A few hours after our heroic annihilation of the Band of Brigands, we arrived in Boggy Marsh.

  It was a small town, more of a hamlet if anything, built in the centre of a cesspit of muddy water. Though the buildings were on stilts raised high above the bog, it was still as unclean as you’d expect.

  “Why would anyone want to live here?” Bell asked.

  “Not everyone has had the same privileges as we have they might not have a choice,” Panda replied as he carefully navigated the single-track road. “…Or maybe they just love eating mudcarp.”

  “Do they even have an Adventure Society here?” She said with frown, “we’d better not have to lug this idiot with us all the way to High Rock.”

  Glancing across at our guest I saw his eyes; reddened and bloodshot. We had to gag him after he’d woken up inside our camper. One look at Rex and he’d started howling like a madman.

  Silence fell over him once I ran into the room, thinking something bad had happened. I don’t know what he saw when he looked at me, but he trembled and his tired eyes followed my movements like one of those creepy paintings.

  I didn’t like having him around either, even if it was only for a short time.

  “Bell, you’ve never even been to High Rock,” Panda scoffed, “for all you know it’s only a day’s drive from here.”

  “A day too many,” she moaned, scowling at our captive.

  She’d been fiercely agitated by his presence ever since we’d spoken to the troll. His flippant opinion of forced sexual encounters had struck a nerve with her – and rightly so – but considering she’d burnt him alive; I’d have thought she’d have let some of that disdain go already. Apparently not.

  The captive winced when she spoke, likely reliving the garish sight of watching his leader convulse on the ground in flaming agony.

  Not that I held any sympathy for him. We’d been told he was a new recruit, but surely he’d seen the horrors his crew had inflicted on travellers. As far as I was concerned, Bell could burn him at the stake as well – if our pay wasn’t tied to his survival.

  We’d chosen the lesser of two evils in making him our captive, but a lesser evil still leaves a foul taste in your mouth.

  “Over there,” Rex grunted, pointing a thick, furry finger at a muddy wooden platform. “Drive up onto that, trust me.”

  With a shrug Panda complied and soon after boarding the platform we were lifted into the air by some kind of mana-operated pully system which creaked ominously.

  “The bogs flood at night,” Rex explained, glancing wearily at the orange glow of setting sun. “Better to park up high.”

  “Have you been here before?” I asked.

  “Passed through, never stayed the night though.”

  I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t looking forward to staying in the dirty shanty town either. But gold was gold and we desperately needed the quest reward after our shopping spree in Forge Town.

  Bell most of all.

  She had spent a copious amount of gold upgrading her scarlet robes. She now sported a 100% increase on four of her stats, opting to commission a tailor-made cloak, gloves and boots to match her outfit.

  As with my own armour, her pants and robe could only house a single status upgrade. She’d justified the expense by stating that she could sustain covering fire for longer, increasing her usefulness in her new role as fire support.

  However, I found it odd that she chose to neglect vitality, of all things, when she chose her upgrades. She had proudly proclaimed her glass cannon status as if it wasn’t a liability.

  Next time we were in the area I’d need to buy her an enchanted hat or something. Not that our purse strings could afford to be any looser at that moment in time though.

  To put it mildly, we were skint. To make matters worse we were enroute to the capital city, a place of vast wealth, by all accounts. Unless we wanted to sleep in the camper the whole time we’d need a decent amount of funding.

  Besides, questing was good for improving our new tactics and Rex needed to complete the three mandatory quests to officially become a permanent adventurer. But mostly, we just really needed the gold.

  “Hurry up,” a svartalf cried as our camper reached the top of the raised hamlet. “get inside before he comes!”

  “Before whom comes?” Panda asked, leaning his head out of the driver’s side window.

  “Quit ja jibber jabber and get inside, now!”

  Panda turned to me and I shrugged back, hastily we exited the camper and followed the svartalf into a nearby hovel.

  Our passenger was hoisted onto Rex’s shoulder and carried inside. We couldn’t expect him to walk there himself, he was hog tied after all.

  Darkness shrouded the interior of the stilted hovel and, as we entered, I could practically smell the fear. Groups of the dark-skinned creatures huddled near the walls on their haunches as if trying to avoid being silhouetted in the windows.

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  These svartalfs looked different from the ones I’d met previously, undeveloped, smaller. They were nothing like Freja, that was for sure.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Shush human, keep it down!” The first svartalf said.

  “And just who are you to shush my human!” Asmodeus bellowed in response.

  Gleaming red eyes shot daggers at him through the dark.

  “I told you we should have left them to rot,” someone said from within the group. “If they don’t know about him then that’s their problem. Your charity is going to get us all killed Jord.”

  “Oh quit ja complaining ja bloody eedyat,” the svartalf named Jord replied, he was the one who had lifted the platform. “Can’t ja see they’re adventurers?”

  The room quieted down once again, though this time, to an uncomfortable silence.

  I couldn’t place Jord’s accent, but it was thick and almost sounded Nordic, but not quite. It seemed that there was an array of accents on the continent. Each town seemed to have a different dialect entirely, despite being quite close to one another.

  It reminded me of home.

  “Does someone want to tell us what’s going on?” I said, this time making sure to whisper.

  “Ja really don’t know?” Jord replied, “it’s the eve of Djule… The Winter Shogun is coming.”

  “Ok these guys are really mixing up their cultural references here,” Bell observed.

  “The Winter Shogun?” I asked.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Rex scoffed, “everyone knows that’s a fairy tale, just some rubbish designed to scare children.”

  “It’s no fairy’s tale friend,” Jord said seriously, “he’s real.”

  Jord pulled a battered, yellow scroll from his inventory and pushed it towards me.

  “Take a look, this quest has been handed down for generations. It’s ancient, from before the Athenile calendar even. Back when the system was still analogue.”

  Gingerly I grabbed the scroll and unfolded it. The brittle parchment crumbled in my hands but not before a system notification popped up on my HUD.

  Analogue Quest Recovered

  Beginning Translation…

  New Quest:

  The Winter Shogun

  All fairy tales come from somewhere, a forgotten truth twisted by the passage of time. That is not the case for The Winter Shogun.

  The story goes that once per year, in the town currently known as Boggy Marsh, he will come. The Winter Shogun marches through the wetlands, freezing all he touches, searching for children to add to his army. One day he will unleash them upon the mortal plane and Ragnar?k will be achieved.

  His reasons are unknown, but one commonality among all the folklore pertaining to this monster is this simple children’s rhyme:

  Thou better not scream,

  Nor stand in the light,

  Thou better not flee,

  Nor put up a fight,

  The Winter Shogun will conscript your kids.

  Objectives:

  Kill The Winter Shogun 0/1

  Reward:

  The Winter Shogun’s Armour (ancient)

  “This can’t be real,” I laughed in disbelief as I gazed upwards. “You’re seriously telling me that Celestia has some screwed up version of Santa Clause and that the system used to analogue? This is a wind up; it has to be.”

  “Not a jest fair adventurer,” Jord said quietly, “merely a simple plea from the folk of this town.”

  “But the reward… it’s just loot,” I said. “How does that even constitute as a quest? I’d get it anyway.”

  “What if I sweeten the deal?” My ears perked up at Jord’s words and I tilted my head slightly. “That panda of yours, I can upgrade him. He’s a lower phase than you ja? Slay the Shogun, and I’ll make him phase three.”

  I thought back to the last time I’d raised Panda’s phase. It had cost me a small fortune and that was with the Havarian King’s aid. Making him a phase three was likely well beyond my current means.

  “And you can do that?” I asked.

  “Ja, tis my specialty. As well as being the local branch liaison.”

  “Alright then,” I sighed, “I guess you’ve got yourself a deal. Rex needs some new armour anyway. One thing though, if the system used to be analogue, then it wasn’t a system. It was just regular old bureaucracy.”

  “Now is not the time for jests, adventurer,” Jord replied sternly. “The system has always been, it is known.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, if Celestia issued quests on paper a long time ago then it stood to reason that the system wasn’t simply a feature of this world, but something else entirely.

  “Kaleb,” Rex said in a low, growling voice which roused me from my thoughts. “I still don’t believe in this fairy tale, but if it is true. We need to be careful. The Winter Shogun is fearsome in all the stories. I’m not sure we’re strong enough.”

  “If he is real, wouldn’t someone else have claimed the reward eons ago?” Bell added.

  “We don’t get many visitors,” Jord said solemnly, “especially during Djule. Our little slice of heaven isn’t appealing to many outsiders and once the marsh rises we’ll be cut off from the outside for a few days. No aid will be able to access this town.”

  “Well I guess that explains it,” she replied, “it’s not that appealing to us either.”

  I flicked her on the forehead before she offended our hosts too badly. Even in a place as awful as Boggy Marsh, it was still impolite to insult the host’s home.

  “How long do we have?” I asked, briskly changing the subject.

  “Till the marsh begins to freeze,” Jord replied. “It usually happens just after high tide.”

  “How does this place even get a high tide? We’re landlocked.”

  “It’s one of the quirks of living in a high mana region. In summer it’s great for catching mudcarp, ja.”

  “I knew it!” Panda exclaimed and everyone turned to shush him, even me.

  “I knew it,” he whispered.

  “I can’t take this anymore! Will someone please address the elephant in the room for Athena’s sake,” someone from one of the huddles asked in a harsh whisper. “Why is that lycanid carrying a human like he’s a tussled pig?”

  We all turned to stare at Grunt who hung limply over Rex’s shoulder. He’d been silent the entire time, though his eyes widened at our combined attention.

  “Oh, him?” I said, “he’s the only surviving member of the Band of Brigands. We’re here to collect the quest reward.”

  “Ja felled the Band of Brigands? The highwaymen that’ve been terrorising the local high road and interrupting the trade routes?” Jord asked, “then maybe there’s hope after all.”

  “These fetid creatures must be terribly weak if they consider him and his band of ruffians to be difficult quarry,” Asmodeus observed.

  “Actually,” Jord said, “most of us are over the level cap. It’s harsh living out in the marshes. But our kind are beholden to an ancient custom, one of harmony, of living with the land.”

  “You’re pacifists?” I scoffed.

  “Ja.”

  “No wonder you live in a marsh, it’s the only place in Celestia where you won’t get killed. Even the worst kind of people wouldn’t muddy their boots travelling here would they?”

  This time Bell flicked my forehead and I caught myself, feeling my cheeks redden at my rudeness.

  “Then what does that say about us?” Panda grumbled.