~ CHAPTER 17 ~

THE MAGIC OF SEEKING AND DISCOVERING, PART 1

My list of riddles had gotten longer. Also my list of questions. Thankfully, this time I had an answer as well... if you could stoop to calling it that. Yes, that other quest had given me a nice little update: 20% complete, it had told me. Thanks for the heads up. Really helpful.

How is that an answer, you ask? Because of when it updated: right after I accepted in my mind that the Discovery System wasn’t limited to only the things I did. Yeah… forget about it. Cryptic indeed.

So now I had another mystery to solve. Yet another one, as if I didn’t have enough already. I had to wonder if somewhere in the game’s script it had decided I really enjoyed mysteries, or if things had just worked out that way. For all my complaining, though, this time, I just couldn’t bring myself to mind. This was all leading somewhere, obviously, and you still couldn’t pay me enough to think about logging out.

Yes, I was a little bit frustrated. Yes, I was a little bit confused. More than a little bit, but here’s the thing: that was fine. Games are meant to be frustrating. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t hold your attention. You wouldn’t put enough effort into them to care about them, and for Wild Magic Online, it was like taking that idea and putting it on steroids. Because of the Discovery System, the game was designed to tune your personal story to exactly the level of frustration that would push you without losing you. In the end, what I knew was that as long as I kept putting in the effort to push forward, the game wouldn’t let me down.

So. There was nothing to do but exactly that. The [Eyes of Wonder] Skill was clearly showing me something, so all I had to do was follow it. Even better, I could do that at the same time as following the clues for my treasure hunt quest, at least for the first few items. Quest stacking for the win.

On that topic, the first item on my list was [Refined Copper Cloud Salt], which was supposedly harvested from… well… copper clouds. Erm. Don’t ask. The upshot was that it was a common ingredient, and therefore the logical place to start looking would be a grocery market. I knew where I could find one of those. I started walking.

My first step was to find a better way down from the terrace. On that topic, the Keeper had been rather extraordinarily helpful. In her own typical way, of course. I believe the quote had gone something like this “I’m sure you’ll find one that works for you soon enough.” Well… Yes, I was sure as well, but it was finding a good way back up that was the sticking point. Still, it was a problem for later.

A few moments after that, I was scooting on my way along the streets at ground level, enjoying the sights that looked a bit like a drunken picasso painting with a few too many photo filters attached. I was headed to a shop I’d seen earlier when I was exploring that had had a picture of mixed vegetables over the entrance.

Maybe because it was dark(ish) and I was wearing a dark dress, or maybe it was just that people were more used to the game by now, but this time hardly anyone spared me more than a few glances. It still disturbed me every time I saw someone see me, look away, and then turn to look back, but there were fewer of those. Mostly they just didn’t look away.

That or they didn’t look up in the first place. I dodged as a two metre tall Chakrit wearing a cross between a sombrero and a chef’s hat nearly ran me over. He had a mole on his left cheek with one very long hair growing from it.

“Hey, lady!” I heard a child’s voice and felt a tug at my sleeve “can I touch your hair?”

Huh?

I stopped and looked down to see a Wildling girl who couldn’t have been more than seven staring up at me with huge sparkling eyes, her little fangs peeking out like a dopey kitten. She was wearing something like a faded green burlap sack tied around her waist with an old leather belt, and her hair was short but cut roughly so it stuck out at odd angles. There were slightly rougher patches on the belt at almost regular intervals.

It was a bit of a weird request, but I guessed… it wouldn’t hurt… much… probably? It didn’t feel as bad as most of the other requests I’d gotten so far.

“Um… sure, I guess.” I gave her a smile and tried to kneel to bring my head closer to hers.

“Really?! Thank you so much!” The girl sounded way too excited, and I felt my heart growing a little warmer. She reached out and I felt a sort of fluffy-floating sensation on my head. Yes. This was the right decision!

“Woww! So soft!”

“Isn’t it? I feel so lucky to have gotten it!”

She patted a few more times, and I could feel my scalp tingling in ecstasy.

Finally the buildup was too much. I had to ask: “Is this… do your parents know that you’re playing this game?”

I immediately regretted asking. The girl’s eyes went wide and filled with tears, and then she ran away to vanish behind some barrels. Just before I lost sight of her, I glimpsed something bright and turquoise floating in her hand. Did she just…!?

I went over to peer behind the barrels, but there was no-one there. There was also nowhere else she could have gone without me seeing. It takes at least a minute to log out normally.

Whatever. People.

I noticed a slight ripple in the air moving slowly away from me, like a mote of invisible fluff floating on the wind. I also noticed a rat with three tails scuttling away behind a grating.

Hmm? That’s odd…

As I stood looking around, wondering where the little thief had gone, I saw a different girl walked past wearing heavy chainmail armour. That was fairly normal, at least in theory. She was a Freechild, looked about my age, had a cutely round, dimpled face with mousy brown hair, and was only a little taller than I was. Still normal(ish). No, what was strange was how… solid… she looked. It was like everything else around her was seen through water, while she was the only clear thing I could see. The wavering echoes of saturation from my Skill were practically oozing around her body, but she herself was as solid as a rock. It was obviously something related to my Skill, but what was it trying to tell me?

Before I could come up with an answer, there was a yelp and a crash, and I witnessed the same girl suddenly attempting to break into a run while hopping on one foot. Behind her one of the cobblestones was slightly ajar, jutting a fraction above the street’s surface. I cringed internally. That looked painful.

The walk to the grocery market only took another couple of minutes after that. I stood outside for a moment to collect myself. Then, taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open to find… that it was not, in fact, a grocery market. Oops. The hulking blond-whiskered Onsuni chopping things behind the counter glared at me as I hovered in the doorway. I turned around and walked out again.

Ok. Nevermind. That didn’t go so well. What next? My mind was blank.

I eyed the ripples of colour my Skill was showing me. I felt like I’d noticed something about them earlier, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. They were flowing… hmm? They were mostly flowing along the street in the direction I’d been walking, which was as expected. What was interesting, though, was where they weren't flowing from: that is, any of the other exits I could see. Well… except for one. I wasn’t going to go down a drain to investigate, though. End of story.

The hints were adding up, but I just couldn’t figure out what to. Still, something to keep in mind. Getting back to my first task, the [Refined Copper Cloud Salt] wasn’t going anywhere, so I still needed a grocery market. I thought back to everything I’d seen while I was exploring earlier. Maybe there’d been another one? I couldn’t think of any, but in a town this size you’d think there must be a few, right?

Hmm. There had been stalls selling various items near where I’d bought the kebabs, maybe one of those could help me? If not, they were right by the Town Hall anyway, which, if I was going to try to solve the mystery of the city, would be a logical place to look for clues.

I set off again with my new destination. This time paying closer attention to the ripples in the air, watching how they flowed and what they flowed from. There was something there that I wasn’t seeing, and now it was bothering me.

I walked slowly, taking note of everything I saw. A shiny green pigeon-like-thing perched on a signpost. A snaggle-toothed Eladrin man carrying a book titled “How to Sing Magic in 23 Easy Steps.” A super fluffy mostly grey cat squatted on a windowsill with its front paws dangling over. It started purring when it saw me looking. There! An open window seemed to flicker in my vision, its colours muting from insane purple to unrealistic purple and then back again.

I crept into the alley the window opened over and clambered onto a jutting beam, balancing until I could peek over the sill. The room was smokey and dimly lit, and filled with glowing spheres of various colours. It took me a moment to make out anything more than that.

Gradually two figures came into focus. One of them was a willowy humanoid shape, possibly an Eladrin, except with a streak of bright rust coloured hair running down his back. Not an Eladrin, then: Mistborn. The other could have been a human wearing a very long flowy robe, but the way she moved was strange. She kept wavering side to side almost as if she was floating.

The woman’s eyes met mine. Lavender. Slitted. She placed her glass ball-looking-thing onto a stand of some sort and glided over to me. Just before the shutters closed with a loud click, I glimpsed something long and glittery slithering along the floor behind her. The man’s eyes widened when he saw me.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

File that away for future reference. I am not a rogue. Stealth is not one of my abilities.

Maybe the ripples were related to magic? Spells being cast maybe? Or people with high Mana pools? I’d sort of assumed that they must be, but in a town like this, it didn’t quite add up. The woman had clearly been using magic of some kind, but that wasn’t exactly unusual around here. The whole room had been too hazy for me to get any details. I dropped back down and returned to the street.

Walking past I saw a vaguely familiar shade of red… hair, bobbing alongside another head of shocking white. They looked like small children. There was something off about the redhead? She was slightly brighter than other people, highlighted, but not by my Skill. Why would my system do that? I noticed a flash of something indistinct but very black zip into sight somewhere behind them, and then vanish into a door a little closer.

Yeah, time to get moving. Fast. They’ll still be alright. Right? Definitely.

In the end, Cowl’s Landing was only so big. From the Keeper’s Sanctuary to the Town Hall was probably only about ten minutes on foot if you went directly, which of course you couldn’t, and my detour to the not-a-grocery-market and the weird smokey room hadn’t taken me too far out of the way. Pretty soon, the buildings opened up and I was standing in one of the only open spaces in the city: Foundation Plaza.

Directly across from me, the Town Hall towered imperiously, its doors framed by a row of columns two stories tall. Above that, the Clocktower was now close enough I had to crane to see its face. To my left, a row of stalls was set up, with one of them being the one I’d bought kebabs from earlier. Unfortunately, every single one of them was now closed. It was night time. Of course they were closed. Yeah.

Looking around, I noticed there were a surprising number of people just standing around in the plaza. A fair portion of whom were nearby on my right, standing close to a large sign board. Hmm, maybe something important?

There were too many people for me to get close without squeezing, but by standing on tip toes and craning my neck I was just barely able to make out the heading of the biggest poster. “Notice of Event Schedule for Founder’s Day Celebration: Commencement Next Violet at Noon.”

My ears picked up one of the conversations.

“Ok, dude, but what does the Skystream have to do with it?”

“Um, I guess ‘cause it has to be violet or whatever before the event starts?”

“Yeah, but, like, does that mean the event will just start randomly? What the fuck makes it change colour?”

“How should I know, dude. Seems kinda dumb to me. Why don’t they just give it in real time like any normal game?”

Oh, oh! I knew the answer to that! I could explain it to them, but… yeah. No.

I was saved a moment later by someone else. “They basically do give it to you in real time. The Skystream is violet between five AM and one PM real time, so if it says violet noon, it means eight AM real time. Emerald noon would be four PM.”

“Haha. That’s dumb as shit, dude.”

“Ok, so what time is blue noon?”

“There is no blue noon. Scarlet noon is midnight IRL.”

“Looks like it’s getting pretty blue to me, dude.”

“That’s because it’s starting to change. It’ll be fully blue by midnight, then fully green by six o’clock tomorrow morning. That’s two PM IRL, by the way.”

“Yeah, still dumb as shit. I feel like some stupid fag watching fuckin’ rainbows in the sky.”

“Whatever, man, just trying to help.”

It made sense to me, though, even if it wasn’t new information. They’d been using systems like the Skystream ever since time dilation in VR had been a thing to help keep people from getting too confused. WMO was just a bit more colourful about it than other games. Unfortunately, as much as I’d been hoping otherwise, the conversation hadn’t offered me any leads on how I was supposed to get a ‘droplet’ of it. Something related to time?

Sigh. I returned my attention back to the rest of the plaza. Another quick look couldn’t hurt before I headed into the Town Hall. There was still something niggling at the back of my mind. A flow of non-colour preceded a man as he stepped out from one of the other streets. Bright tangerine hair in a topknot, bulging muscles that left me feeling… intimidated?

Oh, there! A sign caught my eye above one of the shops: “Roderick’s Premium Amarh Leather Robes: A Sage’s One-Stop Fashion Outlet and Patch Supplies Store Fit For Wandering the Wild Continent in Style Every Day”. Yes! Roderick’s unparalleled naming sense aside, the word ‘Amarh’ was too good to miss. I dashed inside.

“Hi, um, I was sort of wondering if you might have something. I saw your sign and thought well maybe you might. Um. It’s some Amarh Elbow Gristle. Do you have something like that I could get?”

The shopkeeper was a young looking Freechild man with unkempt brown hair and a big bright smile, wearing something that looked less like a robe so much as a quilt. He nodded excitedly. “Mmm. Mhmm. Hmm? Elbow Gristle, yeah? That’s an odd one. Sure you don’t mean Elbow Rounds?”

“Yeah, um. It’s for a sort of potion, alchemy, thing I’m making.”

“Hahh. Hmm… Yeah yeah, I’m sure I got that. Funny thing though. Sure there was another Mistborn feller in here just two days ago wanting the same thing, yeah? Big tall guy, orange hair, kinda skinny, haha. Funny thing, yeah? I got that, though, lots of it, sure!”

“Yay! Ok, I just need one, though. How much would it cost? Or… actually is there something I could do for you in return, maybe? I’m not sure how valuable it is.”

“Oh, haha. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got lots of that stuff. Too much, you know. You want to do me a favour for some? Of course! You can take some Amarh Elbow Gristle off my hands, haha! Horrible stuff, you know. Takes forever to clean off and you just can’t get rid of it. Clogs the drains, yeah? Have to pay to get someone to go dump it in the jungle. Haha. Here, it’s right in the back! You want it? Take it! Take it! It’s all yours. That’s a lovely pin you’ve got there, think you might want a Whitethread Patch to complement it? It’d go great together, you know. You’d look just like a doll!”

“Wow, really? Just like that?”

“Only 14 violet, or I’ll cut you a great deal and give it you for 16 white if you’ve got any. Just for you, yeah? Cause you’d look so darling. I know, I know. But I’ve still got to run a business, you know.”

His beam was dazzling, but I could feel my face falling. “Oh. No. That… I’m sorry, I thought you said I could just have it, but I guess that was a bit unrealistic, wasn’t it? Sorry. I’ll come back when I have enough, though!”

I turned to leave, hanging my head in embarrassment.

“Oh, you’re leaving? You’re leaving? I thought you wanted that Elbow Gristle? It’s right in the back, you know, it’s yours. Take it! Plase!”

“Huh?”

“Yes, yes. Please take it! Take all of it! It’s yours. Here, I’ll even cut the Patch down to 13 white if you take it all! Just for you.”

Yeah.

I didn’t know what I was going to do with 18 [Amarh Elbow Gristle] in my inventory, but I’d figure something out. My quest: 1/10.

~ ~ 26/1/1/19:51 ~ ~

Status: [River]

Class: [Novice Mistborn Runemaster]

Location: [Cowl’s Landing - Foundation Plaza]

Health 38/38 ~ Mana 29/41 ~ Stamina 34/41 ~ Runes 1/1

[Eyes of Wonder] Equipped Skills (8/8):

[Force Infused Palm]

[Myriad Fists]

[Imbued Defence]

[Unarmed Discipline (Passive)]

[Body Conditioning (Passive)]

[Inscribe: Rune of the Creator Flame (1/1)]

[Sign of Inverse Devouring]

[Eyes of Wonder]

Statistics:

Defence +8

Resistance +4

Constitution +4

Willpower +4

Endurance +4

Spirit +1

Perception +1 (+5%)

Focus (-5%)

Equipped Items (3/8):

[New Arrival’s Simple Dress]

[New Arrival’s Simple Shoes]

[Valesilver Pin] Other Skills:

[Elementary Ingredient Preparation (Passive)] Other Items:

[Special Edition Founder’s Token]

[Novice Healing Potion]

[Novice Mana Potion]

[Small Pouch]

[Small Iron Key]

[Sugary Biscuit]x2

[The Keeper's List]

[Amarh Elbow Gristle]x18

Active Quests:

[Cryptic Flows of the Mist (Part 1)]

[Path of the Runemaster (Part 3)]

[The Keeper’s Garden (Part 1)]

[The Ancient Keeper of Runic Magic (Part 4)]

[Things Worth Finding in the Mist]

[The Eyes of Twilight]

Status: [Demi]

Class: [Novice Freechild Guardian]

Location: [Cowl’s Landing - Foundation Plaza]

Health 45/60 ~ Mana 5/10 ~ Stamina 35/40

[Infused: Novice Healing Salve (31 min)] Equipped Skills (6/8):

[Guarded Strike]

[Standfast]

[Shield Block]

[Shield Discipline (Passive)]

[Mocking Shout]

[Strength of Eternity (Passive)]

Statistics:

Defence +24

Resistance +3

Damage +2

Endurance +1

Strength +8

Equipped Items (5/8):

[New Arrival’s Basic Short Sword]

[Greatshield of Dauntless Hope]

[New Arrival’s Basic Chain Armour]

[New Arrival’s Simple Undershirt]

[New Arrival’s Basic Chain Tasset]

[New Arrival’s Simple Pants]

[New Arrival’s Basic Leather Boots] Other Skills:

Other Items:

[Special Edition Founder’s Token]

[Novice Healing Potion]

[Novice Stamina Potion]

[New Arrival’s Basic Shield]

[Novice Rejuvenating Salve]x5

[Novice Healing Salve]x1

[Guldrin’s Checklist]

[Saproot Seed]x14

[Mordalk Stew (cold)]

[Luma Feather]

[Garden Pebble]x1

[Myrplate Ribeye (Medium-Rare)] Active Quests:

[Wanted: Dead Spider Monkeys]

[Guldrin’s Experiment]

[Strength of Eternity (Part 3)]

[Asyr Hospitality (Part 3)]

[Neverwalk Rhemes]