Chapter 115: Taming the Wilds

“Peep.” The little chick squeaked as it poked its head enthusiastically out of the shell, taking it in its first view of the world. It looked up curiously at Darkshot as he cradled it in his hands. “Peep peep.” It continued, turning its head sideways curiously as its eyes met this strange creature that was holding it, as if to say, ‘are you my mommy?’. Darkshot, however, looked at it with an expression of sheer disappointment.

Lina, Aegis, Pyri and Rakkan opted to stay quiet once they’d seen the nameplate above the birds head. [Kalmoorian Pigeon - 1].

“I thought pigeons cooed. You know, like, ‘coo’.” Rakkan tried to imitate a pigeon sound.

“Not when they’re babies. They just peep as babies.” Aegis explained.

“Ah.” Rakkan answered.

“How long do they take to grow up in this game?” Pyri asked monotone.

“Not long… I think maybe a week or so.” Lina replied monotone.

“Ah.” Pyri answered.

“Well, good luck raising it.” Aegis patted him on the shoulder, and with that, everyone silently walked away to leave Darkshot with his baby pigeon as it peeped at him excitedly a few more times. Pyri, Lina and Rakkan silently made their way back to the campsite while Aegis hopped in the river with Snowflake and started helping him wash himself, scrubbing dirty spots of fur under his wings.

“Peep peep.” The pigeon continued innocently, not understanding the stare of Darkshot’s utter disappointment.

“It’s not even, like, a magic pigeon. A flame pigeon, I could work with. Even a dark pigeon. But, it’s just a pigeon.” Darkshot mumbled as he looked from the baby pigeon over to Aegis as he washed his gryphon. “Aegis, trade me.”

“Huh? No way. Snowflake isn’t an object, he’s my friend.”

“So what? He can be my friend too.” Darkshot persisted with desperation.

“A gryphon won’t work with your ranger skills. You need a small bird that can fly, don’t you?” Aegis asked him curiously.

“I’ll just never use those skills, it’ll be fine.”

“Aw c’mon, it looks cute enough.” Aegis motioned to the little chick hopping in his hands.

“I don’t need cute, I need a bird of fury. Flames, darkness, destruction. What the heck can a pigeon do? It can’t even hunt mice like a falcon, or a hawk.” Darkshot sighed.

“Pigeons are actually really smart birds, you know. In olden times, they used them to send messages.”

“We’re not in olden times, we’re in a fantasy world. Who the hell even designed and put pigeons in this game? Of all the animals to bring into this game from the real world, why the hell would you choose a pigeon?” Darkshot shouted angrily at no one in particular. “Gyphons make sense, they’re super cool.” Darkshot motioned to Snowflake with a nod, and he squawked excitedly. “But, pigeons?”

“Peep!” The pigeon said as it nestled itself comfortably into Darkshot’s hand.

“Well, it is a Kalmoorian pigeon, not just a pigeon. You don’t know for sure, maybe it gets some cool powers when it becomes an adult.” Aegis shrugged back at him. Darkshot looked at the little baby bird as it rested its head snugly in his hand.

“You think so?” He asked with a shimmer of hope filling his heart. The cuteness of the baby bird was slowly starting to win him over as he looked at its tiny body laying in his palms. trying to get comfortable.

“Maybe. Who knows.” Aegis replied. Darkshot stared intently at the baby bird and cupped it with one hand carefully so he could gently stroke it on the head with the finger of his other hand.

“It is kinda cute…” Darkshot admitted reluctantly. “I bet it grows really big, and I’ll be able to fly on it’s back. Or, it breathes fire. Come on little guy, lets get you some food.” He said in a babying voice as he started walking back towards the camp. Once he was gone, Aegis turned to snowflake.

“It’s just going to be a regular pigeon, isn’t it?” Aegis asked.

“Squawk!” Snowflake nodded with enthusiasm.

“And, once you cut it on the sides like that, you go for the top, then the bottom.” Ulmat finished his demonstration to Aegis on how to properly cut the Ironwood logs outside of his cabin, on the grassy fields of the clearing surrounded by the spiky shrubs.

You have unlocked the Woodcutting Proficiency: [Ironwood]

He got the message after completing the quest and gladly turned it in. In addition, he got another level up message, putting him up to level 51 thanks to the experience reward of the quest.

“Ok guys, lay ‘em out. Let’s do this.” Aegis motioned to the others and they all took the uncut limren logs out of their inventories. Melon and Snowflake were watching them safely from outside the ring of shrubs as Aegis pulled out his woodcutting axe and got to work on the logs.

Acquired: Ironwood [Quality: 11%]

Acquired: Ironwood [Quality: 16%]

Acquired: Ironwood [Quality: 13%]

“Much better than 0, still got some leveling up to do before I get the best quality though.” Aegis commented as he made the rounds on the trees. Cutting them into workable logs significantly reduced the space and weight they used up in inventories, but he’d still need to use woodworking to cut them into planks once they’d gotten back to Rene.

Level Up!: Woodcutting reached Level 32!

He’d noticed that these logs were giving a lot of experience compared to cutting birch, but after he’d gotten that message, he ran out of things to cut.

“You said you scouted another limren grove, right?” Aegis asked Darkshot as he continued to gently hold his baby pigeon in his hands.

“Huh?” Darkshot looked up from the bird, distracted. “Oh, uh, yeah, there’s at least one more in the forest.” Darkshot nodded.

“You guys up for a rematch?” Aegis asked, and everyone looked back at him eagerly. The party said goodbye to Ulmat after he gave them formal thanks for saving the gryphons, then left the cabin with their pets and followed Darkshot towards the grove of limren trees.

Sure enough, at the center of the trees was another hill, but this time the party had been prepared for it. Darkshot left his pigeon, who he’d named Darkwing, with Snowflake to look after before joining the others in fighting the keeper.

Aegis pre-emptively activated all of his buffs for the group before whacking the hill at the center of the grove to draw out the Keeper, after which he used challenging shouts to hold its attention while everyone else laid into it. Compared to the last time they’d fought one, the second time it died in under 30 seconds.

“Damn we’re awesome.” Darkshot cheered as it fell.

“I’m gettin’ the hang of this echo:rune. I’m thinkin’ I’m ready to start learning a new rune.” Rakkan said excitedly.

“Good, cause once we chop these up, we’re heading for the ruins.” Aegis said as he got to work on the Limren Keepers tendrils. Once he’d finished, the adventure continued southward through the Kolz forest. While their week-long stop in the forest had proven extremely beneficial, they were now all eager to explore somewhere new and fight new enemies.

With their camping and traveling gear gathered up from the previous campsite, they moved with determination through the forest, further from civilization. They followed along the river southward as instructed for nearly a full day of walking. In that time, Darkshot continued to bond with his tiny bird and fed it bugs and worms that Aegis’ had found anytime he inspected and gathered a new unfamiliar herb. He’d stopped gathering one’s he’d seen before in lieu of the fact that everyone’s inventories were getting stuffed.

Pyri kept to riding on the back of Melon and reading the intermediate spellbooks, trying to learn them. At this point she’d managed to fully assimilate the Multicast and Fly spells into her repertoire, and was now working on reading a spell called Pyroclasm.

“What’s that spell?” Aegis asked her late that evening, after he’d spotted the title between scratching the feathers on snowflakes head.

“Oh, this one? Pyroclasm.” Pyri replied matter-of-factly.

“Well, I can see that by the title of the book. I meant, what’s it do?” Aegis asked her curiously.

“Oh. It’s a channeling spell, but it’s a bit different than cinderbolt. While channeling it, you can’t move, and it just keeps draining your mana and getting bigger. The longer you channel it, the bigger it gets and the more damage it will deal, but it also starts costing more and more mana to keep growing it, the bigger it gets.” Pyri explained as she looked over the top of the book.

“So it’s like a really big damaging spell?” Aegis asked excitedly.

“It can be.” Pyri shrugged.

“It’s really hard to use that spell, so most wizard’s don’t bother.” Rakkan joined the conversation. “If you take any damage while you are channeling it, the spell cancels.” He explained. “It also gets really expensive to keep channeling it, and the projectile is really slow moving so even non-elite mobs can see it coming and dodge it. And then, you’re out of mana.”

“Oh… doesn’t sound that good then, does it?” Aegis replied, looking at Pyri curiously.

“Mm, I guess, but if I have a nice big protector in front of me while I channel it, I might be able to make it really big. It looked interesting, so I took it.” Pyri shrugged.

“How’d you get those books by the way? Intermediate spell books are expensive.” Rakkan asked her curiously.

“I just borrowed them.” She said while avoiding looking at him, staring back down at the book.

“They let you borrow books from the Kordas Wizard Tower?” Rakkan asked her, surprised.

“Yup.” She said hastily, but Rakkan remained looking at her suspiciously.

“Do you think I could pet him?” Lina asked nervously as she walked beside Snowflake, opposite him from Aegis.

“I dunno, what do you think Snowflake? Can Lina pet you?” Aegis asked, and Snowflake glanced between the two of them before letting out a squawk.

“What’d he say?” Lina looked at Aegis excitedly.

“Uh… I think that was a yes.” Aegis shrugged. “I don’t actually know.” He added in a whisper to Lina.

“Okay…” She cautiously reached forward and gently placed her fingers on his head, but the moment she made contact, Snowflake forcefully nudged his head into her hand as if to pet himself. Lina let out an excited huff of air as she did it, shocked at first, but eventually followed through with the stroke and ran her hand down his neck through his feathers. “He’s really soft.” Lina smiled at Aegis. Snowflake squawked at this.

“When did that happen, by the way,” Darkshot pointed at Snowflake’s white nameplate above its head. It no longer said gryphon, but instead showed [Snowflake - Level 50].

“Huh… I dunno, I didn’t really notice it. Look.” Aegis pointed at the bird in Darkshot’s hands, and it too had changed. It no longer said Kalmoorian Pigeon, but instead was labeled as [Darkwing - Level 1].

“Weird… is it because we named them?” Darkshot asked as both he and Aegis looked to Lina and Rakkan expectantly.

“I dunno.” Rakkan shrugged.

“Me either.” Lina replied curiously.

“Melon was already Melon when I got her.” Pyri added.

“You know… hm…” Aegis said as he put his hand on his chin, going deep in thought.

“What is it?” Lina asked.

“When I was in Arallia, there were a lot of soldiers and guards on the walls, in the city, and in the palace. All of them were named Arallian Guard, or Arallian Soldier, but Celestian, even though he was a guard, had his own name. He had it before we even got to the city I guess. Because of Clara?” Aegis wondered out loud.

“What’re you thinking?” Darkshot asked him, seeing that Aegis seemed to have figured something out.

“I can’t be sure… but I’ve got a theory. I’d given up on trying to figure out how to make NPCs elite on purpose, but… Well, I’ll have to wait until we’re back in Rene to test it out.” Aegis concluded. The group continued walking on through the forest a bit longer, but as the sun began to set they saw that the density of the trees around them began to lessen significantly.

In addition to the number of trees going down, their size and health seemed to diminish, and the ground transitioned from moss, twig and leaf covered ground to patches of grass and dry dirt, and soon enough a loud howling wind could be heard in the distance. Walking on a bit further, they heard and saw that the flow of the river was speeding up the further south they got, until finally they saw why.

As they stepped out of the treeline beyond the final few trees of the forest, they found themselves looking over the night sky into the abyss. They’d reached the southern end of the Island of Kalmoore, and the river continued flowing off the side into a waterfall, the water disappearing into the dark mist that lay many meters below the ledge of the island.

“Whoa.” Darkshot said, seeing it for the first time.

“That is something else. It’s much different seeing it in person.” Pyri said as she closed her book and looked on in amazement at the sea of black mist before them. “So down there is where all the big boss enemies are?” Pyri asked.

“Yeah, the Avatars of Darkness.” Aegis said as they moved closer to the ledge and looked off, though Melon was unwilling to get too close. Snowflake excitedly hopped up into the air and flapped his wings, flying a loop around above the mist excitedly before coming to land back beside the others. “I guess you’re not scared of them, huh?” Aegis smirked as he ruffled the feathers on Snowflake’s head once he’d returned, and Lina couldn’t help but smile watching Aegis interact with the beast.

“I don’t see any ruins though.” Rakkan said with disappointment.

“I think…” Darkshot said, still cradling Darkwing as he scanned the area. His tracking skill allowed him to see small details clearly that would otherwise be missed, and it functioned despite the darkening evening sky. “It might be… that…” Darkshot said slowly as his jaw dropped once he’d spotted it.

Further to the west a bit, just off the edge of Kalmoore, stood a group of gigantic overgrown treetops that were peaking out of the top of the black mist. It wasn’t even on the island itself, they were trees that appeared to have grown so high from the ground level of the world that their canopy had managed to breach through the top of the sea of black mist, and their dark green leaves were still flourishing and absorbing the sunlight.

As Aegis spotted it, he couldn’t be sure if it was just a single, huge tree, or several really big trees. The branches looked thick and nearly reached up to touch the top ledge of the island of Kalmoore, but not quite.

That was not the most eyecatching thing about the trees though. Several of them were high up enough, and close enough to the island of Kalmoore, that they had somehow caught chunks of the island and were propping up the broken island chunks on the top of their branches. It was on these islands, spread out across several treetops, that a collection of large ruined structures could be seen, loosely connected to one another by broken bridges and walkways that somehow managed to stay intact, allowing possible passage from the ruins on one treetop to another.

“That does not look stable to walk on, whatsoever.” Pyri said with wide eyes as she spotted it.

“Is that where we gotta go?” Darkshot asked in disbelief. “Aegis, you realize we’re loaded up on tons of materials, right? One slip, and bam, all that leather goes into the abyss.” Darkshot looked at him apprehensively.

“I bet that place has never been explored before. Imagine all the secrets its hiding!” Rakkan shouted excitedly.

“Oh c’mon, how are we even going to get to it?” Darkshot replied to Rakkan’s enthusiasm.

“Let’s go check it out first.” Aegis said as he motioned them forward, and the group hastily moved along the edge of the island until they got to the spot closest to the nearest chunk of ruins.

The island chunk that the ruins were built on was broken apart and in bad shape, the ruined buildings were being held up more by the tree and its branches than the chunk of land itself. The tree had grown branches, leaves and vines around the structures. Most of the buildings were still intact, and were made of light blue stone blocks that’d been chipped and cracked in various places. Aegis could make out a few houses and towers on the nearest island.

The most interesting building was on the second closest treetop to Kalmoore's island, a large but partially destroyed castle made of the same light blue stone as the other buildings. It was loosely connected to the first closest treetop through a broken and unreliable looking stone bridge that spanned the open space between the two treetops that each chunk of land sat on. Upon close inspection, Aegis could see a more reliable looking method of travelling between the treetops, as he saw that each of the treetops were connected together through large thick branches below the canopy. The way all of the branches of the treetops converged to a single central point informed Aegis that this wasn't multiple trees, but a single giant tree.

“I’m betting what we’re looking for is going to be in that big castle building.” Aegis said as he pointed at the large ruined structure on the second furthest treetop. “So I guess the question is…” Aegis said as he leaned closer to the edge and looked at the nearest treetop. “How do we get over there?” He turned and looked to the others one by one, ending his eyes on Snowflake.

“I vote we go back to Kordas, store all this stuff away, and ask your Airship buddy to fly us out.” Darkshot suggested.

“But, the ruins are right there.” Rakkan said excitedly, a twinkle of excitement in his eyes.

“What about Snowflake, could he fly us out there?” Lina asked, looking at the gryphon.

“He’s a wild gryphon, he hasn’t been trained yet so he’d just as likely do a barrel roll and send us to our doom.” Aegis replied.

“Well…” Pyri said hesitantly, then lightly tapped herself on the shoulder. “Fly.” She said, casting a spell with light blue sparkles forming around her body for a moment. After which she began to levitate up into the sky. Everyone turned to look at her as she floated up a few centimeters off the ground. “It’s still level 1 so it doesn’t last long, or move that fast. I also can only cast it on myself.” Pyri explained.

“But, you could fly over to the ruins with a rope or something, right?” Aegis asked her.

“That could work.” Rakkan nodded eagerly.

“What the hell are we going to do with a rope? Look how far away that tree is, that's like 100 meters. You want me to rope walk 100 meters over that?” Darkshot pointed down at the black mist below the island.

“It would be really bad if something went wrong and we lost all of the items we’re carrying.” Lina joined in with Darkshot. Aegis wasn’t expecting Lina to take Darkshots side, which suddenly gave Aegis more cause for concern about their plan.

“Okay.” Aegis nodded to Lina and Darkshot, and Darkshot let out a sigh of relief, thinking he’d talked the group out of this plan, but instead, Aegis navigated to his interface and turned off his livestream of 31 000 viewers.

“What’re you doing, why’d you turn the stream off?” Darkshot asked him as Aegis started looking around the treeline nearby.

“I’m going to chop down some of these trees and craft a chest, store all of our materials in it, then bury it somewhere here. That way, even if we die, the items will be safe.” Aegis said as he pulled out a woodcutting axe and made for the nearest tree.

“Wait, so that means we’re still doing the rope thing?” Darkshot asked.

“We’re still doing the rope thing.” Aegis nodded back.

“Aw man.” Darkshot groaned.

“Hell yeah, ruins exploration time.” Rakkan squeaked with giddy joy.