A party of three Players emerged from the fancy cafe and back unto the snow street. RemixHorizon and Krafty both followed Sayooshi as he led them to the quest target. One of the many annoying 'features' of Divine Mortality is that, even if you share quests with the rest of your party, only the main quest holder knows which direction to go. There isn't always a quest target on the minimaps (there isn't even a full ingame map), but in this case the Dwarf from earlier said enough quest information for the game to interpret it as "you can show the Player where to exactly go". This is because the Dwarf, Rori Fletcher, wants Sayooshi to enter his

The party of three Players left the fancy cafe and stepped back outside, into the snowy half-lit streets of the Kurajur. RemixHorizon and Krafty followed Sayooshi to Rori Fletcher's bow shop, he was the Dwarf NPC Sayooshi randomly met earlier. The two of them needed to follow Sayooshi because only Sayooshi received the location of the quest target. Some quests in Divine Mortality sometimes have direct routes to follow or quest markers to conveniently lead Players. But this convenient feature only exists in quests which the game's systems determine whether there is enough 'lore' or not for a Player to be able to easily know where to go. In this case, Rori Fletcher maybe told Sayooshi the exact location of the shop, or at least is what was assumed. Yet, if Rori Fletcher asked Sayooshi to find a lost amulet dropped in a large area of the city, then...then that's when Players go to the internet and complain about the crappy design of the game. Which inevitably gets countered by loyalists, fanboys, or rational minds who dismiss simple complains or fight it out in legendary internet text battles over whether a criticism is valid or not. Meanwhile, a majority of the Playerbase doesn't care too strongly either way, yet, it's a fact that a majority of the Playerbase still would prefer for the game to become more convenient simply due to saving time instead of wasting it. In the future patches, Divine Mortality would eventually become slightly more convenient and less hardcore in their approach to gameplay in order to retain a huge Playerbase.

Safe to say, the three pals found Rori Fletcher's shop. It was located on the edge of the manufacturing district of the city, where most of the Dwarves lived. The manufacturing district is inside the main part of the city, on the sides and below one of the three small mountains which the whole city rested itself on. Unlike the merchant sector, where all the foreigners lived, the core areas of the city appeared truly unique to the rest of the game. Elevator shafts carried NPCs and the goods they were carrying up and down the steep sides of the mountains. Every Player who witnesses a capital city in Divine Mortality is impressed one way or another. Krafty commented at how many NPCs there were wandering around, and how many of them looked individually distinct from one another. You could tell the difference between a super-background character like a dwarf in a charcoal dusted laboring outfit, versus the variety of richly dressed Dwarf property owners or ea famously furnished Snowmel noble surrounded by two other private Snowmell guards. RemixHorizon didn't care too much about the clothing worn by NPCs as much as the Player's themselves, so her eyes paid more attention to different types of cool weapons and armors. She almost considered purchasing new daggers to use as her self professed Ninja class demands. Meanwhile Sayooshi's eyes gazed up far away at the peak of the central mountain, where the Duke's precariously placed castle loomed over the whole city.

Eventually the three of them finally entered shop. Rori Fletcher primarily greeted Sayooshi, but the AI eventually linked up his party along with the quest and so he acknowledged their presence. Rori Fletcher went on to describe the problems of corruption in this city. Or in the whole Marchdom as far as the Dwarf was considered. Rori Fletcher went on to explain how a 'few days ago' the city's guard, not the Duke's personal retinue, claimed that he was conspiring in a rebellion against the Duke. Of course, the Dwarf denied such things. He doesn't know how exactly Sayooshi could help him, aside collecting a lot of money to pay the bribe, but Rori suspects that the city guard as suspicious.

Krafty started speaking

"So we should find out why the city guard are suspecting this guy?"

Sayooshi thought for a moment and then added

"Or we find out why the city guard are suspecting Rori in the first place... I think it's fairly obvious that the city guards are the bad guys here. Unless they aren't... either way, what do guys think we should do?"

RemixHorizon joined in, it seems like she already had a plan made in her mind

"It's obvious, we sneak into the city guard's headquarters and find any leads from there..."

Sayooshi and Krafty looked at each other a giggled in excitement. Looks like this was now the time for Ninja-like actions. It was the time for RemixHorizon to shine!

The three pals then quickly left the shop and headed straight to the city guard's headquarters in Kurajur. RemixHorizon had to pull up a fanmade map of the city on the video game's fanwiki website which compiled tons of various information gathered by Players. Since the game doesn't have any full sized maps in the Player's User Interface, some people just attached many screenshot images from their minimaps and crafted a large map that way. And thankfully, there was a labelled map for Kurajur. It marked all the major building locations. Including the location of the city guard's headquarters, which every city has one.

When they found the headquarters, Sayooshi and Krafty went in from the front entrance to distract the guards station. Meanwhile RemixHorizon used their stealth abilities to sneak into closed off areas of the building. After Sayooshi and Krafty were threatened and then eventually kicked out by the guards, all they could do was wait for RemixHorizon to rummage throughout every corner of every accessible room inside. While she did all that, Sayooshi and Krafty were goofing around by chatting about random topics. Since all three of them were connected by group voice chat, RemixHorizon didn't feel alone but she did feel super annoyed doing all the work. "Hey this was your idea" said Krafty and RemixHorizon had to reluctantly reply "I know I know". RemixHorizon didn't like to admit it, but she liked the company of Krafty and Sayooshi while playing the game, it was better than questing alone. After a little while, RemixHorizon exclaimed "I found some good stuff!" which actually translated to "I found a lot of coin which is now, thank you very much". This mundane sneak quest turned out to be a roller-coaster of emotions by the end.

The next time RemixHorizon shouted "I found something!" the two dudes pretended to ignore, teasing a little by saying how offended they both were from the last letdown. But when RemixHorizon threatened to sabotage Krafty's dreams of becoming rich ingame and in the future stage a coup to overthrow Sayooshi's eventually dictatorship government, the two nerds back down. They returned back inside the headquarters to distract the guards once again, which led to the guards cursing at the Players and almost arresting them. Yet, the managed to draw enough time for RemixHorizon to successfully sneak back out of the large building.

After distancing themselves away from any city guards, the RemixHorizon took out the letter from their virtual inventory and read it out to the whole party.

Apparently, according to the letter, nobility from the Kingdom of Graypine have invested a lot of money into the pockets of the nobility of Sonder. There seems to be some sort of deep conspiracy going on under the surface in Kurajur and the rest of Sonder. Whenever the corrupt nobility and city guard of Sonder have the chance, they organize kidnappings and assassinations of potential opposite. Or they buy out segments of the economy. They also collude with illegal organizations, primarily banditry, that operate outside the city and in the wilderness areas of Sonder. As RemixHorizon read the whole letter, all three of them made audible "ooooh" reactions every time the plot thickened. Thickened in deceit that is!

While listening to the letter, Sayooshi keenly noticed the name "Makron" get mentioned multiple times. This was the name of a village, but nobody knew anything else about it. Knowing nothing else to do, the three returned back to Rori Fletcher's shop. When Sayooshi talked again with him, that's when he realized that the quest did not progress at all. Not in his quest log nor in the dialogue options with Rori Fletcher. How the heck were they supposed to complete this quest? Besides paying bribe money, which was a ridiculous sum, there were no other leads. It seems that Sayooshi was forced to forget about the quest. He did not abandon it but chose to let the time limit on it run out, just in case if he stumbled upon something which would progress the quest further.

This demoralized the three pals. Their anticipation for a fun two hour long quest chain ended in a boring way. So they ambled back to the cafe they had just left around 30 minutes ago.

"Well that was a waste of time"

"Tell me about it!"

Krafty sighed at the same time his ingame character sat back down. As if he had actually come back home from a wasteful day. RemixHorizon agreed. The two of them were bummed out. Meanwhile Sayooshi just felt bad that he led his new friends on a fools errand. The three of them were once again, the only customers inside the cozy fancy over-the-top cafe.

The Lumenian gentleman returned, as did his puppy dog. The NPC asked if his returning customers wanted to order something? All three of them chose the cheapest drink, aside from water, hot chocolate. The drink was soon served, and the three of them all pretended to be drinking their sorrows away with a fake replacement for alcohol. Sayooshi pointed out how it made sense for RemixHorizon to drink hot chocolate since she probably couldn't drink alcohol yet due to the age limit. RemixHorizon in retaliation pointed out that they were all losers for drinking a virtual drink. But the both of them felt lame as soon as Krafty revealed that he was actually drinking some beer in real life at the same time. Sayooshi and RemixHorizon just ordered more virtual-cups of hot chocolate to fill in the void of pointless adventure they had felt.

Yet, miracles do exist. RemixHorizon suddenly lifted her head away from the table which her character was leaning on a moment ago and loudly gushed an idea into Sayooshi's (and Krafty's) ears.

"Sayooshi! Ask the old gentleman guy about that Makroni word!"

"Y'know, RemixHorizon, you say this as if this guy has any relationship to Rori Fletcher's quest. He's one of the countless NPCs in the city, so I doubt he'll have anything to say about the city guards or-"

"Just do it! It's worth a try, I've got a good feeling about this..."

Meanwhile Krafty's mind journeyed away to another world, he focused on the name "Makroni" and how much it reminded him of Macarons and Macaroons, the small sweet cakes.

RemixHorizon's wild hypothesis was proven true. Sayooshi soon announced his astonishment over how smart the ninja girl was. It appeared that the Luminian gentleman did know about the corruption within the city guard and the more ominous collaborations between criminals, Sonder nobility, and the Graypine nobility. He knew about these things because as a wealthy individual he had connections and heard from private info. He assured that he did not play any role in this stuff, but understood that Makroni was a small town on the westernmost edges of the Marchdom of Sonder. This is where people who have been kidnapped are sent to. It's also a town which supports the most dissatisfaction to the Marchdom itself. But all of this discontent is contained by, what he believes, the bandits who dominate the area. And because this settlement is far away from the main road which connects Kurajur to the rest of the world, it's easy for criminals to set camps and profiteer in the undeveloped rural areas of the Marchdom.

RemixHorizon and Krafty both heard this discussion between Sayooshi and the mysterious Luminian gentleman who continued to cuddle his puppy-dog in his arms. All three Players agreed that everything the Luminian gentleman said all aligned with the letter RemixHorizon stole from the city guard's headquarters.

Either these three Players are simply continuing the unexpectedly complex quest given to Sayooshi by Rori Fletcher. Or they stumbled upon a new quest, one which did not need to be marked by the game's system since it very clearly dealt with the foundational bodies of the entire Marchdom of Sonder.

But information like this, could simply be an inefficient ingame script turned into a glitch or something like that. And if Sayooshi and his friends decided to pursue this information which they could very well be a serious adventure, then it may in the end turn out to be another big waste of time. Fools gold, with neither a good destination or journey. A completely silly adventure.

...

Indeed, that's what it exactly would become. A completely silly adventure. An adventure where Gamers like Sayooshi, RemixHorizon, and even Krafty are seeking, to test the limits of Divine Mortality. To see... just how much, can Players utilize their very OWN quests to explore and fulfill their desired realizations.

Sayooshi chuckled and then he performed an over-the-top villainous laugh. Usually in a moment like this Krafty would politely ask Sayooshi to stop, and RemixHorizon would tell him to shut up already. But both of his new friends sensed a brand new shining gleam of desire emanating from Sayooshi's aura...

"Since you're laughing like an idiot, I assume you've thought of something worthwhile?" asked RemixHorizon

"You have assumed right, my dear RemixHorizon!" Sayooshi replied

"And here I thought you hated roleplayers, but you're starting to sound like one..."

Krafty sat comfortably int he background while drinking his beer and giggled

"Listen up you two, my dear comrades in arms. I can see it now, the results of our endeavors. They will certainly be worthwhile! Because I have discovered both the PATH and DESTINATION!" Sayooshi exclaimed loudly in excitement, despite how lazy everyone else felt at that moment.

...

"We will certainly accomplish something amazing!!"

....

"It will be super fun!?"

...

"Can I have a hooray?"

...

RemixHorizon and Krafty finally reply in a monotone voice "hooray...!"