Adventures in universe s.., p.32
Adventures in Universe Six : A Lirtrpg Fantasy, page 32
We came to the building the receptionist had told us about a while later. Inside were rows and rows of folded articles of clothing. It reminded me of one of the malls back home.
"How can I help you?" a young Human woman came out of the backroom.
"I require a few pairs of normal clothes. Underwear and some sleep ware."
She studied me for a moment before asking if I had any preference in color; I did not. She went about the store and began stacking items on the counter. I counted three pairs of pants, four undershirts, four different button shirts in various colors. She went towards the back and returned with socks and underwear.
"Do you like cotton or silk for your sleepwear?" she asked.
"Cotton, please."
She then laid a red pair of pants and shirt on top of the other items. Before she began to pick up each item, show me and tell me the price before folding it once more and piling them up in a new pile. I gave her three gold coins and said she could keep the change. I placed everything inside my magic pouch and asked her where I could get a decent pair of boots.
We left and headed over to what she called the cobbler's store, a block down. There I was able to get a great pair of fitted books. My old loose pair, going into the cobbler's trash. I decided to explore the town, and we left to do just that.
Luin had us stop at a few food vendors along the way. I swear she had a Void pouch in that gut of hers. We had been walking down a street when Luin's ears seemed to twitch, and she ran in front of me and stopped at the edge of the stone wall. Getting close to her, I could hear children's laughter, and when I passed the edge of the stone wall, I could see it was a nice open park, with what could only be a jungle gym at the center with kids playing around it.
I had to remember Luin was basically still a child, even tho she had evolved three times into what I guess was a young adult's body. "Go play. I can sit and meditate."
She looked up at me in surprise, and I shoed her away. I watched as she dropped to all fours and began to run over to the other kids of various races. I found a nice sunny spot and sat down to meditate. I watched Luin begin to play tag with the others, drawing a massive smile on my face.
I closed my eyes and began to meditate, clearing my mind and sorting through the ordeals of the past few weeks. A memory seemed to snap into my mind that I couldn't recall having. I was screaming as I watched a wave of something wash over a young child, no a Dwarf? I was crying at the loss of my companion. I felt my burning rage reach new heights as I turned to see the back of the fleeing... I was awakened by the crying of a child in the distance.
I opened my eyes and looked over at the kids staring at one of the Beastkin children on the ground, screaming at the top of their lungs. I shot up and was at the group of kids in the blink of an eye, who were now circling the smaller kid. I pushed my way through and could see the kid had fallen and broken his arm. It was at the wrong angle.
One of the other parents who had seen what happened had run over, giving me funny looks. He kneeled and told the child it would be alright. He told the kid to bite down on the strap of his bag, and the man pulled his arm straight, the kid going unconscious. I then watched as he placed his hand on the arm and could see his face scrunch up in concentration before the area glowed green a bit.
The man opened the kid's mouth and looked at the strap where the kid had almost bitten thought. The man signed and put the bag back over his shoulder. "What rank are you? You moved faster than anyone I've ever seen."
"B, Bone," I said before looking for Luin. I didn't remember moving that fast or using my Speed Aura.
"That's some incredible speed for one at your rank. I thought you were coming to heal the boy."
"Sorry, I don't know any healing spells yet." I spotted Luin a momment later, chasing another Beastkin around the trees. I looked over at the man, who was still staring at me.
"Sorry, I'm Zeal."
"Sanja."
The man seemed to look for his child, seeing him. He went back to his park bench. Odd, he just wanted my name? Oh well. I went back over to my spot on the grass and began to meditate again. I tried to remember the memory I was living before but couldn't grasp any of the details.
Sometime later, I was being poked at my side. I opened my eyes to find a tired-looking Luin. "You know, you can just call my name instead of poking me? Your claws are sharp, you know."
She looked down at her clawed hands then poked herself in the side with a wince. "Sorry, papa, no more poke, poke."
"You done playing?"
"Yep, yep. Luin had too much fun. Luin is very tired."
I got up, patting her head, and we began walking back to the inn. I used my magic map a few times, but it wasn't long before I led Luin upstairs to our room, where she jumped up on the bed and passed out.
I locked the door and went back downstairs to the crowded common room. My seat had been taken, so I found an empty table in the back and flagged down one of the barmaids. She returned later with a large mug of the wine and my dinner. I finished the roasted meat and what tasted like mashed potatoes, but purple quickly.
I ordered another mug of the wine and just listened in on the common room's various conversations. Many of them centered around the possible war with the Akhusite Kingdom and the dungeonless towns to the west.
Another group talked about taking their entire party and going up north to the town of Kirjour for the trials. I was interested in that conversation but couldn't garner any details from their discussion.
After a few more rounds of wine, I told the man at the bar I didn't need the bathtubs tonight and went up to my room and moved the snoring Kobold over, and promptly passed out.
***
The following day when the bells rang, my head was splitting. I nudged the blue snoring pile, and when she stirred, I dressed in a set of my new clothes, tossing my old set in my bag. Well damn. I never got into my new sleepwear last night. I just passed out in my old pair.
Luin was still in bed with the pillow over her head, so I picked her up and placed her over my shoulder before walking downstairs. Again, the common room was bare this early, and I sat in the same spot as the previous morning. The owner came out a minute later with our tray of food.
"Sorry, but I never got your names. I'm Zeal, and this groggy mess is Luin."
"I'm Obbah, and my husband is Throlk. He's the barkeep you met the other day and typically works later in the evening."
"Well met, Obbah."
She nodded and went back to the kitchen. I finished my meal and looked over at the empty bowl in front of Luin. We got up and left and headed back to The Guild. The hall wasn't as packed as yesterday, and when one of the receptionists spotted us, she pointed towards the backdoor.
Outside Hiroaki was already yelling at other adventurers as they shot arrows at targets on the back wall. "Hold! Retrieve your arrows!" yelled the Sugar Glider Beastkin.
I walked over, and Hiroaki spotted me. He pointed to a table with a few bows and quivers, full of arrows. He shouted for the group to begin firing again and then took me off to the side and began showing me the best way to stand and draw the bow.
For the next few hours, I and the others would empty our quiver until he yelled for everyone to hold, then retrieve our arrows. He would shout out anyone's mistakes, and the man often used my name. After the fourth bell rang, he had everyone retrieve their arrows and move the targets back to the corner of the room.
Hiroaki moved everyone over to the benches to show them how to take care of the bows with the provided oil and rags and reminded everyone always to unstring the bow when not in use or not in a position where the bow needed to be ready. He instructed two of the better archers to show us how to salvage any arrow and fix those that could be salvaged. I was disappointed my arm never burned with a new rune for Bow during the training.
Chapter 48
After the morning's practice, I inquired about the books on hand in the guild for traits to Hiroaki when we walked back into the hall. He informed me he would have a few in his office for me to use, and I could come to meet him later that night after his last meeting at the seventh bell. I thanked him profusely and went in and over to the tattooed receptionist.
"Ah, Zeal. Kadler responded to your request and would be amicable to meet up with you tomorrow for an hour at the fifth bell for lunch."
"Oh, thank you. Where would I meet him?"
"You can meet him here, then discuss where to go for food."
"Thank you. I'm sorry, I never got your name."
"It's Draf."
"Thank you for your help, Draf. I'll see you later.
The man waved me away, and I turned to leave, but I had nothing planned for the day. I looked over to my left and at the quest boards, I've heard so much about. I turned back and walked over to Draf.
"Sorry, Draf. Could you explain to me how the quests work? I got nothing to do today and thought I could do a quest to pass the time."
"It's okay. You have escort and retrieval, extermination, collection, and finally, your odd jobs from the left to your right.
"Escort and retrieval are quests to escort caverns between towns. You also have crafters going out in the mountains for ingredients that need protection. You can also be sent out to other towns to retrieve goods and return them.
"Extermination is your find and kill quests. Sometimes it's just to clear out the sewers or go out and kill certain monsters to bring back parts. Every quest will have you going out and killing something or another.
"Collection quests range from going out to mine ore or harvest herbs to bring back to the guild. Most of these are open quests, and the guild will always pay you to bring those items back. You can pull off one of those pages for each, so you have the description and drawing of the item you need to collect.
"Your odd jobs are just that odd jobs. They don't really fall under the other categories. They could be a noble who's looking for guards or a farm looking for a spare hand on the upcoming harvest.
"On the top right of each quest, you'll see a colored stamp. The color dictates the Class level of the quest, and the amount of stars gives the Rank. If there is no stamp, anyone can take the quest. The quest papers at the bottom are for the lower ranks. You will start there.
"Now below the stamp, you will see a 'GCP' with numbers next to it. Completing the quest will give you that many Guild Contribution Points. Once you have a hundred points, you can try and rank up. The awards are listed below the GCP, and you'll get those as well on the successful completion of the quest.
"Any questions?"
"No, sounds simple enough. Thanks again, Draf."
I left, walked over to the quest board, and looked down to where Luin typically was next to me, but she was missing. I looked around the room and spotted the blue Kobold over by the nurse's office hugging Vylria's legs, who was patting her on the head. I left the two alone and continued to the purple felt boards on the wall.
Most of the quests I could see had green and blue stamps on the top right. I spotted a few of the white stamps on a couple of pages at the bottom of the collection and kill quests. The first page was for Bone Rank D, as it only had a single star. The quest was to go down into the sewers and kill Plague Rats. It had a GCP of ten and a reward of two copper per rat tail, with a minimum of fifty rats.
The second kill quest was for thirty intact bile sacks from something called a Fyrbee. The paper gave directions to a part of the nearby forest and how to remove the sacks from the creatures. The quest also warned to have Ice Balm on hand incase the Fyrbee's attack gets on your skin. The GCP was fifteen and a reward of a gold for each lot of thirty.
I looked through the collection quests and grabbed one of each of the non-stamped ones. That way, if I came across any of them, I could harvest them. I decided I wanted to get some air, and the prospect of going in the town's sewers wasn't pleasant. I grabbed one of the Fyrbee's quest papers.
I waved to Vylria, and she said something to Luin, who turned her head to regard me. I watched the Kobold wave goodbye to the beautiful blonde and came sprinting over to me on all fours.
"Let's go do a quest."
"Tay," she said before stopping. "What's a quest?"
"It's like a job to go hunt monsters and collect their items. We get paid when we bring them back."
"Oh, so we can buy more tasty food on the street?"
"Sure, Luin," I said as I laughed. Damn, Kobold only thought of food.
We left The Guild's hall and made our way to the west gate. The quest paper had a small sketched-out map for where the Fyrbees made their homes. The walk only took us a bit over an hour before we started to see the larger trees in the distance. Even from here, I could see the massive hives that took up a significant portion of the upper branches of those trees.
As we walked closer, I could see large objects darting about the trees. There were quite a lot of them. I walked over to a large fallen tree with what could have been a collapsed borrow beside it. "Ok, Luin, I know we never really talked about it, but what kind of magic can you do?"
"Luin only knows one word. I hear the priest talk about it lots and when I say it, melted the naughty Kobold," she said with a devilish grin.
"How often can you use it?"
She shrugged, "Not know."
"Alright. You stay here, and if you have to use it, do it. I'll try and grab the attention of one Fyrbee at a time."
"Tay."
I looked over the fallen tree and spotted one of the bright red and black Fyrbees. They looked like a giant Bumblebee from back home, only with red instead of yellow. I created a Tier 1 Ice Lance and tossed it at the bee. It struck home, and the bee impaled by the lance went to the ground without a sound. I looked around to see if any of its friends would come to avenge him.
None came, and I walked over and collected the Bone Core and what looked like a small, leathery sack. My Auto Loot Trait must have known I was looking for the sacks.
[ System Notification ]
Rank B Bone Core has given 6 Energy
5% Bonus: 0
2 Energy converted to 20 Mana
[ Digestive System: 105/200 ]
Well, at least they were easy to kill. I wasn't going to be doing much leveling. I wouldn't need to cut out the sacks like the quest paper described. I looked around and spotted another bee. I cut that one and the next few that came across our downed tree.
[ System Notification ]
Rank B Bone Core has given 6 Energy
5% Bonus: 0
2 Energy converted to 20 Mana
[ Digestive System: 125/200 ]
I would have to fulfill this quest a few times before I got a System's level off them. The next bee that came over to the flowers in front of us seemed to dart around much faster than the others. My lance just missing as it came close. It began to 'buzz' loudly before darting into the sky about ten meters above us. Then it spat out a glob of a red substance towards me. I quickly dodged the attack and was startled to see the ground around the location the glob hit was now burning with a raging fire.
I did not want to get hit by that attack. Before I could launch another attack at our buzzing foe above, I heard a deafening hum coming from the trees. I yelled for Luin to hide, hoping she just didn't stick her damn head into the ground. A momment later, my Ice Armor snapped around my upper body. The hum grew louder before I realized it was a swarm of the Fyrbees coming out of the forest. There had to be hundreds of them.
I raised a large pillar of stone before hollowing out the center. I rushed inside and closed the opening part, so only a meter-by-meter opening was at the front. I began to summon Ice Lances, tossing them towards the growing swarm. That seemed to piss just about every one of them off, and I spotted the glow of the red glob attack coming from many of them. I willed the opening closed and could hear the splashes as they hit the walls of the stone pillar.
Within moments, the temperature inside began to rise, and I cursed myself as I realized I had just made a stone oven. I willed the ground inside the pillar to lower, and once I was about four meters below the ground, I created one of my Enforced Tunnels towards where I felt Luin's presence. The tunnel went directly into what I assumed was the collapsed borrow of some animal. I could feel Luin just above me and willed the ground below her to drop out.
As she fell into my arms, I willed a pillar to rise from inside the borrow and plug the hole Luin dropped from. I let her drop to the ground and looked around. The borrow was empty besides some bones at the corner. I walked over to the wall and created more Reenfoced Tunnels away from the stone pillar.
When I was far enough away, I created a small hole going up and looked towards my pillar. The red and black creatures covered the entire thing. I ducked down and told Luin to stay put before running back down the tunnel towards the stone pillar. The air was becoming incredibly hot, and I could hear nothing but the low hum from above me.
I summoned a blue Tier 1 Fireball and launched it upwards before sprinting away. I willed a pillar to close off the tunnel as I ran into the borrow and across it into my larger tunnels just as I felt the shockwave of the explosion. I reached a sitting Luin and looked out my tiny hole. I could see a few of the bees still flying around must most seem to have vanished in the explosion. I grinned as I realized I could quickly level this way.
I made the hole bigger and helped Luin climb out before pulling myself out. I looked around for the missing Kobold and realized she was running towards the bees. Seeing the small creature running towards them, the remaining bees began to converge. I tried to yell but couldn't get any words out as Luin said something, and a large blast of fire erupted from her mouth and engulfed the remaining bees.
I was stunned when they all vanished into ash before turning into white sand. It seemed Luin had also gained the Auto Loot Trait, or my explosion had done some damage already. I was about to congratulate her when I watched her lean to the side, swaying before falling over.
I rushed to her side and looked down at the Kobold.
