"Huh, Monster Knowledge gives you that much? Might have to invest in that some time..."

It certainly was a wealth of knowledge that River imparted within just a couple minutes of observation. Immobile, tanky poison monsters with the ability to call over Chitters if things looked dangerous. It was certainly an interesting combination, though Cecilia was still personally of the belief that Chitters were just free EXP and loot. She cast a glance towards the others and decided not to bring that up though. Such was the suffering of being the only risk-taker in the group, after all. The Lancer considered the situation for a bit longer before saying, rather flatly, "So basically, we just burst them down one by one? Doesn't seem hard to do if we commit to it. Got two piercing-centric DPses here, after all."

A shrug, and Cecilia lowered her stance, ready to charge in again. "Don't think plants ever go to sleep either, so burst's probably the way to go."

Health: 2100/2100
Mana: 2000/2000

---

It occurred to Prome that despite having a Mining skill high enough to harvest iron ore, he didn't actually have anything to mine with 'I remember planing on making a mining machine...but I never got around to it. Oh well, I suppose my own personal Bagger 288 will have to come another day.' Entering the blacksmith's with a flourish, not even bothering to take a look around or wait for the shopkeeper to talk, Prome announced "Greetings purveyor of metallic wares, I come in the name of scientific advancement! I require 30 iron ore and two rubies!"

---

Aura checked the message. Good. They didn't go too far. Aura checked the map as she walked towards the rest of the guild. As a Paladin, her movement speed were slower than most and probably because Aura more or less dumped the AGI stat. Now that she thought about it - how did the game even handle movement anyway? Aura wasn't out of shape in real life, and she didn't feel like she was particularily hindered in the game. Was one's movement multiplied by some function of force? Then how did the game mask the feeling of kinetic movement?

Aura yawned. She probably shouldn't prod too much. It was all literally in her head anyway, and people summoning fireballs with twinkle-fingers was a thing. She was heading into her first fight with a guild, so she should focus on that instead.

The mushrooms wiggled slightly as the party stood there. A bright colorful bird, swept through the trees and settled on a nearby branch. Its long tail feathers almost touched the forest floor from the canopy and it watched the little party as it preened itself.

---

A creature around hip height dashed out from the undergrowth ahead of Aura and the bushes rustled behind her to reveal another. Both of them paused and regarded Aura with a long pause before letting out a series of chirps and turning their attention on her. Curiously enough, the Chitter in front of Aura wasn’t at full health.







“Morrigan strike me through, another damn Alfor.” The man grumbled none too quietly as he finished wrapping a greataxe for a woman who, despite the animal pelt armor and rugged demeanor, didn’t seem quite the right fit for the weapon.

“Thanks for the upkeep, Bidthrone. Plenty of monsters to kill, not enough to time to craft.” Wilfred turned and cocked a brow at Prome. “Scientific advancement? What sort of advancement are you talking about?”

“Don’t ya be taking to his ramblings, lassie. If he’s anything like Alfor, he’ll be talking in circles and ya still won’t know what his anvil will be hot with at sundown.” Bidthron groused. “Thirty Iron and 2 Rubies? 9 gold pieces paid of front. Not doin’ any of this “layaway” or “credit” system you adventure types seem so keen on recently.”

---

Holly was definitely happy that River’s monster knowledge was helpful to the situations. ”Poison Mushrooms, which can call more Chitters? How fun to say the least.” Holly said, which was a bit tired of fighting Chitters anyways. It was great to fight something different at least, however, she and Cecilia were like the only ones that can do full damage to them. She agreed with Cecilia’s about bursting them down one by one.

Holly took out her bow and put an arrow within it. She giggled slightly at the suggestion of putting a plant to sleep and what Cecilia said made her agree with it. ”Might as well kill these poisonous mushrooms then, friends.” Holly said, with a smile on her face. It was obvious, she wanted to take first crack at the mushrooms, which she decided to pull back on her bow for a bit. They were apart of her subclass quest anyways.

Holly went ahead and released her arrow under a greater power shot at the first baby blue on the list. She wanted to make sure it would definitely hurt, which caused her to use 4 action points and 300 MP as well. She would have to reload her bow so she could fire again, which was at least she was further away but have a feeling these mushrooms would be harder than the Chitters because of their hp differences.

Holly decided to fire another arrow at the same target, which she fired at. But this time it was just not empowered by any of her actions. She was only trying to help out Cecilia’s reckless nature out by making one of the targets easier to take out. ”I hope… they all don’t attack me for attacking one of them. That would suck actually.” Holly thought to herself, with a bit of a fact that she should’ve allowed Cecilia to make the first move, in all actuality.

Holly's arrow marked the target, and Cecilia closed in immediately afterwards, bursting off the verdant ground. Her footwork twisted and turned, evasive measures taken to deal with the ranged spore attacks that the Baby Blues doubtlessly had. Leveling her spear upon the first monster, she charged straight into it, her whole body devoted into a singularly devastating charge. Mythic steel twisted into the fibrous flesh of the mushroom creature, before she pulled it back out with just as much savage force. She raised her shield as spores spewed from the wound, then spun around to leverage centrifugal force. A piercing strike bounced up this time, rising from a low trajectory. If those creatures drew their regenerative energies from the ground they were rooted in, perhaps it was best to lift them up from it? That was the thought, at least, as Cecilia bent down and completed her Piercing Lift.

Sensing the incoming barrage of poison that was just about to appear now, the Lancer bent down and swung her spear behind her. The polearm span like a makeshift shield or fan, dispersing what spore spray may have come in her direction, before she quickly turned to her next target. The rest of them could finish off what she left behind. For now, she'll get started on the other one.

Like a sunbeam, Cecilia sliced into the second Baby Blue, pulling it closer in preparation for her next set of combos.

These must be the Chitters that Willow warned me about. Aura thought as she readied her weapons, sidestepping slightly off the path to ensure she had vision over both Chitters. The monsters didn't look too difficult and one of them was already damaged, presumably from the rest of the Guild that pulled ahead. But Aura's build was very team-fight based and her solo damage output was admittedly pitiful. It should be worthwhile introduction to face off against these Chitters alone.
Aura closed in on the Chitter to her right, using both arms to bring her sword pommel down unto its head and fluidly slashing at it at the same time. With one of the Chitters hopefully out of the way for the duration, Aura kicked off the ground and charged the second one with her longsword.

---

---

"Looks like it's my turn!" There was a bit of trepidation in him as he knew his spells wouldnt hot as hard, not only that but his lowered mana meant that he couldnt burst as much as he's used to for a beginning of a fight. Holding out his wand, static began to form around the tip as his sleeves billowed slightly due to the pool of mana and energy flowing around him. The magic settled and a brilliant blue crackling orb shot out and slammed into the remaining Blue baby with a Lightning Shot. Using the momentum from the kick back of the spell, River wove his wand in a geometric arcane shape while chanting as he coalesced the static that had just crackled against the Baby Blue and weaponized it into a blast of Shock that sent electric pulses throughout the squishy body of this monstrous plant. As his final move River held out his free hand and called forth some of the lightning still barraging the plant. It flowed to him as if he were a lightning rod and he began to mutter another incantation that forced the energy to compress into a bright white orb at the tip of his finger before he let it follow the natural path back towards the Baby Blue as a Finger Lightning.

Willow watched the party annihilate all but one of the mushrooms. She had to admit, she felt kinda silly spending all that gil on spells to lower enemy resistances when they could while the field with them. River let loose a barrage of lightning, not quite finishing the last one off so she lifted her wand after adjusting so the others wouldn’t be caught in her spell.

“Shadow Raze.” With a flick of her wrist, a thin blade of inky darkness erupted from the tip of her wand and slashed through the mushroom in the final blow. The mushroom shattered into pixels shortly after its friends, the faint sound of sobbing fading along with the colors.

“Alright, lets get everyone’s MP topped of starting with River. I didn’t realize it was low. We missed that burst damage. Chakra magic.” She joked as the tell tale wisps of blue shot from her wand and wrapped themselves around River before fading, restoring 859 MP to the mage. “Cecelia’s up next with a greater Chakra magic and then Holly will be the last once everything is off cool down.”

---

As one chitter stood, clawing at its own face after a particularly brutal Will Shatter to the face, the other sank its teeth into the Paladin but its hind claws scratched uselessly at the armor protecting Aura’s chest.

Health: 2100/2100
Mana: 2000/2000

---

Prome quickly slapped down the money, having already worked out the cost before arriving with the awesome power of math "There you are my good man." Stowing away his goods in his inventory. He said goodbye with a quick "And have a wonderful day." Before not-quite skipping out of the store. 'Next up is the Cedarwood.' Taking a quick look around the market place, he spotted a shop that looked like it had what he was looking for. With a giddy hum, he entered the store "Shopkeep, I require 10 pieces of Cedarwood for the sake of scientific advancement!"

"Don't worry 'bout me, Willow," Cecilia replied, her body already glowing with the radiance of redemption. "Didn't spend my money on these expensive ass spells just for someone else to waste their cooldowns on me."

Still, the battle had gone ridiculously smoothly again. Maybe her sense of scale was still out of whack after taking on that Floor Dungeon just the day before, but Cecilia was feeling pretty confident about Reliqua now. Talrae floors limited one's level to multiples of 5, but for the first three levels, the maximum was set to 20. Taking that into consideration, maybe they were even a bit overleveled for this situation? That was good. If only they left one of the Baby Blues alive to call over the Chitters. Considering how weak everything was here, it'd be great to farm another couple of those dinosaur hides from the midget lizards, drop probability be damned.

"Welp, here ya go, Holly," the Lancer said, tossing over one of the Baby Blue Pollens she had, before sticking her spear into the ground, "And I guess for Java Roots, we'll just need River to dig around that tree, yeah? Let's get this stuff done!"

---

The mushrooms were unique enemies at least, which made her grateful that Willow was the one to finish off the last mushroom. This game gets weirder and weirder, however, there were mushroom enemies in other mmorpgs. She sighed a bit and shrugged her shoulders. ”Thanks Willow for that. Even though I didn’t really use much mana like some the mages anyways.” Holly said with a smile on her face. Even though she should actually give herself some more mana on a level up, just by a bit. However, that’s going to take awhile to level up anyways.

Holly enjoyed that the trash mobs on the field are much easier than in that dungeon yesterday. It is like night and day in terms of difficulty. Even though that dungeon was awful as sin, however, which made her a bit in the back of her head remember the fallen friend. She snapped out of the fallen friend thing, when Cecilia tossed her a Baby Blue Pollen, which she remembered she needed for the Ranger subclass. It made her smile happily while catching it. ”Ah, yeah… I need three piles of Baby Blue Pollen to Elwyn Gage… so I don’t have to play with dice. That means two more piles until I can be one step closer to my goal of unlocking Ranger, yays.” Holly said, with a slight happiness in her voice and a genuine happy smile. However, she did face palm with what she had said, it was a bit embarrassing but it was more obvious she doesn’t have any luck when it comes to dice. She was blushing heavily and trying to not make Willow nor Cecilia curious.

It was pretty obvious she needed to stop blurting out strange stuff or she’ll faint of embarrassing herself. ”Why am I doing this to myself? Guess its nice that I am close to my subclass quest to get done sooo I don’t have to gamble with dice. I can’t even get a bloody Yahtzee.” Holly thought to herself, with a definite look of an embarrassed. Because of the fact she can’t play anything with dice to save her life, it is heavily embarrassing. Her father is so much better at Yahtzee than she is.

Aura felt the teeth dig into the elbow, vague hot pain spiking her arm as she raised her shield a tad too late to block the chitter from jumping up against her torso. She barely gave it any register as she lifted her arm up higher as the chitter's talons failed to grip on the plate of her armor. She swung it around away from her helm to prevent it from damaging her armor further.

Try a little harder, little guy. You'll get there someday.

She almost felt bad for the creature, sardonically attributing the word 'cute' as the chitter dangled momentarily from her arm. The lizard tried so hard, you know?

Maybe she didn't need to use abilities, but hell, after that fest of a fight in the previous level, Aura would take a curb stomp any day of the week. Or maybe she began to expect too much difficulty after that fight, and this was the actual progression that was supposed to be in place. After all, in the grand context of things, they were literally only 2% through the entire progression chain.
As much as she would like to mess around a little more, Aura was in the middle of meeting up with her guild. Aura lifted her sword again and brought it back down to finish the two chitters off.

“Oh, take mine too. No need to make picking up your subclass any harder than necessary.” She passed Holly the Baby Blue Pollen (common) she just picked up as well. “So… River, do you have enough of your shifter class to change and dig at it? They didn't give you any special tools or quest items to help on this did they, Ceci?”

---

The Chitter’s exploded into bright pixels, disappearing moments later. A cool breeze swept through the trees as the loot menu and quest marker both popped up.







“Oh, um, okay. 10 pieces? 10 pieces will run you…” The boy, no older than 14, counted on his fingers. “5 gold and… 2 silver!” He said proudly as he did the math. The market had calmed down around them, some shopkeepers leaning up against adjacent stalls as they chatted with their neighbors. Even the labors seemed to slow down, taking more frequent breaks as the sun rose higher. Anu, the serve from the inn, made her way through the market, purchasing little sachets of herbs and their ingredients.

"Naw, ain't no so thing," Cecilia replied. "It's like, the sorta work that a child could get done, so I don't think you need much in terms of specialized equipment." The Lancer paused briefly, before shrugging. "But hey, I got stuff with me anyways, and it probably ain't fair to let River do all the work himself, so..."

Pulling her Shovel and Hatchet out of her inventory, Cecilia rolled up her sleeves and grasped the hatchet in her dominant hand, walking over to one of the flashing roots.

"...might as well just get to it, eh?"

With that, she began to cut away at the roots. Even as AGI-focused as she was, Cecilia still came out on top as the highest STR person in the group. Hopefully 20 Java Roots wasn't going to be too much trouble chopping and digging up.

---

---

River grabbed his bit of loot before tossing the Babu Blue Powder towards Holly. "That makes three. Now I suppose we need these Java Roots huh?" He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, ready to try on his mew ability. Hopefully the Chitters had some use with their claws in burying underground or this would be a waste of time for him. River transformed down into a Chitter, using his spell to recall the image so that he didnt lose it after this use. His form changed and River immediately began to test out his new form. He ran about in circles, whipped his new tail, and shuttered his frill to get a feel for it all. This level of excitement was exactly what he had gotten this game for. He immediately ran towards the tree and began digging at its roots, tossing dirt and soil aside haphazardly in search for Cecilias items.

---

Holly was definitely happy when Willow passed her the baby blue pollen, which made two out of three. ”Thank you Willow.” Holly said with a smile. It was something of a godsend the optional requisites were close to being finished. All It will take is one more than she’ll be able to get her subclass Ranger, which would be lovely. ”I hope I don’t have to roll dice just because the RNG gods want to see me suffer...” Holly thought to herself, because it was a definite problem. She sighed a bit deeply when that happened. However, she didn’t really have anything in particular to help Cecilia with her quest but it was easy enough as it is.

Java roots sounded much tougher to get out of the ground than weeds in a garden. Unless they are alike a radish or turnip. She couldn’t help but think that since video games do use real world inspiration for most of their things. Even though this game could’ve been much better if she was allowed to log out but no, it’s a prison for a madman to see them climb to the top and kill him. However, when River tossed her the 3rd Baby Blue Pollen and had a smile on her face. ”Thank you so much, River. Thank god, I don’t have to roll dice I hope, since I suck at Yahtzee. Luck isn’t my strong suit...” Holly said, with a happy smile. Hopefully her subclass trainer doesn’t want to have a test of skill anyway with the fact she’s the most unluckiest person in the world when it comes to dice. However, it didn’t take too long to realize she just blurted out the most embarrassing thing to everyone about she sucks at Yahtzee. She sighs a bit deeply about that, however, when River shape shifted into a Chitter it made her smile a bit. ”God damn it… Being a Shifter definitely helps. He’s probably definitely excited about transforming into something after all this time wanting to become a Shifter.” Holly thought to herself, with her face palming at the fact she willingly gave away the ghost. It’s still nice that River did keep to his word, however. She’s the one who embarrassed herself again.

Holly shrugged her shoulders, while she watched River and Cecilia dig for Java Roots. It’s mostly because she doesn’t have anything on her but her hands. However, she has an appearance to keep up, but at least they helped her with what she wanted. ”The wilds should really be called XP Grind Land with a side order of heat. Oh yeah, where’s Ciara I hope the Xp pinatas didn’t get in her way.” Holly thought to herself, with a smile about making a McDonald's reference in her thoughts. It did help that she knew that Aura was on her way to meet up with everyone, which is a good thing. However, Aura probably has a quest to finish too since yeah.

Health: 2100/2100
Mana: 2000/2000

---

"That's right!" Prome patted the boy on the head "Aren't you a smart little mathematician." He placed the required money in front of the boy, before taking the wood. "~Have a nice day~" he sang before he skipped off, in search of a place where he could do a little blacksmithing 'Now all I need is to convert these pieces of iron into steel, and then I'll be done! I wonder why Alfor needed me to do this. Shopping is so much fun after all!'

Simple enough. Aura yawned. The rest of the group was probably going to move slower than her due to foraging and having to encounter more hostile mobs, but that didn't mean Aura should just slack off. She toggled away her shield and moved ahead, focusing on catching up.

“Holy fuck, that’s cool.” Willow stared at River’s new form in awe. If she hadn’t decided to try out a support class, maybe she would have picked up shifter. No, she wouldn’t have. She would have picked up Marauder like always and she would have loved every second of it but still, it's nice to dream. “We’ll let you two dig. Everyone else, keep an eye out and call out anything that looks suspicious."

Aura would manage to catch up with the group after their first dig, joining their expedition in time to take down the twelve remaining Baby Blues guarding the other nearby nodes.



As Willow topped off the party’s mana and health from the one Baby Blue that managed to get off a seed shot, the forest suddenly went silent. No birds sang, no insects rustled, no creatures scurried through the underbrush. A bitter wind swept through the forest for a brief moment yet even the leaves stayed silent as they shook. Everything stilled after that. Tension in the air mounted slowly, as if the trees themselves waited with bated breath.

The cries of the slain Baby Blues broke the silence. It took a straining ear to catch it, the cries weakened as if distant and out of reach, and yet pale orbs the same colors as the slain creatures hovered where they once lived. Twas clear the sound originated from them but they did not move not did they have a status bar. They only wept for their lives stolen carelessly.

The frigid cold returned and deep shadows trailed in its wake. The shadows danced around the party, each one giggling as they circled like predators before the feast. The crying sounded more desperate and the orbs seemed to quiver, finally moving. They drifted up the trees away from the shadows but once they did, the giggling stopped and the screaming began. The shadows lept from the ground and rows of gnashing teeth tore the orbs to shreds and swallowed them before they slunk to the ground once more.

Then they vanished. They sunk into the soft grass and moss and a creaking resounded through the forest. A tree, towering ten feet above the tallest of them shuddered violently as it’s branches warped and tore as they fused into hulking arms. It’s roots tore themselves from the ground and the mammoth creature rose on four legs made of writhing roots. From inside, the faint sound of giggling and screaming mingled until a face formed in the center of the tree. Beady, blue eyes sunk into the bark and a cavernous mouth grinned maniacally at the group, a purple vapor seeping out.. A chorus of giggling shadows rang out every time the creature gnashed its teeth and it eyed the party momentarily before it charged, a long back tongue licking at its bark.





A blacksmith facility was attached to Bidthorn’s smithery. For a simple silver, an adventurer could gain access to the forge all day to come and go as they please. Otherwise, it was 4 copper an hour. Approaching one of the anvils would automatically prompt an adventurer to choose their option and input the amount of time they wished to use the forge. The only other rule was attached to the wall the facility shared with the shop in massive iron lettering that must have taken months to make: