All right! Now that all five of us are together, it should finally be time for the story to begin in earnest.
Our party headed for a nearby tavern to plan our next move.
“So where should we go next?” I mused. “I think we’ve already been pretty much everywhere we can go, with our current means of travel.”
“When you put it that way, it does seem like we’ve encountered a large number of obstacles on our boat,” noted Laika. “There were strong winds that pushed us backward, shallows we couldn’t sail through, and even whirlpools that turned us right around. It would be so easy to ignore them if I could only turn into a dragon…”
Eh, all that stuff’s pretty typical in RPGs. The boat’s never enough to get you access to the whole world map. And you’re just a warrior in this world, not a dragon, so it’s not your fault you can’t help as much as you’d like to.
“While I was traveling on my own, I heard rumors about a hidden village where dragons live in human form,” said Wynona.
That rumor was music to my ears. I was positive it was leading us toward a new party member, or something along those lines.
“That’s perfect!” I exclaimed. “I think that should be our next big objective, actually: getting a dragon or an airship or something that’ll let us travel to new places!”
Getting a new method of transportation that could take you to previously inaccessible locales was a key component of classical RPG progression, and I was all for it. Laika, however, had started scowling the second the word “dragon” was mentioned.
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“I suppose this means that Flatorte will be making an appearance after all. How unfortunate…”
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Oh. I guess that is on the table, yeah.
“There, there,” I said. “We don’t know for sure she’ll be there yet! Maybe the dragons will all be regular people in this world who can only say a couple set phrases.”
It seemed like this dragon excursion might end up being trouble after all, but our only choice was to go and check it out.
“So then, Wynona the hero, where is this so-called hidden village said to lie? One would assume its location is not common knowledge, considering they call it ‘hidden.’ We’ll have to find it before anything else,” said Beelzebub. She seemed to be getting more and more comfortable with RPG logic as time went on. She was clearly thinking along the lines the developers had hoped she would now.
“I was told it’s supposed to lie somewhere in a forest to the north of this nation,” said Wynona. “At least, according to the drunkard in a pub who told me the story.”
“Why would a drunkard in a pub have that kind of information in the first place? This must be a trap, surely… Or perhaps it’s nothing more than a groundless rumor…?”
Sorry, Laika, but it’s definitely true! No decent game would throw a bunch of totally baseless information at you for no good reason!
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Needless to say, we soon set out on our quest to track down the hidden village. The pace of our expedition, however, ended up being painfully slow. The problem at hand was that our cleric, Beelzebub, would heal us the moment we took the slightest bit of damage. All that indiscriminate healing meant she’d run out of MP in no time, and we’d have to turn back before we made any real progress…
“Hmm? I see Laika’s lost a quarter of her health. ’Tis time for healing, just to be safe.”
“No, it isn’t! It’s way too soon to heal her! Why not let her take a little more damage before you pull out the healing magic?” I protested.
“Nay, I think not! There’s no such thing as too soon when it comes to healing—the sooner, the better! I shan’t force any of us to face the fear of entering into combat at less than our full strength.”
She really doesn’t like taking risks, does she…? I never expected to learn something new about Beelzebub’s character here, of all places.
There were two types of RPG players: the ones who deliberately rushed into danger under-leveled so they could enjoy the challenge of forcing their way forward unprepared, and the ones who made sure their preparations were all completely airtight before they so much as set foot in a dungeon. Beelzebub, it seemed, was the latter type. There was no way she’d even consider taking on a boss under-leveled. No, she was the sort of person who would train her characters up until she was certain they could handle any enemy.
Of course, unlike playing an RPG, we were more or less fighting our enemies in person in this dream. Considering that, I could understand why she’d go to some pretty great lengths to make sure we didn’t put ourselves in danger. Then again, even if you ran out of HP in a fight in this world, you’d be left just barely alive after the fight was over. Actually dying after getting knocked out in a fight was apparently just not a thing.
Good thing, too. I’d rather not die if I can help it, even in a dream…
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It took quite some time, but in the end, we finally managed to find the hidden village where the dragons lived. Considering the people walking around in it had horns, I was positive we were in the right place.
“All right! Now we just have to find a dragon who’ll fly us around,” I said.
“It’s very inconvenient that there isn’t an adventurers’ guild in this world,” said Wynona. “If there was, we could simply put out a recruitment notice saying we’re looking for a dragon to transport our party.”
“That wouldn’t make for a very interesting game, though, would it…?” You can’t just let the player buy their way out of all their problems if they have the money to hire someone!
According to the pixelated townsfolk, there was a very unreasonable but mighty dragon living in the center of the village.
“Isn’t it somewhat illogical to specifically seek out an individual who’s been described to us as difficult to deal with…? I’d think we’d be better off seeking someone a little friendlier…”
Laika, no! You’re trying to apply real-world logic to the game’s story again!
“Sorry, but nope! Whenever you hear about a character like that, you can be sure they won’t just be unreasonable when you actually meet them! That’s gonna be the dragon that helps us out!”
Though of course, now that I’m saying it out loud, I’m starting to realize if someone actually went out looking for a person rumored to be a pain, I’d have to assume they weren’t listening to anyone’s advice to begin with…
“If I may be frank,” said Laika, “the truth is, I’m not so much disinterested in meeting with an unreasonable person as I am disinterested in meeting with Flatorte.”
“Oh, is that where this is coming from?!”
“I’ve reached an understanding of this game’s driving mechanisms, and I’m very certain if we do meet her, she’ll send us on another irrational and time-consuming fool’s errand. I have to assume the goal of those digressions is to artificially inflate the amount of time it takes for us to finish the game.”
That’s actually a pretty insightful observation on her part, but I think I’ll just keep quiet about that for now…