[ Quest: Plight of the Trapped ]

Shopkeeper Arakmad stubbornly refuses to leave his shop, no matter what happens. However, there are errands to be done and orders to be fulfilled to keep the store running. He turns to you for help. Complete the tasks he'll give and earn compensation, as well as his trust. As a shopkeeper, Arakmad hears many things from his customers. He may know something about the history of the Mardukryons, including the Great Quake.

“Here we go again,” I grumbled. I already had plenty of pending side quests and even more that I hadn’t accepted or found.

“You see, youngling,” Arakmad began to explain, "I had Yusa wash several robes of mine. She was supposed to deliver them today, clean and folded. The day is nearly over—the customer who came here before you told me that it’s already night outside—but my robes are still not here."

"What’s this last line?" I muttered, rereading the quest information. "History of the Mardukryons...where have I heard that from?"

"How I wish to fetch my laundry myself. Alas, it is an impossible task, for I am stuck here, and my laundry is elsewhere. You see my predicament, youngling?"

I wasn't paying attention to Arakmad. "Not heard…read." I had read the line the 'history of Mardukryons' somewhere before. Oh, I remember now! The Mardukryon main quest with no progress for ages.

[ Quest: The Uncertain Search - Gaining Knowledge I ]

At the behest of Chief Nogras of Kurghal Village, you swear to scour every corner of the mountain to find other Mardukryon tribes that survived the Great Quake. In this monumental task, knowledge of the unknown is required lest your search be for naught. Learn about the history of the Mardukryons from the villagers.

I hadn’t been exactly ignoring this, but I had more interesting things to do—this was the usual sickness of RPG players, forgetting about the main quest while becoming stronger through side quests. To be fair, I did interview some NPCs, like Healer Gula, but they didn’t tell me anything useful. This was the first time I encountered a concrete clue on how to proceed with the main quest.

"Mortifying to ask help for such a simple task." Arakmad sheepishly scratched the bottom of his tusk. The trinkets overhead jiggled. He continued, "But I have no one else to turn to. Will you help me, youngling?"

"Of course, I'll help you. Didn't you know? I'm the most helpful Mardukryon to have trotted on this mountain. I swear you will have your laundry on the honor of Herald Stone!"

"The ancestors whispered in my ear that I could count on you," Arakmad said as I returned to his store after half an hour of trying to retrieve his laundry.

Half an hour? It was longer than that, I think. Probably closer to forty-five minutes of utter nonsense.

What I assumed to be a simple fetch quest turned out to be an epic saga of heartbreak, jealousy, betrayal, forgiveness, and true love. The colorful cast of this storyline and the insane things I had to do were one for the books. I even had to perform a dance number—I wasn't sure if that was required. There might've been another option to get that bouquet from the crimson goat.

But getting chased by the suitors of Yusa across the village until the guards saved me was definitely a required event. I never knew nights on this mountain could get so crazy.

"Man, are your robes cursed?" I asked the shopkeeper. "You won't believe the bullshit I had to go through to find them. Yusa wasn't at her house. She ran away because this guy she liked was in love with a Mirdabon. The little boy who saw where she went wouldn't tell me unless I bought him a specific pastry. But then the baker was already asleep and—never mind. "

"I hoped you didn't have a hard time fetching my laundry," Arakmad said with a huge smile. I knew it was a preset dialogue, but I could feel the malice of the developer who designed this quest.

"Actually..." I raised a finger, about to continue my rant. But I stopped myself and took a deep breath. On the bright side, it was already over. And I did enjoy the dancing part. "You have clean robes now," I said. "What's my reward?"

Arakmad waved his right hand, sprinkling blue and violet sparkles on my head. My experience bar increased as Essence flowed into me—the blue light. Gli, the violet one, was absorbed into my body and divided among my Cidule and Aritu Ocadule and their respective skills.

[ Unlocked: Mardukryon Cidule Rank 3 ]

"Divine Bovine from outer space!" I was mentally raging about Arakmad's laundry that I forgot my Cidule was at the cusp of ranking up. This quest provided a lot of Essence and Gli, probably to make up for how tedious it was.

"I appreciate your help in my time of great need," Arakmad said. "Clean robes are imperative because I can't leave this spot. A merchant's concession on my wares that you'll buy might convince you to visit my place more and help me with chores here and there."

"Merchant's concessions? Do you mean a discount?" I was about to open my Akashic Configuration, but instead, I checked Arakmad's shop's interface. "Wow, that's a discount of…" I did some quick mental maths. "Five percent?"

"If you continue to extend assistance to me, I'll also be more inclined to give you competitive prices."

"I'm sure I'll buy many things from you in the future, so I suppose I'll help you with more chores. But I hope they won't be like your laundry quest because that was a wild one."

"Worry not, for you probably caught Yusa on a bad day. I'm a simple shopkeeper, and my requests are reasonable."

"Anyway, there are two things I need from you before I fawn over the new skill from my Cidule. First, what's the secret about the Majalis you were dangling in front of me? How do I get it?"

Arakmad cupped his hand around his mouth and whispered as if it was some big secret, "The Majalis is the tear of a White Bell Nymph harvested under the full moon. To find this elusive creature, you must go where the stars in the sky meet the pale rocks on the ground, where the eye can see them as one."

"What the fuck?"

"Follow the sweet scent of the flowers and the White Bell Nymph you will find."

"Okay, that's not very helpful. I'm more of a straightforward guy, and I’m not too fond of riddles or good at them. Do you have an address where I can find this place? Can you give me precise directions?"

"The White Bell Nymph's abode is sometimes there, other times not. Under the full moon, you must make her shed a tear before she flees. Cause her too much pain, and she'd immediately hide. Be too light-handed, and you might end up as her dinner. It isn’t easy to get the Majalis. But I have connections with Pathfinders who deliver rare and expensive goods."

"Why didn't you start with that?" I said. "I'll just pay for it." The irony wasn't lost on me that, in a way, I was acting like a whale. In my defense, I wasn't using any real cash—all of my Artas were earned in-game.

"I display my more...exotic...wares to trusted customers." Arakmad winked at me with both his right eyes. "In time, you might become one of them. Do note that I only sell what the Pathfinders bring me. Majalis itself is hard to come by."

It sounded like a ‘special shop’ in certain games where the items for sale change now and then. Usually, the rarer items were sold for high prices, and the player had to regularly check to catch the specific ones they needed.

"That means I'm not any brewing Morabodry today." I sighed. From the sound of it, I needed to do more quests for this guy to unlock this ‘special shop.’

I promised myself that I would go out to jog after brewing a poison. Did no poison made mean no exercise later? Nope, I wasn't going to use this as a loophole. Running through the village earlier was a sign that I should also do it in the real world.

“Now, onto my next question,” I said. “Do you know if other Mardukryon tribes survived the Great Quake?"

"Definitely!" Arakmad stood straighter as he spoke with conviction. I heard the noise of crunching wood as his horns pierced the ceiling. He enthusiastically thumped his chest, again threatening the avalanche of the items on the counter, and declared. "We Mardukryons are a mighty people! I refuse to accept that only a small portion of the Kurghal tribe survived the Great Quake!"

"You don't actually know, do you? You just believe there are more survivors," I pointed out. Arakmad didn't look ancient like Mehubanarath and Chief Nogras. His skin was darkish gray, and the magma lines webbed throughout his body glowed bright orange with heat. "Were you alive when it happened?"

He shook his head. "I came to this world a good ten decades after the tragedy. But I can feel it in my heart, and the ancestors whisper in my ear that our people are out there waiting to be found."

I rolled my four eyes. How was this information helpful? Then I remembered something he mentioned a minute ago. "The Pathfinders...who are they? I assume they're also Mardukryons?" Their name alone screamed that they were important in ‘finding’ the other Mardukryon tribes.

Arakmad threw his head back and roared in laughter. He repeatedly slapped the counter like I told the funniest joke in all of Hierakon. I stepped further back, wary that I might get covered if the stacks of items on the counter crashed down.

"Of course, they are Mardukryons! Where have you been? Haven't you lived in the village your entire life?"

I snorted in amusement. "I, uh, I mostly stay inside my house, just watching TV. I don't know much about what's going on outside. Tell me who these Pathfinders are."

"They are skilled warriors who hunt powerful monsters, find the rarest magical plants, gather the scarcest materials. Anything you need, they'll get it for you...that is if you're willing to pay their exorbitant fees. Usually, Mardukryons request specific items for them to find. They infrequently stay in the village, which might explain why you don't know much about them."

"Skilled warriors? Who hunt? Are they not Hunter-Warriors?"

"No, no! Pathfinders are not members of the Hunter-Warriors Lodge or any other Lodge. However, some of them are former Hunter-Warriors. We call them 'Pathfinders,’ but they are not a group. Each one works for himself. If danger befalls the village, they wouldn't come and help, unlike the Hunter-Warriors sworn to defend us.

"As you may surmise, there is a certain animosity between the Hunter-Warriors and the Pathfinders. Many other people also do not have a good view of them—more reasons why the Pathfinders avoid the village if they could help it. But it cannot be denied that they are important to the economy. The Hunter-Warriors may dislike them, but they use healing salves with ingredients sourced by the Brewers from the Pathfinders. By the way, the Brewers usually negotiate with Pathfinders through me."

"Can you introduce me to a Pathfinder?" I asked. "If I wasn't here, you won't have your clean robes back."

"If this were any other circumstance, I would've refused. But I need something delivered to a certain Pathfinder. I heard he's somewhere in the village right now. Pathfinders come and go, and I don't know when the next opportunity to give him this item will come. I cannot do it...but you can."