Truth and Honor
*Brief Notice: Indications of time-passage have been excluded by the fanfiction system.
Chapter One
I was surrounded by trees. White trees, with ashy green leaves. I blinked at them a few times, then shook my head. Why were there trees? I didn't put them there….
"Get up!" someone was shouting. I blinked again, clearing some of the fog from my mind. I became aware of the growling and clattering and hissing around me.
I sat up and saw a man nearby. An iron sword was clenched in his hand, the blade stained with gore and the edge chipped in several places. He himself was tall and leanly built, clad in a blue T-shirt and jeans and sporting a thick mop of messy brown hair.
"Wha—?" I slurred, looking around. The man in blue was locked in combat, holding back a small platoon of monsters.
"Get. UP!" the man replied, slashing through an assailing spider. It squealed and dropped to the ground, its legs curling up in a ball.
I sat up and fumbled around for a weapon until my fingers collided with the hilt of a stone sword. I took it and staggered to my feet, feeling sick and dizzy. My HP was down to three hearts.
I noticed an arrow sticking out of my chest.
However, I didn't have any time to contemplate it, as the stranger had pressed his back against mine and was fending off a zombie, leaving me face-to-face with a creeper.
I drove my sword forward, earning a hiss of pain from the creature. Patches of its skin started to flash, and its green-speckled body began to swell. I shoved the mysterious man to the side, but I wasn't quite fast enough.
I heard him grunt in pain behind me as I fell to the ground. My HP had dropped to half of one heart. My ears were ringing, and for a long time I lay on the forest floor, waiting for the final blow.
It didn't come.
I felt a hand lift the back of my head and drip something into my mouth. It was only partially warm and tasted like water from a rusty pipe.
"Honestly, you're pathetic." I heard the man say. I was torn between being offended and spitting whatever he was giving me into his face. But, after a moment, my HP bar began to refill. The blur in my vision faded away, and various cuts and scrapes across my body closed up.
I sat up and rubbed my head, then pulled the shaft of the arrow out of my sternum. It came out easily, and the hole it left soon sealed.
"Uh…thanks, I guess." I muttered, scowling at him. He held a glass bottle in his hand, beads of blue fluid lingering in the bottom. He tipped the contents into his own mouth, then tossed the bottle aside. It was dark, so I still couldn't see much of his face.
He got up, taking me roughly by the wrist and yanking me to my feet.
"Do you have a shelter?" he asked.
"Ow! Hey!" I protested to the rough gesture. "No, I was heading back to town when—"
"Which town?" the man began a brisk stride into the forest, his shoulders drawn and his head turning side to side. I followed after him, struggling to keep up with his pace.
"Iceridge," I told him.
"Then you're heading in the wrong direction." the man said sharply. "Iceridge is a fourteen day's journey to the north."
"Fourteen days?" I cried. The man whirled and clapped a rough hand over my mouth.
"Do you want every spider jockey within a hundred miles to be coming after us?" He hissed. "Keep your voice down. You're already useless at combat."
I grabbed his wrist and tore his hand away.
"Stop saying that! A skeleton surprised me, it could happen to anyone!" I whispered loudly.
He rolled his eyes in the dark, then turned and started walking again. A spider lunged at him from between the trees, and with a flash of his sword, it fell dead at his feet.
I stayed close behind him, though I was tempted to kick him and run.
My legs were burning and the sky was pink by the time he stopped walking. The birch forest had long since changed into desolate foothills speckled with scraggly oak trees and random veins of coal.
"Sit." the man commanded. I did as I was told, collapsing onto a sizeable boulder and attempting to catch my breath. The sun was slowly rising, and I could finally get a look at his features.
Unfortunately, he was one of those men: splendidly good-looking, but with the personality to match the face of a zombie villager. His skin was tanned and worn, his jaw was clean-cut and lined with stubble, and his eyes were the clearest blue I had ever seen.
"You're a jerk, you know that?" I panted.
"It's better that way." the man replied with a grunt. "What do you call yourself?"
"Althea." I told him, scowling at a spot near his head. "Friends call me Thea, but seeing as how you aren't my friend, you don't get to call me that."
"Althea," he repeated. "A name that translates to 'truth.'"
There was a moment of silence, permitting the sky to turn a warm lavender color. The peaks of the mountains were stained with gold.
"What about you?" I asked. For a long while, I thought he wasn't going to answer. But then, he spoke.
"Call me Steve."
"And I bet that translates to 'Obnoxious Loser.'" I huffed. Steve chuckled coldly, then glanced at me. There wasn't any trace of a smile on his lips.
"No, it means 'honor.' And don't forget that I saved your life back there." I watched Steve draw a bow from his inventory and take aim at a creeper lurking further down the mountainside. He pulled back, and I noticed that the weapon shimmered with purple light.
"So, you're a sorcerer?" I asked when the creeper lay dead with an arrow in each of its eye sockets.
"No." Steve replied, storing his bow and replacing it with the simple iron sword I'd seen earlier. It looked about ready to shatter. "It's a simple Unbreaking II enchantment I picked up at a desert temple. Anyone with enough XP can do it."
"So you're an adventurer, then." I stood up and shouldered my sword. It was made of stone, rudimentary and very heavy, but it was better than a wooden one.
"You could say that." Steve replied. He opened his inventory and pulled out four apples and a handful of cooked fish. "This should last you several days. Head straight north until you reach Iceridge. Be careful about building shelters before it gets dark (there have been unusually high amounts of mobs around), try not to take any damage and avoid sprinting if you can."
I took the rations from him a bit hesitantly, stored them and watched as he started to walk in an eastern direction.
"Wait," I called. "You're just going to leave me out here?"
"Yep."
"With the monsters?"
"Yes."
"But my compass is broken."
"Get a new one in Iceridge."
I crossed my arms and harrumphed, watching him walk away. He didn't turn around or say "Just kidding" or come back towards me in any way whatsoever. Steve just kept walking.
In a few moments, he disappeared into the tree line.
I stood there for a few minutes, watching for him. Almost no one traveled alone out in the middle of nowhere, unless you were one of the Knights. But they usually wielded diamond swords and rode horses and owned more iron than the entire Iceridge quarry. Steve wasn't wearing any armor, and except for his enchanted bow, his equipment was pretty mediocre.
Which brings me to the predicament that I currently in. Traveling alone. In the middle of nowhere. With only three XP levels and a stone sword that would break after five more kills. The only items in my inventory were the food that Steve gave me, five sticks, three wooden planks, a single torch and my sword. Swell.
This whole ordeal began a few days ago, when I became separated from the trade caravan I was traveling with. Me, my friend Zara and about twenty other citizens of Iceridge were heading south to trade with the people of Hartwood. However, during the trip home, some of the younger villagers challenged me to a game of hide-and-go-seek. Unfortunately, I went too far into the forest, and after nearly an hour of sitting still and waiting to be found, I realized that the caravan had left without me. I didn't know why they would abandon me in the wild, but I suddenly found myself in the same predicament as before.
I was alone. In the middle of nowhere.
Chapter Two
Rain sloughed down in sheets, soaking into the earth and dripping from the treetops. Mud slurped at my shoes with a disgusting sucking sound as I staggered along the bank of the stream, which had now swollen to the size of a river.
The only reason I hadn't stopped to make a shelter yet was because of the fleeting glimpse of a church steeple between the trees, indicating an NPC village.
NPC villages weren't like normal towns for two reasons: One, they were filled with mysterious creatures that farmed and conducted trade without any known outside resources, and two, they all looked exactly the same. I'd only seen photographs of them, and they gave me nightmares for weeks after that.
But, if they had food and shelter, I had no choice but to confront them.
I came out of the trees and onto a gravel pathway. The village was made of the same three houses repeated over and over again, save for a cobblestone church and a blacksmith's forge nestled into a small grove of birch trees. It was well lit and I could smell food.
The first NPC came up to me when I passed by what looked like a library. It was taller than me, with an oblong skull and a fat, puffy nose that hung to its mouth. Its eyes were bright green beneath a unibrow.
"U-Um…do you…have a place to stay?" I squeaked. "A-and…food?"
"Yes." it replied. Its eyes were unblinking, and it didn't seem to mind the rain.
"C-Can I…uh…have some?" My teeth were chattering violently.
"Yes." it said. "For a sum."
"I don't really have anything." I muttered.
"Thirty-two wheat seeds." it said. The NPC was still staring at me, and it made all the hair on my arms stand up.
"I don't have any of those." I said. The NPC nodded at a small plot of farmland nearby, and I spent the next three hours collecting what it had asked of me.
It took the seeds from me in a pudgy hand, made a careful count, and then produced an emerald from its robes. It gave the emerald to me, then walked away. I looked at the glittering green stone with confusion and disdain. I knew that emeralds weren't used in crafting.
"Um...this isn't what I asked for!" I called. The NPC contentedly ignored me as it shuffled away.
"Notch, were you raised in a cave?" a familiar voice scoffed. I turned around, and there he was. The rain plastered his thick, brown hair to his forehead and made his T-shirt stick to his chest.
"Are you following me?" I asked, ready to pull out my sword.
"No. I was coming here in the first place. You just have a horrible sense of direction." Steve gave an exasperated sigh. "Come on."
None of the NPCs intervened with our progress as Steve took my wrist and pulled me into one of the buildings, shutting the door behind him.
It was warm inside, and a bowl of mushroom stew rested on a counter. A crafting table and a furnace were tucked into a corner.
"Don't we have to pay them?" I asked, shivering inside the door.
"No. I don't think the Villagers actually have conscious thought." Steve said. He stripped off his wet shirt and tossed it over the edge of the table. He pulled a new one from his inventory and tugged it over his chest, then ran his hands through his hair to help it dry faster. "Which means you just wasted a lot of time collecting seeds."
I fumed.
"You were watching me and you didn't say anything?" I cried.
"Hey, it's not my fault you're as dense as a lump of coal." Steve retorted. "You should have done your research."
"Stop doing that!" I shouted.
"Doing what?" Steve looked at me, his clear eyes unwavering.
"Insulting me!" I huffed. "You think that you're so clever with your…fancy weapons and your good looks and—"
"Good looks?" Steve cocked an eyebrow.
"Don't think for a minute that I like you!" I snapped. "Because you are the most arrogant, pig-headed man I've ever met, and you can go die in a lava-pit somewhere!"
Steve stared at me for a long time. Then,
"Are you trying to ask me to escort you home?" he asked.
"NO!" I shouted. "I would rather walk with one of the NPCs!" I turned and threw open the door and stepped into the rain. It was bitterly cold, and it was beginning to get dark. I didn't care. I just had to get as far away from Steve as possible.
I felt him grab my wrist in a vice grip.
"If you go out there tonight, you are going to die." he said with a solemnity in his voice that made the back of my neck prickle.
"How can you be so sure?" I snapped, trying to tear my arm out of his grip.
"Because…" he trailed off, his eyes turning towards the ground. The intense blue softened to a muted turquoise. Then he looked back up at me, but his eyes didn't turn cold and steely again. "Because the mob spawns are higher in a storm."
I studied him. His loss of conviction was somewhat startling, but I was certain of one thing now: He was hiding something.
"Why do you care?" I finally answered, shuddering as a trickle of bitter rain ran down my spine.
"I don't and I can't stop you if you leave. But if you value your life, don't let me out of your sight until you're safe at home." Steve said. His voice was almost soft. Almost.
"I guess you think you're coming with me, then?" I asked.
"Think of it in a way that means we're simply heading in the same direction." Steve replied. He let go of my arm, allowing the icy rain to run across my wrist. It was then that I realized how warm his hands were.
I scurried after him before any of the Villagers could get too close.
"Do you have any extra clothes? If you get too cold, it will deplete your HP." Steve asked.
"I know that." I said sharply. "But no, I don't have anything else."
"Then here." he told me. He opened his inventory and drew out a set of leather armor. He tossed them at my feet, then turned around.
I didn't move for a while, but then reluctantly changed into the extra set of clothes. The inside of each piece was lined with soft fur, like a jacket, but the whole getup didn't fit me very well.
I sat in a corner by the counter and rubbed my hands together.
"You can look now." I said quietly.
Steve sighed and sat in a chair placed by the table. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back, closing his eyes.
"You ought to get some rest. We're leaving at dawn." he said.
I heard no more from him the rest of the night, but I knew he wasn't asleep. Granted, I wasn't either, but I hoped that he didn't know that. I was too busy wondering why he had suddenly decided to help me and why I had let him even though I hated him with a fiery passion.
I dismissed it to the fact that I couldn't tell right from left, and that I needed someone to help me out with my worthless sense of direction.
However, I didn't trust him, not even a little bit. Steve was hiding something from me, and I was determined to find out what.
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