The next day, we all were sitting near the northern road to the city, waiting for Amber’s caravan to arrive. She had sent me a message earlier saying the city was in sight, and by now we could vaguely make out a few wagons or carts on the road. Presumably, that was them.
“So, how are we going to find her?” Celeste asked.
“That shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll just tell her we’re over by the big statue.” I said, pointing at Horvath.
“I really wish you’d stop using me as a landmark.”
“Why? You’re very convenient. You stand out, and you’re always around us. It’s perfect.”
“Whatever…” He turned back to the road. “Huh, I could be wrong, but it looks like all of their wagons are metal. And they don’t seem to have horses, either.”
“Really? I had heard the dwarves and gnomes were more focused on mechanics and technology, rather than magic. Still, I can’t imagine they have cars. It was my understanding it was more of a steampunk style society.”
“... Steampunk?” Aurora tilted her head slightly at the unfamiliar word.
“You haven’t heard of it? It’s a kinda of science fiction based on an alternate take on the victorian era with a lot of peculiar steam powered technology. It was really popular a while back. We even played a game in a world like that for a while.”
Horvath shook his head. “Don’t remind me. Your steam powered grenade launcher caused so many more issues than it fixed.”
“Maybe, but it was fun. And versatile once I started making different styles of grenade. The healing grenades were particularly entertaining to launch at people who didn’t know about them.”
“Fun for you, maybe. They were usually scared out of their wits by that. Anyway, it’s unusual to see steampunk mixed with high fantasy like we’ve seen so far. It makes me wonder what other styles are out there.”
I just shrugged. “Who knows. We’ll have to explore and find out.”
As we continued to watch the advancing caravan, we could finally make out some details. As expected, the people travelling were all dwarves and gnomes. The dwarves were fairly typical fantasy dwarves, with short, bulky statures and long beards. None of them seemed to be clean shaven, but I couldn’t tell if that was because they were all men, or if dwarven women have beards as well.
Gnomes are a bit less predefined, and nearly every fantasy setting has a slightly different take on them. In SWO, they seemed to be even shorter than the dwarves, with thinner frames overall. They also all had brightly colored hair, most of which was in colors that seemed unnatural. There were several with purple, blue, and green hair running around or riding on the metal wagons.
Speaking of the wagons, we could now make out more details of them as well. There seemed to be two distinct types in the group, which I guessed were the difference between the dwarven made and gnomish made wagons. The dwarven wagons were, much like the dwarves themselves, more heavily built. We could see now that these wagons had what was probably a basic steam engine on them, though they didn’t seem to move any faster than the horse drawn wagons of other races. I suppose that makes sense for game balance, but I imagine it frustrates people using them.
The Gnomish wagons didn’t have a steam engine on them. Instead, two gnomes seemed to be sitting in the front of each one. These gnomes operated a set of bicycle-like pedals, which drove the wagon forward. When one of the pedalers got tired, they would switch with one of the other passengers, while the second pedaler maintained the wagon’s movement on their own temporarily.
As the caravan reached the city and was dealing with the guards, I sent a short message to Amber.
Hey, we just watched you all reach the city. Look for the big statue, and don’t be surprised if it moves. That’s just Horvath.
With that, she shouldn’t have any trouble finding us. The northern side of town wasn’t exactly crowded anyway. Most people were still visiting the Nomads marketplace, so the only people around here were people like us who were waiting for the dwarves and gnomes.
It didn’t take long for the guards to allow the caravan to enter the city, and the members began to split off and go their separate ways in the city. One gnome with bright green twintails came running over to us excitedly. She was wearing leather armors, and had a crossbow with some odd attachments on it strapped to her back.
“Yay! I finally found you all! That trip was so boring! I couldn’t do any of the fun ideas I had on the way because they might have thrown me out of the caravan!”
Horvath facepalmed at Amber’s outburst. I was actually impressed, I think she managed to get that reaction from him even faster than I did. Not by much, but I think she was faster.
“Hey Amber. Good to see you, too.”
“Wait, are you Lilith? Wow, you had told me about it, but it’s actually pretty funny to see in person.”
“Ah, yeah it’s me.”
“Let’s see, the big one is Horvath, so the one sticking close to him must be Simona. That makes you two Aurora and Celeste, right? I’m Amber!”
Celeste waved. “Yep, I’m Celeste, and this is Aurora.”
“You know, I was going to do introductions. Ah well, I guess that’s done. Now that you’re here, shall we head off. I imagine you might be interested in the Nomad’s marketplace while it’s here. We can talk while we walk around.”
“Sounds good!”
“So, how was the trip?” I asked.
“Ah, it was dull, but not bad. Because there were so many of us we didn’t face any real danger. The biggest complaint was when it was my turn on the pedals on the cart. I wish we just used dwarven carts, instead of the gnomish ones.”
“Yeah, we saw those. So the steam engine carts were dwarven?”
“Yep. Both Dwarves and Gnomes make a lot of technology, but in the case of the gnomes it’s usually more… whimsical. Our cities sometimes resembled a Dr. Suess book. Strange machines that serve no real purpose and could be made much more efficiently are all over the place. I don’t think I saw a single straight line on anything while I was there. The whole thing was pretty chaotic. You’d probably like it.”
That actually does sound like a fun place. We might have to make a visit eventually.
“So Amber. What kind of class did you end up with, and how do you fight?” Horvath asked her, changing the subject.
“Oh, right. I’m a class called a Tinkerer. It’s a mix of rogue type skills and crafting. It gives the specialized skill called Tinkerer that allows me to modify equipment and tools to do various things, though right now I still can only do minor modifications. I also picked up the Artificer skill so I can make devices as well. So I make them, then later can tweak them as needed.
“As for fighting, I use my crossbow as you can see, as well as consumable devices when necessary. I’ve been messing with my crossbow some, so it’s fairly effective, but reload times are still too long. I’m hoping to figure out a way to make it semi-auto, but my skill isn’t high enough yet.” She patted the crossbow on her back.
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“Unfortunately, my reliance on ammunition and consumables makes my class a bit expensive. Luckily I can offset the cost some since I make most of the things I use myself. Which reminds me, I also wanted to do some farming while we’re here. There’s a component I can get from the desert scorpions around this city that I need to make a new type of crossbow bolt.”
Horvath nodded. “That’s fine, we’ve been hunting them some in our spare time, and they aren’t that hard to beat. What type of thing do you need from them?”
“Venom glands. I want to make some poisoned bolts, and I hear they’re a good low level poison I can use.”
Horvath and the twins stopped and stared at me a moment, while Simona and Amber looked at them confused.
“Did… Did you know she needed them?” Celeste stammered.
“Hmm? No, not really. I just figured they might come in helpful, or at least entertaining.” I shrugged, then turned to Amber. “How many do you need?”
Amber still seemed a bit confused. “Oh, about 20 should be plenty.”
Before she had finished, I materialized 20 venom glands and handed them to her. She looked them over a moment.
“Yep, these are perfect. Why did you already have 20 of them?”
“I didn’t. I had 63 of them, and now I have 43. Like I just said I had no reason, I’ve just been collecting them since we got here. Seems like a good thing I did.”
Amber nodded acknowledging my sound decision, and we began walking again. The others quickly recovered and caught up.
“It always surprises me how you two are able to see something strange like that, and just accept it as though it was normal.” Horvath said, shaking his head.
“What do you mean? How is it abnormal to collect a potentially useful resource?”
“Most people wouldn’t be carrying over 60 of them! Especially when they don’t even know if they have a use!”
As if we had planned it, both Amber and I turned to Horvath, and in unison said ““Why not?””. He just sighed and gave up. Behind us, I heard Celeste quietly mutter. “Wow, they really are siblings, aren’t they.”
After walking a bit further, Amber turned and looked up at the golem who was more than twice her height. “Hey Horvath, could you kneel down a minute?”
Horvath looked a bit confused, but assuming she wanted to be closer to eye level, he complied and knelt in front of her. Once he was lowered he looked at her questioningly as she inspected him a moment.
“Good, that’ll work nicely.” She said, then nimbly jumped up and sat down on his shoulder. “That’s better. I can’t see through the crowds down there, so give me a ride for a while.”
“What? Why should I?” He asked, reaching up to remove her.
“But down there if I get separated from you all, I won’t be able to find you again. I suppose if you’d rather, I can just start making explosions until you come find me when I get lost.”
Horvath’s hands froze. He knew better than to think that was an empty threat. If she got separated from us in this crowd, it would almost certainly turn into a fireworks show.
“Fine, you can ride. It’s not like you’re heavy, anyway.” He said with a sigh.
That statement earned him a knock on the head from his passenger.
“You should know better than to comment on a lady’s weight.”
“What, I was saying you weren’t heavy. It’s kind of a compliment!”
“Nope, you shouldn’t even mention it. Ask Simona. It doesn’t matter if it’s a compliment, a woman’s weight is off limits!” She started flailing around. Though he couldn’t see her, from my perspective it was pretty clear she was just feigning offense.
“Alright, alright. Quit moving around so much or you’ll fall off, and I’m not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” I said to change the subject, “where you able to find the thing I asked you about?”
“Hmm?” Amber tilted her head a minute, before remembering what I was talking about. “Oh, that. No, I couldn’t find it. But I should be able to make one eventually, if you can wait.”
“That’s fine. We can’t get the other component yet anyway, so the whole project is sort of on hold. We’ll get there eventually.” We both sported mischievous smiles.
“I’m not sure what the two of you are plotting, but judging by your expressions it’s probably nothing good.” Horvath commented. It was hard for him to ignore that conversation, when Amber was literally sitting right next to his ear.
“Oh, don’t worry. It shouldn’t affect you too much. I just had an awesome idea a while ago and asked Amber to help with it.”
“No, I learned a long time ago that when you two have that expression on your faces, I should be worried. That’s the expression you make when you’re up to something.”
“It’s fine, this idea isn't nearly as destructive as they usually are. In fact, it might even be good. Besides, you just heard us say we can’t carry it out yet.”
“No, if you two are keeping it a secret, it is almost never a good thing.”
“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject again. “Now that we’re all here, we should make some plans for the future. Maybe even decide on a goal, but at the very least we should think about what we’re going to do now. I’ve been in this city for a few days now, so I’m ready to get back out to the adventuring.”
Amber nodded. “I’m fine with that. I have pretty much everything I need, and while we’re in this market I should be able to get everything else. Where do we want to go? Just roam through the wilderness again?”
“Oh, that sounds fun!” Celeste chimed in.
“It is, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet. For now, we should probably stick to more civilized areas until we get more experience. For now, I did find that ruin about a day away from here. How about we go explore that?”
Horvath nodded. “Sure, that should be a decent place to start. What kind of enemies were there?”
“Well, that’s the issue. All I saw were undead. There were quite a few skeletons and zombies. But I wasn’t even able to get into the underground portion of the place.”
“... Why is them being undead a problem?” Aurora asked, turning to me.
“Well, I specialize in manipulating the mind of my enemies, right? Undead don’t have a mind to manipulate usually, so I’ll be just about useless in there. I’m all for going, but I won’t be much help unfortunately. I’ll mostly have to use my whip and Inspire spell, as nothing else will work. Actually, you’ll probably be the most powerful one of us in there.”
Aurora looked at her stats a moment. “I do have some skills for fighting undead.”
“Yep, priests usually do. So we’ll be relying on you pretty heavily.”
She nodded, slightly hesitantly. “... Alright, leave it to me.”
From her perch on Horvath’s shoulder, Amber seemed to be thinking about something.
“What’s up?”
“Well, usually slashing and piercing type damage is less effective on undead, right? So I was thinking of ways to modify our weapons to help that some. For me it’s easy, since I can just make blunt crossbow bolts. But to modify Simona’s swords and Celeste’s spear might be a bit trickier. I was thinking an attachment that can be removed later, since I doubt they want me to permanently blunt their weapons.”
I see, that makes sense. Aside from Aurora’s magic and Horvath’s mace, our party really isn’t naturally good at fighting undead.
“Um, I actually might be alright.” Simona said. Now that she mentioned it, I don’t think we ever actually heard anything about her class. We got busy getting caught up and forgot all about it.
“My class is a Bladedancer, and basically it gives various effects while fighting by changing the dance I’m using. One of the dances I have adds holy damage to my attacks, and is supposed to be useful for undead.”
“Ah, well there we go then. Now we just need to figure out what to do about Celeste’s spear...” Amber looked at the spear on Celeste’s back. “I suppose I could make a sort of cap to put over the tip. You might need to change how you use it though. It’ll be more like a quarterstaff than a spear at that point.”
“That should be fine. I might need some time to get used to it, but I don’t see it being too much of an issue.”
I glanced at the time in my menu. “Hey Amber, how long do you think that’ll take you?”
“Not too long. A couple hours maybe. Why?”
“Well, how about this then. Let’s wait till tomorrow morning in real life before we head out. It’s getting pretty late here, and I should probably get some sleep.”
“Ah, that makes sense. I’ll stay online a bit and get the spear fixture and my bolts made.”
Celeste nodded and looked at Aurora. “We should probably get some rest too. I guess we’ll see you all in the morning then.”
As she went to sign out, Amber hopped down from Horvath's shoulder and stopped her. “Could you leave your spear with me? It’ll be easier to make if I’ve got it.”
“Oh, right.” Celeste transferred the spear to Amber, then signed out. Amber held the spear almost as tall as she was for a moment, then put it into her inventory.
“Alright, I guess I’ll be signing out too. Don’t stay on too late, or our parents will get mad at me.”
“I won’t. Oh, that reminds me. Dad says he and Lily are in the western forest, so we should go see them sometime.”
“Alright, we can add that to our itinerary. See you all later.”
With that, I signed out.