Peaches swooped us back to the shallows of the bay where the bottoms of the boats were visible out in the distance as they sat docked. Iagan had asked Maggie on the way in about the different types of ingredients we’d be looking for.
I pulled up the list Velimnicus gave us that I’d written down into my notes:
-Pufferfin Spines
-SeaGrapes
-Angel’s Halo
-Oceangrass
-Ghost Coral
Maggie spent the last of our second under water breathing potion showing us the different plants and I took pictures of them to help make finding them easier. Every last one of them categorized themselves into the magical reagents tab. Since we were so close to the surface we swam up and popped our last breathing potion, the chewy seaweed still the same disgusting mixture it had been. It was the last one so I was grateful to be done with them. I pulled on my pair of gloves to protect my hands and summoned my serrated knife and set to work looking for everything we’d need.
Pufferfin spines as it turned out were an urchin like plant that was a bright yellow with green spikes protruding out from it. Maggie had cautioned us to be extra careful when handling them as they were known to have a poison and paralysis effect if pricked. Thankfully the poison wouldn’t be too much for us as people but it was devastating if multiple spikes entered at once. I was very dainty with handling them.
Oceangrass was easy enough, it’s long wavy leaves swayed back and forth in the current as grass on the plains would in the wind. I took several handfuls from the patches I could find. The Seagrapes were clusters of small gem like barnacles that glimmered with violet hues in the shifting lights. I was careful not to pop them as I harvested them one at a time with my knife tip freeing them from their perch.
Iagan swam a distance away from me with his own collecting.
The pale white Ghost Corals looked almost like icy shells of the fans they once were. They were delicate, but sturdy enough to handle the changes in currents but broke easily when I applied pressure. Velimnicus had warned us to keep them as unbroken as possible so I attempted to be gentle when handling them. They sent off to my inventory where they would be safer.
A pink text box appeared as Iagan whispered me.
Mr.BigwIggy whispered to [The Group]:
That was one of the many quests we’d picked up in Seamyst. I pulled up the quest tracker for it and refreshed myself of the details.
[::Lost Necklace::]
[Locate Reyla’s lost necklace in the bay]
[Reward: 15 gold]
15 gold had seemed like a good investment of time when we were flat broke before our stroll but now that we’d found the treasure chest it almost seemed like it wasn’t going to be useful. Still gold is gold and if dragons horded it then so could I. I continued to harvest the ingredients as I went along, keeping my map of the bay pulled up in my HUD. A large manta ray swam by as I searched and I managed to take a picture of it, securing another animal for the Floor.
[Floor 1 Animals 21/25]
Time ticked away and we had less than [10:00] left by the time I connected with Iagan again.
“Did you find the necklace?” I asked. He shook his head, his mauve hair swishing back and forth.
“No such luck.” He frowned. “We’re running out of time.”
“Yeah.” I looked back at my map. Our location marker showed us practically on top of it. I swam down to the coral bed, the schools of fish quickly darted away at my approach. I focused all my energy on searching for any hint or glimpse of the necklace as I glided across the rocky bed.
A flash of gold glimmered out of the corner of my vision and I almost ignored it when a soft ping of a bell chimed out of nowhere.
Ping!
I stopped abruptly looking around at what had made the sound. “Did you hear that?” I called over to Iagan who was a few feet off to my right.
“Hear what?” He asked, not looking.
“The ping?”
“No, I didn’t hear a ping.”
The glimmer of gold flashed again and this time I figured out what had caused it. A fish that had a singular golden scale that flapped right under its fin. My HUD highlighted it and my Investigation perk [Thourogh Investigation] showed right away that the scale was freely hanging off the fish attached to a thin chain.
“IAGAN!” I shouted pointing to our prey. “FISH!”
Iagans’ head popped up and he immediately went after it. He launched through the water with a speed I hadn’t anticipated, blowing past me and after the fish. Iagan chased the fish with a fervor of a starving man desperate for his next meal, but being in the fishes natural habitat meant it had the home field advantage in this instance. I waved Maggie and Peaches ove r as the last remaining bits of time escaped our timers.
“Maggie can we borrow Peaches for something?” I asked.
Maggie was busy watching Iagan’s attempt to catch the speedy fish with amusement. “Yeah sure, but this is way more entertaining.”
Maggie put her fingers to her lips and whistled for Peaches, pointing after Iagan and the fish. Peaches didn’t need to be told twice, rocketing off even faster than Iagan had. It circled around catching the distracted fish by surprise and Peaches clamped down on it stopping it in its tracks. Peaches bobbed its head up and down with a toothy dolphin grin as Iagan came and freed the necklace from the fish. Peaches made quick work of the new treat as Iagan held up the necklace triumphantly.
[Quest Complete: ::Lost Necklace::]
[New Quest Available ::Return Lost Necklace::]
[Find Reyla and return the necklace.]
[Reward: 15 Gold]
Iagan and Peaches met back up with me and Maggie and with the last of our potion Peaches pulled us back to the docks in front of Maggie’s shop. I clammored out of the ocean and flopped onto the deck, the last of the timer finally running out as I took deep grateful breaths of actual air.
“That’s it for the stroll!” Maggie said popping up out of the water as her seal body easily landed on the docks beside us.
“That was wonderful Maggie.” I said glossing over the near death encounter we’d had with the giant squid. That wasn’t her fault in the least so I couldn’t blame her for it. “This will be a wonderful tale to tell in my write up in my compendium.”
“Ah yes well, make sure to write about it favorably if you can manage.” She cautioned, clearly not wanting her business’ reputation to take a hit from the squid thing. Iagan kneeled down at the edge of the dock and patted Peaches.
“You were a big help too, Peaches.” He praised the porpoise. Peaches chattered and ducked under the water coming back up and leaping into the air with a big toothy grin. My eyes widened.
“Wait wait! Do that one more time, I wasn’t ready!” I said scrambling to hold my camera. Peaches obliged and I got a shot of Iagan and Peaches like the poster of Free Tilly the movie about a kid and a whale. Perfect.
Dripping wet Iagan and I summoned our towels and dried off as best we could. We bid farewell to Maggie Clearwater and Peaches the dolphin, our quest chain with them finally complete. The weight of everything finally hit me as we made it back to our room at the Two Fin Inn, finding our laundry bags ready and waiting for us and I excused myself to change in the small bathroom.
I looked absolutely ragged. My hair was a mess, I had some minor scrapes up and down my arms from the fight with the squid and my face had paled a few shades lighter than usual. I changed into a fresh set of clothes, the smell of citrus surrounded me as I threw on one of my ‘I survived the Rainbow’ shirt. Thank noodles for small favors as now I didn’t completely stink of seaweed. I toweled the rest of the water out of my hair and shuffled my way out of the room and flopped face down onto the bed.
Iagan had taken the time to change out of his wet clothes too, hanging them over the railing outside to dry in the afternoon sun. Now that everything had calmed from our underwater adventure I could finally address some of the notifications that had all popped up at once when we’d defeated the squid.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The most important one involved my [Photography] skill which had leveled up to level 5. And that meant I could choose a new Perk to go with it. I opened the notification, the head of Jaspar Roqor was nowhere to be found having had me successfully complete the tutorial beforehand. A text box pulled up on my HUD presenting me with the two choices I could pick from for level 5.
[Shutterbug- Pressing and holding the shutter will now automatically continue to take pictures]
[Night Mode- Pictures taken in darkened environments now come out clearer]
I thought about them for a moment as this skill was likely to be one of the more important ones I would choose as my whole [Tourist] class revolved around it. Shutterbug would continue to take pictures while pressed, which sounded like it would help when activating my flash. I was pretty good at clicking buttons thanks to my experience as a gamer but it would certainly be more useful to have it automatically continue to take them on its own. Night Mode could be useful but since I had the Light spell as well as the flash I didn’t really see it being too useful overall.
So I chose [Shutterbug] and it activated adding another section of text to my Camera’s description which was now getting quite lengthy.
[MykaReviews’s Water Proof Camera] -For the Photo Compendium! |Floor 1 Memory card| |Flash ?/NA|
Properties-Flash has a chance to stun target on first picture taken. Chance to activate raises after multiple attempts versus same target.
Perks: Shutterbug- Pressing and holding the shutter will now automatically continue to take pictures.
Upgrades active 1/2: [Water Proof]]
“Did you level anything?” I asked finishing up with my upgrade. Iagan was sprawled out on the one bed, an arm resting across his eyes.
“Yeah, I got a level in baton weapons and daggers so that was nice and another in swords. I’ve still gotta pick out my perk for that one but I can’t choose so I’m sleeping on it.”
“Level 5 in swords is great,” I said with a polite golf clap. “What are the perks you can choose from?”
“[Blade Master] and [Dual Wielding].” He said sitting up, a stern frown across his face. “I can’t pick! Blade Master lets me get experience with swords twice as fast but dual wielding lets me have two swords at once.”
Two gems appeared in his cupped hand, a diamond and an emerald. The two named gemstones from the treasure chest that my HUD identified as socketable. [Fog Machine] appeared in his other hand, the blue and red gems set into the guard. He removed them, setting them off to the side as he fit the clear and green gems in instead. He let out a breath as he activated his magic, immediately a wind picked up in the room. Faintly I could see brown ripples of sandy dirt traveling up the edges of the blade as it caught in the wind.
“If I go dual wielding with another sword like this I could have all four of these gems active at once.” He continued, letting the magic fade to a stop. The wind died down and the dust the sword produced drifted in the beams of light let in through the open window.
“That certainly sounds easier than swapping the stones for when you need them.” I said folding my arms across my chest. A relief settled in my shoulders, grateful that this wasn’t my class choice to choose. “Although if you go the dual wielding route it sounds like you’d need to boost your magic to keep up with using both at once.”
“Which begs the question: how do you grind magic?” Iagan replaced the red and blue stones back into the guard of [Fog Machine], sending the remaining two away to his inventory.
“I get spell levels from using my actual spells.” I said looking to the magic meter on my HUD. Roqor’s tutorial hadn’t covered what skill set was needed to advance how much magic one could work with. “We might need to find someone and ask.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.” He said with a sigh, dismissing the blade back to his inventory. He focused on something I couldn’t see as something else fell into his hand as he held it out to me. “Anyways if I’m getting the two gems it’s only fair that you get the tiara.”
The three rusty red gemstones set at the center were the size of a nickel, the bronze wrapped like a double helix around them holding them in place. It looked a little big for my head but when I put it on it adjusted itself to sit right across my forehead. My HUD identified my new piece of equipment bringing up it’s stats.
[Garnet Tiara of Minor Illusion: Create a sound or an image that lasts for the duration of your magic meter unless dismissed or cast the spell again. Images made using this action cannot make sounds, smells or any other sensory effect. Physical interaction will reveal that it is an illusion. Sounds will persist until changed or stopped.]
“Oh wow.” I breathed.
“Oh wow.” The tiara echoed over and over again. I quickly stopped it, my eyes darted to my magic meter that had started to deplete upon its use.
“The tiara uses my magic.”
“Makes sense since it’s magical.” Iagan said. I spent some more time playing with my new item even making a double of myself as she mimicked the same motions I made silently. It drained my magic faster than I cared to admit but it was worth it to work everything out now before I’d need it later on down the line.
We went out for lunch, picking up some street kebobs on our walk back to Velimnicus’ to drop off the potion ingredients we’d gathered. We pushed in through the door to the potion house this time. The interior was a vibrant mix of greens with golden accents, and several oil lamp sconces attached firmly to the wall. Bottles lined the shelves along the wall, their tags like scarves hanging down declaring their prices.
Velimnicus with his long brown hair tucked back behind his pointed ears and tied off at the base of his neck wore a pair of goggles today. A soft bell chimed upon our entry yet the Elven man remained focused intently on his pour, holding up a finger before we could say anything. The final drop dripped in and he pulled the small vial away as the bottle he’d poured into now started to change in a whirlwind of different colors and shades before settling into a stormy blue. My HUD instantly focused on it once the color settled, my [Thorough Investigation] perk working as intended. He let out a soft sigh and put the vial back into a rack on the counter behind him finally facing us.
His goggles amplified the bright shock in his recognition and he quickly pulled them off. “Welcome back from your stroll! I trust everything went well?”
“It went well enough,” I said glossing over the encounter with the squid. “We were able to get a lot of the stuff you asked for.”
“Oh good!” Velimnicus nodded as he pulled off his rubber gloves and tucked them into a pocket in his apron. He made space on the counter for us, gingerly moving the stormy potion out of the way. I summoned all the magical reagents we’d gathered in our swim in the bay, Iagan added to the pile with his own stacks until they nearly overflowed off the edge. Velimnicus let out a low whistle and clapped his hands together as he looked over the bounty we’d acquired.
“Will this be enough to pay for the extra potions?” I asked.
“That and then some.” He said, the excitement evident in his voice. “Most people can’t gather this much in a single trip so I appreciate the extra dedication and effort.”
The bees thrummed in my chest, there was a deal to be made here if I pushed further. “How much extra do you think we got for you?”
Velimnicus looked up from the seaside bounty, the rings the goggles had pressed into his face circled his eyes like invisible glasses as he blinked. “Oh yes, I can compensate you for the extra in coin or perhaps we could come to an agreement?”
I looked to Iagan who had raised his own eyebrow before he tapped at his wrist and a notification box popped up on my screen.
[Role Changed to PARTY LEADER:
You have one (1) member in your party. You can now see other Party Member’s Health and Mana bars. Bonus* to Charisma activated while in the -Party Leader- role. *Bonus scales with number of members in your group.]
Apparently he’d been given the [Party Leader] status when we parted ways from Maggie’s group. Still, he passed the reigns back over to me and I accepted. After some back and forth over the true price of the bounty we’d brought in we had enough left over to pay for two regular healing potions which we were in desperate need of. He also gave back the bear pelt which immediately went back into Iagan’s inventory since it was still too much for me to carry. Iagan let it slip that we’d fought the giant squid and the potion master’s eyes nearly boggled out of his head as we spread out the ingredients Iagan was forced to lug around with his higher [Strength] level.
“I’ll take the beak, eyeball, and the ink sack for two superior healing potions and a potion of magic regeneration.” Velimnicus all but tripped over the words as he quickly tried to [Haggle]. The bees didn’t argue with that, and frankly that was more than even I’d expected to receive in return. So I didn’t look the gift elf in the mouth and accepted the trade.
[Skill level increase: Haggle level 5]
A new text box popped up for the two perks I could pick from.
[Buy One Get One: Get half off the smallest priced item when buying bulk.]
[Silver Tongue: Friendliness meters will now show above all shopkeepers.]
I recalled the Skill Challenge I’d been a part of when first meeting Plyne and those meters that had been a part of it. Having those readily available would certainly help make haggling for things much easier if I could see what way the other person was leaning. The BOGO option could be good if I had the funds to buy things in bulk more frequently but for now it wasn’t worth burning the perk slot. I picked [Silver Tongue] and watched as a friendliness meter popped into view on my HUD resting over Velimnicus’ head, remaining firmly in the green but not all the way to the side.
The shopkeeper gingerly handled the materials, placing them carefully into a larger set of glass containers on the back counter. A wide smile plastered across his face. “You two sure know how to make a man’s day. Monster Reagents are rare enough on this floor without having to go through the cross floor auction house.”
“Oh really?” Inwardly I felt my bees thrum in disappointment in realizing I could have waited to sell those in Dawnrise.
“You’ve never been to the Auction House?” The potion master asked. “You can buy pretty much anything under the sun there. Bit of fair warning though: locals in the cities that have the Cross Floor Auction Houses tend to be a bit more on the pricy side as they’re trying to recoup their losses from buying the ingredients they require for their wares. If you can supply them what they need they’ll usually deduct some from the price.”
A valuable tip that I quickly input into my wrist HUD as he finished speaking. “Thanks Velimnicus. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”
I wasn’t completely over-encumbered by the time we left, but my packs were full enough that I felt satisfied with everything we’d accomplished. Dropping off the necklace to Reyla for the [::Lost Necklace::] quest didn’t take too long either and it quickly left the quest tracker once the coin hit our purses.
“You wanna go shopping?” Iagan asked as we made our way back down toward the seawall. I shook my head in a tired daze.
“I think I’m gunna head back to the room and rest. Today kicked my butt.”
Iagan walked me back to the room but declined to rest, giving me free reign of the bed which I happily flopped onto and promptly passed out.