The glowing eyes vanished suddenly, and the three huddled together in fear. As one of the pairs of eyes appeared again, it seemed closer. This happened again and again until all of the eyes seemed to be just next to them. Then, a wolf jumped out of the brush right up to the orphans. Logan looked up and started laughing. Will did the same, leaving a very confused Rebeca.
"Uh, guys? What's funny?" Rebeca asked, desperately trying not to move suddenly in case the wolf decided to eat her.
"What's funny is that the wolves here are yellow." Will said between gasping for air from laughing so hard.
"I don't get it." Rebeca admitted, finally relaxing a bit.
"How do you not get it? Logan, you explain it, I've never played modern, I don't know what similes to make." Will said, no longer laughing.
"Alright, Rebeca, you know how targets in modern are indicated on your mini-map as a red dot?" Logan said.
"Yeah, that's how enemies work in all games right?" Rebeca responded.
"Exactly. These guys aren't red, so they won't attack us, and they aren't green so they won't help us either." Logan explained.
"Normally, they'd be chewing us up right now, but we aren't players or highlighted NPC's." Will added.
"So, let me get this straight, nothing in this forest will attack us because we're NPC's?" Rebeca asked.
"Not necessarily. Now that we've exploited it once, we probably won't get away with this a second time." Logan said.
"In fact, we should probably start running now." Will said as the bars above the wolves' heads turned orange.
"Yeah, good idea." Logan said, already sprinting down the path.
"Wait, guys there's something wrong with this." Rebeca said as she ran to catch up with her companions.
"Yeah, we should have gone into the trees like I said earlier." Will complained.
"One, I beat Cal in the coin toss. Two, weren't we chased by monsters earlier?" Rebeca said.
"She's right, we must be on the wrong path." Logan reasoned.
"OK, you two go back and tell the wolves we were just lost. I'm sure they'll let us get away." Will said.
With that, the three decided to save their energy for running. After at least ten minutes of non-stop running, the wolves finally left. The three were still on the path, and there was a house in front of them.
"Well, that's convenient." Logan said.
"Not quite, there's probably a ton and a half of enemies in there." Will said.
"Then we do this my way." Rebeca said, walking toward the house.
"Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?" Will asked Logan just loudly enough for Rebeca to hear.
"Yes, and now my way is going to get us out of it." Rebeca said back.
Since the group was getting closer to the house, they kept their voices down. In fact, they were silent. Thankfully, the animators were lazy and didn't program leaves or stray twigs on the ground, so the three orphans succeeded at getting to the back of the house without making any noise. Behind the house were two things. One was an NPC stable master, and the other was his stable.
"I thought so. The guys inside needed to get here some way after all." Rebeca whispered.
"Yeah, but that means the guys in there are players." Will said, trying to sound as aggravated as possible without actually raising his voice.
"Exactly. They're players and we're friendly NPC's with a quest to give them." Rebeca said.
"OK, so you're saying we should give the guys in the house our quest? Smart, but we have no reward to give them." Logan said.
"Don't we?" Rebeca said while glaring at Will evilly.
"You're going to give me away as a slave? That's low Rebeca." Will said.
"Do you have any better ideas?" Rebeca asked, despite the fact that she knew the answer.
"I do, actually." Said Logan.
"Tell it now, before Rebeca decides that two slaves are better than one." Will said.
"Alright, you know those quests where you avenge some NPC's death and you get something from him?" Logan asked.
"Yeah." The other two said at the same time before glaring at each other.
"Well, what if we killed stable guy there, stole something from him, and blamed the Marauding Trio?" Logan suggested.
"That... that might actually work." Will said.
"OK, we have a general plan. Now, how do we kill him and how do we give them a quest?" Rebeca asked.
None of them had any idea. They sat there for a minute trying to think. They couldn't attack him, they were on the same team. They needed him dead for this to work though. Then Will had an idea.
"What if we promoted him?" Will said.
"What?" Logan asked.
"We'll give him a quest, but give it some kind of requirement where the guys in there think he's dead." Will said.
"That would never work." Logan said.
"Hang on, as much as I hate to admit it, Will has a good idea." Rebeca said.
"OK, so all we have to do is go talk to him right?" Logan said, trying to think of something they could actually say.
"Wrong. All Rebeca has to do is go talk to him. We're sitting right here." Will said.
"Now you're just trying to get me killed." Rebeca said.
"No, I'm trying to win. Would you be more willing to do something for three kids who look like they've been through hell, or for a sweet little girl who can't find her mommy?" Will asked.
"By God, he's right." Logan said.
"Fine, what do I say?" Rebeca asked.
"Not our problem. Go now while everyone is still inside. Just scream when he agrees to it." Will said.
"If I die because of your plan, I will haunt the ever loving shit out of you." Rebeca threatened.
Then she ran toward the stable master.