"Are you ok?" Valhalla asked. Moonbeamer looked away from the bracer that encased her arm. Wiping a tear from her cheek she hoped that Valhalla couldn’t tell she had been crying.
"Good lord, look at all the bruises. Where and with whom did you tussle?"
"I was looking for tourmalines on the top floor in the Tower of Riga. There were a couple of death knights that were formed and they laid into me. Samson offered to help. It was nice of him to do that," Moonbeamer said.
Right after the battle she had talked to Valhalla and had been assured that the things would get better.
"You just concentrate on getting better. Don’t worry about leveling or anything," Valhalla had said.
But Moonbeamer couldn’t help herself. She was a worrier. She wanted to multi-class and she didn’t want to buy tourms from anyone. She wanted to show the Alyrian world that she could make it all on her own. It was nice of Samson to offer to help though, she thought.
She began crying again as she remembered the pain and the temporary setback of being slain and having to visit that dreadful Mordred, he was always moaning for some reason. One minute, everything was going as planned, her goal was in sight, and suddenly she was dead. The thought of having to start all over again from the bottom of the Tower of Riga to get all the way back to the top, braving the traps, the mobs, the dizzy rooms. She began sobbing.
She had just finished the last of her levels in first class and had been planning to get at least three hundred forty nine quests. Some guy from Midwinter Equinox had talked to her a bit telling her to forget about quest marks and do a thousand quests first class. A thousand quests seemed awful long to her. If she couldn‘t survive Verity what use would it be to try second class. Being a Halfling wizard wasn’t all bad. The spells were nice. Having low hit points seemed to be a drawback though, she thought.
She hadn’t noticed that the death knights were formed. They had often given a good number of tourms when slain. She had gotten a couple of manuals too with one coming from a death knight and the other from an ariel illusionist. The battle had gone well with the first knight but she had run out of steam for the second knight and it ended up getting a killing blow. She hadn’t realized she was so badly hurt until she tried to cast ‘magic dart’ and couldn’t. She vaguely remembered Samson drifting in from the west and then wishing her comfort after she had been killed.
Verity Isle, where the Tower of Riga is, has been a mainstay for first class tourming. They say you have to have two hundred fifty tourms in order to change from one class to another. It costs thirty five thousand gold pieces to get into and out of the area. It isn’t a hard challenge for most players but can be very annoying. Studded with dizzy rooms and traps it takes patience to get to the top floor. It’s rumored that if you get to the top and then find and defeat an ancient ariel that you can then visit Cassandra and get a reward. It wasn’t too hard for Moonbeamer to get to the top but she hadn’t found the ancient ariel yet. She had brought some food, water, lights, and some wands of silencing thinking they might come in handy. She had gotten a good deal on some twisted wooden wands that cast fireball and some rods with a rusty star that cast ‘lightning bolt’ also.
As she thought of the people she had met in the tower she smiled of one of them in particular. Samson was there almost every time she had been so far. He always seemed pleased to see her and had offered to help her on more than one occasion. She had smiled and made small conversation with him but she was shy with boys and didn’t know if she could trust him. She had looked at his information in the database and had seen that he was a dracon rogue. He certainly didn’t seem to have any problems getting to the top of the tower. He seemed extremely polite. He told her strange stories about growing up in the brood. She questioned if some of them were entirely true, but she did enjoy listening to him talk. He had a touch of a Beltanian drawl, which became more pronounced when he was telling one of his stories.
Moonbeamer had mistaken his friendliness for something more until one morning she saw another girl kissing him in the hallway.
"Taken, of course," she had thought. "The first boy in a long time that I’ve been even mildly interested in, and he’s taken."
She must have been musing out loud because she heard Valhalla saying, "I don‘t know Samson but he must have made an impression."
Tears once again welled up in her eyes and she had trouble keeping them under control.
"It‘s alright," Valhalla said, patting Moonbeamer’s hand. "maybe it wasn’t what you thought it was. Maybe she was a sister or something."
"Oh, I hate this," Moonbeamer sobbed, openly crying. "You’re so kind and wonderful. I’m so lucky to have your friendship!"
"He must have really made an impression," Valhalla said with a sly smile. "He sounds like a real gentleman."
"Don’t I know it," Moonbeamer thought to herself after Valhalla left. "I hope his girlfriend appreciates what a good man she has."
A few days later, Moonbeamer went back to Verity Isle. She had quested a bit and raised her hit points to four hundred twenty. She had also bought a Necronomicon to use for the sanctuary it cast. "Maybe I‘ll have better luck this time," Moonbeamer laughed as she approached the door of the tower. She was glad to be gathering tourms, even if it meant getting battered around by the traps and the mobs.
"Welcome back, Moonbeamer," someone yelled. She checked where and Bunko was there at the entrance with Samson and Slipper. Longnose and Humpleg where somewhere in the tower. Samson was holding the hand of the girl, Slipper, the one that Moonbeamer recognized from the from the hallway.
"Let‘s form and gather some tourms," Bunko yelled, waving his lance around.. "I‘ll form," someone yelled.
Samson looked at Moonbeamer and beckoned her to follow him.
Slipper smiled and nodded.
Deciding to take a chance Moonbeamer accepted the invitation. "Hello, Slipper this is Moonbeamer. Moonbeamer this is Slipper,“ Samson said to the form, “Are you ready?”
She was distracted as Bunko went further into the tower.
“Thank you, yes," Moonbeamer said. "I don’t believe we’ve met," she said, smiling at Samson’s girlfriend.
"Well, I was just getting to that. This is my sister Slipper. She’s been helping me conquer the Tower of Riga. She’s more efficient than me, but I get the job done."
Slipper gave her brother a playful punch in the arm and a warm smile. The affection between them was obvious, but Moonbeamer couldn’t hide her surprise.
"Sh… She is your sister?" Moonbeamer stammered. "Wh…"
"We started out together. When Samson told me about you, I thought it was a great idea for you two to work together for a while. I’ve already seen Cassandra and it will certainly make Samson happy. He talks about you all the time. I feel like we’re old friends…" Slipper’s voice trailed out the door as she joined the others.
Samson sat down on the ground and surprised Moonbeamer even further by kissing her.
"You must have seen that coming for a long time," he said. "I can’t believe you didn’t know how I’ve felt about you. I’ve been so obvious. Lots of times I could have passed by without speaking but I stopped because I wanted to see you, if only for a few minutes. I should have been out of here early on a lot of days, but I hung around to catch you.
"Then when you had been slain I had to do something. I was afraid you’d go somewhere else, and I’d lose you.,” Samson said eagerly.
Samson was kissing her again.
"But I thought…,” and her thoughts trailed off.
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