[IC] [Full] True Faces [VR MMO RP]

[Pyromania99]

"And you're just as royal as you'd like your name to suggest." Katherine muttered under her breath about Hime. It's not like her "obsession" with dolls is something unnecessary. It's where most of her of her firepower comes from. Katherine couldn't help but feel some sort of maliciousness out of nothing from the girl's smile. "Does that make me more of a doll than a player?" Annoyed at this point, Katherine readied herself to teleport herself and her dolls elsewhere. Somewhere not here and hopefully someplace that would have relevance to the quest. "Datze, if you hear anything let me know, would ya?" With a snap she disappeared from sight and manifested herself elsewhere far away. "Anything nearby, I wonder?"

[RoflsMazoy]

"Uh, did she just leave?" Kosuke said in slight disbelief, "Well, I guess that's fine."

He could probably just message her their meeting spot, he had one picked out. He quickly typed one out and sent it.

To: Katherine
Subject: Meet us there

Alright, not sure why you left but since you accepted the quest I'll tell you where we're meeting up. It'll be at Dural's cairn, it's an old ruined tower somewhere outside Dural. I'll brief all of us on the plan when we get there.

Datze

"Anyhow, I actually will need a bard for this." He said to Momo_Hime, "And also, I won't really be needing NPC support, I just need you to talk to some people and look scary." He said to Nacht. Then he turned to Erezin, Bonum and Grayliks; the three that hadn't accepted the quest yet. "Are you guys down for it or not? I kinda want to start as soon as possible."

[Zetsuko]

Grayliks nodded to Bonum but as Erezin went up to him and the two started talking he decided to do some inventory management to prepare for the quest. "yeah i'm up for it, sounds like this could be fun" Grayliks said once he finished organizing his stuff "i'm ready to go whenever you guys are"

[The ghost in black]

"Hey there Grayliks!" Bonum smiled when he saw him appear on the castle's courtyard in much the same way as he had. And shortly after that Bonum felt a gust of wind and looked up to see Erezin make her entrance. He waved back at her after she landed and when she greeted him, he replied, "I'm doing well, just got done with a few requests. It's been awhile since we've done a quest with one another." It was interesting to go on quests with Erezin, being a high-level paladin like himself, you could see a few of their class's similarities but also their differences since Erezin chose to specialize while Bonum stuck to the regular path.

@onenote

"That's good, I just got through beating some punk but yeah we haven't been on a quest with the whole group in a while" Erezin responded before getting the quest prompt raising an eyebrow at it. "Monster cafe huh? Sounds... odd but interesting i'm in" She said before opening her inventory and equipping a wind element sword and her royal armor which Erezin had fused the wings from her ascension into sky paladin. Erezin didn't expect to have to fight but she wanted to be flashy for this mission. "I think the funniest thing about this quest is that the difficulty is unknown" She said as five sets of the wings unfurled and then faded untill they were clear.

The variety of different High-Level classes gathered in the one area brought a smile to Erezin's face as it showed what they could achieve when they worked for it. She couldn't wait to get the quest started and to do it with all her friends there. Erezin jumped and sat down in mid-air waiting until everyone was ready.

[onenote]

"Well it sounds not very hard at all but then again, this isn't like a normal quest, so it should be fun." Bonum smiled at Erezin...before Nacht started to proclaim that he would find and destroy the cafe and things quickly escalated for Kathrine to the point where she teleported away. Welp...Bonum turned to Nacht, deciding he couldn't do anything about Kathrine for now so he was going to try and reason with Nacht.

"Nacht, before you give any orders to destroy anything, I want you to consider something about this quest. The monsters we may find at this cafe may be something more than what you're considering them to be. A cafe isn't something that is found in a den of dumb wild creatures, it's something you would find in a civilized world. The monsters that inhabit this cafe could very well be intelligent and civilized. They might even be potential allies for you, so it may pay for you to hold up on a full out attack." Bonum shrugged, "But it is up to you I suppose. Do as you see fit." With that, he went back to preparing for the quest.

[Urbanliner]

Hearing the White Knight objecting to the Night's Emperor, Ao followed the suit, looking at Nacht and shrugging. "Hey, kingy... It's not like the monsters are using the cafe as a base to launch a siege against human cities. Besides, I'd want to see what the monsters are doing when not being killed by people since that seems interesting. Destroying the cafe would prevent me from doing so and that means a good chance to investigate the topic I was wondering will be lost, and I don't want that to happen. Also, like Bonum said, they might even become your allies and they definitely aren't dumb. I strongly disrecommend attacking the cafe."

[RoflsMazoy]

"Ummm..." Kosuke said, "You guys know he's joking right?"

He knew Nacht well enough to figure that out, and he thought the others did as well. Sure, out of context it would've sounded serious but they were right in the context, they should know better. Although, Nacht was pretty good at his character. He had to give him that at the very least.

"Well, since we've all accepted I guess it's time to go." He pulled out a targetted teleport scroll from his inventory and unfurled it. "Teleport, to Dural Cairn!"

---

The party, minus Katherine and Food-san, stood atop an old ruined tower with a sizeable city in the background. Dural wasn't very large, in fact it was completely medium. In all areas, Dural was the middle ground, it was so generic-fantasy-city that it was the city that was the default starting city. Kosuke had always been one for interesting and exotic places so he'd given Dural a miss, but recently he'd been back to pick up some interesting quests.

"You guys may want to equip some less conspicuous stuff." He said to them, "Attracting attention may be a bad idea for this plan."

[karamonnom]

Hime felt really bad, she didn't intend to upset Katherine at all. She quickly wrote her a message, in attempt to reconcile with the her.

To: Katherine
Subject: My sincerest apologies
I'm sorry for what I have said. I didn't mean any of that though I'm sorry that what I said implied such things. I hope you can forgive me. And please come back and join us. Once again, I'm really sorry I just wanted to poke fun at Nacht.

From: Momo_Hime

Listening to what Datze said, she quickly changed into more "normal" gear, at least in comparison to her usual princess attire.

[Urbanliner]

"Sorry... Didn't quite understood that was supposed to be a joke. Anyway, where should we search first?" She bowed at Nacht for a moment, before asking Datze about the search for the cafe. "Where should we search, though? I hate blindly searching for the cafe, only to find out there was nothing where we were searching." She then changed to her "queen" outfit, before holding the light armor in her hands and closing her eyes. Moments later, a sword appeared on top of the gear, and the top part of the armor now has a spot for a sword. She then put the gears in her inventory and changed to them, disguising herself as an early-game swordswoman. "Is this good enough?" She asked Datze.

[Zetsuko]

"less conspicuous, uh" Grayliks mumbled as he looked through his inventory and switched out his current outfit for a different set and hotkeyed some of the spells he is less known for. "there, this should work" he said looking over himself, he wouldn't be recognized as one of the Embermages now, then he took a look of the tower at the city below 'so we're starting in Dural' he thought to himself before turning back around and looking at Datze "so what is our plan from here?"

[RoflsMazoy]

"We should be splitting up in groups." He said, he may as well tell them the plan while they were changing equipment. "I figured out three ways we could probably find the cafe."

It'd taken him an hour or so to find some ways, and a little bit of figuring out for the others.

"Firstly, I wanted Erezin to search for the place from the air, and I wanted Katherine to use her dolls to try and find it in the places that can't be seen from the air." He said. "Katherine's not here right now, but you can fill her in when she does come." He said to Erezin. "Also, Koumi, you can go with them if you want to."

Next was the NPC team.

"I wanted Bonum and Nacht to go talk to NPCs and try and find the source of the rumours." He turned to Bonum and said, "Since you've got some pretty high Charisma, NPCs will talk to you more easily." Then he turned to Nacht, "You're also good with NPCs, so I'm sending you along for that as well."

Lastly was the Bard team.

"Momo, you're with me. The Bard who found the cafe had a journal, but he's dead now and the guy who has it is only going to give it to a good bard." He finished. "I don't really have anything for you to do though," He said to Grayliks, "I just thought you'd be fun to have around. I didn't really have anything for Food-kun either..."

[Lord Santa]

((Anyone worried about approval of this content, don't worry! I have GM approval!))

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"Here it is..." Food-kun said, standing in front of a cave entrance.

It was a pretty basic dungeon, one known to many players, yet it didn't attract many people. The monsters were moderately tough, but they didn't drop much. It was, however, odd that the cave seemed to house many different kinds of monsters from the area, and was hence dubbed 'The Chimera Dungeon'.

The monsters inside were only moderately tough, and they dropped a decent amount of change but seemed to have a lower chance of dropping items. The Chimera Dungeon lacked the bigger monsters, like dragons and giants, so it wasn't a dungeon frequented by high-level users. However, low-leveled players might find it tough. Amidst the foxes, wolves and deer, there might be the odd minotaur that would show up and completely ruin their day.

Food-kun strode in, as he had been doing in recent days. He strode through the dark halls, ignoring the small monsters, which ran away from him. He also ignored the relatively big monsters, hidden in the darkness, which also ran away from him. Almost no monster would willingly go near Food-kun because of his magnificent fighting spirit and fearsome reputation amongst monsters. He strode calmly through the dark cave, ignoring all the monsters. They almost tripped over themselves running away from him if he walked closer, but he never tried to touch them.

A group of mid-level users were challenging the dungeon. They were fighting monsters in a stone chamber. But they were surprised when the monsters they’d been fighting so hard (2 ogres that came out of nowhere) suddenly stopped in fear and sprinted in the other direction. As the party were confused, Food-kun sat in the darkness behind the doorway, wondering where he was going. He soon realised that he’d made a wrong turn at the last fork and turned around. The ogres, detecting his presence disappearing, reappeared to continue fighting. However, Food-kun’s hand flicked out behind him, launching deadly projectiles. As the ogres roared a new challenge, his wooden skewers shot through the ogres and embedded themselves into the stone wall behind the monsters. The ogres’ health bars fell to 0 from 65%. As the party milled about in confusion, Food-kun navigated the dark passages silently.

-------------------------------------------

"Oh, I'm here." Food-kun said.

He put down the map he’d been reading and stopped. In front of him was what appeared to be the remains of a rock slide, but Food-kun knew better. There was an illusionary wall at the side, and a completely dark passageway. He went in without hesitation and navigated the dark tunnels. Soon, light could be seen, and Food-kun emerged in a grassy clearing.

He was in a large, circular cavern that had a large hole in the top, which let sunlight in. The cavern floor was mainly grass, with a small ponds here and there and little copse of trees at the edge of the cavern. It was about as big as the property of a rich guy where he puts his mansion, or maybe a bit smaller than a rich guy’s personal golf course. Damn rich people.

Around the middle of the cavern, there was a shabby looking wooden construct with an ornate but old wooden sign, which read ‘Monster Café’. It was surrounded by large tree stumps, around which small stools were placed. The ‘wooden construct’ was technically a building, but it was rather shabby. Shabby would be a light word for it. It was like the construction was done by the hands of slimes, and it actually was.

As Food-kun walked to the ‘building’, shaped emerged from the woodwork. Slimes! Soft and squishy, they were low levelled-mobs. There were higher-levelled slimes, of course. They were often huge and had interesting shapes. However, these were relatively small, about the size of a deer. Furthermore, they had no form and were basic colours. They were simply purple and orange slimes. Clearly they were low-level monsters. Food-kun could make any low-level monster faint by staring at it for too long, but these didn’t. Food-kun didn’t want to harm them, after all. He had a reason for coming here.

"Blup blup. Look, chef is back!" The purple slime said.

"Yay!" The orange one cheered.

"I swear, this place just keeps getting better and better." Food-kun sighed.

The derelict café was pretty bad when he first found it, but every day he came back it seemed to get a little worse. Maybe that was just the passive corrosive properties of the slimes, or maybe it was just because it was old. The slimes were stupid, and things were constantly breaking.

"Thank you!" The purple slime said happily, not getting Food-kun’s obvious sarcasm.

"Nevermind…" Food-kun muttered quietly, opening his bag.

He deposited a bunch of wood, as well as carpentry tools.

"Food-kun, what’s that for?" The orange slime asked.

"Just watch." Food-kun said.

He began to renovate the small shack. Food-kun didn’t have the carpentry skill, but pretty much anything would be better than what they had now. Besides, his exceptional handiwork, dexterity and strength made it easier and faster. After around 20 minutes, he’d run out of wood. Now the shabby wooden construct was a pretty damn good lemonade stand. At least it made for a decent shop front.

It was all straight now, and it had a certain sheen to it, but there wasn’t too much artistic quality in it. He didn’t have the sculpturing skill or the carpentry skill, after all. It was built quickly and it was structurally sound, but it lacked art. Nevertheless, it was a lot better than it was before.

"Wow!" The purple slime exclaimed.

"It’s so beautiful…" The orange slime said, sniffing.

Certainly, it was basic, but it was practically sparkling. Food-kun was doing the finishing touches when a black slime appeared from inside.

"Huuah, hum." The black slime said, yawning. "What’s this?"

"Morning." Food-kun said in greeting.

"Oh, Food-kun!" The slime said happily. "Thanks for coming, I’ll go make you some coffee. Blup blup."

Food-kun looked after the black slime as it left to make the coffee. He was rather conflicted about it, really. He had never tasted better coffee, and he would’ve drunk it at every opportunity, if he didn’t know where it came from.

In fact, it was that very coffee which made him work with the slimes in the monster café.

----------------------------------------------

Food-kun had been exploring the Chimera Dungeon by himself. Eventually, he’d found the rubble. He was about to bust it down when he found the illusionary wall. He went through it and found the clearing. There’d been a group of monsters in the middle, but he didn’t know what they were doing. As he approached, the monsters all growled at him, but once he entered combat, they all ran away.
Food-kun was exploring the old building but there was a cup of nice-smelling coffee left on one of the stumps. Food-kun took it and drank it. He didn’t know what to expect, but he didn’t expect it to be good.

"This is really tasty." He’d said.

"Re-really?" The black slime had said nervously.

"Yup." Food-kun said, draining the cup.

"The scary human liked it!" The purple slime said, emerging from behind the counter.

"Say… The orange slime said cautiously, also emerging from the counter. "You’re a chef, right? Could you help us?"

Quest has been created!

Help the monster café

The monster café was once a neat and peaceful place of refuge for monsters to have their cup of coffee and eat meals. However, over time it has degraded into a shadow of its former self. For the sake of the monster café, the slime owners have asked the help of a renowned human chef.

Rewards:
- Cooking experience
- Secret monster café recipes
- Fame amongst monsters
- Friendship with the slimes

Do you accept?

"...I’ll help you." Food-kun said after a pause.

--------------------------------------

"Done." Victor said, wiping his forehead.

He had just finished re-furnishing the kitchen. Wood was a safety hazard, so he used the stone he brought instead. He put tiles on the floor and cemented (whatever passed for cementing, anyway) them together. He also got a better stove and oven, and he replaced the derelict cupboards with some new ones. He stocked the pantries with food from his own inventory and it was just about ready to go. Lastly, he installed the sink which he bought.

"Looks great! Blup blup." The black slime said, entering the new kitchen. "Here’s the coffee!"

The black slime held up a neat white cup full of steaming black fluid in its hands (kinda). Food-kun hesitated slightly before taking it. He took a small sip and the flavour seeped into his mouth.

"Thanks." Food-kun said.

"Glad you like it! Blup." The black slime said happily.

Despite where it came from, it was still good coffee. Possibly the best coffee. But Food-kun could make it better.

"You got more ingredients?" Food-kun asked.

"Yup! Big bag! Blup blup." The black slime said, holding up a sack labelled ‘coffee’.

"Alright, good." Food-kun said, stretching.

"They’re coming!" The orange slime yelled from outside.

Food-kun drew his kitchen knife and prepared a chopping board. He took the bag and put it on the counter. The slimes tensed as a large crowd of monsters came in from the holes in the walls. Food-kun got ready to cook and the purple slime flipped the sign on the store front from closed to open.

"Time to get cooking." Food-kun said, grinning.

[Liar]

Nacht was unaware of the disagreements the others were having about his words and actions, and even if he did he wouldn’t have cared. After he had finished making his piece, the Night’s Emperor received an important missive from a player in the Black Cowls.

To: Nacht
Subject: Treason

I followed up on the history of several new inductees into the Black Cowls. A majority of them have come from well-known guilds. A friend of mine from one of them mentioned they were urging some people to join us to spy for them.

The rest of the message contained the list of traitors and their associated guilds. Frankly, he wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t as if many of them would reach the upper echelons of his organization. Nevertheless, it was bad if more and more turned up. Even the smallest of ants could cause a nuisance.

Nacht decided he would come up with a solution later. Just as he exited from the message, Datze had teleported the group into another area. Leave it to that man to do as he wished. It further irked him when he took command, but he acquiesced since he was the one leading the quest. Any other time would have been a different matter entirely.

As the Dragon God explained the plan, Nacht changed his outfit with a flick of his hand. No longer was he wearing his magnificent armor and cape, it was replaced with simple leathers that made him look more like a sellsword. However, his face still remained obscured. Though he was not wearing his iconic helm, he had replaced it with a bandana covering the lower half of his face. To the others that never had seen him in such clothing before would be surprised to learn of his young appearance, sharp gold eyes, and black hair.

“Datze, I’m a little disappointed in you. I can do far more than order NPCs around,” he said amusedly. “Bonum, what is your plan? Please don’t tell me you’re simply going to ask people to aid you out of the goodness of their hearts?”

[karamonnom]

"Oooh, that sounds really interesting," Hime clapped excitedly. "Hey Gray, we get to be on same team, fun huh?" she said to him, smiling brightly. She then turned to Datze and joked, "You just can't stay away from me, can you?"

She was glad that she could be useful in the quest. She was all excited to go, but quickly she realized that she didn't know where the guy that apparently had the journal was, and waited for Datze to take the lead. She waved goodbye to the rest of the group, as they separated to complete their tasks.

[onenote]

Bonum rubbed his head at Datze remark. It was hard to tell when Nacht was being serious or not, being such an avid roleplayer as he was. But he didn't have too long to be embarrassed by it before they were teleported off to Dural. Bonum visited the city often helping out with a few requests, he enjoyed the city even if it was as generic as they came. When told to equip something less conspicuous, he quickly searched his inventory and changed his white paladin outfit for a low-level dark grey one. Then he was told who his partner is and turned to Nacht.

"Well Nacht, there's only so much we can do incognito. But you should know as well as anybody how far a little charisma can go. But in case asking simply doesn't work, you and I have money, and I have a few items that might be useful with haggling with a few knowledgeable people. But if you have a better plan, then I am certainly all ears." He told him with a shrug. "I will suggest we check in the library and the marketplace for info before any other though. That's where knowledge and rumors usually reside."

[Liar]

Nacht pondered over Bonum’s suggestion—the White Knight knew better than to think he can order him after all. His idea had merit and would make for a good start on their task. Nacht glanced at his surroundings, filing away the minute details of this particular starting city. Dural Cairn was not spectacular by any means. He had conquered several cities that were the jewel of their neighbors. This city was nothing. However, it was nothing with a purpose. It served as a starting ground for many beginners.

Generic, Bonum’s suggestion was too generic, thought Nacht. It was a good start and, normally, even his best agents would have started with the same kind of idea. However, anyone can think it. Beginners plagued the marketplace and library of any city. The Monster Café was meant to be hidden, away from the prying eyes of adventurers. Putting the information in those two areas only risked having idiotic newbies find the place and charge in the café to cause a ruckus.

Underneath his bandana, Nacht smirked. Turning to Bonum, he announced, “Your idea holds merit, but it’s too obvious. We’re in a beginner city. Those two places are where beginners go all too often. Why risk an information leak there? We need to head to the underworld. We need to talk to the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scum, if we want our information.”

[Zetsuko]

Grayliks returned a smile to Hime, waving to her and then looking to everyone else as they were separating and planning on how to go about their tasks. he turned back around to Datze and said "Hey, Datze, if you've really got nothing for me to do, why don't i go track down Food-Kun. I know you don't really have anything for him to do either but it would be good to have us all together on this quest" he shrugged "and who knows, maybe me and him will come up with an idea"

[RoflsMazoy]

Kosuke was a little conflicted. The rest of them didn't look really ready to go, but that was probably fine... He walked over towards Mom-Hime as she started to leave, and turned around to offer some last advice.

"Alright, Grayliks, I'd prefer it if you taged along with those two to make sure they don't get in trouble but you can do whatever you want." By 'those two' he of course meant Bonum and Nacht. "And Erezin, when Katherine gets here, make sure to fill her in."

He quickly jogged to catch up with Momo_Hime.

"Our destination's the Bard College down in Dural." He said, "It shouldn't take too long to get there."