After another 10 minutes of following the Lord-Mayor, an Elf called Honief, me and Eseli have finally arrived at the destination Honief wants us to be at. Apparently, I’m supposed to do something which will help Honief, but I have no idea what it is exactly. I only know that it’s something related to painting. I think I’ve picked up an unnecessarily tedious task which isn’t worth the effort. I should have just found something else to do in Susana and come back later to the city hall to request a normal meeting with Honief. Instead, I chose to meet Honief via a second way, which according to the expression of the receptionist at the city hall and pretty much everyone else in Susana…that was a bad idea. I don’t how bad of a situation I am in by following Honief to a village called Deadwood. It was either I follow Honief to this village called Deadwood or have a tea party with him for 6 hours, which sounds very boring to me. So yeah, here I am with Eseli and Honief at a village called Deadwood…

Honief: “What a remarkable little settlement isn’t it? Susana is a city in comparison to this little place. Now where are my…BRUSHES!”

Eseli: “Remarkable in that this place is more of a cemetery rather than a village. However, it is quaint I do agree”

I don’t know what Honief or Eseli are on about. This village called Deadwood really is literal a cemetery. There are several large earthen mounds resting behind small village houses. On those mounds rest many gravestones and sites. The whole atmosphere of this area is very ominous, and it’s made even more clear to me by this spooky background ambient music that the game is playing. There is no way all the gravesites belong to just the villagers. I can’t see them very well in the distance since it’s dark, but the moonlight is being reflected off the stones and other objects, even the river nearby the village can also be clearly seen.

Eseli: “What do you want us to do here Honief?”

Honief: “Why don’t you be a little patieeeent?”

Eseli: “There is only so much patience a person may have after following a town mayor run away from their estate and drag two employees along in the night. Please say it now.”

Honief: “agh…fine fine FINE. Guard me! Is it too much to ask for an enchanting apple cat and a simple traveler to do? Guard me!”

MC: “Guard you from what?”

Honief: “Knights! Bandits! Bannermen! Marauders! Villagers! Dragons! Pixies, fireflies, frogs, dogs, cows, little children, the King of Graypine!!!”

MC: “I do not understand”

Honief: “Hahahaha!”

Eseli: “Amulet, I believe Honief is referring to those things you’d find in cemeteries…”

*Eseli points towards the bottom of a large tree that is grown on the center of the earthen mound*

The tree? No…not the tree but something moving next to it. I can’t see it very well…it’s very thin. Lots of reflections. Looks like it’s rattling and brittle. I think it’s a humanoid…it’s carrying some sort of weapon?

Honief: “Char char char! Krik krik krik! What whispers without a mouth? What has wind blowing through it like a flute? What’s a dog’s favorite snack? That’s right…Skeletons!”

Eseli: “So you’d like us to defend you from skeletons while you paint?”

Honief: “ Ding ding diiing! Exactly right my Enhanceress! Now if you excuse me…I’ll head down towards the village’s shack and retrieve my supplies while you two have fun fighting for my honor!”

Skeletons?! I don’t know why I’m surprised. A staple enemy in fantasy games. Very common and supposed to be very easy to fight. But something telling me that fighting…10? No, 15? Wait there are a few more? 30! Fighting 30 skeletons is going to be tough!

Honief is hopping towards the village while Eseli and I are preparing to fight these skeletons up this small hill. I’ll take my woodcutting axe out…and…I guess here goes nothing!

I see that Eseli is casting fireballs calmly. So, she really is a magician! She’s already taken several skeletons down by the time I’m carefully walking up the hill and carefully taunting one skeleton at a time.

The skeletons thankfully seem to be low level. They are fairly slow, and they shake a lot. I guess that’s what happens when you try to have bones floating above the ground and resisting the force of gravity. But…it’s hard to damage them. My axe is striking them, and they stagger a little bit before lunging their attack towards me. They are carrying short spears, so they have a slight advantage over me in their weapon’s reach. But again, they’re slow. They move and react slowly. The problem is…I’m now fighting more than one skeleton and I don’t seem to be damaging them enough. I can see their health bars above them, but each time I swing my axe at them it only chips away a tiny bit of their Health Points (HP).

Crap I don’t know how I would complete this quest without Eseli. Almost all 30 of these skeletons have now been attracted to our presence. They slowly shambled their way towards us on this mound that we are fighting on beside the large tree in the center. Eseli is easily blasting them with fire, it only takes one or two blasts to shatter them back to scattered bones. But how is her fire so effective when my axe is supposed to deal literal physical damage? It doesn’t look like her fireballs are very large and whenever she fires them at a skeleton, the skeleton isn’t burning at all…it just shatters…

Wait- I got it! It’s the impact of the fireball which pushes the skeleton’s body apart. Some sort of force, like an explosive. How come my woodcutting axe isn’t pushing these skeleton’s body parts apart? I should be smashing them…exactly! I should be smashing them apart. Swinging my axe from either direction doesn’t matter as long as I keep hitting them with the edge of my axe. I need to bash them, something with blunt damage…but I don’t have that type of weapon. I still am just carrying the training axe from the starting town and the woodcutting axe from Goldflake village. However, would this work?

Hooray! I’ve started to strike these weak skeletons with the backside of my axe, the blunt part and I’m certainly doing a bit more damage than before.

So… now if a skeleton thrusts their spear at me – I dodge, quickly get behind it – have Amulet Pond jump in the air – then bash the skeleton’s skull with the backside of my axe – it easily shatters!

Their HP bars are dropping tremendously as it reflects the level and amount of damage, I do on their literal body model.

Honief: “Good job, Eseli and Amulet. I have returned with my own weapons. The weapons of the brush! Now your next task is to- hold it right there Eseli! Yes, stand exactly like how you are standing right now!”

Eseli: “With my left arm in the air and my right arm parallel below my waist?”

Honief: “Yes! Exactly like that…and you, Pond! Go sit down like a Hinterland’s Lumenian next to the pile of bones you just smashed up!”

MC: “So, our next task is to be your models and not move for the next couple of hours?!”

Honief: “Exactly that! Yes. Do not MOVE. I shall paint a spectacular painting. A painting full of extroverted emotion that is not sad, but it shall still remain dark and ominous. In this beautiful cemetery, the moonlight piercing through the tree’s leaves, the village in the background next to the river, and all these bounds scattered on a hilltop battlefield!”

This game can’t be seriously expecting me to sit around and not do anything for over an hour. Is that really my quest right now? It looks like Eseli is taking it seriously enough.

You know when you are playing in a game, and you are unsure whether you’re doing the right thing? Whether you are at a correct location or you properly did what you are supposed to do but the game isn’t reacting in anyway. It isn’t obviously telling you whether “yes you completed this point” or “no, you are not allowed to pass through this point yet”. I don’t know who I am talking to, but just so you and I know. That’s how I feel like right now.

MC: “Are you sure it is alright for me not to do anything for the next couple of hours?”

Honief: “Yes that is indeed true. Now, be quiet. LET ME CONCENTRATE.”

I could talk to Eseli right now, but I don’t want to right now because this Honief guy could hear us. Huh, I guess I could just take off my VR helmet and do something else in the meanwhile.

So… I’ve been looking at this online article explaining what this game offers. It’s a new semi-review article from the website “Game Informs”. I thought that it was a waste of time reading this article since I’ve already read plenty like this one. They all have been talking about the general information about Divine Mortality. But it turns out there are a lot of obvious things I missed. Oh, Amulet Pond, I am so sorry for putting you into this mess. Apparently, I’ve been screwing up. I’ve only been doing “Journey Quests” in the game. Such as the Journey Quest when I chose to defend Goldflake Village from the Marauders, this quest with the Lord-Mayor Honief, and even that little time-wasting quest I did where I helped a Dwarf carry some of his stuff to the Starter Town…just after I had already left it! I’ve be screwing up.

There are “Journey Quests” but then there are also “Petty Quests”, I ignored petty quests because I’ve been thinking that these are boring quests like “collect 4 herbs from granny’s garden”. And yeah, apparently those quests do exist in Divine Mortality since they are simple normal MMORPG-type quests. But apparently most of these “Petty Quests” are the quests that everyone else is doing in Divine Mortality. These are the cool and easy fun quests. The types of quests where you join up with a bunch of NPC knights and attack a bandit encampment. Where you get your common gear from, where you interact with many other players…and most importantly…they usually don’t take more than 1 hour to complete. Unlike “Journey Quests” which are meant to be more like long story-related journeys in the world that do usually take longer to complete than “Petty Quests”.

I asked Krafty, and May who is already online now, about what type of quests they’ve been doing and whether these quests were marked as “Petty Quests” …he responded with a quick “yup” …

Pain.

I’ll put on my VR helmet again…maybe Honief has already finished painting…

Nope, Eseli what about you? Also standing still. Poor you.

MC: “How much longer are you going to be painting for Honief?”

Honief: “Bah! Rushing, are we?! Fine fine fine. Have it your way but your reward will be lessened!”

I suddenly don’t care about Goldflake village. I now just want to go to Susana or someplace else and gear up. I also want to get a mount. I want to see the world! I want to play the game like how all the other children are playing it…so, let me out!!!

MC: “Yes, may you please finish up quickly Lord-Mayor?”

Eseli: “Indeed, it is already the middle of the night. There is no telling whether another skeleton will rise. And I am very tired of having my arms in this position.”

Honief: “FINE FINE FINE. I will just sketch out the rest of this painting…now, 10 more minutes!”

10 more minutes?! I guess…it’s merely 10 more minutes…not a large waste of time, right?

Pain, Amulet Pond. Pain.