In an old rickety tavern, a short haired man—with a large wooden instrument floating beside him—was showered with praises from an older woman behind the bar. “It was exquisite, Xian! Last night was nothing less than musical perfection! Truly magnificent!” The older woman professed expressively.

“Hahaha...I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m glad you liked it, and it seems like they did too.” Xian gestured to the folks who were still passed out all around the tavern.

“Is that a jest? The people love it!” The older woman proclaimed, “This place has never had that many customers show up for a performance before—well except for my own of course, but you’ve practically run us dry in just one night!” Laughing at the great predicament.

“Sounds like a pretty good problem.” Xian laughed along with her.

After their laughs had settled down, the older woman’s expression turned to a slightly more serious one, as she quietly said “Now about your reward…”

“It’s okay.” Xian said, quickly brushing her off. “I know we agreed to me getting half if I could bring a lot of customers and revive the place for the night, but keep what you got, spend it on fixing the place up and keeping it going.” As he then got up from the bar and carried the large instrument on his back.

The older woman let out a little chuckle, “No, Xian, I wasn’t referring to the coin.” sliding him a wax sealed envelope on the bar.

Seeing a treble clef with a feathered hat on the seal, Xian curiously picked the envelope up, and asked “What’s this?”

“It’s an invitation to the Bardic School of Symphonies.” The older woman answered with a smile. “Congratulations, you passed with flying colours, and I’ll happily teach you the Bardic Ways myself.” Causing a new Quest to pop up in Xian’s face.

Quest Completed

A Bardic Opportunity and the bonus Hidden Quest has been completed:

Show a performance great enough for Madam Hildegard to give you an invitation to the Bardic School of Symphonies.

Impress Madam Hildegard to a point at which she cannot help but want to teach you herself.

Reward: An invitation to the Bardic School of Symphonies. Hidden Reward: Receive personal teachings of the Bardic Ways from Madam Hildegard.

As Xian finished reading the completed Quest, he looked up to the surprise of the older woman being surrounded by a spiraling rainbow of magics, and thought to himself "What is happening right now?" Feeling slightly overwhelmed.

Twirling herself within the magic, the older woman’s ragged clothes suddenly began to change drastically; turning themselves into a long shoulderless violet dress, matching gloves that reached to her elbows, and high heels that caused the woman to tower over the bar and Xian. Though topping it all off, multiple extravagant accesories appeared on her person: from different coloured rings on almost all her fingers, to colourful gemstone bracelets, perfect lyre-shaped earrings, a treble clef necklace with a feathered hat, a beautiful jewel-encrusted masquerade mask that covered her eyes, and an enormous feathered hat that appeared last on her head.

“Now...shall we head for Siren’s Cove?” The older woman asked, elegantly extending her gloved hand out to Xian who was still trying to comprehend what was happening.

***

“Is it really only going to be you, Da Vinci?” A pregnant wife asked, standing next to her husband outside of their completely burned down home—in a row of other burned down houses.

The hooded woman simply nodded yes, and the husband said “I know you only asked us to pay for the construction materials, and because of that we couldn’t offer to pay you much, but rebuilding an entire home is a lot to ask a person to do alone, especially if that person is as dainty yourself, Da Vinci.”

“Really, Da Vinci, my husband’s injuries are practically all healed now, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help you, right honey?” The wife asked, nudging her husband's side.

“O-Of course, just tell me what to do.” The husband stated, puffing out his chest to appear strong, but suddenly winced from a sharp pain in his side.

Smiling at the couple, Da Vinci showed them an okay sign with her hands, and then gestured for them to leave; though insisting to help, it took Da Vinci a few minutes to actually convince them to finally leave. She then began thinking of how exactly she wanted to design the rebuild, and found herself standing in the middle of the burned down house. Activating her Architect’s Drafting Board, a light blue slanted board instantly appeared floating in front of her, and grabbing the light blue pencil floating beside it, Da Vinci started to sketch out all of her ideas—occasionally looking around the space as she did so.

Torn between about 10 different designs, Da Vinci stuck her hand into the board and pulled a palm-sized version of one of them out. Using her hands to pull apart the design, it slowly expanded and grew in size, eventually appearing as a full-sized light blue outline of the house's structure. Carefully inspecting it from both the inside and the outside, taking note of all the details she didn't like or didn't think worked with the overall aesthetic, Da Vinci reached out and pulled the design towards her, causing it to return to the palm-sized version of itself. Placing it back inside the board, Da Vinci pulled another design and did the exact same routine with it—repeating the process until she finally settled on the 8th design.

After moving all the building materials sitting outside—using her Inventory—within the space of the house, Da Vinci expanded the design once more and activated her Architect’s Construction. Selecting each of the building materials, as well as the burned wreckage and debris of the previous house, everything she touched was suddenly absorbed into the outlined structure of the house. Then as Da Vanci stepped back outside, the outlined structure behind her immediately began to fill itself in, and she took note of the new building time.

Construction Progress: 0.01% (53 Minutes, 59 Seconds Remaining)

Nodding her head in satisfaction, Da Vanci looked around at the other burned down houses on the empty street and felt inspired by seeing them. Activating Architect’s Drafting Board again, Da Vinci sat herself on the ground and sketched out everything that came to her mind while she waited for the construction to finish on its own.

***

“Looks like I won another round, pay up.” An older man demanded, holding his hand out through the open slit of the prison cell door.

“That’s literally impossible, you won 30 rounds in a row from me just today!” Galen angrily exclaimed, reluctantly handing over 5 Silver to the man. “You’re cheating somehow, right? Or maybe using some type of invisible magic? Otherwise I just can’t explain how you’re doing it?”

“Like I told you the day you arrested me, and all the days since then, I’m locked up, how am I supposed to be cheating? You even patted me down over 10 times already, remember?” The older man pointed out.

“You can’t blame me for being overly suspicious, Casino. After all, you won’t even tell us your real name, or how you cheated all the casinos in town for over 3,000 Gold in the span of 3 days.” Galen added, “You haven’t even bothered to explain where you hid all that supposedly legally won coin.”

“Maybe you should try believing the suspect for once, it looks like all the stress of questioning me has really gotten to you.” Casino smugly said, pointing out Galen’s now old appearance.

“Aw, shuddup. I get enough jokes from the veteran guards and Captain.” Galen sadly mentioned, feeling his receding hairline.

“That’s because it’s funny.” Dayla said, laughing a little as she walked up to the prison cell. “He’s still not talking?”

“Not a bit, Captain.” Galen answered, putting a helmet on to hid his hairline.

Standing herself in front of Casino outside the cell door, Dayla asked “How’s your day going, Casino? Are you hungry, thirsty, bored?”

“I’m doing pretty fine, Dayla." Casino replied, tipping his cowboy hat to her. "But if you don’t mind, I’d love to finally be let go.”

“Oh, are you ready to talk then? You can start by telling us where you hid all those coins.” Dayla said, waiting for him to answer.

Casino let out a big sigh, and said “Okay, fine. The daily conversations with you two are pretty nice, but I’m getting way too tired of this place, and I’m starting to stink.”

“Sounds like you really came around.” Dayla smiled under helmet, “Go on, tell us everything we want to know and I’ll think about letting you go off easy.”

“Oh, I think you got me all wrong, Dayla.” Casino smirked as he covered the slit opening with his hat.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Dayla questioned, being cautious.

“Don’t worry, Captain. With us here, he’s not going anywhere.” Galen assured her, readying his sword.

Activating his Gambler’s Bet, a green coloured aura began to visibly radiate out Casino’s entire body, and he said to them “Now how about we all make a bet?” Causing Dayla and Galen to look at each other in confusion, “If any of you wins the game of your choosing, I’ll tell you absolutely everything you want to know, and I promise to be completely truthful about it all.” Pulling a pouch full of coins from his Inventory while he continued to talk, “But if I'm the one who wins the game of your choosing, you have to release me from this prison cell, and promise to completely believe in my innocence. Do you both agree to these terms?” Dayla and Galen confusingly shrugged to each other, and both agreed to the seemingly random bet. “Perfect, we have an agreement! Go ahead and pick whatever game you want!” Casino happily shouted, grabbing a handful of coins and throwing them up into the air—each of them glowing with a green aura.

***

“Goddesses, be damned! What did you do to my precious workshop again, Essex?!” A young man loudly yelled out, trying to kick awake a plump dwarven woman sleeping soundly on the cold stone floor, but to no avail. “You better not have tried to touch my special potions and experiments again, or this time I’ll really turn you into a pig and roast you for dinner later!” Waving his hand, the young man sent out some magic that hit a trash can and broom in the corner of the small room, causing them to move and clean up all the shattered glass and spilled concoctions around the room by themselves.

Taking note of everything that was missing, spilled, and broken, the young man’s face quickly became horrified when he saw that the magic sealed cabinets were all broken into; even more so when he saw the hidden hatch in the floor was ajar and also broken into. He immediately opened it and ran down the hatch to see what happened to his life’s work, and immediately became extremely devastated when he saw that all of it was completely destroyed and ruined. “ESSEX!” He yelled out with complete anger, stomping his way back up the hatch with immense magic emitting from his hands.

Standing directly over the still sleeping Essex, the young man was about to let his growing fury fully erupt onto her, but he suddenly stopped himself when he noticed a strange rack of five intact vials—filled with all different kinds of unfamiliar liquids—dangerously under her sleeping body. “Those...those are not ordinary...but what are they?” He quietly asked himself, not wanting to wake up Essex anymore. Placing a hand on each vial and casting Identify on them, the young man’s eyes widened in complete disbelief, but in that moment Essex awoke.

Seeing the young man’s shocked face and his hand under her body, Essex screamed out in disgust, “You disgusting pervert!” Instantly casting Gust through her mouth.

“No, wait! Don’t!” But before he could stop her, Essex already blew out an intense pressure of air out of her mouth, sending them both flying away from each other, and unknowingly crushing all the vials under her in the process. As the young man went crashing into the wall, he rebounded and ignored the pain, immediately running over to the broken vials trying to salvage as much of the liquids as possible. “Essex, what is wrong with you!? I allowed you to freely use and enter my precious workshop, and all you’ve done is exhaust me of all my ingredients and supplies, broke into my sealed cabinets, and destroyed all my life’s work!”

“Huh?! What are you talking about, you perv?” Essex asked, not entirely sure what he was so angry about.

“Can’t you see what you've done?” Gesturing to the whole room, “And you’ve even wasted and destroyed the first five perfectly brewed potions in seven centuries, you complete and utter moron!”

“Hey, that is not nice!” She yelled back, as she then realized what he was referring to. “Oooh, I see why you’re mad...” Essex then laughed at the situation, but the young man only stared at her angrily. “Okay, in my defense, I don’t remember making this much of a mess last night.” The young man began to hum as he glared at her, “Would it help if I told you those were just my testing vials?”

“W-What do you mean?” The young man’s mood quickly flipped to curiosity.

“I mean those were just for fun to see what I could make with your experiments, but my actual potions are much more...refined, and correct.” Essex claimed confidently.

“For fun? You made perfectly brewed potions for fun?” The young man questioned, in disbelief.

“Well I wouldn’t say perfect, I just corrected your strangely archaic and outdated formulas.” Essex explained, “And it’s too bad you ran out of supplies last night, there were still ingredients and chemicals I wanted to experiment with.”

The young man’s brain lit up with an idea, and said “Then come with me to Myrddin’s Hollow, help me convince the Circle to take us in, and when we’re accepted, we’ll surely have access to everything we could ever want when they see what we can accomplish!” After saying those words, Essex received a new Quest.

Quest

A Young Mage’s Dream:

Travel to Myrddin’s Hollow with Zosimos Drake, Locate the entrance to the Spiral Towers, and Find a way to both be accepted into the Circle of Mages.

Reward: ??? Failure: Zosimos Drake’s life amounts to nothing and he never reaches his full potential.

Will you accept:

*Choosing ‘No’ will lead to automatic Failure.*

[Yes] or [No]

***

Ducking into the nearest alley, Omega watched as multiple guards ran towards the direction he came, with the ones in the back saying "I can't believe there's another murder."

"I know, we better inform Captain and start heavily patrolling the alleys." Another replied, quickly passing by.

Changing his face again, Omega thought to himself "I'll have to be even more care—" Interrupting his thought, Omega was suddenly pulled backwards into the alley, and pinned face-first against the wall by a strange armoured figure shrouded in complete darkness.

"Don't try to struggle, it's futile." The shrouded figure applied some force onto Omega's neck to ensure he knew it was useless. "Now, listen to me carefully." Whispering, "I know you're the one who's been selectively killing people all around town." surprising Omega that someone knew his crimes, "But I also know regardless of your...twisted methods, you're not like those other serial killers running around town recently, are you?" releasing Omega from the pin.

The shrouded figure waited for how Omega would react, and decided to continue when she saw Omega stay and listen, saying "Whether it be a coincidence or not, every victim you ended up choosing have all been horrible and disgusting individuals under the Goddesses' Blessing, ones who have committed countless unspeakable and unredeemable acts against others, and truly deserving to be cleansed in death."

"The Goddesses' Blessing? You're someone from the church I visited the other day, aren't you?" Omega quickly figured.

"Indeed, I am." The shrouded figure confirmed, "But if you're the person I think you are, and not just another psychotic serial killer running around town, then come visit me in the Temple of Death, eastward in the desert city of Sya." telling Omega, "I look forward to knowing whether you come to find me first, or whether I end up being forced to cleanse you of your sins..." and the shrouded figure began to dissipate into nothing.

Seeing no one else around, Omega thought "The Temple of Death, huh?" Changing his face again before leaving the alley.

***

Reverting back into a Human, Faust said “I can’t believe we’re letting her kill the rest of the ogres and the Dungeon Boss by herself, just think about all the Experience we’re missing out on.” Returning his Chieftain’s Staff onto his back and fidgeting with his new robe and metal armour.

“Would you really rather have her continue to whine about us leaving her behind in Levels then?” Tobias asked—wearing his Underground Leather Armour Set—while cleaning the blood off his daggers and checking his Chieftain’s Crossbow for any damages.

“No...but we can’t just keep letting her get everything she wants.” Faust stated, laying himself down on the forest grass.

Picking up and storing all the ogre’s weapons in her Inventory, Lavie—still wearing the same clothes as before—smirked and said “Is that so? Because if you really felt that way, one would think you of all people would’ve put up more of a fight when she brought it up when we first got here, right?”

“T-That’s cause I was too tired from all the running.” Faust stuttered, but Lavie just continued to smirk at him. "Who could have the energy to fight with her after that?” Then suddenly they all received multiple notifications.

Another Player has killed the Dungeon Boss. All the Monsters in the Dungeon have been killed. The Open Dungeon has now been cleared.

“Looks like we’re done here.” Tobias said, standing up from the dead ogre he was sitting on.

“Seems so.” Lavie agreed, double checking she had all her weapons.

Faust sighed, saying “Finally, took her long enough.”

Then already standing over Faust’s head, Dream said “Oh please, you would’ve taken twice as long.” As she lightly tapped her foot against his head and walked away.

“More like twice as fast.” Faust replied, hiding his smile.

“So? Did you reach Lv.20?” Lavie asked.

“Forget that, did you Tame the Boss?” Faust jumped in.

“No, I didn’t.” Dream answered Faust first, “He was just a stronger ogre with an Uncommon weapon, but as for my Level…” She then decided to show them by equipping her Lv.20 chainmail and hardened leather armour.

“Did you pick a Promotion yet?” Tobias asked, gathering up with the others.

“Not yet, I wanted you guys to be here when I picked mine, since we were all together when you guys picked yours.” Dream was sad that she missed out picking with everyone else.

“Aww, of course.” Lavie said, lovingly wrapping her arms around Dream for a hug. “Now what’re your choices?”

Feeling cheerful after the hug, Dream said “My choices are, Greater Healer for the recommenced Class Progress, and Grey Healer for the Combat Style.”

“Interesting, what do those do?” Lavie inquired, not knowing.

“Just go Greater Healer.” Faust suggested, “My Battlemage Class, Tobias’ Assassin Class, and Lavie’s Weapon Master Class are more than enough damage for our unofficial Party.” Adding, “Plus being a better healer will only make Neon and Mongrel even more broken than they already are, and is probably your only hope of ever beating me.” He smugly smiled at her.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a really punchable face?” Dream asked, pretending to throw a punch at Faust’s face.

But Faust’s face unexpectedly turned cold after hearing Dream’s words, and he responded “Since I was born, now hurry up and stop wasting even more of our goddamn time.” Dream recoiled from Faust's sudden aggressive tone, and Lavie and Tobias to take note of his strange reaction. “We would already be in Leon if we didn’t have to coddle Ms.Deadweight over here.”

“Hey!" Dream grabbed Faust by shoulder, "What the hell’s your problem?!” but her hand was quickly shrugged off as he ignored her.

Angrily walking away from the group, Faust whispered to himself “You are useless, you are worthless, you are nothing. If you want to prove that you are not, succeed completely on your own.” He then shifted into a Dire Wolf and began to run off in the direction of Leon.

Reacting to him in time, Tobias threw and attached his Chain Of Binding to Faust’s tail, and said to the girls “We’ll be going ahead then.” As Tobias’ turned his body ethereal—except for his hand holding onto the chain—and was dragged away by the now sprinting Faust.

“Screw that jerk! What did I even do?” Dream shouted out, feeling ticked off now.

“Nothing, I think you just—”

Dream cut Lavie off, “You don’t think I’m deadweight, right Lavie?”

“No, but—”

“Ahhh! I can’t travel with him anymore!” Dream stomped away in a completely different direction from Faust, leaving Lavie speechless as she watched the two of them split the group apart.

***

Overlooking the vast lands of Novus from amongst the stars, donning the same unbuttoned crimson red tailcoat, Nulla smiled and said “Indeed, the New Players have all acclimated fairly well to their new world, Creator. Much more so than the previous ones, if I may add.” Casually floating in space and having a conversation, “Yes, though only 68 of the 10,000 Players have died so far, leaving 9,932 Players still remaining.”

Nulla nodded his head in understanding, “Alright, I’ll arrange for that to happen, and I’ll be ready to apply the 3.1 Update as requested as well.” He waved goodbye, “I’ll leave you to it then, have fun!” At which point the smile on Nulla’s face flipped into a frown, “Now to go personally inform all the Guides about the details, or maybe I should just momentarily remove their Restrictions?” He thought about the idea, and said "Nah, wouldn't want to risk all the possible problems that would bring onto everyone." As Nulla then rapidly flew down to Novus.