Mythril adjusted Audreg’s bow, brushed down her hair, avoided her spit and bites, and shuffled her towards the house.

“Stay,” he directed. He had no idea if it would work, but when he backed away and the deranged bird didn’t follow he felt something had gotten through to her. Either that or she was more interested in a rematch with the crows then him anyway.

While Audreg waited outside of the house, Mythril and Timothy snuck around the back of the barn, and although at first arching away from the farm house, once they could see what lay behind it they began to veer back in.

“A graveyard, typical,” Mythril said, wondering if that were so lower levels wouldn’t feel too defeated respawning. His stomach felt hollow for a moment, the game world of respawn mixing with the very real world that he was living in. Should he need to respawn would he be able to? If he did, would it hurt?

He suddenly felt quite foolish for his desire to come here alone.

“I suppose it is quite typical, but where else are farmers supposed to bury their dead?”

“Away from the crops, somewhere like a church perhaps?” Mythril answered.

“Can hardly say there are any crops growing.”

“I wonder why,” Mythril replied, pointing both to the graves they were approaching and the house where the Crow Mother dwelled. He could hear Audreg on the other side, scuffling her large feet, and wondered how long until the crows took interest in her. From that point, he knew they would only have a few minutes until Audreg fled and either the crows reset and would soon find them, or, should they surround Audreg, they would need to intervene. After all, he may have only known Audreg for a little while, but she had already come through for him.

The graveyard was small, only a few mounds on the ground with small wooden crosses planted at the head, and a couple of stone graves that rested crooked within the earth. It didn’t take long to see the sword.

The tip of it buried deep within the top of one of the grave stones, the rest of the sharp blade, with a simple metal hilt, pointed out of the top of it.

“Is it too easy a thing to think that this is the sword and buried beneath is the soul we’re looking for?”

Timothy sighed and raised his shoulders. “You could think it easy, but this is a starter quest.”

Mythril weighed up his options. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if pulling out the sword would summon the Crow Mother. They had needed to wait some time before she approached when they were at the front of the house, and summoning bosses was a common theme in these types of games.

He hesitated, knowing that Audreg was round the other side and so should he need to escape quickly it wouldn’t be possible to do so.

At least he thought Audreg was around the other side.

A whooping sound came from their left. Mythril turned his head in its direction just in time to see Audreg sprinting towards them, crows in tow behind her.

“No! Not to us!” he shouted, but the long-limbed terror wasn’t listening. Her feet pounding on the ground, dust flying up behind her and landing upon the crows, slowing them down momentarily.

Mythril lunged at the sword, pulling it from the stone. There was no sudden break of sunlight through the clouds, no epic music played as he lifted it in the air, only the cries and squawks and whoops of the birds that were fast approaching. His scroll appeared in front of him, quest dialogue upon it. Then a break came, a crack through the bird call, a shrill cry edged with laughter. He had no time to read the quest, pressing DECLINE he turned towards Timothy’s screams.

“Oh great, here we go!” Timothy yelled from behind. “Run!”

“No!” Mythril replied. His feet felt heavy on the ground as he positioned his sword. He saw the Crow Mother round the corner, felt the crows begin to circle them. This sword, he thought, this sword is the item needed to stop the Crow Mother.

She approached. He struck her hard in the chest.

Her laughter rose higher, she grew a mere few inches but the width in which she spread her arms, like vast wings of a bird of prey, she towered over Mythril.

“What did you do?” Timothy called from behind, his sword in his hand as he worked alongside Audreg to keep the smaller mob at bay.

“Bad things,” Mythril said, after a second strike that saw the Crow Mother again grow larger, angrier, and seemingly more blood-thirsty. “Yep, definitely bad things! Okay, now run!”

They fled towards the fields, leaping over the low fence that sectioned the fields from the farm house. Mythril turned his head to see Audreg still swinging her neck against the crows, his heart sinking as the Crow Mother approached her, daggers raised in the air.

“Audreg!” his cry scratched up the inside of his throat. She looked towards him. “Audreg, follow! Follow now!”

The ostrich made one final swing towards the crows, hopped into the air and over the small lumps at her feet. Mythril couldn’t see if they were the bodies of crows or something else that her feet kicked out of the way. She swept her head low, narrowly avoiding the first of the Crow Mother’s strikes. She was over the first fence, galloping towards them with the might of a stallion. Pride swelled in Mythril’s chest as he watched the fat feathered body upon gangly legs approach them.

He readied himself.

“Really?” he heard Timothy sigh with what sounded like disappointment tinged with judgement beside him. “This is the chosen one?”

A swoop of her head, and Mythril was back upon Audreg’s back.

Her pink bow fluttered in the wind as they fled towards the edge of the field. He looked over his shoulder to see Timothy running behind them, the crows pecking at his back.

Mythril held the sword he had pulled from the stone high into the air. “This is the chosen one!” he yelled, a huge smile spreading fast from his mouth to his eyes. If only, he thought, his hand patting Audreg on the side, if only Sarah could see me now. He patted Audreg again, to which she responded with a ball of spit which flew through the air behind them.

“Damnit!” he heard Timothy cry, and rounding Audreg now they reached the edge of the field he saw that he was wiping something from his eyes.

The crows were gone, the Crow Mother with them, but still Timothy stumbled towards them.

“What happened?” Mythril asked, jumping down from Audreg with a grunt from his lips and a hiss from hers.

“Audreg spat in my eye.”

Timothy was using the linen of his tunic and although his eye now looked dry, no sign of anything in it, he was rubbing it raw. A red rim now framed his brown eyes. “It’s so disgusting… I can still feel it in there.”

Mythril opened the INVENTORY on his scroll and after tapping water offered it to Timothy.

“Perfect,” he said, spilling some of the liquid over his hand before splashing it over his face. “Have you ever had an ostrich spit at you?”

“No,” Mythril said. “Well, yes. Maybe, I don’t know if she’s spitting at us or just in general. We can’t blame her.”

Timothy looked up at Mythril, right in the eye, a blank stare from between his now swollen, red and blotchy eye-lids. “Oh, we can’t blame her? Okay.”

“That was your doing,” Mythril exclaimed and gestured towards Timothy’s tunic which was splotched with water marks from where he rubbed his eyes. “Let’s get on with what’s important. We have the sword. The sword didn’t work on the Crow Mother, but I did have a quest pop up when I first looted it.”

“I thought the quest told you to use the sword?”

“No,” Mythril said, looking to the ground and kicking at the dirt just as Audreg did. Only his motion was with shame, and hers was simply looking for something to destroy. “I just figured that might be what I needed to do.” Before Timothy could protest Mythril continued speaking. “I didn’t get chance to read it, everything was happening too fast and I only had time to act!”

If it weren’t for his current ailment Mythril was sure that Timothy may have been able to give him a look of contempt, unfortunately all he could muster was an expression of mild annoyance. He waved his hand, a signal to just get on with it.

Mythril pulled up QUEST, scrolled down to THE CROW MOTHER which now had NEW flashing beside it and tapping on it soon saw how wrong he had been. He put the quest away.

“Well?” Timothy asked, his eyes as wide as he could manage to make them.

“Well perhaps it says not to attack her with the sword, in so many words,” Mythril replied, a roll of his eyes and shrug of his shoulders admitting his guilt but passing it off as no big deal. “The sword may just have to be wielded by the one who wound up dead trying to get her wisdom.”

“Uh huh.”

They weren’t really words, but enough had been said by them for Mythril to know that Timothy wanted more than just an explanation for what just happened, he wanted to know what was supposed to happen.

Mythril pulled back out his scroll.

The Crow Mother

Gone the dawn of straw he takes, come the ‘morrow of gold he makes.

Of wisdom blessed, yet at a soul’s request, this wisdom repressed, as a lifeless being of crow’s detest.

Should a wanderer find this sword, and grace him with its blade once more, he will offer great reward.

Should a wanderer strike his foe, such a wanderer will soon succumb, to the blades of the mother crow.

“And we chose to strike the Mother Crow,” Timothy said, patting a hand at the side of one of his eyes. “Just trying to cool it off a little,” he said, seeing Mythril’s concern.

“Well sometimes it’s just the weapon you need to defeat these monsters.” Mythril looked across the field they had just run over, scanning his eyes towards the four other fields that accompanied this one. There was little to look at, some fencing, some crows, dry earth, and scarecrows. He nodded his head, decision made. “In this case it looks like we need to find a scarecrow and give it the sword.”

“How do you know it’s a scarecrow?”

Mythril tapped his scroll once, just to confirm that the quest was in the area where they stood. Satisfied, he put it away.

“A lifeless, or soulless, whichever, being that crows detest? What else is it going to be? A dead carrot?” he said, pointing at the ground that was void of crops.

“Personally, I don’t know the likes and dislikes of crows,” Timothy replied, his voice somewhat monotone. “But okay, scarecrow it is then, but which one?”

There was nothing in the quest that hinted towards which scarecrow it might be and Mythril had a feeling that whichever it wasn’t would most likely attack them with the very sword he was to give them.

“There might be some giveaway when we get a closer look at them, perhaps in what they wear or something, but I think we’re probably going to be doing quite a bit of trial and error.”

“Should I be prepared to fight?” Timothy asked.

“I will be,” Mythril replied, walking towards the nearest scarecrow.

His feet crunched down on the dry earth, dust billowing up around his ankles. The first scarecrow, lurched over them. Its arms tied to the pole, sleeves of its shirt and light material of its brown trousers fluttering slightly. Its eyes were small grey stones, its mouth a twig and nose a rotting carrot.

“Well, there’s our carrot.” Timothy pointed to the blackening vegetable and gave a grunt of disgust. “Try the sword I guess?”

“Are you ready?” Mythril asked, hesitant to place it in one of the scarecrow’s hands.

“Of course,” Timothy said, his own sword in his hands. “It’s not going to be difficult.”

No sooner did Mythril place the sword in the scarecrow’s hands had it groaned into life. Its head swayed from side to side, an eerie lolling of its neck that cracked through to Mythril’s ear drums and made him shudder.

Mythril held his sword summoned in his hands. His heart beat loudly in his chest. He knew that the scarecrow couldn’t be of a high level, but he still doubted his ability to take down even the easiest of monsters, should he need to.

CUT ME DOWN

The voice was deep, itchy against Mythril’s skin like falling against a bale of hay would be.

“You heard him,” Timothy said, “cut the bondage from his wrists.”

Mythril sliced his blade through the rope, not caring should he catch the scarecrow. If he was the one they needed for the quest, he believed he wouldn’t be able to hurt him, if he was to be an enemy, then that was exactly what he intended to do.

The scarecrow fell forward, it’s head swaying towards the dirt. Realizing his error Mythril hurried to set loose its legs with another swift cut.

It stumbled forwards, blade in its hand. At first Mythril considered the possibility that they had already found who they were looking for, but when a blade was plunged towards him that only narrowly missed because Timothy knocked it down he saw how wrong he was.

The scarecrow turned on Timothy, the blade soon being slashed against his arm. Timothy let out a howl before striking back, his own sword cutting down against the scarecrow’s leg.

Mythril lunged from behind, driving his sword into the scarecrow’s back. It shuddered for a moment and then dropped to its knees. Not wasting a moment Mythril, both hands wrapped around the hilt of the sword, brought it down and plunged it through the scarecrow’s head. It cried out, rippled against the sunlight, and then vanished. In its place was a small satchel, that landed on the ground with a gentle thump.

Now Mythril saw what had been at Audreg’s feet when she escaped the Crow Mother.

Loot.

“A bit much wasn’t it?” Timothy asked, his brows slightly raised.

“What was?” Mythril asked, his body slightly trembling from the excitement of the battle. It had been a short one, against a minor enemy, he knew, but he defeated it and this told him all he needed to know. He could survive in this world.

Beneath the sleeve of his linen shirt another icon flickered out of existence.

“How you took out the scarecrow, it was down, did you need to finish it off in an execution?”

Mythril was kneeling down towards the loot satchel, he lifted it up and turned its heavy weight over in his hands. It was a simple piece of material with rope wrapped around the tuft that stuck out at the top to bind it shut. “Was I supposed to just poke it or something?”

“Well, no,” Timothy sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing is as we expect it to be.”

Mythril noticed that he glanced at Audreg, and then back towards Mythril, as he said this.

“What did you get then,” Timothy continued while positioning his sword back at his hip.

Mythril’s hands shook slightly, making it difficult to open the satchel with only one hand. He dropped it back to the ground. Opening it he saw nothing, an empty space where he hoped at least copper would be. Anything that could be worth something.

“If you’re not going to reach your hand inside then just tip it upside down,” Timothy said, his voice tinged with impatience. “We have scarecrows to, well, in your case, behead.”

Mythril over turned the bag and from it spilled items he was sure he should have been able to see. Then again, his own satchel was something of a marvel.

Out spilled four copper pieces, one silver, a roll of soft pink material that beneath his fingers he thought felt of silk, a small red potion he knew to be for his health, and a rusted dagger. He collected all of the items.

“You’re even taking the dagger?” Timothy said in surprise.

“I’ll sell it.” Mythril had no intention to sell it. This was his first loot. The first thing he earned in this all too familiar world.

“I won’t question its worth if you think it will be worth something,” Timothy said, his attention now on the field next to them. “We should move on.”

It wasn’t long until they were standing in front of a scarecrow who shared many similarities to the previous one. It was only at this point that Mythril realized he no longer had the sword for the quest. Searching around him, and patting on trousers like he might find it in a pocket, Mythril came up empty handed.

“What are you doing? Just get on with summoning the sword.” At Mythril’s blank stare Timothy continued, “From your quest log, just summon the item.”

QUEST LOG, THE CROW MOTHER, and there it was. At the bottom, above where it now also said ABANDON Mythril saw the word SUMMON ITEM. He tapped it and in his hand the sword came into being. Even without casting magic spells like he had seen Selrah use he felt like a magician in this world.

Stepping forward Mythril placed the sword in the Scarecrow’s hand.

CUT ME DOWN.

Mythril looked at Timothy who blew his lips out in an exaggerated sigh.

“Here we go again then,” he said.

Mythril’s blade worked four times, once at the binding of the scarecrow’s feet, twice at the binding of its hands, and finally with a slice that slit up the middle of the scarecrow’s torso. A single attack that had it transforming into a satchel at his feet within seconds.

“Made easy work of that one,” Timothy commented as Mythril emptied the contents of the satchel on the ground.

Again he collected everything. A few copper coins, no silver this time, another roll of silk. A bundle of hay that gave him pause for thought, why hadn’t the other dropped hay? This was soon put to the side when he remembered all the wolves in other games that dropped trousers or even swords. He continued his search through the loot. A set of leather bracers, and a scroll.

He opened the scroll and a quest popped up.

Dear Tabatha,

I have sent my note attached to a new prototype of golem I am working on. Yes, I know, you wanted stone, but don’t most ladies want diamond? This is my motivation, to please a lady who cares little for stones, left me want of creating a golem of straw. What better a material, if it annoys you, simply set it on fire! Ha! A masterpiece, if I do say so.

Yours,

Brinwick Softflower

P.S Please don’t burn the old chap. If you should find him not to your liking just send him on his way back to me.

Mythril wondered if Tabatha was the Crow Mother, or if she had found the scarecrow on its way to or from this Tabatha. He glanced at the quest title. CAPTURED. Well, that answered that then. He clicked accept despite knowing it would be of a low level again. Perhaps if he came across a Tabatha or Brinwick he could let them know what became of the golem.

“Anything of interest?” Timothy asked once Mythril put the scroll away.

“Not to us,” Mythril replied, standing from the satchel that soon vanished once it was emptied. “Maybe to someone else. Next?”

The next field was a little further away. This one, unlike the previous two, had a greater number of crows circling above. A cloud of black mist with an ever-changing shape as crows flocked and dispersed. At times, one would swoop down to the lonely scarecrow on its pole, take a peck at its eye and then make flight again to the group above. A great cawing could be heard each time they did this.

“I think we’ve found our man,” Timothy said, his eyes, no longer so swollen, fixed on the birds above.

“I don’t remember seeing these when I came in,” Mythril commented, although, unsure of by which field he had entered by with so much having happened in a short amount of time. At least it felt like a short amount of time. He soon became aware of the fact that no one had come looking for him. He was in a group, and even if something within the group had gone wrong, he knew Selrah would be able to see his dot on the map. “Have we been here long?”

“Feels like a lifetime,” Timothy remarked as they entered the field.

A crow swooped down towards him, batted away by Audreg who spread out her wings and whooped as another tried to strike them.

Mythril’s sword was soon in his hand. He stepped slightly apart from Timothy, giving them both room to dodge the growing onslaught. He was fairly certain he couldn’t hurt Timothy, but he wasn’t sure about waiting to see if Timothy could hurt him.

The crows fell with one blow upon each, and there was nothing enjoyable about this for Mythril. He liked crows, and even though he knew they were part of the game, had they not been attacking him he wouldn’t have engaged in attacking them.

He didn’t bother with gathering the loot, deciding instead to return to it later. The scarecrow was nearby and he knew this was about to begin the next part of the quest and hopefully the Crow Mother would be a little harder to defeat and give him more of a chance to test out his blade, and perhaps even some abilities.

“It doesn’t look much different,” Timothy commented once they approached the scarecrow. “Without the crows I doubt we’d have suspected much.”

Mythril looked over the scarecrow. It had the same features as the others, and much the same clothes, apart from one thing he soon noted in the pocket of its tunic. “It has a pocket watch,” he pointed out to Timothy who nodded.

“Give him the sword then.”