Chapter 172: The Fourth Quest

“The enemy of my enemy is my… friend?” Darkshot asked with an extreme lack of certainty, raising his eyebrow as he looked around to gauge the others reactions to his words.

“No. Nope. This isn’t that.” Aegis shook his head in response. “Let’s think this out, consider all the facts that we know, and come to an agreed upon conclusion. Figuring out the true nature of whats going on here may be the very challenge of this Extreme III quest in the first place.” Aegis said while leading back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling.

“Okay, first fact, these seeker guys are using a dialect of the ancient language used solely by worshippers of a guy who basically represents destruction and chaos.” Darkshot replied while crossing his arms.

“When we were escaping the prison together, Mayiera, the warlock, did brag about her strong connection to her ‘lord’. I thought it was weird because, most warlocks work by stealing powers from dark gods. Mayiera didn’t mention a god, nor did it sound like she was ‘stealing’ his power.” Lina explained.

“Whooo boy.” Darkshot rolled his eyes.

“Did we just break a really bad person out of prison?” Pyri asked worriedly.

“Sounds like it. But it was part of the quest. Don’t feel bad. It was never going to progress until we did that.” Aegis tried to reassure them.

“She killed a lot of guards…” Lina replied guiltily.

“Don’t worry about that now, we’ve got to focus on what we do next.” Aegis chimed in again. “So, Kagil’aktos and the Seekers are likely hated for their connection to this dark lord. A detail they conveniently left out when talking to us. Therefor we can assume that their intentions are not what they say they are.” Aegis scratched his chin. “So we definitely don’t want them to succeed in their plan, whatever it is. But as it stands we don’t have any other method of meeting Kur’aktos, which leads us to the next question…”

“Is Kur’aktos really the bad guy here?” Rakkan asked on Aegis’ behalf.

“Well… like I explained in the party chat, he makes everyone work the majority of their lives, and doesn’t let them choose what they do. Everyone in this city are basically his slaves, in a way. Except for the people up on the Royal Ring.” Darkshot shrugged.

“He’s also extremely xenophobic, which is why we’re forced to walk around with these hoods.” Pyri motioned to her Seeker hood that she currently had up.

“Yeah…” Lina nodded along with her.

“So I guess that settles that?” Darkshot asked while Aegis looked between the others briefly.

“Extremely racist. Enslaves his people to work all day at jobs they don’t want to work, arrests them if they refuse… it’s pretty cut and dry.” Rakkan said.

“I’m…” Aegis hesitated as he continued to ponder. “I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“Heh?” Darkshot looked at Aegis as if he was crazy.

“What’re you talking about? You think those things are socially acceptable?” Pyri raised her eyebrows at him with extreme skepticism.

“No, no, I’m not saying racism and slavery are acceptable, but, he might not be doing it out of malice, or to abuse his power. He might be doing it because he feels its necessary.” Aegis explained.

“How could it possibly be necessary?” Darkshot sighed.

“Let’s consider the facts…” Aegis stood up from his alchemy tools on the table and began pacing around the room while everyone else watched him closely, including his viewership of 80,000 viewers. “We all saw those creatures wandering through the wasteland outside the city, right?” Aegis said, and got a few nods. “Think, why would you build a city here, in the middle of this wasteland, knowing that such deadly creatures were marching around outside?”

“Because of the tree, right?” Lina replied.

“Exactly. If we assume the tree came before the city, and not the other way around, then they’re relying on it. He might be so strict as a means to just keep the city running and surviving in this hostile environment, because he thinks he has to. If they lose this tree, they lose everything.” Aegis explained.

“That doesn’t say anything about their extreme xenophobia though.” Pyri crossed her arms.

“Well, let’s think… what was at the entrance to the underrealm where we came in, initially?”

“The Darxon cultists.” Rakkan replied.

“And what did they do to Dark Elves?”

“Trick them, then enslave and torture them.” Darkshot nodded along as though he was starting to see Aegis’ angle.

“Yeah, and I’m willing to bet that other pathways from the surface to the underrealm are also preyed on by other cultists. The cultists consist of all surface races, so if that’s the Dark Elves only experience with people on the surface, it only makes sense that he wouldn’t want them in the city. Why risk it?” Aegis continued to pace.

“You’re making a lot of assumptions to explain his behaviour, when it otherwise can easily be explained by him just being a bad guy.” Pyri pulled her lips to the side.

“Yeah, you’re right. I could be wrong, he could just be a racist, power-abusing tyrant warlord. Luryala and many of the other seekers fled the city believing that. But, there is a chance they were coerced and manipulated into believing that by someone whose aim is to destabilize the city and destroy it.” Aegis stopped at the end of the room and crossed his arms, staring between his party members as he saw them all thinking on his words. It went quiet for a moment as the group did nothing but glance between one another, deep in thought.

“The fact is, there’s really no way of knowing. Not unless we meet and talk with Kur’aktos directly, to figure out what kind of guy he is.” Rakkan broke the silence.

“Yeah. Exactly.” Aegis nodded as he moved to sit back in his chair. “That’s why I need this antidote. We’re certain the Seekers are up to something, and are likely not our friends. But we’re unsure about Kur’aktos and his guards. The Extreme III difficulty of this quest may very well be due to everyone being our enemies, or something else entirely. We should prepare for all possibilities.”

“But we’re still going to do these quests with the seekers? Even though we know they’re bad?” Darkshot asked with hesitation.

“Yeah. We’ve come this far, it’s the only way we have to meet Kur’aktos. There are possibly other ways to do it, but they could take months to discover. We’re only on part 3 of a 5 part quest chain. If we assume part 4 is the quest involving meeting Kur’aktos, then part 5 of the quest is still unknown.” Aegis continued to explain as he got to work on mixing ingredients together and keeping track of changes in the item cards.

“So you’re counting on part 5 of the quest chain to reveal the true nature of both Kagil’aktos and his brother, Kur’aktos?” Lina asked.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s a bit of a gamble, but as long as we’re prepared for anything and have each other, I think we can handle whatever the quest throws at us.” Aegis replied confidently, and with out realizing it, he’d made all of his party members shamelessly blush.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Pyri mumbled softly.

“You’re right. No matter what happens, you can count on me. Darkshot. I shoot…”

“From the darkness, yeah yeah.” Rakkan rolled his eyes at him.

“Hey, not cool, don’t interrupt my catch phrase.”

“That’s not a catch phrase.” Rakkan grumbled.

“It is, don’t be jealous you don’t have one.”

“I don’t want a catch phrase.”

“You sure? You had a line back in the training grounds. What was it again…? I’m not an encyclopedia?”

“That’s not a catch phrase, though.”

“Nah, not by itself. You gotta work on it a bit. Embrace your lore knowledge.” Darkshot motioned to the closed ancient tome on the table. “Something like, I’m Rakkan, fear my knowledge.”

“Seriously?” Pyri jumped into the conversation and raised her eyebrows at him.

“That’s pretty lame…” Lina whispered.

“I’m never going to say that.” Rakkan crossed his arms and glared at him.

“Okay, okay, how about this. Rakkan is here. Suck on my lore.” Darkshot tried.

“What the hell does that even mean? Suck on my lore?” Rakkan shook his head while Lina and Pyri had to hold back a burst of laughter, all the while Aegis continued to focus on brewing.

“Ok, ok, I’ll keep working on it. I’ll come up with something good, though. Don’t worry.” Darkshot assured them.

“Shouldn’t things like that come from the person saying them?” Lina asked.

“Yeah, but, he’s never going to make one as cool as I can. His name’s Rakkan, it’s hard to make that catchy.” Darkshot shrugged, causing Rakkan to roll his eyes at Darkshot. “Oh, I got it. I’m Rakkan, and I reckon this party’s over.” Darkshot tried, pronouncing reckon so that it sounded like Rakkan.

“They’re getting worse.” Pyri chuckled.

The party continued discussing various things, doing their best to not disturb Aegis’ work as he continued to try out different ingredients to create an antidote. At one point, he was forced to send Darkshot out into the city to a herbalists shop on the lower branches and retrieve as large of a variety of herbs as he could, then return, which Darkshot was able to do without a hitch.

From there, after hours of work on the concoction, and multiple level ups in his alchemy skill, Aegis was finally able to complete the antidote.

Level up!: Alchemy has reached level 57!

“Got it, finally.” Aegis sighed with relief as he put down his tools and leaned back in his chair.

“You made an antidote?” Lina asked excitedly as the others looked over.

“Yup. The final preparation for the quest is complete.” Aegis stood up and stretched. “Everyone ready and well rested? From here on out, it’s probably gonna get hard.” Aegis explained.

“I’m ready.” Lina smiled back at him.

“Let’s do it.” Darkshot answered.

“Ready.” Pyri nodded.

“Same. Can’t wait to finally leave this building and see the city with my own eyes.” Rakkan replied.

“Well… actually…” Aegis smiled awkwardly at Rakkan, to which he squinted at Aegis anxiously. “I was thinking, you hang back.”

“Hang back?” Rakkan raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. No one has seen you yet, not even Kagil’aktos. You or Snowflake. Without doing it on purpose, you kind of became our secret weapon. Elite NPCs are smart, they plan ahead, but they can’t plan for things they don’t know.”

“So you want me to wait here, still?” Rakkan sighed.

“No, not wait here. Just, follow us but hang back and stay hidden. Pyri, keep Snowflake invisible, and you can use him to fly wherever you need to fly. I’ll give you a signal for when to jump in. We’ll be counting on you to get us out of trouble.”

“Okay.” Rakkan nodded, suddenly filled with determination.

“Hm… Showing up out of nowhere to save the day, in front of a stream of 80,000 viewers… could be a really good time to use a catchphrase. Just saying.” Darkshot gave Rakkan an expectant nod.

“I’m not using a catchphrase.” Rakkan sighed back at him.

“Fine, you’re loss.” Darkshot shrugged.

“Right. I guess you’re back to being invisible.” Pyri walked over to Snowflake who squawked excitedly and tapped him on his head lightly, causing him to disappear.

“You stay with them, just incase, okay?” Darkshot said to Darkwing, causing him to coo and flutter over onto Rakkan’s shoulder. Rakkan glanced at the pigeon awkwardly before looking back at the others as they prepared to head out of the door, hoods up.

“Be careful. I’ll follow you out after a few minutes.” Rakkan said.

“We’ll leave at different times and meet at the Pale Watch tavern. Be careful not to draw attention, we’ve already made enough commotion in this town with the prison break and the alchemy shop visit. The guards are probably already keeping an eye out for us, even the non-elite ones.” Aegis explained and the others nodded. “I’ll head out first.” Aegis finished, making sure to add the poisons and antidote to his inventory before leaving.

“Be careful!” Lina waved him off.

“I’ll be fine.” Aegis winked at her as he shut the door behind himself. He said this, but in truth the moment he was back out on the streets of the City of the White Tree, he got anxious and began nervously glancing around for any guards that might be watching him.

Like before, there were hardly any guards on the ground level, but the tavern they needed to get to was up on top of one of the lower branches. Using his memory of the layout of the city, he made it so that he’d climb up a staircase onto the lower branches that was close to the tavern, giving him a minimal amount of walking distance from the top of the stairs to the tavern entrance.

Sure enough, as he ascended the stairs he saw two guards standing watch at the top of them. He hesitated the moment he spotted them, and decided to wait until a family of Dark Elves consisting of a mother, father, and two young boys were making their way up the stairs onto the lower branch.

Aegis followed behind them uncomfortably close, using them as shield to hide from the view of the guards as they climbed the stairs and walked past them.

It worked - he was able to obscure himself enough that the guards didn’t react to him passing at all. And from there, he scurried away from the family towards the entrance of the Pale Watch tavern built into the base of the tree and quickly stepped inside. Once the door had shut behind him he let out a sigh of relief and leaned his back up against the closed door for a moment as the Bartender looked at him curiously from behind the bar across the tavern floor.

Aegis collected himself and marched forward, saying the standard line to get the room key he needed, then went up the stairs to the second floor and entered the room with the spiral staircase.

From there, he descended the stairs and entered the second, hidden tavern filled with Seekers who all looked at him apprehensively as he entered.

This time he saw not Kagil’aktos tending to the bar, but Mayiera. It was Aegis’ first time seeing her, and her many glowing runes on her body mixed in with her glowing eyes and floating hair was very off putting. Everyone stopped talking and drinking to stare at Aegis and silence fell over the room.

“I’m here to see Kagil’aktos. I have his delivery.” Aegis explained, which was followed by a long awkward silence.

“He’s in his office. He’s expecting you. This way.” Mayiera motioned Aegis to follow her as she turned from the bar and walked through the door behind it. Aegis followed, shuffling across the tavern floor between the seated patrons as all eyes remained on him. He could feel, not see, their heads turning and following him with their eyes as he reached the other end of the tavern and moved through the same door that Mayiera had.

Once inside, Mayiera shut the door behind Aegis and he saw Kagil’aktos standing and leaning over his desk with several large pieces of square parchment spread out flat over his desk.

“Ah, you’ve returned. Good. Did you retrieve the item I asked for?” Kagil’aktos asked him as he straightened his back and smiled at Aegis.

“Yeah. I’ve got it.” Aegis replied as he took one of the two poison bottles he’d made out of his inventory and handed it over to Kagil’aktos. Kagil’aktos inspected it closely for a moment before turning his attention back to Aegis.

“We heard there was a commotion on the upper branches, and that Ruxim had not handed out the mixture to you, so I was worried you’d failed. But it appears you managed to replicate Ruxim’s work yourself.” Kagil’aktos gave an impressed nod. “I’ll need to modify the mixture slightly, of course, but this ought to do the trick.” Kagil’aktos shrugged before adding the poison into his inventory.

“Wait, modify the mixture? Why?” Aegis asked him.

“Well, because Ruxim reported to the guards that someone matching a seeker’s description was requesting this poison. Kur’aktos is no fool, he’ll suspect someone is looking to poison him using this mixture, now, and will undoubtedly prepare an antidote. It’s not an issue, though. I can add a small infusion to alter the antidote required, making any potential precautions that Kur’aktos take pointless.” Kagil’aktos answered confidently.

“Oh, great. Good idea.” Aegis nodded back hesitantly. “What would you be adding to it, exactly? Just, curious, as an alchemist myself.” Aegis smiled awkwardly.

“I’ll keep that a secret for now, just to be safe.” Kagil’aktos winked at him.

“Yeah. Ok… right. Good thinking.” Aegis replied nervously. From there, Aegis was hit with a quest completed message, as were his other party members that were not present.

“With this, we’re ready to arrange a meeting between you and Kur’aktos. Your position as a Lord will be the key to getting us into his palace on the Royal Ring. I already have several of my people working within the walls of the Palace, ready to act on my word and arrange the meeting. We’ll make sure it is arranged in a way that removes any suspicion that you or your companions were behind the prison break.” Kagil’aktos explained.

“Yes, speaking of your companions. Where are the two that saved me?” Mayiera asked Aegis curiously.

“They’re on their way. We’re arriving separately, to avoid drawing attention.” Aegis explained.

“Clever.” Kagil’aktos smiled. “Let’s wait until they all arrive, then. Be sure to greet them.” Kagil’aktos motioned to Mayiera and she nodded back at him before leaving the room.

With Aegis and Kagil’aktos alone, the Dark Elf went back to leaning over his desk and eying the large parchments spread across it. Aegis curiously peered over as well and saw that Kagil’aktos was looking at blueprints for buildings, and a layout map of the Royal Ring.

“You’ll have an easy way to walk inside, but me and my people will not. If we want to support you in your task, we’ll need a plan on how to get into the palace at the same time you do.” Kagil’aktos explained as he noticed Aegis looking at the maps.

“So… you’re planning to use us as a distraction to break inside?” Aegis raised an eyebrow at him.

“Hm, I suppose you could put it like that. But we’ll be there just as support, in case the plan goes south. We will only have one shot at this, so we want to make sure we come at it from all possible angles.”

“Right…” Aegis nodded back hesitantly. Aegis took the time to carefully analyize the maps alongside Kagil’aktos, doing his best to take in the general layout of both the Palace and the Royal Ring in the time it took for the other three party members to arrive.

First, Lina came. Followed by Darkshot, and then lastly Pyri entered with Mayiera behind her.

“Ah, good, everyone has arrived.” Kagil’aktos clapped his hands together excitedly once Mayiera had shut the door behind Pyri. “Now, let us go over the final part of our plan, where we work together to have you meet with Kur’aktos, and remove him from his position as the Tyrant Warlord.” Kagil’aktos smiled deviously at the group, and following his words Aegis and his party were all hit with a quest prompt.

Quest[4/5]: Meet with Kur’aktos within the Royal Palace on the Royal Ring of the City of the White Tree, providing a distraction to allow Kagil’aktos and the Seekers to infiltrate the Palace.

Objective: 0/1 Infiltration Complete

Quest Giver: Kagil’aktos, The City of the White Tree

Reward: Unknown

Difficulty: Extreme(III)