by Jakob Tanner
New Item Alert! Phoenix Feather (x3)
After adding the item to my inventory, I inspected it closer. The phoenix feather was a medical item like a potion, except this didn’t heal HP or MP, it revived fallen allies. Hell yeah. An amazing item to have.
“Thank you,” I said to the bird. It nodded its head once more, then kicked off in the air and flew away.
Shade leaned on the doorway. “What do you say we get out of here and get those two Aeri back in love again?”
16
We found Tien back at the fishmonger. He was still sulking in the back of the shop. Hopefully the ten badges we’d picked up would cheer him up.
“Hey man,” I said. “We got those badges you wanted.”
I materialized the ten Drakus gang pins and handed them over to him.
“Oh my,” he said, staring at the pin badges. He blinked rapidly to see if he was dreaming. Realizing he wasn’t, he turned to us. “Thank you so much!
You have successfully completed Quest: Nolan’s Loyalty
+500 EXP!
“I’ll go speak to Sabetha right away,” Tien said. The boy got up and ran out of the shop.
“No bonus reward?” said Shade. “The phoenix hadn’t even given us a quest and had given us those rare phoenix feathers. What an ungrateful git!”
I smiled. I was happy to do good for the Aeri community in Land’s Shield. I’m sure they didn’t have it easy here in this big city.
We wished farewell to the fishmonger and headed towards Old Noroo’s place. As we went, I quickly glanced over our stats and loot. I was jealous Shade had leveled up before me. I had once been ahead of him. But I had lost thousands of experience points when Sir Archades had killed me. Shade had suffered no such loss. Lucky for him, I guess. Or not really. I would take the EXP loss any day over the permadeath NPCs experienced. Would the phoenix feather revive him if he got killed? I didn’t want to test it.
I glanced quickly at Shade’s new stats:
Shade
Level 12
Race: Lirana
Class: Thief
HP: 169
MP: 19
ATKP: 31
MTKP: 3
TGH: 14
SPIRIT: 4
LUCK: 50
All those stats into luck only made his moves like steal and backstab even more powerful. Incredible.
We eventually arrived in front of a massive oak tree. Old Noroo’s house according to my mini-map. Inside was a wooden lobby awash with a golden glow. Little luminescent flower bulbs spiraled up the interior trunk of the tree, going higher and higher. In the center floated an orange flower pedal: a magical Aeri elevator. This wasn’t just a house in a tree, this was an apartment building, the jutting branches leading to different homes.
A man stood on guard at the flower elevator, spear in hand.
“Who are you visiting today gentleman,” asked the guard.
“Old Noroo,” I said.
The guard blinked. Taken aback. The old woman must not receive many visitors.
“The little boy—Fen—said she needed assistance.”
The doorman’s shoulders relaxed. “Oh, of course. Fen is one of the only people in the district who visits Old Noroo. She bangs on about spiders but trust me they’re not there. I’ve checked.”
“We’d like to pop in and say hello anyways,” I said. “Which floor does she live on?”
“At the top,” said the guard. He gestured for us to stand upon the orange flower petal. The flower was made of such a tough material it didn’t budge when we put our weight on it.
We rode the elevator to the highest level to an open doorway, revealing a dusty old home. Books were stacked in disorderly piles while scrolls adorned the floor. Along the windowsill sat luminescent flowers growing in clay pots. A short old woman smiled at us from across the room. Her skin was shriveled and her face was wrinkled, every line sagging downward. Her purple eyes, however, beamed with lucidity.
“Come on in,” said the lady. “Unknown visitors! What a pleasant surprise!”
We stepped into the apartment. “Sorry to disturb you. We, uh, we—”
“Enough,” said the old woman, coming towards me and clamping her hands onto my cheeks. She pulled my head towards her and scrunched her lips, “Give Old Noroo a kiss.”
I reluctantly kissed the lady on the cheek and yanked my face away.
Shade glanced at me, disapprovingly. “Will I have to tell Serena or will you?”
I blushed and shook my head.
“Nice to meet you, Noroo,” I said. “Fen sent us here.”
Her eyes widened and she smiled with joy. “Young Fen! Such a handsome lovely child. It’s too bad about his father. His mother’s coping worse than him.”
Goddamnit. Every NPC made me feel worse for this Fen kid. Now I was going to have to play soccer with him, crush those stupid kids who were mean to him, AND get him a date with his Aeri crush. All I wanted was a few fetch quests, summaries to click through, something mindless and easy.
“Sounds like he’s having a tough time,” I said. “But how about you tell me about this spider problem. The guard downstairs doesn’t think it exists.”
“Bah!” spat the old Aeri lady. “The guard is too frightened to go in my attic is why. So he spins lies about Old Noroo being crazy. Old Noroo losing her mind. Well, I am losing it, as I rattle around in here, listening to those things crawl above my ceiling at night. Shh—” She stopped and pointed her finger upwards. “Listen—can you hear that?”
I lifted my ear towards the ceiling. Rattling came from up above. Either junk rolling around or scurrying arachnoids. Hard to say.
“So,” said Old Noroo staring right at me. “Will you help me with my problem?
New Quest Alert: Slay The Spider Infestation in Old Noroo’s Attic
A spider colony has formed in Old Noroo’s attic. Help her get rid of it.
Quest Type: Unique
Quest Difficulty: Medium
Reward: 500 EXP + ?
Accept: Yes/No ?
I accepted the quest straightaway.
“Come with me,” said the old woman, leading us through her apartment to what must’ve been an old child’s bedroom. A boy or girl who had grown up and moved away. Above the bed hung a piece of string. Old Noroo reached for the string and, grabbing hold of it, said, “Once I pull this door down, they will come. Are you ready?”
Shade whipped out his two revolvers and I unhooked my staff on my back and gripped it tightly.
“Bring it,” I said.
The old lady nodded. “Three…two…one…ack!”
She pulled down the attic staircase and a heavy ball of thick silver webbing collapsed through the floor to the room. Following swiftly behind it was a spider the size of a pumpkin with eight thick black hairy legs. It jumped at me, claws out. Its mouth was ready to bite. Its stats appeared in my HUD as it fell towards me.
Spider
Level 8
HP: 270
MP: 7
A gunshot went off. A bullet from Shade’s revolver zoomed through the air, knocking the spider off course and towards the wall. I jumped out of the way and unleashed a whip of lightning, paralyzing the spider in a cage of thunder. The arachnid’s legs throbbed and tensed, squirming in the grips of the electric prison. Shade unleashed a barrage of bullets and I threw fireball after fireball at the thing. It spooked us so much we wanted to kill it as quickly as possible. Its whole carcass was aflame as its HP fell to 0%.
+140 EXP!
I panted, standing over the crinkled spider corpse.
“Congratulations,” said Old Noroo, sarcastically. “You killed one.”
Peering down from the darkness of the attic were a cluster of yellow eyes. They all blended together that it was hard to tell which eye paired with the other. They made a collective monstrosity far worse than a single spider. In the shadows were the contours of their furry crinkling legs.
“So,” said Shade. “Why don’t you g
o up first and let me know what it’s like up there?”
I shook my head. “Screw that. The spiders want us to do that. We’ll pick them off slowly from here. Once the attic is clear, we’ll go up.”
I gripped my staff and put all my energy into a fireball and threw it up towards the spiders, shaving off HP from a whole bunch of them. The insects scurried away from the opening. I conjured another fireball and shot it up into the attic anyway, setting the excessive webs ablaze.
“We’ll smoke em’ out,” I said, serving another fireball into the dark attic.
The webbing crackled and burned. Spider legs scurried overtop the ceiling. Smoke poured out of the attic.
“You’re going to destroy my home,” yelled Noroo.
I ignored the woman and threw another fireball into the attic. Experience prompts stacked in my HUD. I was killing them. Judging from the smaller experience gains, I was getting their younger lower level spawn as well.
+140 EXP!
+90 EXP!
+35 EXP!
+35 EXP!
+35 EXP!
+122 EXP!
“Get ready,” I said to Shade.
Spiders ran for the exit, jumping from the attic opening or crawling down the steps.
“Hold them back,” I said, shooting fire blasts at them.
Dual-wielding his pistols, Shade fired one blast after another. The spiders knocked back against the attic walls.
More experience prompts rolled through my vision.
+90 EXP!
+90 EXP!
+70 EXP!
+35 EXP!
+90 EXP!
+122 EXP!
+122 EXP!
+35 EXP
The smoke was beginning to fill the room and suffocate us.
“My wall is going to cave in!” cried Old Noroo.
She had a point. I didn’t want to follow up this quest with another looking for a new home for Old Noroo.
I toggled through my HUD and spent a class skill point on an ability I didn’t really care for but would help us right now. I closed the HUD prompts and turned to the old lady’s attic I had set on fire. I lifted my arm, palm open wide. A cool rush channeled from shoulder to my palm and bursting forth from my hands was a jet spray of water, like a super-powered hose. A blast of water hitting like a punch to the face. It knocked the spiders back, killing some in the process.
After the water blast, the flames in the attic died down. We stood at the stairwell to the attic. There was no more movement up top. I sighed. It was time to finally go up there.
I climbed the stairs and entered the darkness. I flinched, anticipating a spider attack but none came. I conjured a fireball in my hand to light the room, swerving my hand around the attic, taking note of cobwebbed chests and boxes of junk. So far the attic was clear. I turned, casting my flame hand around.
A large red spider rested in the corner. Its abdomen throbbed as the spinnerets behind it created a fortified bed of webbing. The spider hissed as I held up the fireball in its direction.
I didn’t like what I was seeing.
The caption above the giant insect read: [Spider Queen]
17
I took in the creature’s stats.
Spider Queen
Level 12
HP: 490
MP: 14
“Um Shade,” I said. “I’m going to need a little help.”
“Doesn’t sound very good,” said Shade. “You’re making me not want to come up there.”
“Please don’t make me fight this thing on my own!”
“Okay, okay,” said Shade, climbing up the attic stairs and then screeching as he saw the giant spider. “Oh my.”
The spider queen was the last spider up here. If we killed it, we completed the quest and got the experience points. I approached it slowly, gripping my staff tightly and holding onto my conjured fireball. I had an inkling of how the spider queen would fight: first it would shoot webbing to try and trap us, followed by poisoning, and then ripping our heads off.
“Shade—shoot at the queen when you get a chance but focus on her webbing. Shoot it when it comes at us.”
I threw out my fireball at the spider queen’s cushion of cobwebs, setting the wispy silk ablaze. The move shocked the spider awake and it scurried towards me, its giant pincers ready to crush my bones. It was taking a more direct strategy than I expected. Shit.
I jumped back and unleashed ruptured ground. The wooden floorboards of the attic ripped open and jabbed at the spider queen, knocking her legs and screwing up her balance. A crippled debuff caption appeared below her nameplate. I cast ruptured ground again. The attic floorboard ripped through the spider’s legs, causing the insect to collapse over and over again. Her HP bar fell until it hit 0%. Shade’s final bullet blasted through the spider’s abdomen, tearing it open, unleashing a burst of green muck from the dead creature.
+210 EXP!
I went up to the dead spider corpse and scanned it for items. I inventoried “Spider Silk (x25)”, “Giant Spider Legs (x8)”, and 25 gold coins it must’ve accidentally gobbled up.
I returned to Old Noroo’s apartment. “Your spider problem has been dealt with.”
The old lady beamed with happiness. “Thank you!”
You have successfully completed Quest: Slay The Spider Infestation in Old Noroo’s Attic
+500 EXP!
Congratulations you have leveled up! (Level 12)
You gain +4 HP
You gain +1 MP
You have (3) unused attribute points that can be applied to any of your five base stats.
You have (6) unused class skill points that can be applied to your class skill tree to unlock new moves or level up existing ones.
Finally. There was nothing quite like the sweet sensation of leveling up.
“As a special thank you, I’ll give you this,” said the old woman, handing me a piece of paper.
New Item Alert! Old Noroo’s Spider Soup Recipe
A recipe. Cool. I wonder what kind of stats the soup gave; I’d have to look into it later. Shade rolled his eyes, unimpressed by the bonus reward.
We wished Old Noroo a good day and left her apartment.
“Gambling time?” said Shade, stepping outside.
“We shouldn’t really be gambling while on an investigative quest for the king,” I said. “But yeah: it’s gambling time.”
We hurried through the Aeri district and back through the Trader’s Forum. I took a quick minute to offload junk in my inventory. I only had one more empty space in my bag and I didn’t like having to do item management while looting; I wanted to pick up my loot and move on. I ended up selling my old green apprentice coat and apprentice’s staff for 135 gold coins. I reluctantly also sold my bee needles and mosquito wings for a measly 8 gold coins altogether. I wasn’t selling them for monetary purposes but I wanted to free up space in my inventory. I was sad to get rid of them as you never knew what you might need in a crafting recipe but oh well. I now had five free slots. I really needed to invest in a bigger bag or find a special storage system to keep my non-essential items. I also bought a handful of HP and MP potions, which were always good to have well-stocked.
Done with inventory maintenance, I quickly went through my stats. I had three attribute points to distribute and six class skill points as well. I’d ignore the class skill points for now. I wanted to save them until I got to level 15 and would be able to unlock a whole new set of abilities on the skill tree. As for my attribute points, there was only a real question of two of my base stats. Did I continue adding points to my magic attack power or did I put more points into spirit? With my new staff and new abilities, I wasn’t desperate for more sheer damage output; what I needed was a large mana pool to keep unleashing combos of attacks. So for this level I’d put my three attribute points into spirit. My stats glowed out to me in my HUD:
Clay Hopewell
Level 12
Race: Aeri (Eldra)
Class: Apprentice Mage
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HP: 144
MP: 71
ATKP: 3
MTKP: 61
TGH: 5
SPIRIT: 55
LUCK: 3
I closed the prompt and caught up with Shade, eagerly walking towards the western district of Land’s Shield known as the Night Court.
The streets got dirtier as we went along, the houses and buildings growing crooked and dilapidated. Graffiti lined the walls. Trash floated along the sidewalk. All the businesses were pubs, inns, and taverns. So this was another seedy part of the city.
Eventually we turned a corner and found a massive multi-floored building in the shape of a Japanese pagoda with flashing lights outside. The Grand Casino Palace. We approached the glittering bulbs. The golden light sheened across Shade’s eyes. He grinned widely.
“Finally, an establishment I can feel right at home in.”
18
A burly Rorn bouncer patted us down. When he was done, he threw a big thumbs up over his shoulder. “You’re free to go in.”
“Don’t they care about our weapons?” I asked Shade, walking away from the bodyguard.
Shade shook his head. “Nah. They have sigils and wards all over this place to stop any violent outbursts. The thing they’re on the lookout for is counter-magic for their wards and magical barriers. You see—”
But Shade’s words disappeared as we stepped through the vestibule and into the casino hall. The room was crammed with action. A green genie spun a roulette table beneath glowing chandeliers. A croupier with multiple arms and hands dealt games of blackjack. An old Muumuu lady sat cross legged on a floating carpet, offering patrons their fortune. A group of goblins dressed in tuxedos sat around a poker table, smoking cigars. Along the side of the room was a bar full of shiny bottles of different-colored liquid.
