153 The Road Trip

The group travelled down the overgrown road in the same straight line formation that they left with.

The trip was ultimately uneventful, and Merlin was reading chat for entertainment while partially paying attention to his surroundings.

Unlike the previous expedition where it took them nearly an hour, the wagons shortened the trip considerably, which allowed the group to make it to the remains of Acacesium in only thirty minutes.

The group didn't stop at the abandoned town, but quite a few rangers looked at the abandoned buildings with a sad expression. The town itself seemed to be untouched, appearing exactly as they had left it after Merlin's first expedition.

Although as the wagon passed through the town, Merlin caught a glimpse of a fox briefly poking its head out of a window in one of the houses. It seemed that new residents had begun moving in.

The group began moving in a south-western direction from the town, travelling further west would be a much longer journey and the only thing waiting for them would be the walled off city of Charisia. Due to the fortress city refusing any form of contact, their next best bet would be Parrhasia, which was further south-west from Acacesium.

Almost an hour and a half had passed, and the sun that had once risen high in the sky was now starting to lower itself once more. Merlin noticed that his chat seemed rather bored now, and a quite a few had left or started lurking, waiting for something interesting to occur. 

And their wish had been granted, as one of the rangers in the front-most wagon suddenly shouted out a warning. "Goblins on the road. Large group ahead, stay vigilant."

Several of the rangers tightened their grip on their weapons, while Merlin didn't bother even reaching for his. He knew the fight would be over before he even got close to one of them.

And much like Merlin predicted, he watched the entire group of goblins cut down by a rain of arrows. There wasn't a single fragment of fair play during the fight, it was a one-sided slaughter.

After collecting whatever arrows they could salvage from the corpses, and looting anything remotely useful, the rangers began throwing the goblin corpses into the nearby forest before the group continued down the road.

Not long after, the group had finally made their way to Parrhasia, a large town that was enclosed with an impressive looking stockade. The walls surrounding the town were thick logs stacked side by side, and the top of each log was sharpened to a point.

There were several tall structures within the stockade that were tall enough to provide vision over the wall, each of these watch towers seemed to be located near one of the large gates.

It seemed as though all of the gates on the northern side of town were closed, and this was likely mirrored on the southern side. Fortunately an individual manning one of the watch towers noticed the group, and Merlin watched the gate be slowly opened as the wagon slowly made its way inside.

'They're a bit laid back in regards to safety, aren't they?' Merlin thought to himself, 'It's not like all large roaming groups are good, there's the Despoina cult after all.'

Merlin thought of a few reasons behind it, perhaps they were made aware of the group's arrival ahead of time, or could easily recognise a few faces in the crowd. It wasn't like the wagons had any easily recognisable icons or an insignia printed on them, so there surely had to be some reason that they didn't so much as ask for a name or the group's intent.

Merlin sat in silence as the wagons drove into town. He was lost in thought until he gazed over at the chat once more, just in time to catch Quinn's comments.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: Oh, you're finally back in civilisation?

[MOD] Quinntessential: Enough scenery, do something, kill some stuff.

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It seemed his patience had run out, although he was likely watching the stream on another screen while playing more ranked games.

As Merlin was paying attention to chat, he felt his body jerk to the side as the wagon suddenly stopped. He snapped out of his daze and looked to the front of the train of wagons.

There he saw a literal army of armoured soldiers marching down the street, each bearing the insignia of a wolf's head wearing a crown.

"Father's personal army." Callisto muttered. "They must be using Parrhasia as a base of operations as they try to reestablish contact with Charisia."

"Of course he gets in my way again." She sighed.

The army of knights marched towards one of the north-western gates leading out of the town. Once they had gotten out of the way, the wagons began moving once again.

'I suppose another possible reason they would be less cautious is because they have the king's personal army residing within the town, that might be the answer...' Merlin thought, 'Although wouldn't they ramp up security in such a case? They would be putting the king's army at risk for no reason.'

It was probably something simple that Merlin just found himself overthinking. After noticing that Callisto or the other rangers didn't seem to care, he eventually dropped the thought.

The wagons made their way to a large stable, and all the rangers were ordered to dismount. Once everyone was off, the drivers of each wagon made their way further into the stable, while the rest of the rangers were pointed in the direction of a local pub.

Although he had no intention of eating, nor the requirement to do so, Merlin followed the group within the pub.

Before he made his way into the building, a red alert box appeared within his vision.

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[Message from the devs!]

Group one, there is only one hour left for today's session, you will receive another notification when it's time to log out.

If you do not leave by that time you will be forcibly disconnected, please make sure you're in a safe location when you log out.

└───────────────────

Merlin waved the notification away and stepped inside the pub. The atmosphere was rather calm, much calmer than he expected.

Perhaps it was just because of the current time of day, but those who were drinking seemed to be doing so in moderation. Merlin wasn't sure, but he had visited several villages located in monster dense areas during his time as a lore hunter, and while learning about various cultures he discovered that several villages outlawed severe intoxication outside of major events.

The reason given was always that death was always a single monster raid away for these villages, and having your warriors at least somewhat capable of standing on their own two feet while fighting was always going to be more advantageous than having them crawling around in combat.

While he wasn't sure if this was the case here, but he found it quite interesting either way. There would almost always be at least one group of rowdy drunkards in every pub, but that rule never applied to these villages.

While thinking to himself, he noticed Callisto approach one of the tables where a group of four men were sitting around enjoying slices of what looked to be honey glazed ham and a pint of alcohol.

"Glad to see you're enjoying yourselves." She muttered, and as the group of four finally realised who they were talking to, they dropped their food back on their plates and greeted their guild leader.

'So I suppose she found the scout team she sent out here.' Merlin thought to himself as he stared at the four.

"The horses are resting, so we'll be setting off early tomorrow. We'll be meeting at the stables at sunrise, don't drink too much." Callisto turned to her group and announced. "You're all dismissed."

A few minutes later almost everyone in the group had started making their way to the various tables and began ordering food. Merlin received the information he required, so he decided to slip out of the building and explore.

By the time he logged out and back in again the next day, it should be time for them to set off, hopefully. It was tricky managing these sorts of quests with such a limited amount of time to play, but this wasn't much of an issue once the servers were permanently on and everyone could play at their own pace.

Merlin walked around the town, giving his viewers a tour, and himself a refresher on the town's layout. He came across what seemed to be a makeshift barracks located on the southern side of town, a repurposed inn that was now flying banners with the same wolf insignia that Merlin saw previously.

Merlin spent quite a bit of time around the village, and even left it temporarily to kill a few things in the nearby forest to entertain his audience, but eventually it came time to end the stream as he received the red alert box telling him it was nearly time to go.

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[Message from the devs!]

Group one, your session will end in five minutes, please find a safe place and log out.

The server will forcibly disconnect those who do not log out in time. Thank you.

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"Sorry for the lack of content this time around everyone." He apologised to his stream before promising them some interesting content next time. "But tune in tomorrow for what sounds to be a massive war against an orc army."

He ended the stream before making his way back into town. He walked past the pub, seeing that most of the rangers were still inside, while a few others, including Callisto, were nowhere to be seen.

He stood near the stables, the place he was supposed to meet the group tomorrow, before uttering the command to logout and then confirming it.

Then not long after, the world around him faded to black.