Chapter 3: Who Are You?
“You may call me Carth. I am no assassin, but I’m pretty handy with a blade.” He spoke the truth… more or less. Never mind that the sort of blade he was handy with was a chef’s knife.
Furious thunder tore across the sky of Viridian. A lonely frigate sailed across the Emerald Sea, tossed side to side by the merciless waves.
A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning illuminated the craft.
Her cloth sails were folded taut around her retracted mast, drawn back from the bow of the craft and held in a painful arch over the ship’s armored midline. Her golden-hued dorsal hull deflected the incoming sheets of rain as best it could, but the water still collected in puddles along the open shutters flanking both sides of her top deck as she cleaved through the roiling waves. Two rows of oars protruded from the white wooden ventral hull to drag the craft through the raging sea like the spindly legs of some many-limbed insect skittering across its roiling surface.
Inside the frigate’s damp brig sat three unlikely companions clad in rags and shackles.
Carter, freshly arrived in his newly made body—its elemental stripes swirling angrily in response to the howling wind right outside the ship's battered hull—jolted awake as his perspective came down from the cutscene-esque panoramic view of the Elven frigate and settled into the body he had just finished crafting.
He opened his eyes and examined his fellow prisoners.
The first was a disheveled satyr. Scars decorated every patch of skin not covered in salt-and-pepper fur. His hands were heavily callused, his fur thick and matted with grime, and crudely drawn tattoos were visible underneath the layers of hair coating his arms and chest. Though he was short and stocky, he looked strong enough to break Carter like a twig.
The satyr glared at Carter relentlessly, making Carter shift as far away from him as the chains connecting them would allow.
The last prisoner was a green-skinned dryad with a collection of bruises and fresh cuts, sitting serenely and meditating amidst the chaos unfurling around them. In the place of hair, she had leaves and fronds of some strange alien-looking plant life. Her skin was mottled green and brown, and her features were sharp.
"What are you in for, ikthiodt?" Asked the dark satyr, still glaring as he used the Triskelion-native word for idiot.
Carter pondered this question for a moment before a smile crossed his face.
"Well, a couple of old friends roped me into taking this new drug. It sent me on one helluva trip, and now I'm here. Why am I in chains? Your guess is as good as mine."
The satyr sniffed. "Fantastic. A junkie and a tree, that's who I'm stuck with."
"I've been… adjusting. Sobering, really. Mind filling me in on our current situation?"
"We're royally fluxxed," The satyr explained unhelpfully.
Carter rolled his eyes. "Mind elaborating?"
The dark satyr sighed. "Alright, airhead, let’s see. We are currently in the brig of a prisoner transport bound for Goldreef. Goldreef is full of Golden Elves, whom we have offended with our various crimes, they only believe in one punishment for outsiders. Execution. Seeing as how the three of us are not golden elves, I’ll give you three guesses how this is going to go. To summarize? Unless you've got a lockpick on your person, we're fluxxed!"
Carter took a moment to process his new situation.
He did not need to glance down at his mostly bare body to see that he did not possess any clothing with pockets, and even if he did he could not have reached them with his hands shackled.
He glanced around the cell and the dark, cluttered interior of the ship beyond it. Nets and cargo were stacked haphazardly here and there, random objects tucked wherever room could be found. Their only companions were two empty doorways and a handful of lanterns swinging as the ship rocked.
"No guards?" Carter asked.
"This fluxxing storm is of the 'all-hands-on-deck' variety. Nobody left to watch us. Besides, we're not going anywhere. You're sure you don't have a lockpick?"
Carter looked down at himself pointedly. "You see any pockets on this loincloth, pal? No, I don't have a lockpick. Why don't you ask her?"
"First thing I did when I got thrown in here. She's not the talkative type. Maybe she's hibernating."
"Dryads don't hibernate, quark-for-brains," Carter said, surprised by how easily the phrase rolled off his tongue thanks to the game's content filter. What he had been trying to say was quark-for-brains. No. Quark-for-brains… flux it, never mind. "She's meditating. Maybe she's trying to cast a spell that will get us out of here."
The satyr laughed and held up the shackles on his wrists. "These are made of Turmantium.”
Carter frowned. “So?”
“Turmantium disrupts the flow of mana, genius. Tree-witch over here couldn't cast so much as an ember of light, much less conjure us a key."
Huh. That’s new.
The dryad's serene face broke into a smile.
So sudden was the change that both Carter and the satyr glanced her way.
In that same moment, a bat flew into the cell via the unguarded doorway and dropped a small bronze key onto the dryad's lap. The little critter chittered excitedly and then fluttered away to go hang from a rafter.
The dryad's eyes opened and she calmly took the key and held it up for both of them to see.
"While you two were busy bickering, I was in fact meditating." She nodded approvingly to Carter, though something about the way her eyes sparkled told him her praise was condescending. "But that was not all I was doing. Turmantium blocks mages from channeling mana, yes, but mana is not the only source of magic in Triskelion."
Without further preamble she unlocked her own shackles with the key and rubbed her wrists tenderly. She rose and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and focusing on something. After a few seconds, she seemed to glow with a green inner light and all of her bruises faded in an instant.
"Of course," She added, a note of relief in her voice as she examined her now healthier green flesh, "mana is still good for some things that Psionics cannot provide."
"Are you done showing off? Let us out of here, tree-woman!" The dark satyr demanded.
She glanced down at the angry man disapprovingly. "No. First, we must discuss a few things. My name is Tiloa Moonthistle, I am a multi-disciplinary sorceress and sage for the Wandering Archives. I am on a mission of great importance and possess a wide variety of magics that will prove useful in our escape. Who are you, goat-man, and how can you help me on my quest? Speak the truth.”
With her last word, she made a gesture with her hand and a mote of energy coalesced around the satyr’s throat and glowed white.
The satyr paused for a moment. “I am a minotaur.”
The light at his throat turned red.
“Ah, flux. Truth spells? That’s cheating,” he complained.
Tiloa crossed her arms and tapped her foot expectantly.
“Fine. The name’s Gentleman Krieg.” The spell shone blue. “I’m a shadow-dancer by trade. I take lives, people give me gold, and I don’t ask questions. I’m good at going unnoticed, and even better at killing. You let me out of these chains and I’ll get you to the deck. You get me off this boat and I’ll kill any five people you want. Deal?”
Tiloa smirked. “Deal.”
Next, she rounded on Carter and hit him with the same truth spell. “Well? Who are you and what can you do?”
Carter blinked, and suddenly the world lost saturation as time froze and a screen popped up before him with a prompt.
[Please enter your character’s name: ________]
Carter already knew what name he would choose. He typed it in quickly and the world around him regained saturation.
“You may call me Carth. I am no assassin, but I’m pretty handy with a blade.” The truth spell shone bright blue as each of his statements was deemed truthful. Never mind that the sort of blade he was handy with was a chef’s knife. Triskelion gave Seekers a handy bit of muscle memory to even the playing field, so he should be fine once he was armed.
“Fair enough. All we need is to get onto the deck and stay alive long enough for me to cast a single spell. After that, we’ll be free to go our separate ways. For now,” Tiloa tossed the key to Krieg, “free yourselves and let’s get out of here.”
[Quest Unlocked: Birds of a Feather I. Free yourself and follow the Archivist to safety.]
Intrigued, Carter accepted the quest.
Not waiting for the men to unchain themselves, she raised her hand to the cell door and made a fist. Purplish energy highlighted the lock and the bars, and with a flick of her wrist the lock shriveled into a useless hunk of metal and the door swung open. She strode through and ripped the lid off a nearby footlocker.
“Aww, they folded my robes. How sweet.”
Krieg rolled his eyes as he unlatched his other wrist. “Tree-witch over there is going to get us off this boat, but the minute we’re free, I say we ditch her. You come with me and I’ll show you how to be a throat-slitter, like me.”
[Sidequest Unlocked: Dance in the Shadows I. Escape with Krieg and abandon the Archivist to unlock the Assassin Sub-Class.]
Carter knew from experience that Seekers had three class options. One base class and a pair of sub-classes would allow them to craft precisely the character they wanted to play.
Carter considered carefully before declining the quest.
“Let’s focus on surviving the next day, and when we’re safe, ask me again. I’m not setting out to abandon the person who set me free.”
“Suit yourself, kid. Just don’t act surprised when she betrays you first. We’re all playing the same game here after all.” Krieg winked at him and let the key clatter to the ground as he left the cell.
Carter was left to watch the satyr kick open a footlocker and begin pulling on some studded leather armor, wondering at the meaning of Krieg’s words as he fumbled for the key and began to free himself.
