Chapter 140: Books, Birds, Blacksmiths

Darkshot, Aegis, Lina, and Snowflake walked through the streets of Pakro’Vielle together, taking in the sights. The large towering mushrooms hung over them no matter where they stood, to the point where it was rare that you could look up and see the actual ceiling of the cavern. They’d taken to ignoring the curious stares and fingers pointing at them by the Plashrim inhabitants, it wasn’t too unlike the reactions that Aegis got from walking around Kordas with his streaming icon. With that in mind, he took the time to look up and saw he was holding steady at 40,000 viewers despite not much action going on, and pondered whether any other players had ever encountered the Plashrim before.

It wasn’t long before Darkshot spotted a building that drew his interest.

“I’m gonna check out that shop. Looks like they sell arrows.” Darkshot pointed at a mushroom that had arrows dangling from the top of it by strings of varying sizes and types.

“Ok.” Aegis nodded. “If you see anything crafting or healer-like, let me know.” Aegis said as Darkshot headed towards the building.

“Will do.” Darkshot replied, followed by a coo from Darkwing atop his shoulder.

“I’m going to check out that building.” Aegis said as he motioned to a building with a blacksmith sign hanging down from the mushroom top over the street. “There’s no smoke, so I wonder how they smelt stuff down here.” He scratched his chin curiously as he walked towards it, Snowflake following behind him.

“Okay.” Lina nodded, and she began following behind Aegis as well, but as she did she spotted another shifting face in Snowflake’s shadow. This time, it looked as though it was motioning her somewhere. She looked in the direction that the shadow had stretched to see a darkened mushroom with a worn down staircase leading up to the door at the base of the mushroom stalk. She looked at it, then looked at Aegis as he continued walking towards the blacksmith shop, and then back to the dark mushroom.

“I’m going to check out something…” Lina mumbled to Aegis.

“Alright. I imagine the crafting stuff would be boring for you.” Aegis shrugged as he turned to give her a smile.

“See you in a bit.” She smiled back, then watched as Aegis ascended the stairs into the blacksmithing mushroom and walked inside after instructing Snowflake to wait out front. Once he’d gone in, Lina walked with purpose towards the darkened mushroom. Only once she’d gotten close did she notice a sign out front with a strange mushroom-shaped cup overflowing with liquid. If she had to guess, it looked like a sign for a tavern.

She went up the stairs and hesitantly touched the white door knob, slowly turning it and stepping into the building to find herself standing in an open room filled with tables that grew out of the floor, stools that grew out of the floor, and a white wooden bar across the way.

It was, in fact, a tavern. Sitting throughout were various individuals who all stopped mid-conversation and drinking to turn and look curiously at Lina as silence fell over the room. It wasn’t just Plashrim staring at her, though. To Lina’s surprise, there were several Dark Elves sitting amongst them. It took awhile for them to stop staring at Lina as she smiled awkwardly at all of the curious faces.

Lina, too, had trouble stopping herself from staring at the pretty flowers atop the female Plashim’s heads, and the interesting styles of leaf-hair that the males had managed to grow. But eventually, her mind came back to her and she remembered she entered this building for a reason. She began looking for any shifting, waving shadows.

There were none, but instead, as she looked towards an elevated, white wooden stage on the right side of the tavern, she saw a beautiful Dark Elf with long wavy black hair and light purple skin preforming a dance on the stage to the sound of a flute being played by a female Plashrim sitting on a stool off to the side of the stage.

The moment Lina looked at the Dark Elf, she looked back at Lina with a knowing stare, and Lina recognized those same eyes as the one waving in the shadows. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but curiosity got the best of her and she moved to sit in the closest empty chair to the stage. [Roxelle(Elite) - Level 110] stood above the dancing dark elf’s head.

Lina waited patiently for the song to finish, and once it had, rather than approach Lina, Roxelle wagged her fingers to beckon Lina over to her. Lina raised her eyebrows back and looked confused, hesitant to walk up on the stage abruptly, and this hesitation did not go unnoticed by Roxelle.

“You are like me. Show me, Shadow Dancer… can you ‘Dance’ in the shadows?” Roxelle smiled mischievously as she extended her hand out to lina.

Quest[1/3]: Catch Roxelle.

Objective: 0/1 Roxelle caught.

Quest Giver: Roxelle, Pakro’Vielle, Kalmoore’

Reward: Unknown

Difficulty: Hard

Restrictions: Shadow Dancer - Level 75

Lina saw the quest prompt and read over it. Once she had, she was suddenly hit with a jolt of excitement. It had been so long, months now, since she’d restarted her character to play with Aegis. In that time she’d only been redoing things that she had done on her previous character, trying to prorgress back to where she had been.

This was it - this was the first time she had encountered something completely new and unknown. A quest like this, class specific, could possibly unlock things well beyond anything she had ever unlocked on her previous character. A giant smile grew across her face as she hit accept.

“Thank you.” Roxelle smiled back at her. “I have not met another like me since I fled the tyrant’s grasp and arrived here. I have missed playing catch with the other Shadow Dancers back home. I hope you are up to the task.” Roxelle winked as she stood upright and put her hands behind her back. “Ready?” She asked.

“I’m ready… I just have to touch you, right?” Lina asked, and Roxelle nodded while Lina stood up from her chair. The two silently stared at each other for a moment as the task settled into Lina’s mind. Roxelle was a meter in front of her, it looked too easy.

With a sudden burst of speed, Lina lunged forward at Roxelle, but at the same time, Roxelle jumped backward into the shadows near the wall of the tavern, and shadowstepped away. Somewhere, within 15 meters, she had jumped. Lina quickly scanned around the tavern, seeing that the flute playing Plashrim was taking over the stage and a few of the patrons were staring at her, but she couldn’t see where Roxelle had gone.

Lina closed her eyes and focused in on her interface, feeling out the various shadowstep locations she had available to her in this current location, and realized there weren’t just shadows inside the tavern, but outside as well. Lina moved to the nearby shadow by the wall, then snapped her fingers to shadowstep outside of the tavern onto the top of the mushroom that it was built inside.

Sure enough, standing in the small space between the top of the mushroom and the roof of the cavern, between a pair of stalactites, was Roxelle.

“Hm… a bit slow. Maybe I should take it easy on you?” Roxelle grinned mischievously at Lina, causing Lina to smirk back as she dashed forward after her.

Aegis entered the blacksmith shop and spotted a dark stone forge on the far wall with a blazing red flame glowing within it. The heat was so powerful that he felt it on the air that blew out at him the moment he’d opened the door to enter the shop, and the light from the flame was so overpowering that it felt like it should’ve hurt to look at it - it only didn’t because it was a VR MMORPG, and not the real world, Aegis thought as he analyzed the crafting station.

Despite the blazing red hot flame, there was no chimney for the smoke to release through, instead, a strange red moss was set above the fire that seemingly consumed all of the smoke instead. The moss was pulsating above the fire, unaffected by the heat. The dark black brick forge itself was simple, with a small opening for melting down ores and metals for refining and crafting. He saw a table set beside it with several familiar looking molds for basic items, such as nails.

Aegis walked through the shop, ignoring the shopkeeper behind the counter who was staring at him curiously. He approached the forge and started looking at it from other angles to understand how it worked.

“Can I help you?” The shopkeeper asked, causing Aegis to turn and face him for the first time. It was a male Plashrim with no branches or leaves on his head, an apron on and the name [Oopik(Elite) - Level 90] above his head.

“Yes… there’s no bellows for your forge. Or fuel. How do you keep it hot?” Aegis asked curiously as he motioned to the forge.

“An eternal flame never loses its heat. It keeps the temperature it had when it was forged.” Oopik answered with a strange, curious stare. “You’ve never seen one on the surface?” Oopik asked.

“Nope… not in Kordas at least. Didn’t hear about one in Arallia either.” Aegis scratched his chin as he tried to recall any mention of something called an eternal flame, but nothing was ringing a bell. “So it’s incredibly hot? Is it hot enough to forge mithral?” Aegis asked excitedly.

“Naturally. An eternal flame that isn’t at least that hot isn’t worth forging.” Oopik shook his head at Aegis.

“Have you forged mithral before, then?” Aegis asked hopefully.

“No. That is beyond my capabilities. I’d be open to trying, if you have some on you, though.” Oopik replied.

“Oh. No, I don’t have any. Do you know where to get some?” Aegis asked.

“No.” Oopik replied grumpily.

“Hm.” Aegis replied disappointed, thinking for a moment. “Could you tell me how to create an eternal flame?”

“I could… but, this is a shop, not a library.” Oopik replied as he leaned over his white wooden counter.

“I could pay for the information…” Aegis offered as he stepped forward towards him excitedly.

“Eh.” Oopik hesitated answering as he began tapping his fingers on the counter. “Gold is not much value here, we live off of trade. I trust you’ve spoken to the Elder, already?” Oopik asked.

“Yup.” Aegis nodded.

“And he told you about our Mosmir problem?” Oopik continued.

“Yup.”

“And, have you accepted the task of slaying their Queen?”

“I have.”

“Then perhaps we can come to an arrangement.” He said as he straightened his back and crossed his arms. “The Royal Mosmir have rather durable, destructive claws. They’re wonderful for crafting. If you bring me 10 of them, I’ll tell you how to forge an eternal flame.” Oopik said, and as he had, a quest popped up that was listed as extreme difficulty for Aegis. Aegis quickly hit accept.

“You got yourself a deal.” Aegis gave him a thumbs up before taking another curious look at the flame within the forge.

“I should warn you.” Oopik said as he saw Aegis’ eager gaze, the forge flames reflecting in his eyes. “Even if you know how to make one, it is quite an ordeal to gather the materials and create it correctly. You’ll need to be a very skilled blacksmith.”

“I’ll manage it. Thanks.” Aegis smiled at him before heading out of the blacksmith shop. Once he’d reached the bottom of the stairs outside of the shop and was back on the streets of Pakro’Vielle, he looked around and saw numerous other trade buildings with signs for the various crafting professions hanging out front, and he excitedly rubbed his hands together.

“I’m betting all of these buildings have a quest for that hive.” Aegis whispered to himself gleefully before he headed towards the next building, while Snowflake let out a board huff in his general direction and plopped his butt on the street.

Ertonar lead Pyri and Rakkan through several narrow hallways inside the large mushroom townhall of Pakro’Vielle, until they arrived at a pair of white wooden double doors with intricate swirls engraved into them. He swung the doors open and motioned Pyri and Rakkan to step inside ahead of him, which they both did as he bowed politely.

“Here you will find the knowledge we have collect and saved over the centuries. Some of it is written in the ancient language, I hope that is not a problem.” Ertonar explained.

“No problem, I can read it.” Rakkan replied with wide eyes as he and Pyri gawked at the dozens of giant white wooden bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling of the mushroom-room. There were windows allowing the blue lights from outside to shine in, but apart from that there were a few lanterns lighting the room from the inside, all made by collecting the tiny moss orbs into small see-through spheres that hung off the sides of the bookshelves.

In addition to the shelves, there were a few tables and chairs that grew out of the floor of the mushroom building, to sit on and read at, but there were no other people currently sitting in the chairs.

“Wonderful. Help yourselves, but please do not take anything from the library.” Ertonar replied as he smiled and began closing the doors. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me, or any of the guards of Pakro’Vielle for assistance.” He finished saying before closing the doors behind himself.

Pyri rushed over to a bookshelf filled with several familiar looking spellbooks and began tilting the spines of the books out to view them more clearly.

“Firebolt… icelance, lesser invisibility…” She mumbled the spells that each book was for as she briefly looked over them. “Nothing unique yet…” She continued perusing through them. Rakkan watched for a moment before scanning the shelves himself for anything that stood out to him.

He found a section with old looking texts with ancient writing on the spines that were visible and rushed over to it, then began doing the same thing that Pyri was.

“Most of these are just storybooks, or records of historic people…” Rakkan said after checking a good number of the covers. The two continued like this for some time, picking out books that had potential until Rakkan had collected a stack of books, and Pyri had selected one intermediate spell book. They both approached the same table and plopped their books down on opposite ends, sitting across from each other and looking at each other's books.

“That spell, I’ve heard of that before, it’s really hard to find, though.” Rakkan said excitedly as he looked at the title.

“Yup. Scrying. Not sure how useful it’ll be, but it's the only one I saw here that wasn’t in the Wizard Tower in Kordas.” Pyri shrugged as she looked over to Rakkan’s side of the table. “You find anything interesting?” She asked as she eyed his stack of books.

“Eh… these are the most likely to have something on runes in them.” Rakkan shrugged as he spread four books out on the table in front of himself.

“I’d start with that one.” Pyri said as she leaned over the table and tapped on a plain black leather book with iron plates on the corners. “From my experience in these games, the dark nameless book is always the best one.” Pyri nodded confidently, causing Rakkan to grin.

“Ok.” He said as he pulled it close and flipped it open. From there, the two dove into their respective texts as silence fell over the library, broken only by the sound of pages turning.

Darkshot stepped inside the bowyer mushroom shop not knowing what to expect. Upon entry, he saw racks and shelves with beautiful white, intricately crafted longbows and shortbows that had been made using the white wood from the mushroom stalks. There were also plenty of crossbows, both large and small to be found.

Barrels and barrels loaded full of bolts and arrows using the same wood, some with copper tips, other with iron, and plenty with black tips. He was curious what the black tipped arrows were and was midway to the nearest barrel with the intent to inspect their item cards, but his attention was drawn to something else before he made it there.

The back wall of the shop was lined with two giant cages, with branches and mushrooms inside to form a comfortable habitat for the creatures living within. There was a collection of strange, small bat-like creatures in one cage, and in the other a group of furry, one eyed creates with wings and two long, needle like tails.

Above the heads of the bat-like creatures stood [Reltrak Screecher - Level 40], with some variance in level between them. Above the heads of the other, furry beasts stood [Albrianx - Level 40], with also plenty of level variance.

“A Kalmoorian pigeon. I can’t remember the last time I saw a surface bird.” The shopkeeper, a female Plashrim with a purple dahlia blossom growing out of the top of her head spoke. She was wearing plain, dark green silk robes and had bright yellow eyes, with [Lialai(Elite) - Level 90] above her head.

“Oh…” Darkshot said, surprised as she spoke and turned to look at her curiously while Darkwing cooed from his shoulder. “Elite.” He mumbled to himself under his breath in surprise as he spotted her name. “I’ve never seen those before.” Darkshot said as he motioned to the cages.

“They’re difficult to capture, but obedient once tamed. They make great companions. The Screechers are exceptionally good at finding their way in the dark, and can grant that same ability to their owner.” Lialai explained as she came out from behind the counter and walked towards the Screecher cage. She opened it and placed her hand inside, and one of the screechers excitedly hopped down and landed in her hand, crawling around in her palm using tiny hooks at the end of each of its leathery black wings.

“And these friendly beauties,” She moved to the Albrianx cage and opened it, repeating the process so that one hopped onto her other hand, then held both hands out for Darkshot to view them. The Albrianx, to Darkshot’s surprise, dropped on all fours and had four very tiny stubby legs, like a hamster, and spun in a circle in her palm before getting comfortable, retracting its wings in and curling its two-pronged tail up into two tiny spirals.

“Their saliva is quite an effective sedative. Great for coating your arrows in sleeping poison, for times that you wish to be non-lethal.” She explained as she watched Darkshot’s expression carefully while he eyed them.

“Interesting… those would be really useful skills for an animal companion to have, for a Ranger.” Darkshot nodded along. “You wouldn’t happen to know what a Kalmoorian Pigeon is good at, would you?”

“They’re good at nothing.” She smiled as she spoke, as if this was a good thing.

“Nothing?” Darkshot replied with wide eyes of disbelief.

“Oh, sorry. I should explain more clearly. From what I recall of my encounters with them, they don’t excel at anything in particular. Instead, they are unique in that they will take on a trait that best suits their owner, in a time of great need. They could learn to screech out a deafening cry, soar out of the skies like a deadly hawk, or even learn to see in the dark.” She said as she nudged her head towards the screecher again. “Exceptionally hard to awaken a desirable trait. But I am quite skilled in raising companions. I am willing to offer you my strongest, most well behaved Albrianx and Screecher for your pet. Would you be interested?” Lialai smiled as she motioned the two beasts in her hands forward. Darkshot noted that the two she had picked out of the cage were indeed the highest levels of the bunch, both level 50. As she did, Darkwing cooed curiously and tilted his head to the side.

Darkshot turned to look at his pigeon. Up until this point, Darkwing hadn’t done anything for him but take up food and make cute noises. Hearing Lialai explain what he could do, part of him began to worry. Firstly, whether or not he’d be able to get him to awaken a skill, and secondly, whether or not it’d be any good. It felt like he was leaving a lot to chance, and alternatively, he was being offered two creatures with very useful skills, already trained and ready to go - certainly useful for taking on the Mosmir hive.

What ultimately settled Darkshot’s mind, though, was the small bow tie tied around Darkwing’s neck.

“Nah. I can’t trade him, he’s my buddy.” Darkshot replied and gently scratched Darkwing’s belly.

“Ah, a shame.” Lialai sighed with disappointment as she moved to put the small beasts back in their cages. “Is there something else I could help you with, then? I can’t imagine you need a bow, what with that beautiful Ironwood longbow you have with you.” She smiled politely.

“Ah, yes… those black tipped arrows, what are those? Are they better than Iron?” Darkshot asked.

“Yes, they are stronger, they will deliver a more impactful shot and pierce through heavily armored foes such as the Royal Mosmir's carapace. It is obsidian. Made from the magna of the red river. Obsidian is not suitable for armor or weapons, but as a single-use arrowhead, it is quite effective and easy to make so long as you know a skilled stonecutter.” Lialai explained as she walked over to the barrel of obsidian arrows.

“The red river is a river of magma?” Darkshot said with a sigh of relief.

“Yes.” Lialai chuckled. “What did you think it was?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Nothing… Never mind.” Darkshot shook his head as he inspected the item card of the obsidian arrows. They were indeed much higher damage than iron arrows, but they had no chance of recovery or reuse. They had only 1 durability. “I’ll take some.” Darkshot said as he took a pouch of coins out of his inventory. Once Darkshot completed the transaction, he made his way out of the shop and back out into the streets of Pakro’Vielle and looked around.

It wasn’t long before he’d spotted Snowflake sitting obediently near the middle of the street, cleaning his own feathers while several Plashrim children were staring at him curiously, pointing and giggling. Darkshot glanced around further to try and spot his companions, but had no such luck, so opted to walk over to Snowflake and wait beside him.

As he waited, he caught a glimpse of Lina shadowstepping over of the mushroom house rooftops, though he wasn’t sure what she was doing. Shortly after that he saw Aegis eagerly run out of a shop with a giddy smile on his face, immediately heading from the alchemist shop towards the tailoring shop.

“So many quests!” Aegis shouted excitedly at Darkshot as their eyes met before he disappeared into the next mushroom building.

“Looks like someone just discovered his very first MMORPG quest hub.” Darkshot chuckled to himself.