by I. Felix
Blake selected Yes before the party could say anything, so the quest was activated for the party.
"Well, the Twigs can't be too hard to find," Blake said, pointing to the tree and to the ground around it.
"I think we can find the ores close to the river if I'm not mistaken," May said.
They started looking for the twigs around the tree, but the ground was absolutely clean, almost as if that wasn't a real tree. There weren't any twigs, leaves, or anything like that. They looked around and, actually, there weren't any leaves or twigs on the floor of the whole forest.
"Okay, so maybe it won't be as easy. Are there any monsters here who drop the items?" Blake asked.
"Let's open the database to look for it..." Arche suggested but they all heard a chuckle.
"You won't find anything. No ores, no twigs. For I clean the ground every time something falls and I put it in my private collection," the gnome said, laughing.
"Come on, can't you lend us some?" Blake asked, frowning.
"Maybe we could make a deal," the gnome said.
"Okay, shoot us. What do you want as a deal?" Blake asked. May and Arche didn't say anything but they looked kind of worried.
"Never make deals with gnomes..." May whispered. "Everybody knows that."
However, Blake didn't seem to have listened to it.
"I want you to give me something precious and, in exchange, I'll give you the key that you need."
"Something precious? Like what?" this time it was Arche that asked, frowning, but before the gnome could answer, a notification popped up.
"The gnome has changed the quest to A Precious Item. Give something precious to the gnome and they will give you the key."
"That you decide. Something precious for you is something precious for me. I'm a treasure hunter."
"Let's see, maybe you want my previous dagger? This is precious for me," Blake asked, getting the dagger from the inventory.
"No, this is common and not precious at all," the gnome answered.
"It’s precious for me!" Blake exclaimed. "You said that what was precious for me it's precious for you too!"
The gnome didn't answer, just kept waiting.
"Let's give him Valky. We don't need her," Blake said, turning around to Arche and May.
"We do need her. On floor 5, we have to face a boss, and it won't be easy," May said.
"What else do we have that is precious?" Arche asked, trying to think.
"Maybe you want a bag full of gold coins?" May asked the gnome, turning to him. The gnome laughed.
"I have no interest in money and things like that. I want something PRECIOUS. Something that will be a sacrifice to you," he said.
"Come on, why?! You must have, like, a billion keys there. Give us one, eh!"
"No. My keys, my rules," the gnome said with sparkling eyes. Blake rolled his eyes.
"Maybe you want an egg?" Arche asked, holding Dark's egg in his hands.
"Oh, no, not that!" Blake exclaimed, feeling his heart sinking. "Will you give up Dark?"
"Yes. My homunculus. He is precious to me. We need to advance," Arche said, cold.
"You can't be serious," Blake said, with his eyes wide. "I won't let you do that!"
"Shut up, Blake," Arche said, losing his temper. "It's my most precious thing, so I need to do it!"
"NO!" Blake screamed but it was too late, the gnome got the egg with his greedy eyes sparkling.
"That's what I call a precious thing!" he exclaimed. "Things that cause hate among friends are the best."
A pop-up appeared in front of their eyes: Quest the Greedy Gnome was Completed.
They saw a light appear around them with the sound of the angels and they leveled up. Now, they were 24 each, Arche gaining two levels.
"Here's the key, lady and gentlemen," the gnome said, happy and satisfied. He went to the Tree, touched the key on the trunk and it opened a keyhole there, that wasn't there before. He turned the key and a door appeared, which was previously invisible. The door opened to a loud interior, full of laughter and the smell of good food. "Good luck in your journey," the gnome said.
They entered the Tree and the door closed behind them, there was no turning back now.
"I can't believe you did that," Blake cried out, upset.
"Did what?" Arche said, cold. Blake pushed him.
"You gave up your pet! How could you do that?!" Blake exclaimed.
"You mean this pet here?" Arche said, getting an embryo from his pocket. The embryo was inside a little glass bottle. Then, it glowed yellow and Dark appeared by their feet. He was now much bigger than before, his fur dense like the ones that they faced on the Pureng Island.
"What?" Blake asked, mouth open. "Is this really Dark?"
"Yes, you dumbass. With the study of Potions, also come the study of homunculus, and now I know how to remove the embryo from an egg. The egg is just the protective shell. I can put it in a potion bottle. I gave the gnome the empty egg."
"And I almost ruined it!" Blake exclaimed, surprised. May laughed.
"You two are the best!" May said, hugging them. "One of my dreams was to visit the Tree of Life. I didn't even know where it was before! It's inside the Endless Tower, of course. That's why I'd never find it before!"
"I'd say I AM the best, and Blake is just a desperate fucker," Arche said and laughed. Blake straightened his eyes in his direction.
They could hear the screams of the gnome, that had been fooled. So, they started walking faster inside the tree, getting as far from the door as possible, before the gnome decided it was a good idea to go there and get his revenge.
"It is SO beautiful inside here," May said, dreamy, looking everywhere. “We were so lucky. Legend says it’s never in the same place twice, so It could be in any of the floors, I guess.”
The Tree was completely hollow in the middle, so they could see everything when they looked up, till they couldn't see anymore, as it looked as big as the Endless Tower itself. The "floors" were on the walls, having small platforms where the creatures were doing things. The stairs to reach the next floor were in a spiral around the trunk, so they started to climb up. Everything looked carved on the trunk, so it was pure wood. The firelights connected the sides of the trunks, glowing bright, serving as the illumination inside. They were also made of thick vine, so some creatures used it to cross from one side to the other more easily.
The place smelled like pie, chicken, and anything that they would have in a Thanksgiving dinner back on Earth.
As soon as they got to the first floor, they saw that the trunk had some chambers, ones that they couldn't see before from the floor. They figured out from where the scent was coming. The chamber was full of the little creatures, that were sitting on things that looked like hammocks made of spiderweb, eating and drinking. The creatures were thin, had long arms and legs, big ears, big eyes, and were from various different colors, from blue to pink, gray to green. They could read the name of the creature on top of their heads: Pinnaklus.
"Are they monsters?" Blake asked while they entered the whimsical restaurant.
"Yeah, but I've never seen anything like them before. I guess they aren't aggressive either," May said.
"Do you think we can get some food here?" Blake asked while they were already sitting on one of the empty cobweb hammocks.
"There's only one way to discover," Arche said, raising his arm, like if he was calling for a waiter.
To their surprise, one of the creatures got closer. It looked at them with curiosity. They could see their ribs showing below its alien skin. The creature didn't say anything.
"I think we won't be able to communicate with it," Arche said.
May got up and looked at the creature closer. This one was blue and had a small amount of hair on top of its head.
Then, she did something unexpected. She got a golden strawberry-like fruit from her inventory and placed it on top of her hand. The creature looked at her with curiosity and got the strawberry, slowl
y. The boys looked at the scene, not understanding what was happening. The creature bit the strawberry and opened a huge smile. Then, the creature closed its eyes and nodded.
It started shining white and it metamorphosed into an egg, landing on top of May's hand.
"What the hell?!" Blake asked, impressed. The egg was really big and it had rainbow colors on it, kind of meshed together.
"I adopted it as a homunculus," she said, happy. "I can't believe now I have a Pinnaklus. My collection is getting even more complete!" she celebrated.
"How did you know what it needed to be adopted?"
"I actually can adopt any homunculus I want with the Golden Strawberry. It's like a joker type of item. If the monster doesn't have a favorite item for its taming, then, I can use the strawberry. If it has, then, I can't."
"That's so neat!" Blake exclaimed. "We have another friend for our party now. Conjure it here!"
May got the egg and it started shining white again. On the next moment, a creature appeared on the floor by their side. It had changed, now it was a light pink and much smaller than before. It looked a little bit like a human baby, with its big dark eyes.
"What happened?" Blake asked, frowning.
"It goes back to level 1," Arche answered, looking closely at the baby.
"I'll call her Rya," May said, with love in her eyes, as a mom would have.
"How do you know it's a she?" Blake asked with a fake kind of worry in his voice, dramatic.
"I can read her file as her owner," May said, giggling. "And she'll help us communicate with the habitants of the Tree."
"Can I hold her?" Arche asked, still analyzing her carefully.
"Sure," May said. Arche got her from the ground just like a baby. It opened a big smile and giggled, trying to reach for Arche's dark hair.
"Awwww, she's so cute," Arche said. Blake frowned.
"I never saw him acting like that. Can the little stink thing hypnotize?" Blake asked. May giggled again.
"Of course not. She just liked Arche!"
"Now she has mommy and daddy," Blake pointed at May and Arche. "And I'm the weird uncle or something. Can I carry her too?"
"Sure," May said. Arche looked unsure but started handing Blake the baby.
Rya started screaming, crying, just like a baby would do. Then, Arche got her again and hugged her. She stopped crying right away.
However, her screams attracted the attention of the other monsters, that didn't seem too happy to have one of their own crying like that.
"Sorry?" Blake tried to say at the ugly faces that were staring at them. "You guys can't blame me for sucking with kids!"
Now, Rya started babbling something to the creatures around her, that seemed to ease off.
"Great. Tell her to ask for a coffee for me," Blake said but Arche and May seemed completely in love with the little thing and didn't even pay attention to what Blake was saying. "Will we stay here just staring at it or will we do something?"
"I think somebody is jealous because they aren't getting attention," May said with a baby voice. Blake had never felt angry at her till now. "I think this is a perfect moment to stream."
"What? No!" Blake exclaimed but it was too late. May got her invisible camera and aimed at them.
"Hello, my beautiful viewers!" she exclaimed in an annoying anime voice that Blake hated. She made the voice become thinner and more child-like, she tried to open her eyes and smile, just like a cartoon character would do. "Look at what I got here! Jaaaan, it's Rya! I just adopted her, you might have seen it. Do you love her? Leave me a comment. I hope you are enjoying our journey through the Endless Tower. I know I am! We are in the Tree of Life right now, can you believe it? Those of you that follow me for some years know how much I wanted to find it! And now I'm here! Silly me! I'm waiting for your comments! When I have some time, I'll stream for longer, okay? But, now, to adventure!" she exclaimed and put her arms up.
Then, she turned off the camera and came back to normal.
"Look at that," she told Blake with a huge smile on her face. She shared the screen notification that was in front of her eyes so Blake could see it too. "My audience is thriving. I'm getting followers instead of losing it like I was before, and I'm having a bunch of Likes, instead of Dislikes. People say you're cute and it seems that they are starting a hashtag war. #TeamBlake, #TeamArche. They love Oliver, Dark, and Bella. Some people here say that the spider episode was the best one so far. And my manager says he's proud of me, he tells me to keep going and that he can't wait for when you two get your own streaming channels! He said he loved that we're hanging together."
"That's all great but... man, I think I'll suck at streaming. And also I don't like that they saw the spider thing as an 'episode'. It was pretty freaking scary," Blake said, colder than usual. "And it's not cool to think that you're hanging with us because your manager said that it would be good for your views."
May's face fell. She lost her smile and Blake immediately regretted what he said, because some tears appeared in her eyes.
"That's not what I said at all. I've thanked you one million times for keeping me company."
"I'm sorry..." Blake said. "I didn't mean that either! I'm sorry, May. I love you, okay?" he said and they hugged. May frowned, confused, feeling her heart beating faster.
"I love you too," she whispered.
"Let's see if we can find any food here, then, bro," Blake said, getting away from May and closer to Arche. May had her mouth as thin as a line, pretty confused about it all. Blake didn't seem to have noticed, and Arche was still too hypnotized by the baby.
Arche put Rya on the ground and they started walking, exploring the carving of the trunk. Among the many hammocks and creatures, they could find a central spot where all the food was. There were piles of food, from steaming pans of something that looked like broth, to bread, piles of different types of fruits, and even sweets. Some sweet stuff that looked like chocolate cake and fondue.
"Is this really here or am I imagining everything just like the filet-o-fish?!" Blake exclaimed, with his mouth open.
"I guess it depends on your definition of imagining," Arche said. "After all, we're kind of imagining everything anyway, right? We're inside our brains."
"Man, don't start with this philosophy lesson. I want to EAT!" Blake exclaimed and went to the pile of food. He got a plate that was made from a big leaf. He started getting everything that could fit inside of the leaf. From bread loaves, to cake, to soup, to everything else. The leaf was as big as three regular Earth plates joined together, so it was easy to get a lot of food.
May and Arche also made smaller dishes and chose a place for them to go sit.
"Hey, I got this for you. As an apology gift," Blake said and handed her a piece of chocolate. May smiled brightly.
"Awww, thank you so much!"
"She could have gotten that herself but I think it's a cool gift," Arche said. Blake chuckled.
"If you're jealous I can get one for you too," Blake answered, raising one eyebrow.
"Nah. I can do that myself. But, yeah, I guess a little apology gift would be pretty cool," Arche said.
"Why? I don't need to apologize to you. I hurt May's feelings. You don't have those!" he said and both May and himself laughed. Arche faked a laugh but, instead, got a piece of bread that was on his plate and threw it on Blake.
Blake got the bread. "Tsk, tsk. No waste. I'll have to eat it now," he said, putting everything in his mouth. Then, he raised his eyebrows, widening his eyes, shocked. "IT'S GARLIC BREAD," he screamed, showing everything that was chewed inside of his mouth.
"Uuuuugh," May did, twisting her nose. "Disgusting."
"Why are you like that?" Arche asked.
"I thought you two should know!" Blake said, still mesmerized with the discovery.
"You're very silly," May said, smiling. She seemed to have forgiven the boy completely.
After the amazing dinner, and a nap on the hammocks, they decided it was time to keep c
limbing the giant tree. They went back to the stairs, carved on the inside of the trunk, and started climbing it, without looking down as it got higher and higher, and they had no type of protection from the fall.
"Do you think this is our test now? A resistance test?" Arche asked, looking up, a little worried. "Maybe we'll have to climb it all to get to the fourth floor."
"Yeah. I'm also thinking that," May said. "When you two get to level 50, it will be so much easier to climb the Tower. You'll guys will be able to choose a mount, and some mounts can fly. Please, do us a favor and choose one of those."
They were all out of breath from the steep climb after some minutes.
"Maybe we should stop, then, and try to level up," Arche said. "There's a bunch of levels still, and I have no idea how much would it take for us to get to level 50."
"There's a 'cheating' way to level up," May said. "There's a type of potion called Miracle Medicine. It helps us to level up. But it's an extremely rare item and I think we'd have to leave the Tower to go get it. We can get it through a specific quest in Giffin, the city of the Wizards. That's why I know of it. It's not on the database or anything, it's almost like a secret, but I found out about it in my last life, when I was a Wizard."
"And how's this quest?" Arche asked. "Maybe it's not worth it if it's too hard."
"It's the prize of the Class Tournment. It gives you 50 Miracle Medicine. In my level, it's not worth it anymore, because it would barely give me enough XP to get me to 5%. But, in your level, ten or so could take you to level 50 and you could even put some in the inventory."
"But if we'll have to leave the Endless Tower... can we come back from where we were?" Blake asked. "Because I don't want to give up!"
"Yeah, we can," May answered. "I can save a portal here and open it later. However, the downside to that is that if we die, we'll always respawn here. We'll have to leave anyway when you two get to level 50 because you have to go to your respective cities to change classes."
"How's that Class Tournament?" Arche asked. "You're right, there's nothing about it here in the Database."
"It's a Tournament full of challenges and tasks, mostly intelligence ones. You have to solve riddles and things that aren't always obvious. It's made of 5 phases. The last phase is a physical battle between the participants that got there. Only one winner per Tournament. The good thing is that they are weekly. Ah, and they are divided by level, so I can't enter. Your level only goes against your own level."
