Friend of Moles (Uncommon)

Title description: Moles appreciate your smell, the sound of your voice, and your blurry silhouette.

Title effects:

+50 ep;

It’s easier to learn Molian;

Achieve 300 reputation with moles without ever hurting them {complete};

or achieve 3000 reputation with moles.

It had been a while since he had unlocked this kind of title. Were it not for all the groundwork he’d done back in the Green Woods, it would have been impossible to unlock a friendship with a race like this in under thirty minutes.

This mole’s level wasn’t very high, so moles probably didn’t rank highly among other races. When he compared how challenging it was to earn reputation points with Oli and how easy it was with Molly, it was the difference between heaven and earth.

This meant that next time he visited the Lord of the Woods, he would gain access to a new zoomorph form! He wondered what kind of bonuses [Mole Form] would grant him. It couldn’t just convert to gaining energy points, could it? Although that would have been useful when using [Lion’s Breath] for the first time, he doubted he would need that much energy so soon.

Not all forms were equally useful, and now that he thought about it, he hadn’t even used [Ant Form] once! After hiring Bucky, he didn’t need to carry heavy loads around. Perhaps he would use it more in Rock Canyon since he would have to start new trade routes there. As all these thoughts crossed his mind, he didn’t forget to nod as Molly continued her story.

“Squeak, squeak, the tunnels of the screech, mountain top.”

Progress in learning Molian: 49%.

The progress bar rose with unprecedented speed after Roth earned the [Friend of Moles] title. He kept listening to Molly talking, and only 42 minutes after first meeting her, he received the notification he had been hoping for.

Congratulations! You now speak Molian.

You’ve picked up the language so fast! What a quick learner.

+1 intelligence.

+200 reputation with moles.

Roth rubbed his hands in anticipation, waiting for some quest to meet the mole monarch, but nothing happened. Molly’s stories, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped, and he could now make out everything she said.

“I didn’t know which was which, you know? Argh. She played it brilliantly. That’s the reason why I only got such a poor score.”

“That’s very interesting, Molly,” Roth squeaked in Molian.

Molly stopped digging and turned toward Roth. “You speak Molian?”

“I’ve picked it up as I heard you talking.”

“My, my. That’s very impressive. Oh well, as I was saying-” Molly went back to tunneling without sharing any quests with Roth. “Now, let me tell you about what happened last year. I started the game strong. I nailed the burrowthon and just as the undercover…”

“Excuse me, Molly.”

Why did you interrupt a mole in the middle of her story?

-10 reputation with moles.

Yikes! It looked like moles hated being interrupted as much as they loved a listening ear.

“What?” She asked, annoyed.

“Do you think I could meet your monarch?” This was the whole point of delaying his trip to Saphira. If he could pick up his first client in the Rock Canyon and increase his trade routes, this stop would be worth it.

“Moles have no monarchs,” she answered.

“Who rules you?”

“No one. I mean… I suppose we always have the reigning champion. That’s kind of ruling, right?”

“Champion?”

“The champion of the games. The games I was telling you about.”

Roth gulped and pursed his lips. He was treading on thin ice here. Moles loved being listened to, and he had been pretending to hear Molly’s stories. Should he admit he hadn’t gotten any of that?

“Of course, of course,” he said. “You know what, Molly… you have a gift for storytelling. All those things you told me about the games were incredible. In fact,” he tried, “you told them so well that my little kitten was wondering if you could tell them again. You know how children are. They want to hear the same stories over and over.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Nyah?” Lin asked, surprised. Roth pushed his head back into his woolen jacket and ignored the kitten’s painful bites.

“What do you say, Molly?”

“Oh my, I never expected that you had enjoyed hearing about my exploits this much! Very well. From the beginning, then. The first time I played in the Molympic Games, I only signed up for the burrowthon. My mamma always said it’s a good trial to build stamina and character. That was the first year, and of course, I ranked poorly. Getting a good result is difficult without years of practice.”

Now that Roth could understand everything Molly says, it looked like most of her conversation was about these games. “I tried my luck at joining the Worm Holes, but I discovered I'm not cut out for team sports. After just one season with the team, I dropped it. I do much better when I play solo. Since then, I always try my luck with the hammer instead of in a team.”

This was Roth’s first time hearing about sports in AstroTerra. It looked like it was a significant part of Molian culture. He let Molly keep talking, and once she reached a natural pause in her story, he tried his luck. “I'd like to know—I mean, Lin would like to know what kind of prize there is for whoever wins the games?”

“Depends on the competition. For example, the reigning champion of the burrowthon gets full tunneling rights.”

“Full tunneling rights?” Roth asked, trying to make sense of what that would mean.

“The reigning champion gets to distribute the other moles their turfs,” Molly explained.

“Is that it?” Roth asked, disappointed. It didn’t sound like much. “And imagine that I would like to talk to a representative of your race about starting a trade route with moles. Who would I talk to? Would that be the current champion of the burrowthon?”

“No, no. That would be the undercover mole champion.”

Undercover mole? What kind of competition was that? “Could you take me to meet them?”

“Of course, anything for a friend.” Molly switched directions and started digging in a different direction.

Molly seemed to not only expect good listening skills, but also showed remarkable friendliness when conversing. Molly was more than happy to clear his questions, and Roth would make full use of the opportunity. “How often are these games held?”

“Every month.”

Hearing of a monthly event, Roth couldn't help but think of what he had read in the forums. “Is there a sporting event in the games that involves cockroaches?” Roth tried.

“Oh yes, the cockroach races.”

“How does that work?”

“Moles raise cockroach stock and then release them all at once in the tunnels. Humans come and try to fight them. The cockroaches that survive the longest win the game.”

Roth’s mouth twisted thinking of such a gladiatorial concept. “Uh. Poor cockroaches.”

“We’d eat them anyway. We still do. This way, we get a little fun out of it.”

Roth didn’t agree but, letting out a heavy breath, kept following after Molly. “What other rewards are there?”

“Hmmm… If you win whack-a-mole, you become the general of the Molian army for a month. The list goes on.”

Roth could feel a quest coming. “What happens if someone wins all trials?”

Molly laughed. “That’s impossible. It has never happened.”

“But what would happen?” pressed Roth.

“Whoever won would have full control of Molian society,” Molly answered.

“And can humans participate in the games?” Roth asked, imagining what becoming the king of moles would be like.

“Yes. Anyone can participate,” Molly immediately answered.

While Roth tried to understand how he could make the most of this information, Molly’s digging brought them to a bigger tunnel. As the wall separating the tunnels crumbled, Roth heard the sound of an underground river in the distance.

This tunnel was the widest Roth had seen in these mountains. It was as if he had been walking on little service roads before and only now found the highway. The tunnel was so broad that his night vision wasn't good enough to let him see through to the other side.

Roth spotted a few moving silhouettes in the darkness. There were other moles in the tunnel. There was also something moving before him. Water? He squatted and stretched his miniaturized arm into the moving mass. “Gravel?!” Roth exclaimed. It was an underground river of moving pebbles. How on earth was this possible?

Being in these mole tunnels was a very different experience from Antioch. Instead of the hectic pace of the treeants, all busy, all going somewhere, carrying something, seeing Moles swimming in the gravel river gave this place almost a beachy feel. Roth opened his map and saw that this was called the Rocky River. He frowned, realizing he had received no notification for discovering this place. Did that mean that other players had been here before?

“Hop on, Martyr; otherwise, it will take us forever to get there.” In Roth’s miniaturized form, Molly was considerably larger than him. Instead of reverting to his normal size, Roth accepted the kind invitation and jumped aboard Molly.

Traveling on the Rocky River was very different from traveling on a manmade road. Instead of honking horns, screeching tires, or rumbling engines, there were the piercing squeaks of Moles greeting each other, the endless scraping sound of gravel rubbing against gravel, and Moles swimming through it.

Even though Molly moved reasonably fast while digging through hard rock, once she reached the Rocky River, it was as if she had gained wings. Roth had never imagined that traveling underground could be this fast. Roth began seeing more tunnels and moles.

There was also a thundering sound that became louder the farther Molly traveled. After Molly had been swimming in the gravel for ten minutes, she screamed to make herself heard over the deafening sound, “Brace yourself!”

“Brace myself for what?” Roth stretched his neck, trying to find where Molly was taking him, and saw that the road seemed to disappear ahead of them. Before he could piece together what was happening, they were in freefall. Roth screamed while Lin seemed to be laughing at the experience. Molly adjusted her angle midair, and they finally reached more gravel. She dove into it with her snout and claws, propelling them forward with a powerful stroke and converting the downward momentum into horizontal speed.

Roth’s heart raced as he looked back and saw they had just fallen through a waterfall of gravel: a gravelfall. “How can there be such a thing?”

“We keep digging tunnels and mountains, and the debris has to go somewhere.”

“And what causes the current?”

“As moles swim through the gravel, they create a current. Gravity also helps.”

The whole thing looked crazy to Roth, but he gave points to the developers for their fruitful imagination. Roth looked around and tried to make sense of the space Molly had brought him to. Again, he received no rewards for discovering this place, making him more suspicious that others had been here before.

There were echoey squeaks around him, making Roth feel like they had reached a cathedral. Roth had already gained one more point in perception since reaching these mountains, but it still wasn’t enough to pierce the darkness of this place. Roth grabbed his flashlight and turned it on for the first time in a while.

“No way,” he gasped. To his enhanced night vision, turning on the flashlight was like making the sun rise in this cavern. The cave was so large that Roth could not make its boundaries. The only clue he was underground was the giant stalactites eternally falling from the ceiling and the massive stalagmites emerging from the earth. In some places, they connected, creating massive columns. If it had not been for them, Roth would have feared that such a big cave would collapse. Just how many tons of rubble had to be removed for the Moles to be able to dig up this space? “What is this place?”

“Welcome to the Molympic Colosseum!” Molly declared.