After the meal, Vanya wanted to get cleaned up and rest, so they agreed to meet back in the mess hall three hours later. Vultressant and Vanya followed Isla’s directions to the baths, which turned out to be a large area with individual rooms. Two Dwarves directed them to unoccupied rooms, and Vultressant entered one and closed the door behind him. It was exactly as Isla had described. There was a large metal barrel of water with an oversized ladle. A bench next to the barrel provided the option to sit while washing. The room was warm, much warmer than anywhere else in the Dwarven hold, thanks to a rectangular metal box containing several dark stones that were heated somehow. Curious, he ladled out a little water and poured it on the stones. They hissed, instantly turning the water to steam. This place is a sauna! The only other items in the room were a small pile of folded cloth pieces, presumably towels, some bar soap, and a small grate in the floor for drainage.
Vultressant got down to business. The setup was basically a shower, but he had to pause to rinse since the water wasn’t continuously flowing. This made the process longer than a typical shower, but it was more efficient in terms of water usage. He used the soap bar to wash his hair, and since he had so much less of it now, the task went quickly. Feeling refreshed, he made his final rinse and dried himself. During their time in the forest, he had occasionally washed up in a stream, and at the Silver Penny Inn in Ildul, he had been brought a wash basin. However, this was the first time he felt truly clean since arriving in this world.
When he arrived back at the room he had shared with Vanya the previous night, he found her asleep on the bed, wearing a green and yellow dress. He marveled at when or where she had acquired the dress as he settled in next to her. He realized he was tired himself; the hot water from the bathhouse had soothed his muscles and relaxed him, and he had gotten little actual sleep the night before.
Vultressant was awakened by Vanya gently shaking him. “Taloc and Maroftis are back, and the others are in the dining hall,” she said.
He sat up and gave her a quick kiss, which elicited a smile. “Thanks. Lead on.”
The dining hall was less crowded than it had been earlier, and they each grabbed a drink before heading to a table in the far corner. Isla waved as they approached. “How did the mining turn out?” Vultressant asked as they sat down.
Taloc turned to the new arrivals. “We made out bigtime! Not only did they find more than 200 pounds of emraldium, but that stuff is super strong, pretty rare, and valuable. It has less than half the density of iron, but it’s even tougher. Dwern also said that it’s great for both armor and weapons. That was a great find, Vanya, and the haggling was awesome as well.”
Vanya made a little bow to the Ranger. “Why, thank you,” she said. “I also completed two quests today thanks to finding the ore, so I earned some bonus experience. I’m now ‘respected’ by Dwern, which means he’ll be more willing to do business with me in the future. The first quest was different from the others I’ve received.”
“Different how?” Ewtain asked.
Vanya turned to him. “Remember when you showed us how to view the quests we get?” He nodded, and she continued. “I didn’t like the extra popups flashing on my screen during combat, so I disabled them. But this quest not only notified me when I received it, I had to approve it—there was an option to reject the quest.”
“Why would you want to turn down a quest?” Ewtain asked.
“This one had consequences if the quest was not fulfilled fast enough,” she said. “Dwern offered it to me while we were discussing my talent for locating ore. The negative effect of quest failure was that Dwern would have a lower opinion of me, and until I had his opinion of me back to neutral or higher, he wouldn’t trust me enough to have me locate ore for him.”
Ewtain lowered the hood of his cloak, and he had a frown on his face. He considered his words for a moment, and then he asked, “When you say that Dwern gave you the quest, do you mean that you received a quest when you were talking to him about it?”
“It did happen like that,” Vanya confirmed, “but the quest literally said ‘Dwern has offered you a quest’. Maybe he also received a quest?” She shrugged.
“And how much experience did the quest give you?” Ewtain asked.
“It was just over a quarter of a level,” she said.
“What level are you?” Isla asked.
“Just level five currently, but the experience bar is just a sliver from sixth level; only two percent left to go.”
Isla nodded. “I’m 62% into level five, so you must have received experience from something else as well—unless our classes level at different rates.”
“I was given a quest when I was trading potions with Brenda, so that probably made the difference.” Vanya looked around the table. “I know that Taloc and Vult got an XP bump from the fountain, but is everyone else here level 5?”
Vultressant watched as Isla and Maroftis nodded in agreement, but Ewtain simply put his hood back on without acknowledging the question. Vultressant looked at his own experience bar, and it was currently 45% towards level nine. “I’m almost halfway to level nine,” he said.
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“Me too,” Taloc said to Vultressant.
“You guys are still three levels ahead of the rest of us,” Isla said. “I don’t know if I should be happy that the experience doesn’t scale or upset that we’ll never catch you.”
Isla had a point; every game Vultressant had ever played that used an experience and leveling system required players to gain more experience points to reach the next level than the previous one had required. In some games, the jumps were very large.
“When I drank from the fountain, I jumped to about three-quarters of the way to eighth level. Before I drank, I was only a quarter of the way into fourth level,” Vultressant said, turning to Isla. “That means I gained three and a half levels. Since then, I’ve gained about 70% of a level, while you’ve gained 1.37 levels, assuming you were at the same experience as I was when I drank from the fountain. That’s nearly double the leveling speed over that time period. Maroftis has the same XP as you, and Vanya has more from her solo quests.”
“I was a bit higher than that, so maybe I got one and a quarter levels,” Isla said.
Vultressant nodded and then looked towards Ewtain. “What level are you, Ewt?”
“Hmm?” Ewtain asked and pointed at himself. Vultressant nodded expectantly, and Ewtain continued. “Well, I’m currently level seven.”
All eyes shifted to the Night Stalker. “How did that happen?” Taloc asked.
“Town stuff,” was his only reply.
Vultressant was unclear as to why Ewtain was being evasive, but he decided to press the issue. “Can you elaborate, or is this some sensitive information?”
Ewtain cocked his head, and for a moment it looked like there would be no answer from the rogue, but eventually he did answer. “Well, I went to the docks and other less savory areas of the town looking for signs of a guild that might be in control of the area.”
“You mean like a thieves’ guild?” Maroftis asked.
“Indeed,” Ewtain replied. “Although Ildul doesn’t have a thieves’ guild, it does have a small group of assassins, so I attempted to get involved with them.”
“Wait,” Isla said. “You went looking for thieves, found assassins, and tried to enlist with them?”
“Yes,” Ewtain said.
“Are you crazy?” Isla asked.
Ewtain shrugged. “I’m a Night Stalker, which is essentially an Assassin. I went looking for a thieves’ guild to join, hoping to eventually get information on other guilds—specifically an assassins guild. I bribed my way into a card game and noticed one of the players was cheating. I cleaned him out, along with most of the other players, and then followed the cheater after the game.”
“How did you win if he was cheating?” Isla asked.
“I cheated better,” Ewtain said, getting a few laughs from the group. “I followed him until he met with a higher-up in the organization, and that’s when I revealed myself.”
“I can’t imagine that he just invited you to join,” Taloc said wryly.
“He did,” Ewtain replied. “But I had to do two tasks first.” Taloc gestured for more information. “The first thing he wanted me to do was steal a silver plate, and the second was to fight a bunch of the guild’s novices.” Ewtain paused for effect. “Stealing the plate was the hard part.”
Taloc whistled. “What happened with the fight?” he asked.
“Well, I was put on one side of a large room, and the eight novices were put on the other.” Ewtain took a drink and continued. “Their plan had been to throw knives or shoot small crossbows at me, but I dodged everything but one crossbow bolt as I closed the distance. I killed two of them and incapacitated another before they stopped the fight.”
“I’ve seen you dodge away from attacks, but that’s still pretty impressive,” Taloc said. “So, are you in then?”
“I’m now a novice, and I have another trial to become an initiate. After that, I’ll need to travel to Cairnth to train and become a full member.”
“Is that why you wanted to do the southern mission?” Isla asked.
Ewtain nodded, and Taloc asked, “When are you leaving?”
The Night Stalker shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I want to see what they can teach me, and I think that I’ll be of far more value to the party after some training, but I won’t take off right away.”
Vultressant thought that it was very likely that Ewtain would go sooner rather than later, but he did agree that a powered-up Ewtain would be great even if that meant losing him for a time. Isla’s wish to stay in town was likely bolstered by this conversation, since it had been confirmed that the experience that she could gain in town didn’t have to come in trickles. It looked like the party might not be whole for much longer. He held up a glass and said, “I guess that now we have an in with the criminal element in this world.” He received a few strange looks, but everyone raised a glass and drank.
“So, what are you planning to do with all that fancy metal, Vanya?” Isla inquired, setting down her empty mug.
“The properties of the metal are defensive in nature, so armor makes the most sense,” Vanya said. “I think that our greatest need as a party is a proper tank to soak hits.”
Maroftis gestured to himself. “What about me?” he asked. “I soak a lot of damage.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Vanya said. “You do a great job of taking damage, and your regeneration skill keeps you alive and saves my mana to use on the others. What you need is something to mitigate damage. Your hide is good, but with armor, you could last much longer in a battle.”
Maroftis grinned in his usual unsettling way. “I agree with you, and not just because it gets me some sweet new armor.”
Vultressant liked the idea, but he wondered about the challenges of crafting armor for someone with Maroftis’ unique proportions. His tail, in particular, presented a logistical hurdle. “I like the idea,” he said, “and hopefully Blassie can craft a suit that fits you.”
“Yeah, and what about enchanting it?” Maroftis asked eagerly.
“Well, we have the essence from the Rock Troll,” Vultressant said, “and that one is sapphire, which is the strongest one we’ve seen. We still have some others, but we won’t know what’s needed until we talk to Rena. She’ll be able to tell us what sort of enchantments we can add to it as well.”
Maroftis’ eyes lit up with excitement. “Can it make me fly?” he asked eagerly.
“I was thinking more along the lines of extra protection or a resistance to a damage type, but maybe.” Vultressant thought it unlikely that flight was an option, but who knew in this world of magic?
“I suppose that will do,” Maroftis said. “I already swim like it’s cool, and I’d love to fly too. Maybe there’s a bird race on this planet. Hey, ask that Sage guy about that when we get back to town.”
“Uh, sure.” Vultressant could never be certain how serious his friend was about something, but he decided to humor him. He looked to Vanya for guidance, but she just smiled and rolled her eyes; no help there. Vultressant looked around the table, but the others were wagering on the amount of time that it would take them to get back to Ildul, so he decided to try to focus Maroftis on the prospect of new armor. “I think that we should head to the foundry first,” he said, “and I can ask Oeister what he knows about avian races later.” Maroftis grinned, still very off-putting, and went back to his drink.