Feast of Crows (Solo)
“A mysterious curse has befallen our village. There is a ritual that will cleanse and consecrate this space, banishing this dark spell, but there is but one ingredient I lack. I require the tail feathers of the Grandfather Crow. He nests in a copse of trees north of here. Fetch these for me, and quickly, Paladin, for I fear we’ve not much time.”
Jack had spent most of the day in a foul mood. Normally, he was even tempered, sweet, one of the easiest guys to get along with. But after snapping at another low level player over a simple question, he had distanced himself from the people on his friends list (Emeline included) and stuck to solo quests. In his mind, it was better to take it out on computer generated creatures than to lose his temper with the few people that mattered in the game. It was like he had this raw nerve exposed, and everything seemed to aggravate it. The later in the day it got, the worse his mood seemed to be.
He arrived at the cluster of trees north of the village. The setting sun cast long shadows over the area. The raucous call of crows above him confirmed he was in the right area to find this Grandfather Crow. He looked up anticipating that the birds would begin their attack. It didn’t happen though. The stupid things just sat up there. He growled, frustrated that the one time he would have welcomed a fight, the game AI didn’t want to provide it.
“Fine then.” His canines lengthened into fangs as he activated SHIELD DRUM. A few crows turned their beady eyes on Jack, then almost in unison swooped down on him. He waded into the fight, following the simple stun and smash tactic that had stood him in good stead since the fire snail cave. They didn’t fall as easily as the lower level creatures he had grown used to fighting. The ebon feathered nuisances were fast, darting away from attacks with a swift turn of the wing, and had higher hitpoints. He barely paid notice to it though, swept up in the moment and in the fight. When the final crow disappeared in a flurry of pixels, his loot screen didn’t show the tail feathers needed for the damn quest. None of the crows in that group was the one he sought. He growled softly, then moved to the next group of crows, not paying a bit of attention to his health and stamina as he provoked them with SHIELD DRUM. Frustration turned to anger as once again he was denied the tail feathers. The rage bubbled over as he threw his sword. He watched as it clattered against a tree. The crow calls continued on above him as he had just a moment of clarity hit him.
“...why am I getting so worked up over this?”
He glanced up as the last rays of the setting sun disappeared, and it was then he found his answer. “...oh.”
The shift, his first since joining the game, hit him in that glowing twilight. He felt himself slipping away, swept up in the heat of what felt like a wild fire growing within him. As sheer primal fury set in, everything became a huge blur...
The next thing Jack knew, he was curled up at the foot of a tree and dappled sunlight shown down on him. His health bar was down by nearly 2/3. His XP bar had filled beyond what he remembered actually slaying, and he had many more items in his inventory that he didn’t remember picking up. Among those items were the tail feathers he had been sent to retrieve in the first place. He groaned as he got to his feet and retrieved his discarded sword. He stared at it for a moment, then slipped it into his scabbard and turned to head to the village.
He started to send a message to Emeline, then stopped himself. He didn’t want her to worry anymore than she probably already was, given that her father’s whereabouts were still unknown. Instead, he sent a tell to Taryn.
You whisper to Taryn: How many days do full moons last ingame?
