Chapter 39: The dark mages
Chapter 39: The dark mages
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[Regional Quest: ]
: Town Mayor of the Moongold town, Roland Lan Hunter has confirmed the presence of a dark magician, a worshiper of evil, in the surrounding great forest.
Many talented individuals sacrificed their lives to bring the existence of evil to light and later this evening, the Mayor confirmed that the dark magician had raised an army of dark creatures in the dungeon: Deep Cave of Arrbo.
As a threat to humanity and all creations of nature, the dark magicians are the cancer of this world.
Their forces had once succeeded in taking over the world however, with the great efforts of the heroes of this world- The Guardians, their adavent was stopped in its wake.
However, remnants of their forces still exist throughout the world and one has appeared in the Moongold town.
Objective: Help Town Mayor Roland Lan Hunter in the subjugation of the Dark magician's hideout.
Reward: Achievement [Defenders of the town (Common)], Increased familiarity with Town Mayor depending on the contribution. (Additional rewards will be given based on the Quest contribution.)
Failure conditions: 1) Death of Town Mayor. 2) Fall of Moongold town. 3) If any of the Dark Mage's minions successfully kill a certain Important individual, the quest will be considered a failure.
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"What do they mean by a certain 'important' individual?"
Elio ate his dinner with a calm expression- in the real world- as he looked at his partner for any kind of reply.
However, she was busy surfing through the <NO> community database for the answer to the very question he was asking her.
"I have six candidates in mind for now."
She was eating her finely made dish- which was made with some kind of gravy and some kind of meat base that Elio did not understand at all- with one hand with a spork instead of proper utensils while surfing through the three hologram screens before her.
The bracelet-like device that she was wearing was glowing as it produced these floating windows and even though it seemed pretty unbelievable, the way she was going through such information at such speed, was just another normal sight to her partner.
"This important person might just be Mayor, obviously. And if not him, it could be either his wife or his daughter.
The quest specified it's only a single individual so we should believe that it's only one person for now.
If not them, it could be the Librarian of the great library, but I don't think that person will bother with a single dark mage when he has the history of slaying entire legions of those bastards.
Aside from all of them, the prime candidates that might be the person specified in this quest would be either someone visibly completely unrelated to the quest that might somehow affect the [Grand Flow] of this world in a twisted way, or it could be someone that is closely connected to this whole incident."
With her research on the Moongold town, she had confirmed that throughout history, there had never been any incident like this where a single dark mage would have aimed for this rather simple town.
The only attractive thing in this town was the great library and even that place wasn't as attractive to those crazy bastards as the greater lads even closer to nature.
The dark mages by nature were bad people that were considered one of the main antagonistic forces of this world and one of the forces that had been the central theme of the Third Main Scenario.
They followed evil and though they came from all walks of life and had all kinds of various powers, in a simpler manner, they were individuals who had gained powers from the evil after giving their entire existence to their great cause– the ultimate destruction of this nature.
Though they were once simple mortal beings that lived common lives in their societies and cultures, after becoming a Dark Magician and falling to the darkness, they gained the power of Darkness— something far different and far more evil than the pure element of darkness.
"The Merchant who sells fabric on the third street, the vegetable shop owner that has a stall in the central street left to the central plaza, the guard captain, a mage named Lox, A certain silver cat that people have spotted around the back allies of the west side, and lastly– the oldest player who has been in this town, ID: Aloha."
According to her, these six people were the ones who somehow were the 'Important' individuals mentioned in the quest.
And she surely had her reasons to believe why they would be so important that the system would consider one of their deaths as serious as a failure condition to a Regional quest.
"Hmmm… well, we are already deep into this anyway so avoiding this is not an option anymore."
"No shit man. Who knew the guard captain would ask us to join the guards' reconnaissance unit with him."
When the Mayor had finished announcing the quest and the players went haywire with excitement of the kind of amazing rewards the quest was offering.
They went away to start preparing for going out and many even went out to call their guilds and groups.
The mayor had suggested that they first gather information on the situation and select the individuals that will go to the dungeon and the ones who will guard the town gates so there was a festive atmosphere among the players.
And in the middle of it all, a guard informed them that the guard captain was looking for them.
"He was surprised by the sudden level increase. Who knew he might also guess the ones behind that light of the (tier-5) spell was in fact us?"
"Nah nah. Don't give him that much credit. He didn't really know it, he was just asking us if it was us… your expression gave it all away, hump."
Ultimately, they would now have to pay a fine and meet with the mayor to give him a letter of apology as a formality, which wasn't really good for a player in their position.
They were a big reason behind the distress in the town so he wouldn't be happy to meet the people who used a high level spell in such a small place.
A (tier-5) spell that could produce such strong light would logically be a destructive spell and there was no creature, not even a field boss that could handle a destructive spell of that level in this area.
He might have first logically suspected them to be connected with the dark mage, but thanks to the guard captain's offer to join the recon team, they will have a presentable image to the mayor.
"Still… to think he would vouch for us after meeting us just once."
"He seems to have high expectations of us even after all this."
They did not know what the guard captain saw in them to go to such lengths for them, but thanks to him, they were now going to go ahead and check out the dungeon and the forces of the dark mage before the others.
Elio found it pretty uncertain and also pretty concerning, but since Alex was so excited about all this, he was happy to observe her excited state, and the way she reacts when she is serious about something as well.