Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 5 (Patreon)

June and Atticus were away from their guildhalls when Ren’s messenger arrived, and they weren’t likely to return for a few days. They were out in the Wilds, trying to find their guild members who weren’t in the city when the Incident happened. Their second in commands, who had been left behind incase people returned without the search party’s help, took the message and promised to pass it on when they returned.

That left Ren and the others with very little to do until they returned. Ran was insistent that they don’t make a move until June and Atticus arrived to give them back up. 

Alfre took the opportunity to wander the city, though she was never allowed to leave on her own. She was only level eight after all. She was out wandering with Ran and Elias, who didn’t seem to like letting her out of his sight. While Alfre appreciated the company, she was far too old to have a babysitter. 

The city of Spade was an interesting labyrinth of a place. Major boulevards and lanes ran in a north-south, east-west sort of grid, like any major city in the real world. But between these main thoroughfares were any number of twisting and turning alleys and side streets. Ran pointed out that the side streets tended to have the most interesting places in the city. Like the one little hole in the wall that served the best Italian food in the city, or the tiny book shop that sold all the history books she could ask for, especially if she wanted to know more about the lore of the game. 

It was as they were stepping out from a side street onto the main north-south boulevard that they found him.

He was a tall young man, all lean muscle and baggy druid robes. His hair was long and white, much like Alfre’s. His neck and shoulders, from what could be seen from under his robes, were covered in shimmering white scales. Despite his stature and build suggesting a man of strength, he cowered away from the circle of players that had him pinned against the pale stone wall of a potion shop. 

“What kind of dragonling plays druid?” one of them, a thin woman in darkly colored sorcerer robes, asked mockingly. “What a waste of a strength stat.”

“And it’s not like he’s worth shit as a healer either,” a man in heavy plate armor added. “Not at level one. It’d take forever for him to be useful.”

“How about you just give us your shit,” an assassin with deep purple hair suggested menacingly. “That way, we won’t have to kill you and waste our abilities.”  

“How about you shove off, ya scrote,” Alfre snapped, earning groans from Ran and Elias behind her. “Since we all know you won’t risk initiating PvP in the city.”

“Oh?” The assassin said, moving until he was just inches away from Alfre. He was a thin, pole of a man, not much more than skin and bones. If Ren was with them, she could easily snap him in half. “And what makes you the fun police around here, girlie?”

“What makes you think that harassing someone is fun?” Alfre shot back. 

“You’re pretty brave for someone who’s obviously a newbie and too low of a level to even be able to buy decent armor,” the knight sneered, turning away from the druid, who took the chance to slide away from his harassers and towards Alfre and Ran. 

“And your bum’s out the window,” Alfre replied.

The three players stared at her. “What does that even mean?”

“Means you’re talking shite and everyone knows it!”

The knight growled. “I’ll show you talking shit!” His hand went to the broadsword at his belt. Lucky for him, his friends jumped into action, grabbing his hand and shoving the sword back into its sheath.

“Don’t be an idiot! Do you want to end up in the dungeon for god knows how long?” The sorcerer hissed. She turned and glared at Alfre and her party, who by this point were hiding the dragonling behind them (not that it did much considering the he towered over both Elias and Ran by at least a head). “Fine, keep your useless druid. Bet he didn’t have anything good on him anyway.”

They stalked off, but not before Alfre kicked a pebble on the ground hard enough that it shot out and hit the assassin in the shoulder. He yelped and turned to glare at her over his shoulder, but kept moving regardless.

The druid sighed in relief, pale hands loosening their grip on his oaken staff. “Thank you, I appreciate the help. Guess I should be more careful about who I try and party with.”

“Probably,” Ran acknowledged. “It’s a good thing we showed up when we did. I’m Ran, one of the guild leaders of the Crystal Moon Kingdom. This is Elias, the bunny butler, and Alfre, whose accent gets thicker in correlation to her anger.” 

“Shut ye geggie.”

“See what I mean?”

Their new friend laughed, his body language becoming far more relaxed. “I’m Izo. I just started playing when whatever happened…happened. My cousin convinced me to play, so I’ve been trying to find him.”

“What’s his name?” Elias asked. “Maybe we know him.”

“I’m not sure what he goes by online,” Izo admitted. “But his name is Lance. He should be a dragonling like me, but with red scales instead of white.”

Elias thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t know a Lance.”

“I definitely don’t,” Alfre agreed. “I’m just as new as you are.”

“I know a Lance,” Ran said. “He’s a knight with the Burning Oak guild. Does that sound familiar?”

“A little bit,” Izo admitted. “I know he’s part of a guild, but he never mentioned its name.”

“If we’re talking about the same Lance, then you’re out of luck,” Ran informed him. “He’s out of the city right now as part of Atticus’ search party. I’m not sure when they’ll be back. But until then, you can stay with us. There’s plenty of room at the guildhall. And we can always use more healers. Our members are always coming back busted up from their stints into the Wilds. You could get some easy experience patching them up when they get back.”

Izo’s big blue eyes lit up at the idea, and he nodded emphatically in agreement. Ran took his hand and led them back through the city. When they returned, Ren welcomed Izo with open arms (quite literally, she seemed to have a thing about lifting people who were a good deal taller than her, perhaps as a show of dominance). Not a lot of people played healer in her guild, it seemed. Or in Wonderland in general. It was a stressful position to be in during raids or quests, and it was a rather thankless job. As such, there were at least three people who were still missing hit points from the raid they went on the day before. It wasn’t enough to waste a healing potion, especially since healing potions could be expensive, but it was enough to be irritating to the player in question. Izo’s low level healing spells took care of it easily, and Alfre could see the satisfaction and embarrassment mingle on Izo’s face when he received thanks. It didn’t surprise her when he decided then and there to join the guild. Ren was excited for it, but somehow Ran seemed even more pleased than his sister.