She materialized, at least she thought that was the right word, onto a grassy lawn at the edge of the town… and shivered! She had bare feet and nothing on but this very light gown… and the suit she was wearing made her feel as if she could feel every breeze. Oh, well, it wouldn’t actually give her frostbite, or actually cut her feet on stones or whatever.
The boys materialized… she was pretty sure that that was the right word… seconds after her, and Seth and Frank were grinning. Well, George was too, but he always did.
“Our adventure begins!” Frank said. “Let’s get to town and see what there is to do!”
Sue marveled at the town. A perfectly model mediaval type town. Down to the children running everywhere. So many people forgot how many children medieval people had. They died a lot, but they had to have even more to sustain that rate of death. And they tended to grow their population anyway so, lots of children.
And the girls had flowers in their hair! Sue loved that look. She walked by a girl with a crown braid, who had some bright yellow and white flowers in her hair. And was standing next to a line of them. “Can I have a flower?” Sue asked her.
“Oh, yes, Miss,” the girl said. And when she had taken some, the girl continued, “And if you want some that are even prettier, you can go just out of town. There is a big field there, with lots of pretty flowers. Just watch out for the bunnies!”
“Aha!” Frank said, “That sounds like a quest! Thank you, Miss,” he said, handing the girl a penny.
As the girl stared at the penny, Frank led them back the way the girl had pointed. “And how many games have murder bunnies or the like?” he asked. “A perfectly good way for us to get started.”
“But… but I don’t have any skills yet!” Sue protested.
“And you won’t get any,” Oscar said. “Not until you hit level ten. But if you need to, rip a strip off the bottom of your gown as a bandage. That will be a great class hint.”
“As long as the bunnies don’t kill me first,” Sue protested.
“We will protect you, My Lady,” George said.
“Well, a bunny will have a hard time hurting you!” she agreed. George wasn’t in the shiny armour that Oscar had promised would come, but he did have a large wooden shield and a largish wooden sword. Sue doubted that Seth could hit anything with his arrows, and even Frank, who had all three sets of singlesticks, didn’t look like a mighty damage dealer. But they were dealing just with bunnies.
She fixed the flower in her hair as she walked along, and she heard a quiet ding.
“Oh, good job, Sue! You lot are doing good. George got ten experience for his little speech, Frank got twenty for recognizing the quest, and you got ten for putting that flower in your hair.”
“How did that give points?” Frank asked.
“Remember her build! Healing, nature, that kind of thing!”
“Whatever. Well, there are the flowers, where are the bunnies?” Seth asked.
“Gather round Sue, and we’ll walk out there,” Frank said.
Sue felt rather silly with the three boys in a triangle around her, but she figured they were probably right. And, a dozen steps into the meadow, sure enough, a bunny leapt out of the grass and banged itself against George’s shield. Seth held up his bow, but couldn’t get a shot, so it was left to Frank to bang the poor thing to death with his sticks.
“Good job, experience coming in. Keep going.”
Two more bunnies threw themselves against George’s shield and were duly banged to death but, just as Frank was finishing off the second one, Sue hear Seth shriek. “Stupid rabbit!”
She looked over and Seth was stabbing over and over again at a rabbit which had attatched itself to his ankle, stabbing with the tip of an arrow! He missed most of the time, and her filter kept her from having to see the blood and guts and all but, eventually, the rabbit died, and he ripped the arrow out with a groan, and put it in his storage.
“Oh, you’re bleeding,” Sue said, and rushed over and, as Oscar had said, ripped a strip off the bottom of her gown and tied it around his ankle.
“Thank you, beautiful healer,” Seth said. Which she would have blushed over, but which was one of the lines that Oscar had drilled into the boys… something about encouraging a class choice and looking good on the video. So she just blushed over the idea of being on a video and straightend up.
And screamed and just manage to get out of the way of another bunny, which rammed Seth in the chest.
A very annoying and bloody few minutes later, and Frank was sporting three bandages, Seth four, George was still unscathed, and Sue was tying a bandage, very awkwardly, around her fore arm.
“I’m going to be out of dress, soon!” she said, and then blushed as all three boys looked at her and she realized what she had said. She had been so pleased to not be wearing some bikini, but now it seemed as if she would end up with bikini by bandage!
“No, you’re not. Look at the bottom of your dress. The modesty filter won’t actually let your dress get shorter… or rip in ways that reveal anything. They’re worried about law suits… you can’t show any more skin during the game than you agreed to in the set up.”
She looked and, sure enough, the dress was just as long as it had been!
“Gather your flowers, and leave in a different direction to go to town,”
“Those bandages are awesome,” Seth said, when they made it back to town. “I had a bleeding debuff for each of those, but as soon as you tied the bandage, it stopped. I didn’t get any healing from them, but they stopped the debuff.”
“And… and I levled up,” she said, again blushing. “Just to level two.”
“Good for you,” Frank said, clapping her on the shoulder, while Seth looked jealous. “Our beatiful healer, progressing. Now, let us go on to see what other quests there are.”
“Oh, Miss, you look so pretty,” that girl said, again, when they had gone a few more steps.
Frank looked at Sue significantly, so she bent down. “Do you think so? It was so nice of you to tell me where those flowers were.”
The girl looked at them, “Sorry about the bunnies,” she said, grinning a bit.
“That’s what we get for being level zero,” Seth mumbled. “Even little girls laugh at us.”
The girl looked at him, and then back at Sue. “If you got any bunnies, you should sell them to my father. He makes leather with them, and sells it in the big city. I got to go with him last time.”
“And where is your father?” Sue asked her.
“Oh, I’ll show you,” she said, and went skipping down the road.
A few minutes later the team was back out in the street. “I leveled up from that!” Seth said, amazed. “I did too,” George and Frank said. Sue had, too, but she didn’t think it wise to say so just yet.
“So, picking flowers for our healer, killing bunnies, and turning bunnies in. Three quests so far. What next?”
Just then a lad, maybe twelve years old, walked past them. “I’ve got somma them mushrooms,” he called, as soon as he got in the store.
The team followed him in. “What mushrooms, my good lad?” Frank asked.
“Oh, the red caps,” the boy said. “The tanner will always pay for them. He uses them in his curing. I get him some every afternoon. But he can always use more.”
“Ah, and where are these mushrooms?”
“Oh, they’re easy. Just wander through the woods. They have red caps, they’re easy to see.”
“And is there anything dangerous in those woods?” Frank asked.
“Nah!” the boy said. “Just snakes and owls, nothing much.”
“Snakes and owls,” Frank said. “Is that all.”
“Yeah. The alchemist will buy the snakes off you, if you kill them. I don’t usually bother.”
“And the owls?”
“Well, they’re a nuisance. Hard to kill. But if you do, the blacksmith will buy them. The feathers make things lighter.”
“Well, let us get ourselves some mushrooms!” Frank said.
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Von