"Noah!" a voice screamed from the room beside them, "Wrong room, dude!"
"Uh... my bad," Noah took a step back and said. Mona started to close her door as she retreated into her cave. "Wait!" Noah slammed his hand on her door. She frowned.
"What do you want?" her tone came out harsher than she meant and she let out a soft cough afterward.
"Do yo-"
"Why you so slow, man?" another man suddenly popped up and wrapped his arms around Noah's shoulder. The man's brown eyes suddenly turned to look at Mona and when he saw her his eyes widened. A smug smile appeared on his face as he gave Mona a wink.
"Well hello there, neighbor! Didn't know that I had such a good looking neighbor this whole time," the man smiled at her. Mona scowled at him as she brought her long cardigan closer to her body. Since she had come back, she just had on a red tank and grey shorts on. She threw on a knee-length cardigan before she went to open the door and not much else because she didn't expect to see Noah there.
"Derrick!" Noah elbowed his friend before he gave Mona an apologetic smile, "sorry about that, Mona. This guy here is an idiot."
"Woah! You know this girl and didn't introduce?!" Derrick looked hurt as he pulled his arm back, "come on man! You can't just hog all the good looking girls to yourself! Isn't hot college chicks at school good enough for you?"
"Shut up, Derrick!" Noah's face flushed red before he pushed Derrick off of him.
"Duuude. Sharing is caring!" Derrick said as he pushed his yellow glasses closer to his face. Mona rolled her eyes as she proceeded to close the door again.
"Wait!" Noah interrupted her again as he placed his hand on the door. She frowned at his hand before her eyes trail to his face. He let out a nervous laugh. "Do you... live here?" he asked.
"If you don't get your hand off the door, I'm calling the cops," Mona simply replied.
"You do, don't you?" Noah ignored her threat, "then why? Why did you lie to Matthew?" she could see her sour reflection through Noah's dark blue eyes.
"Why do you want to know? I don't think we have a close enough relationship for me to say anything to you," Mona hissed.
"Woah lady, why so much hostility?" Derrick frowned as he stepped in front of Noah, as if to defend his friend.
"Your friend is here is not my friend. Why should I waste my efforts to be nice to a stranger?"
"G-girl!" Derrick pointed a finger at her, "what's her name Noah? Was it Monica?" Derrick looked back at Noah.
"Derrick," Noah tried to pull him back.
"No wait, it was Mona wasn't it? Oh yeah, that girl," Derrick nodded like something clicked in his head as he turned back and looked at Mona, "listen here, Mona, if it weren't for my friend here, you probably wouldn't even be here right now. He was nice enough to feed you and care for you and this is how you show your thanks?!"
"I didn't ask him to."
"W-what?" Derrick asked as if he didn't understand her.
"I said, I didn't ask him to. He did it because he wanted to. Did I point a gun to his head and tell him to? I didn't now, did I? Now, if you creeps are done then move out of the way," Mona pulled her door shut. After a second of thought, she opened it again to see hope in Noah's eyes. "And, don't tell your roommate I live here... or else, I will file a report. You wouldn't want that on your records now would you, medical boy?" Mona sneered before she slammed her door shut. She heard an angry yell from outside as she bolted her door.
"What an unbelievably rude bitch!" Derrick screamed.
"Derrick! Stop! Let's just go," Noah's muffled voice came through and Mona felt a tinge of guilt as she walked away from her door. She bit her lip for a moment before shaking her head. She ate a small dinner, chewing slowly as if to waste time. Afterward, she washed her dishes and ran back. She pulled her VR helmet back on and laid on the bed.
-
Ferti ran to Dspects house as she was respawned near the water fountains. When she got there, the rest of the group was there already as they died before her. Dspects glared at her as he sat on the chair crossing his arms. Foggy just looked at her as if he had been wronged as Elizabat stood behind him without an expression on her face.
“Wonderful job there, man. Yea, just ice the damn monster and fucking burn it afterward to melt the ice. Real smart idea you had there!” Dspects jabbed at her. She gave them an apologetic smile.
“Sorry guys, I wasn’t really thinking there I guess,” she strode over and pulled out a chair for herself.
"I can't believe you just left me behind like that!" Foggy pouted.
"My bad, man," Ferti crossed her fingers together before setting them down on the table, "anyways, let's review. So now we know that um... using fire after ice won't work out so well. I suggest that we use light magic next," Ferti explained.
"Why?" Dspects frowned and asked.
"I had been reading up on these creatures and I found that they are weak to ice, fire, and light magic."
"What?!" Dspects exclaimed, "dude I tried searching these creatures up and got absolutely no info on them. How'd you find any info?"
"Yea, I didn't get anything either," Foggy chimed in.
"Uh... maybe you guys are just not looking in the right places," Ferti shrugged her shoulders.
"Then where have you been looking? Cuz the official forums of Road Builder ain't got shit," Dspects raised an eyebrow.
"In the public library," Ferti simply answered.
"The... what?"
"The public library in town."
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Like the library in your city?" Foggy asked, confused.
"No, the public library in the kingdom. The Meleheim public library," Ferti explained.
"Ohhh," Foggy nodded and Dspects just gave her a weird look.
"What?" she asked him.
"Huh? Oh... nothing," Dspects replied and shrugged his shoulders, "just that I didn't think people actually read the books in the library."
"I recommend you do it sometimes. It's could come in handy one day when you go hunting," Ferti said. Dspects just shrugged his shoulders again. Ferti ignored him as she turned her attention to Foggy.
"What's your cooldown time for your ice and light spell? I could see your stats earlier when we were fighting so I know that your ice spell takes about 2 minutes to chant and light magic takes about three minutes but I forgot to look at the cooldown time," Ferti asked.
"Let me check," Foggy said before he summoned his status menu, "my ice magic take about 40 seconds to cooldown while my light magic takes about 60 seconds," he answered. Ferti clicked her tongue before cocking her head.
"We are going to shorten that time down. If we go by that time then it will take us forever to hunt and the effects for being the first one to discover Snib's Crib will be over in five real-world days which means we only have 480 game hours left in order to make use of that benefit..." Ferti furrowed her brows before biting her lip.
"We can just buy some items to bring down his cooldown time or enchanting time," Elizabat suggested.
"Yea, but we don't really have money and not only that but to buy an item that will bring down his cooldown time like that might cost quite a bit," Dspects commented. Ferti touched her chin before an idea came to her.
"I am a noobie here so help me guys," she said as she laced her fingers together and looked at them with hopeful eyes, "how much are potions in this game?"
"Potions? Why, do you have any?" Foggy questioned.
"I do. One of the three skills I selected was the Alchemist skill so I tried making potions the other night."
"Oh yea. I forgot you bought herbs from us. Anyways, your potion probably won't sell for much since you only joined the game. Assuming that you made any successful potions then it probably is a poor grade potion and those only go for about 20 coppers."
"Ohh... how about low and normal grade potions?"
"Low goes for about 50 coppers and normal grade potions go for about a silver. Beginners and intermediate gamers really like normal grade potions as they restore a lot of health. They also tend to buy from other players as the Alchemist Center sells them for about three silvers a bottle."
"Hmm... I see. How much do you think an item to bring down your cooldown time will cost?"
"Hmm... probably around ten silver coins if we want a good one? Those items are quite expensive because many magic users need them and they are a bit rare... but it's going to be hard to get one even if we fork all our money together. I only have about one silver coin and 80 copper coins. Elizabat has about two silver coin and 70 copper coins. Dspects is usually broke and you are new so you probably don't have a lot either. With just mine and Elizabat's money we will only have four silver coins and 50 copper coins."
"Hey man, at least I have a house," Dspects retorted.
"How many coins you got there then?" Foggy asked. Dspect let out a cough as he ignored Foggy's question.
"Anyways, even if we sell your poor grade potions we won't get a lot. We minus well just take what we can get," Dspects offered. The ends of Ferti's lips curled up as she pulled out potion bottles from her inventory.
"I have two normal grade potions and 17 low grade potions. With this we can make about 10 silvers and 50 coppers according to what you just said," Ferti calculated. Foggy's and Dspects jaw dropped to the floor as Elizabat's eyes widened for the first time since Ferti had met.
"D-d-dude!" Dspects stammered out, excited, "where the hell did ya get all these?"
"Yours truly made them," Ferti brush some imaginary dust off her shoulders.
"What?!" both Foggy and Elizabat yelled out at the same time.
"No need to so surprised. I am the first one who found Snib's Crib after all," Ferti shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal.
"Hey, hey, get off your high horse there, dude! You looking real ugly right now," Dspects shook his head at her.
"Really? Cause I think I'm looking hella fine right now," Ferti let out a taunting laugh.
"Damn... I can't even say anything... but oh I so want to punch you right now," Dspects cracked his knuckles.
"Well calm down there, man. Anyways, let's sell these things off real quick and then get back to hunting. I'm going to leave the sale to you two, Foggy and Elizabat. Dspects, you can go around the stores to see a couple of items we can buy to lower Foggy's cooldown time. I'm going to run some errands. Just DM me when you guys are done," Ferti ordered.
"Huh? You're leaving the sale to us?" Foggy was still a bit flabbergasted.
"Yeah. You guys have a stall in the Alchemist Center so you guys can try to advertise there. Try to raise the price a bit but don't lower it at any cost. Going by what you said earlier, potions do seem quite important in this kingdom."
"You don't want to be there with us and let people know you made them?" Foggy frowned, clearly confused.
"Just say you got it from a supplier. It's too troublesome for me right now. Also, if people saw me and you guys told them I made it they might start suspecting something suspicious is going on since I'm a newbie."
"But something suspicious is going on if you can make these as a newbie," Dspects blurted out, "you hacking the game or something, man?"
"Calm down, man. If I really did hack the game then I wouldn't make myself still be a newb right now. It's all because I racked up points reading at the library and put them in my intelligence stat," Ferti explained.
"Ohhh. Okay," Foggy nodded his head, understanding.
"By the way, can you guys give me some of your herbs so I can make more?"
"Uhh... about that. We kind of can't because each herb we sell we only take about 20% profit. 40% goes to renting the stall from the Alchemist Center. The rest goes toward our supplier who is usually out of town and gives quests out to newbies who needs them."
"Oooh... alright, that's cool," Ferti didn't mind.
"Why do I have to be the one going around looking for items?" Dspects complained.
"Because you're kind of useless right now and that's all you can do at the moment. Anyways, I'll be heading out first. See you guys later," Ferti winked at them before leaving the shed. She heard Dspects cuss after her a few time and let out a laugh as she imagined his pissed off face in her head.
-
Ferti was back at the library and hacking away at books she hadn't touched yet.
"You're back?" Floy looked down at her as she sat on the ground reading the books from the lowest shelf.
"Yes. Did you miss me?" Ferti teased.
"A little," Floy answered and she almost choked on her spit as she widened her eyes at him. He just gave her a childish smile before walking up to her. "What have you been up to?" he asked.
"Just been trying to make some friends," Ferti answered.
"Ohh... I see... anyways, I have a present for you," Floy pulled something out of his sleeve and handed it to her. Ferti put down her book as she looked at the item in his hand. She saw a small green box that had the letter F engraved onto it. There were also intricate designs on the side of the box which seemed to resemble some sort of spell.
Hidden Quest Found!
Title: ???
Description: ???
Rank: ???
Rewards: ???
If you accept this box from Floy then you will be triggering a hidden quest. Would you like to proceed?
Accept the box?
Yes or No
Ferti stared at the screen in front of her and her eyes grew in shock. She looked up at Floy and Floy looked back down at her with taunting eyes.
"This is?" she tried sounding him out.
"Do you want it, adventurer?" Floy answered her question with another question. Thoughts raced through Ferti's head as she thought about all the risk that could come with this. She knew that each player can only take up to four quests and the time it takes to complete a quest vary. This quest could help her grow exponentially or just be easy and give her some points. In the worst case, all it would do was just take up one space in her quests slots. She licked her lips as her heartbeat increased. It started with a slow jog before turning into a full on sprint to where she could hear her own heartbeat. Her eyes brightened as she reached out and grabbed the box in front of her.
"Then, thank you," she smiled as she took the box.
You have just accepted a hidden quest!