took off Tag’s overall health score.

Tag was pulled up by two ladies wearing tunics that showed off their ample bosoms. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he thanked them and made his way back to the others, reveling in the backslaps and “Well dones” he received on the way.

“My, oh my, you sure know how to work a crowd,” Ben greeted him. Standing much taller than Tag, the elf looked down his nose and laughed affectionately. He slow-clapped until the dwarf blushed.

“It was nothing,” Tag replied, emitting a deep, growling burp. “Everyone is blessed with hidden talents. It’s not my fault that mine is singing.”

“I thought yours was getting smashed to a pulp by trolls,” Chloe teased, referring to a previous dungeon exploration in which Tag had faced death until Gideon used his healing abilities to bring him back to health.

“Oh, a bold retort from a woman who seems to favor death far more than life. Tell me, isn’t this some kind of a record for you? Over a week without dying?” Tag hiccupped, forcing back down a lump of vomit. “Surely you must be missing the white room by now? Aren’t you desperate to return?”

Chloe laughed, scruffing the dwarf’s hair with her knuckles. “Aren’t you the funny man?”

“Hey! Not the hair!” Tag said, wriggling free of Chloe’s grasp and falling over once more. Several people turned and laughed at Tag, then bent down and helped him up once more.

Chloe beamed, her head a little woozy from her own alcohol. She was still unable to believe they had found this little piece of paradise out on the Obsidian plains. After traveling for several days, they had reached the small town they had seen from the top of the mountains.

Hobblesville, as they discovered its name to be, was a real step up from the little forest tribal town of Oakston. This place had all the hallmarks Chloe had come to expect from fantasy MMORPGs. In fact, this town seemed to be almost a direct rip-off of one of the places her ex-boyfriend Blake had preferred when he’d played Relic Hunter years ago.

Their journey to Hobblesville had been pretty easy. Bar their few chance encounters with some of the wildlife that prowled the woods and plains—wolves, badgers, hawks, and, at one point, a few lonely bears skulking near the caves—they had made steady progress.

The other side of the mountains was definitely a whole different ball game than the thick woods they had traveled through. The land rose and fell over grassy hillocks, and they saw rivers and streams winding for miles upon miles from the higher rises they scaled.

Sparse copses of trees provided modest shelter during the nights, when Chloe was left alone to watch the avatars of Gideon, Ben, and Tag after they logged off and re-entered the real world, attending to their lives before returning hours later. On some level, Chloe thought she might envy the others for having the chance to pop the bubble and go back into the world, but then Chloe thought about her real life.

She had lived for the weekend, spending her money on friends she wasn’t even sure had felt the absence of her presence while she had been immersed in Obsidian. The doc had told her that anyone who asked about her was given the line that Chloe had gone overseas on a 2-year hiatus to “find herself.” A gap year wasn’t uncommon for women in their early 20s, so the line had been soaked up like water into a sponge.

There was nothing really for Chloe to go back to. Her brothers and sisters had the Midas touch, turning everything they had into gold. Her parents dominated the rest of the gods from their thrones in Olympus, and Chloe had been nothing more than a drunken wastrel who had no business sense, much less cared enough to bother to learn.

No. Chloe was happier here in Obsidian, even if, on some level, she knew the whole experience wasn’t really real.

On the way to Hobblesville, none of the adventurers had leveled up, which hadn’t really surprised them. Tag, Ben, and Gideon were sitting pretty at level 9, while Chloe had reached level 10 and was now tasked with choosing which class she should devote her character to out of a pool of 5 options the AI had selected for her.

Most of the talk on their trip had been about the possibilities of each class and what Chloe could do with each one, but she had delayed the decision, knowing that whatever she selected, she’d be stuck with for the rest of her time in Obsidian. She was smart enough to know that her knowledge of MMORPGs was vastly less than that of the other three, who had adventured together across a range of games for years. If she was to make the right decision, she needed to not rush this.

“If you choose anything other than Berzerker, I’ll never talk to you again,” Tag had said.

“Oh, that sounds incredibly tempting.” Chloe winked.

“Berzerker is amazing! A unique class in which you can smash and destroy people. That Red Rage sounds incredible.”

Red Rage, as described through Chloe’s in-vision notifications, was an ability that took over the player’s avatar when they were in a pinch. If a player’s health was low enough, a red mist would descend and the character would, in essence, black out until the rage was over.

“Do we really want someone like that on our team?” Gideon asked, picking the mushrooms Chloe had cooked for them out of his teeth. “A liability who could hurt us as much as help us?”

Tag huffed. “I’d pick it if it was offered.”

“Well, we’ll have to watch out for that, then.” Chloe chuckled.

“Go for cleric!” Ben had said. “We need more devotion to the gods in this game. For all we know, the gods are watching us right now. What would it hurt to have a devotee in our party? Surely that would work greatly in our favor.”

While Ben had looked at the sky, Chloe had turned her attention to the emerald and gold bracers she had found on her first trip into a dungeon. It had been quite a surprise when Chloe learned that these pieces of armor had been enchanted, possessed by the disembodied spirit of KieraFreya, a goddess who had fallen from grace and now berated Chloe and sniped at her every chance she got.

Little does he know just how closely a god is watching him. KieraFreya laughed darkly, her voice sounding in Chloe’s mind. When I make it back to the heavens, I wonder what I’ll do to him?

Chloe had shaken her head, choosing to ignore KieraFreya as the town came into sight, and they had picked up their pace.

Now, several days into their residence in Hobblesville, they were all feeling more at home than ever. Chloe watched as Tag was pulled away by several of the local dwarves who had traveled to the town on their way to other ventures. She smiled when Ben engaged in deep conversation with the barmaid who had been batting her eyelashes and waving her breasts in his face since their first trip to the Bucket & Pale.

She laughed whole-heartedly as Gideon attempted to make his way back from the restroom, looking more uncomfortable than ever as his gangly limbs seemed to get away from his control. People danced and laughed and bumped into him, almost knocking him to the floor on several occasions.

“Watch your step.” She grinned.

“That’s easier said than done when there are dwarves, cats, spilled booze, and a whole host of other things on the floor. Do they really act like this every night?”

Chloe sipped her drink. “As long as good ol’ Tag brings the entertainment.”

Yep. Hobblesville was a fine town indeed. And although Chloe was having a blast getting to know the town and stocking up on provisions, the main question kept coming back to her: was the information they sought really here, or were they just wasting their time when they could be getting on with her quest to collect the rest of the pieces of KieraFreya and unite the goddess once more?