image [https://i.imgur.com/wRsPxl4.png]
Quest Shrine
Pick one of the offered quest cards.
Once again, Will found himself inside a large wooden structure. This one, however, was most definitely not a combination general store and inn.
Tanned hides stretched over the walls, and over them hung tapestries woven from wool and showing a variety of different scenes. Will could see images of Viking dragonships, filled with axe-wielding, horned-helmeted warriors. Images where the same warriors were fighting monsters. Or each other. And images where the warriors were being rewarded for their heroic deeds by beings twice their size.
Axes, shields and helmets were hanging on the wall between the tapestries, as a combination decoration and armoury. None of which, unfortunately, made to fit a wombat.
All in all, Will thought, the place looked like a very well-designed shrine made by someone who had only a vague idea of what Vikings were like.
Not that Will was an expert, of course, but the whole thing had a very ‘made for TV’ feel to it.
Will himself was standing on a raised platform in the middle of the structure, surrounded by three giant playing cards. The cards were just hanging in the air facing away from him, showing the ornately patterned backs, featuring a large exclamation mark, and nothing else.
One of the cards had a copper-coloured pattern, the second bronze, and the last one brass.
Naturally, Will’s first thought was to try and peek at the other side of the cards before picking one of them. However, when he’d gotten to the other side of the cards, all he could see was the same back side as before.
Yeah, I guess that would have been too easy. I’ll have to choose one to see what’s on it.
Will studied the cards carefully, but as far as he could tell there wasn’t any difference between them other than the colour.
Yeah, no clue here. Guess I’ll just choose one at random? Oh well. I’ve always been partial to brass.
Having made his decision, Will raised his front leg and touched the brass-coloured card. The two unchosen cards faded away and vanished, and the brass card flipped around. The first thing Will noticed was that where before it had two identical back sides, he could now see the actual face of the card.
The card was divided into two halves. On the top half, there was an image of a large clockwork rat. The rat was fashioned from plates of brass, which imperfectly covered an incredibly complex interior mechanism. The tail and legs were made of out of segments of metal connected by ball joints and tiny pistons, and the eyes were covered by a large pair of goggles.
Below the image lay a large block of text.
Invasion of the Cog-nition Cog-nation!
Part 1: Creeping Crankscouts
A scout ship of the Cog-nition Cog-nation has discovered the Board, and seeded it with Crankscouts!
These scouts are masters of disguise, and can blend in with any of the native beasts and monsters of the Board, while collecting information and preparing the grounds for their masters to invade.
Even worse, the Crankscouts can use local resources to create even more of themselves.
Find and dispatch the Crankscouts, before they multiply out of control.
20/100 Crankscouts located on the Board
Reward:
200 xp
Uncommon gear
Penalty for failure:
Nemesis Crankscout Cursed skill shard
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I think my life just got a lot more complicated, Will thought. I don’t know what a cursed skill shard is, but I’m fairly sure I won’t like it. Wish I knew how long I have before I fail this thing. I mean, it’s obvious I’ll fail it if they reach a hundred, but how long would that take?
Figuring that it’d be best not to waste whatever time he had, Will looked around for any place where doing his business wouldn’t be offensive to whoever built the shrine. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anywhere obvious, nor did there seem to be any way out of the room.
In the end, Will chose to go to one of the room’s corners. He still felt bad about leaving behind his dice roll, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it, as far as he could tell.
***
image [https://i.imgur.com/zVkiwim.png]
Deep Desert
Going deeper into the desert, even what little life there was in the outskirts begins to vanish.
Only creatures and plants fully adapted to the desert survive here.
But life, as they say, finds a way…
The desert was hot, and dry. The sand was almost painful to stand on, and Will had trouble walking on the grainy surface. Will was standing on the lowest point between two sand dunes, and the only thing he could see within his limited line of sight was sand, sand and more sand.
Main quest
Slay 10 Dust Devils.
Reward:
Space rank-up
100 XP
1 skill shard
A hundred XP. Like the wolves, more than the rats. Does that mean it’ll be as difficult as the wolves?
There was no answer.
I wish I knew what determines the difficulty of those quests. Best guess I have is that the ‘deep’ desert and forest were harder than the ‘outskirts’ of the ruins, but why is this one deep and the ruins outskirts?
Dismissing that line of thought for the moment, Will started climbing one of the dunes. Between Will’s short legs and the sand sliding down wherever he stepped, it took far longer to reach the top than Will would have liked. It was probably half an hour later that Will finally stood at the peak and looked around himself.
With more of the desert visible, Will could mostly see yet even more sand, but also the occasional cactus. At first, there was no sign of anything living, other than the cacti. But as Will started to get used to the view, he began to notice movement, every now and then.
Looking closer at one of the closer occurrences, Will managed to make out a small funnel shape made out of sand and wind, moving slowly across the sand, in what looked like a large circular path.
I don’t think I can fight something like this. Will thought. I’m not sure how one harms a whirlwind full of sand, but I seriously doubt that claws and teeth would do it. Maybe I should just move on from here…
However, just as Will was starting to seriously consider just ignoring the desert Space, a glint of light caught his eye, and he turned to see what had to be a Crankscout.
It looked just like a Dust Devil. If that Dust Devil was solid and made out of brass instead of an ephemeral creation of sand and air.
It had thin hoops of metal, connected by series of constantly moving cogs. The motion kept the hoops spinning around, in imitation of the whirling Dust Devils. The contraption managed to perfectly capture to motion of a whirlwind filled with dust. And yet…
Can this thing really be said to “blend in”? Will wondered, and shrugged. Doesn’t really matter. Those hoops look delicate enough that I should be able to harm it, and I need to take it out before it replicates.
The Crankscout was further away from Will than the Dust Devil he’d noticed earlier, and Will studied the desert sand carefully, trying to plan a route that would get him to his target without coming too close to any of the whirlwinds.
The Dust Devils all looked like they were moving in set patterns. The one he’d first noticed moved in a circle with a diameter of about half a kilometre. About two hundred meters to the left of it, another whirlwind was moving in what looked like a square path. Yet another formed its path into a large pentagram.
It took a while, but Will thought he could move towards the Crankscout without alerting any of the Dust Devils.
That’s with far too many assumptions, of course. I don’t even know how far away they can see me. If they even see, and don’t have some other weird sense I don’t know about. But hey, worst case scenario, I run into a Dust Devil and it scares the dice out of me, Will snickered.
He had to wait a minute for the closest Dust Devil to pass by, and then he walked forward for a hundred and fifty meters.
Now wait for that one to pass… Will stopped and hunkered down, waiting five minutes before moving again.
He kept up the pattern for almost an hour. Moving past one Dust Devil before waiting for the next one to get far enough away. The whirlwinds didn’t seem to be able to ‘see’ him even when he was a mere fifty meters from one of them, and Will found it to be relatively easy to navigate his way to his target.
It was still absolutely nerve-wracking, and Will was more than ready to leave the desert behind by the time he got close enough to the Crankscout to charge.
Will had been having trouble walking on the sand. His paws kept either sinking between the grains or slipping on them. Trying to charge on the sand was even worse, and Will immediately found himself tumbling head over wom-butt in the direction of the brass monster.
Somehow though, Unstoppable Force was still working, and instead of slowing down, Will slammed into the Crankscout like an expertly thrown bowling ball.
The sound of tortured metal filled the desert air as Will’s mass slammed into the thin brass hoops, bending them and throwing the cogs out of alignment. The cogs, instead of spinning at precise distances from each other, starting grinding into their now far too close neighbors, starting a chain reaction that quickly tore the living contraption to pieces.
Dust Devil Crankscout slain!
Gained 10 XP
Will, however, did not escape the collision unscathed. The Crankscout’s brass hoops turned out to have sharpened edges, and one of his ears managed to get caught between two cogs and get nearly completely torn out.
Sliced, mangled, and dizzy, Will stumbled back to his feet.
I really don’t like this desert.
Half on auto-pilot, Will touched the remains of the Crankscout and activated his Hunter skill. Or tried to activate it, anyway. The skill refused to work on the pile of metal.
Right. Hunter only works on beast type monsters. That thing is about as far away from being a beast as something can get.
The sounds of blowing wind and the rustling of sand caught Will’s attention, and looking around himself, he could see all of the Dust Devils he’d managed to avoid converging on him.
Yeah, that’s definitely my cue to leave…