Rouge VI (Patreon)

Opening her quest list, Rouge picked one and used a finger to flick it over toward Vexxx.

Quest: “Well, Hello Dolly, Too” complete.

Matilda’s precious doll has been stolen again. Also, she’s a homeless orphan. Maybe help with that.

Minor Success: You were unable to retrieve the doll, but Matilda now has a safe place to live, though it isn’t a home. +100 XP. +5 Relationship points with Matilda.

“I had almost forgotten about this, until the quest randomly completed last week. I’m guessing something happened to the doll,” she said. She felt bad about that, too. She really had meant to head back to Bright and try to find the toy, but then she had to keep a low profile when everyone started following her around, and school started, and her dad got engaged, and there had been months of wedding planning, and… it just hadn’t happened. She actually had several quests like that, and some of them offered better rewards, but this was the one that bothered her the most.

Switching to another list with a thought, Rouge tapped a different entry and sent it to her cousin as well.

Quest: “Don’t Be So Shellfish” begun.

Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet? Because they can spend years at C! A friend of mine got a job where he had to sleep on a dessert island. It was his dream job! No, seriously, I can do this all day. Some people call these dad jokes, but I just call them funny. Maybe there’s someone who doesn’t have a dad and needs to hear these? Remember, somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

NOTE: This is a timed quest.

Success: Reunite father and child. +10000 XP. +100 Gold. Optional item depending on success conditions.

Failure: A man must learn to live without his heart. A child must learn to live without her hero.

Time remaining: 14:21:17:04

Vexxx blinked at the shared text. “What kind of quest is this?” He reached out and pinched his fingers, grabbing hold of the notification, then twisted his hand, turning it so he could examine the words from every angle. “You’ve got nothing. No who, no what, no where… All you know is that you only have fourteen game-days left to finish it.”

“Not quite true.” Rouge reached out and tapped the last sentence in the description. “I thought this sounded familiar, so I looked it up. It’s a quote from Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda’. So, I went to the only Matilda I know, and read the jokes to her. They didn’t mean anything to her at first, but I wrote them down, so she could read them and see if anything popped into her head later. That’s when we noticed this,” she turned the notification box, zooming in on the word ‘dessert’.

Vexxx shrugged. “Bad spelling? I’ve never seen a typo in Veritas before, but it has to happen, right?”

Rouge sighed. “In my experience, when it comes to quests, everything means something. So, we started talking dessert. Her favorite is cake. Nothing fancy, just basic vanilla cake with lots of frosting.” She made a face. Cake was good, but the ratio between cake and frosting should not be one to one. “But, her dad’s favorite dessert was weird. She drew me a picture.”

Opening her inventory, she took out a ragged piece of paper with a distinct scallop-shell shape sketched on it. Rouge traced it with her finger. “A shell-shaped cake filled with a sweet lobster crème. They only make it on one particular island on her dad’s trade route, and he got some every time he stopped in that port. It doesn’t travel well, so even though he always brought one back for her, it wasn’t very good. But he always said he’d take her to the island when she turned ten, so she could try them when they were fresh. Guess when her tenth birthday is.” She arched an eyebrow questioningly.

Vexxx glanced at the quest info. “A little less than fifteen days?”

She smiled triumphantly. “Yep. Guess what else happens in fifteen days?”

Her cousin opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. “No, you’ll never guess. In fifteen days, Matilda is going to give up on her dad and accept the offer a family in town made to adopt her. Apparently, they’re nice enough, and the orphanage is so full that some of the kids are sleeping two to a bed, so Plum has really been encouraging Matilda to agree. Matilda is still sure her dad is going to come for her someday, so she doesn’t want to, but-” Rouge shrugged.

Vexxx frowned. “So what? If her dad turns up a few days late, it’s not like the kid can’t go with him, even if she’s been adopted, right? He’s, like, still her dad, or whatever.”

Rouge nodded. “Yeah, there’s definitely still something I’m missing, but I think we have enough to get started.” She held up a finger. “First, we know that Matilda’s dad - his name is Matthew, by the way - is the captain of a trading ship. He worked for a company called Driftpoint. Three years ago, his ship, the Monnow, left Bright and never returned.”

Raising a second finger, she continued, “We also know he loved a strange dessert that looks like a shell, and was only made on one island. Matilda doesn’t remember the name of the island, but with this,” she waved the paper, “surely someone will recognize the picture and the description.”

Vexxx nodded. “So, we go to Bright, and poke around at the docks. See if anyone knows the Monnow’s route, or recognizes the nasty lobster cake. Then, we buy passage aboard a ship heading in the right direction, and try to find the guy.” He held up a finger, mimicking Rouge’s pose. “First, we don’t even know what he looks like.” Another finger. “Second, the sea in Veritas is huge. Endless, in fact, as far as anyone can tell.” He slapped his hand down, making Silus, who had been starting to fall into a post-meal coma, nearly roll off the table into Rouge’s lap. “There is no way we’re finding some random dude, in an infinite ocean, in less than a week, real-time.”

A flash of anger made Rouge clench her teeth. Then her eyes narrowed, and she gently reached out to scoop up the sleepy, overstuffed bat, settled her into the crook of her shoulder, and started to slide out of the booth. “Cool,” she said, calmly. “I’ll let Nana know you don’t want to help me with the quest that Dad asked her to give us time for. I’m sure she’ll have plenty of other things for you to do. Last time, we volunteered at the soup kitchen her church runs, went to a bunch of youth services, helped pick up trash by the highway, built tiny houses…,” though that was actually cool, she thought, but held her face in a nonchalant mask.

Vexxx’s hand clamped down on hers as she was about to turn and walk away. “Don’t do me like that, fam,” her cousin pleaded. “You can go try to find a pearl in an oyster bed, and I’ll stay here and, uh… I haven’t done the Atheneum Dungeon yet. I, like, know one of the gnomes, so-”

Rouge applied a little [Sleight of Hand], and slipped her wrist out of his grip. She could have done it without the skill, but she never passed up a chance to grind a little XP. “Uh, no,” she said. “You can help me with my quest, or you can help Nana try to butter up Saint Peter. What’s it going to be?”

Vexxx looked genuinely baffled. “Why do you even care?” he whined. “I know you don’t actually want me to go. No one wants me around.”

Rouge stared at him. “If you know that,” she said, slowly, “why do you act the way you do?”

“It’s just-” he stumbled over his own words, his cheekbones turning a deep brick shade. “I mean- Whatever. I’ll go.” With that, he pushed out of his seat, actually knocking a few plates to the ground as he headed straight for the door leading out onto the street. Rouge hesitated, looking at the mess on the floor.

Ulie hurried over as the door to the kitchen opened and Struthio peered out, looking surprised not to see some sign of trouble. Rouge started to crouch, reaching for a still-spinning plate, but Ulie waved her off. “It’s fine,” the girl said, her usual cheerful smile only slightly dimmer. “Accidents happen. I’ll get it. You should…” she looked after Vexxx, and Rouge hesitated only a moment more before standing again.

Slapping several gold coins on the table, Rouge gave the girl a grateful smile. “Thanks, Ulie. I owe you one.”

The wattage of the girl’s smile brightened noticeably at sight of the coins. “Sure. Have a good day, Rouge!”

Rouge started for the door, hesitated, ran back to snatch up a stack of sticky buns, and turned around again. When she emerged, blinking, into the bright morning sunlight, she had to duck as a broad beak darted toward her, snatching a cinnamon roll the size of a small plate out of her hands. She stared up at Wally as he tilted his head back and gobbled the thing down.

“Greedy,” she said, affectionately, holding up the rest of the treats for him as she looked around. “Did you see where Vexxx went?”

She really needed to add him to the party. Though… She pulled up her Friends list and selected Vexxx’s name. It was unusual for her to communicate via Private Message, since it only worked within the same short distance as Party Chat, and most of her friends were in her party. She rarely cared if everyone heard whatever she had to say, either, so keeping a message private didn’t matter, which made Party Chat the simpler option the vast majority of the time.

<Vexxx?> she sent. <Hey, where’d you go? We need to head for Bright.>

There was a long moment of silence in which she double checked to make sure he wasn’t listed as ‘offline’ in her Friends list. Then he answered, sounding wary, <Now?>

She forced her voice to sound cheerful as she replied. Nope, she definitely wasn’t talking to someone who’d had a minor meltdown and stomped out after making a mess. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along. <Yeah, now. We have plenty of time to fast-travel to Bright and start talking to people at the docks before we have to log out for spaghetti squash and a bio break.>

Vexxx snorted a laugh before he managed to get some surliness back in his tone. <Whatever. I’m not paying for the fast-travel, though.>

Rouge glanced at the number in the lower left corner of her interface and smirked. Long gone were the days when she had to take quests transporting body parts across the world in order to pay the bills. Still, he didn’t need to know that. <That’s fine. Hey, if you’re heading for the Traveler’s Guild, would you check to see if there are any quests we can do along the way?>

There was another long, loud pause before he said, <Whatever,> which she assumed was some form of agreement. Nodding in satisfaction, Rouge looked at her mighty ostrich, who had finished gorging on breakfast pastries.

“Time for [Confabulation], Wally. I’m not exactly popular in Bright these days, so there’s no reason to advertise the fact that I’m back.”

Rouge had spent months in Bright, leveling her character through Reputation quests and what other people would consider training grounds, like the sewers under the city. She was only allowed to leave Bright with her dad, and he usually only had time to play on the weekends, which significantly slowed her level growth. She had, however, managed to raise her Relationship with many of Bright’s citizens high enough to not only counterbalance the automatic reduction caused by her half-Dark Elf race, but to actually make friends with a number of local NPCs. Unfortunately, all of that had been wiped out the moment she chose to fight with Refuge when Quarternell declared war on the new city, and even after the ‘Goblin’ nation made peace with their human neighbors, she had only recovered a small portion of the Relationship points she lost.

Fortunately, she didn’t need to stay long, and, even more importantly, didn’t need to be herself while she was there. Codswallop’s unique skill, [Confabulation], allowed him to look like a particularly ugly horse. That was a big help, since as far as she knew, she was still the only player with an ostrich mount. She herself could just pick someone’s pockets and use either [Obfuscation] or [Substitution].

[Obfuscation] was the safer choice, since it concealed her name and identity, so if she just wore a disguise, no one should be able to tell who she was. On the other hand, anyone who kept tags constantly visible above the heads of other players, like most newbies, would immediately notice that she didn’t have one. That tended to attract attention in and of itself, and since Bright was the human starter location, the odds of the skill backfiring and actually attracting attention were extremely high.

No, it would have to be [Substitution], which was the more entertaining option, anyway. She patted Codswallop, who now looked slightly fuzzy around the edges, and nuzzled the bat sleeping on her shoulder with her cheek.

“Hey, Silus. It’s time to go. You ready?”

Silus blinked open large golden eyes, then seemed to process Rouge’s words, because she quivered a little as she said, ::Yes!::

Rouge drew in a deep breath. It was actually a little scary, taking her tiny friend with her. Unlike Wally, if anything happened to Silus, she wouldn’t respawn. The bat would also spend a lot of time alone, since Rouge and Vexxx couldn’t play more than sixteen game-hours out of every forty-eight. But Aspen had worked something out with the goddess Gina (aka Bridget), and they seemed satisfied, so Silus had been approved to go along. Rouge was just glad she’d have someone to talk to who wasn’t constantly peevish and defensive.

Rouge reached up and grabbed hold of Wally’s little, round saddle. Pulling herself up, she clucked at the bird. “All right. Let’s do this. To the Traveler’s Guild!”