#the-foxes
Titu Lilin
so you got to ko the deputy?
Teenam Mortana
I didn’t. I’m a healer.
My work is in healing as effectively as possible to get an eligible clear.
I asked Cap to.
Told him to just kill both of her.
Feni Kunas
Did Cap KO her?
Teenam Mortana
He attacked her without hesitation when I told him to.
Kitu Nilan
that’s such a fun mechanic!
Feni Kunas
Idk man
Teenam Mortana
LMAO
Feni Kunas
I feel like you’re the one who’d get killed.
Titu Lilin
+1 kitu will drop dead
Jules Jewels
+1 no more Kitu
Teenam Mortana
+1
Even I wouldn’t bother to keep ressing Kitu
Kitu Nilan
that’s just mean
Feni Kunas
Have you reported the mimics to the GMs yet?
Teenam Mortana
I did.
Got myself a new cleric coat.
They said I can’t use it yet.
It’ll be revealed in a few weeks.
So I don’t have it in game. Just a voucher for it to exchange for when it comes out.
Feni Kunas
So you were first to reslise
Titu Lilin
oh thats cool!
Kitu Nilan
can i see it?
i wanna see it
Teenam Mortana
I promised the GMs and devs not to explain how we beat it or how I could tell we had doubles amongst us.
They said they didn’t think the room would spawn on someone’s first run or that someone would figure it out on the first try.
Feni Kunas
No shit
“You got quiet.”
The voice was gentle as it came through the call, yet firm in a way.
“I got distracted by the fox channel.”
The voice was amused as the person on the other side simply said, “Oh?”
“Kitu wants to see a cloak.”
The laugh in response was youthful and soft. The other person likely didn’t realise how fond it sounded.
“Asking for the impossible, is he?” The tone was jovial.
“Yeah. There’s no way he’ll get to see it anytime soon, I think.”
There was a comfortable lull in the conversation, before the caller said, “Did you get too distracted to start the game?”
“No, it’s loading.”
“The game or your login?”
“I’m logging in, okay? I did get that far before I ended up on Discord.”
“Well, old man, you never know.”
You are now logged in.
The Midwinterfest event is on-going. Find {Nicolaos} in {Merteis} to learn about new traditions from outside Velkrinni. Join {Kiaro Dumba} in {S’Daroa} for the Moon Hunt.
In a few days the Feast will begin.
[Guild] Teenam Mortana: You think I can get my fourth clear of Mythmaker today?
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: Cap said you found the preview mechanic. Mythmaker is nothing against your nose.
[Guild] Jhi Xedolin: is the one called Chu Ghilon around?
[Guild] Chu Ghilon: i am
[Guild] Jhi Xedolin: lets do a dry run for a run tkgether so I can analyze your weaknesses.
[Guild] Teenam Mortana: LMAO my nose
[Guild] Feni Kunas: I WANNA JOIN LET ME JOIN
[Guild] Jhi Xedolin: together*
“I thought we were playing today…”
“Ah…”
[Guild] Feni Kunas: Actually, I have plans, sorry.
[Guild] Teenam Mortana: What a way to say hello, lmao
[Guild] Teenam Mortana: “Wanna join! Nvm.”
[Guild] Neya Cheola: vc?
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: Yes.
[Guild] Neya Cheola: are the plans you?
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: I’m not answering questions that sound dubious.
“If you really want to play with them, you can,” the voice offered.
“I’m good. You’ve been busy with teaching. I’ve been busy with work. Let’s game together, G,” he replied earnestly.
“Whatcha wanna do today?” Gituda asked. “We can do the dungeon dry run with the ‘little ones’. If you really feel like doing a dungeon, I mean.”
He hummed. “I dunno. We’re both at a Legendary level so it feel silly to help them…”
“Y’know I disagree with that. Take it back.”
A laugh escaped him at Gituda’s petulantly stern tone.
“Taking it back, taking it back,” he replied.
The Vice Captain was quiet for a while and then said, “So… I’m in the village outside S’Daroa…”
“The Moon Hunt? I’m down. I’m always down for a mini-game session.” Feffie ran around on the platform in Gruandoar. “What job should I play? Which one is the best for a mini-game?”
“Pick whatever you want.”
“Okay, so… does it have a minimum job level? Actually, you know what. I can just immediately teleport to S’Daroa.”
He targeted the platform and chose S’Daroa from the list of cities she had visited. The teleportation took a few seconds before the loading screen appeared.
“You know, the statues in Gruandoar are much calmer to look at than the statues in Toduunto even though they’re both big predator animals. Why did wolves get statues that feel aggressive when bears just look normal?”
“Because the bears in Gruandoar aren’t representing any classes that you can become in that city,” Gituda said calmly. “They’re just statues. It’s not a starter city.”
“It still feels weird to me.”
“Okay, so think of it like this,” Gituda said, his voice slipping on into a “teacher” tone. “According to lore, bears have two clans — the Spiritwalkers and the Ironhides — which can be divided into the bears who are shamanistic or animistic in practice, and the bears who are slow but calm and powerful in battle.
Meanwhile, the wolves are pack animals who are generally social, but whose two clans — the Bloodtooths and Iceclaws — were at odds with each other in the past. Now they live together in Toduunto, but the statues that look ready to battle each other, is a reminder about two warring over shared territory.
And so the bears get a calmer couple of statues.”
Feni thought about it. “I’ll accept that.”
The white fox leapt off the platform and ran over to the mini-game NPC. The vixen went down on all fours in a quadrupedal idling emote and he opened up the character menu to decide what the white fox would look best in today.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “bears and wolves probably can’t mate.”
There was a long pause before there was a slightly high-pitched, “What?”
“I looked it up. There’s no lore about cross-species mating. I learned that before becoming partners, foxkin chase each other and try to catch each other. It’s basically their marriage ceremony. Then they have sex.”
“…What the hell? There’s lore about them fucking?”
Feffie switched between several different save set, the glamour slightly different on all of them. “Language, teach.”
“Screw you, I’m in a private call.”
Feni laughed at the indignant tone. “It didn’t say sex, copulation, procreation whatever phrase you prefer, but it used, you know, euphemisms. It was really interesting though. Did you know dog foxes had penile bones? That technically means Teenam—”
“I’ll stop that thought right there. Go back to bearfolk and wolfkin not fucking.”
“Okay, so, I couldn’t find any interspecies mating lore, but I did find some euphemisms that people have noted and shared on the wiki. So I went down the rabbit hole of anatomy. You know, it’s surprisingly hard to find details information about animals mating online.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Gituda replied dryly.
“Dogs are much easier than wild animals. Also, did you know foxes have a bulbus glandis just like wolves and dogs?”
“No, and I’m not sure I actually wanted to know either.”
“You’re a science teacher. Learn some biology. Don’t they require that?”
“They don’t require you to know if a male fox has a bulbus glandis when you teach physics, no. It’s not exactly necessary.”
“I meant biology.”
“I know what you meant,” Gituda said with a sigh. “I’m just telling you that zoology isn’t exactly a big part of high school biology, which I, by the way, don’t teach at all.”
“Oh, that reminds me! How’s your uncle doing?”
Gituda didn’t reply immediately.
“Did the call cut? G?”
“I’m just trying to follow your train of thought. How did you even…? How does that…? Whatever. My uncle is doing okay. He complained about not being able to do anything fun with his sprained back.” Gituda’s lowered his voice while somehow making it sound full of complaint, almost whiny even, to say, “Something, something, ‘I can’t even get a decent placement on the leaderboard. Imagine that! My name! Not on there!’”
“Personally, I’d be happy not to break my back. A sprain isn’t so bad. I’m still young and it’s happened to me, too. Spraining my back, I mean.”
“I’m young, and I sure haven’t sprained my back. And definitely not when using the restroom.”
“Floors are slippery. One wrong step and that’s a sprained back after doing your business.”
“You’re really getting in on age, old man.”
“I’m barely middle-aged.”
“Middle-aged is middle-aged.”
“No, it’s not. There’s several stages of it. I’m practically still just out of college.”
That made Gituda laugh. “Sure, old man. I graduated less than a year ago. You sure you want to compete against me in being just out of college?”
“Okay, maybe not quite just out of college. But almost.”
“Shut the fuck up. I’ll spit water all over my laptop.”
He obediently fell quiet.
“Are you done yet?” Gituda’s voice broke the silence after an indeterminate time.
“What? Done with what?”
“You’ve been trying out glamours for the past… let’s say it’s been ten minutes.”
Which meant it definitely had been more than ten minutes. And not by a couple of minutes either.
“Give me a minute.”
“All right, I’ll be back in five with a new bag of snacks and you’ll be wearing whatever glamour that’s on right then.”
It couldn’t have been five minutes when he heard Gituda say, “I’m back. Still not done?”
“I said to give me a minute.”
“I’ve waited half an hour. At this point, this is just a fashion show. Which could be a mini game on its own, but not one I was going for.”
“Okay, fine. Give me a sec. What is your elf wearing?”
“Literally the same as always.”
“Leather armour… leather armour…”
“How you got to level 714 is beyond me when you spend so much time with aesthetics.”
“Dunno, I got a little obsessed,” he replied. “The first year and a half, I did every quest related to foxes, all main quests, and ran like five dungeons a day.”
“You really should dual class with Cleric.”
He flipped through his saved sets until he found one that was all black leather from his black armour era. He switched out his metal lance to a wooden staff and changed out the cap to a wreath.
“But why? I don’t see the point. It’ll be so tedious to do. Lancer and Warrior don’t require dual classing Fighter and Cleric.”
“The cross-class skills would be good.”
“You always say that but you’re not dual classing.”
“…I’m a Mage with a Summoner build,” the Vice Captain said. “That’s pretty much the definition of dual-classing…”
“It’s not. You changed classes.”
“I’m still both a level forty Mage and level forty Summoner.” Gituda fell quiet. “They’re just completely and entirely incompatible with each other…”
Feni swung her staff at the tall elf. “So it’s still not dual classing,” he said. “It’s more like dual anti-classing.”
Gituda snorted. “You done?”
“Yeah. Thanks for having the patience. But you could maybe wear something else for once, Dad.”
“Go drink water, son. We’ll talk to the NPC after you’re back with a bottle of water. You definitely forgot it earlier.”
“…I did…”
The view that greeted him, when he returned a couple of minutes later, was the tall black-haired wood elf, standing next to the Moontail Fox in Warrior gear and a wreath, out of his usual gear. Instead, Gituda Tuuk was dressed in dark-coloured light armour with light fur trim and details and with a white and black circlet. The fox kit spirit was skipping around nearby.
Various species ran by, the elf towering over most of them. According to lore, the first humans that came to Velkrinni mistook the wood elves for a different kind of elves because they were unexpectedly tall. However, in elf lore, the Wood Elves were said to be children closest to the Mother Tree, so it was natural they were tall, just like the World Tree was tall and towering above all creation. They lived the closest to the Mother Tree, but got displaced, causing them to appear and become a playable species with the other two elves in 2.0 Thornbound, by events that were explained 3.0 Rootfall.
Lore was also that it was Wood Elves that brought the advanced knowledge of healing to Merteis and S’Daroa, resulting in the jobs Priest and War Priest, at least according to Teenam.
It wasn’t really fox lore, so it wasn’t all that interesting to know about.
“You look weird.”
“What the fuck? Ungrateful bastard,” Gituda spit out. “You ask me to change, and that’s what you say when I do. I’m changing back.”
“It’s not a bad weird!” he hurried to say. “Don’t change! I’m just used to your brown and green colour scheme.”
Feffie ran laps around the elf.
“Why isn’t it the usual colour?”
“Teenam got it for the character birthday. It needs a Leatherworker to change the colour. I haven’t had time to ask Yeria Quur to change it.”
“I don’t mind it. It looks good.”
“You just said it looks weird.”
“It’s weird, and it’s good. Both are true at the same time. Why does T give you new gear on the ‘birthday’ anyway? I know Yeria Quur does anniversaries for joining the guild, but Teenam only celebrates your avatar’s creation anniversary.”
“Because D introduced me a few days after I created my character and for some reason T still remembers it.” Gituda paused and, as if it just hit him, he asked, “Why should I care if you mind what my character wears?”
Feffie did a head tilt emote. “Because I say so?” he offered back, as he found a black circlet to wear instead of the wreath.
Gituda was silent for a moment, then told him, “You do realise there are married characters who match less than our avatars do right now.”
“So? I like it when we match.”
“I’m just saying,” Gituda said petulantly. “Let’s get to the Moon Hunt, before I change my mind about spending time with you.”
He laughed softly at the silly little vice captain, as he spoke to the NPC, starting the quest that would bring them to the mini-game.
As they waited for the event venue to load, he asked, “Would it really bother you if someone thinks the characters are married?”
“The thing is,” Gituda said, “if avatars are married, people assume the players are too.”
“That’s their problem, isn’t it? It has nothing to do with us wearing matching gear.”
They both appeared at the hunt venue and ran over to the next NPC to “announce their arrival”.
“Well…” Gituda fell silent for several beats. “I suppose not.” But then he adds, “As long as it doesn’t affect me in real life, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Will your uncle think anything of it?”
“Probably not. He’ll just think of it as a weird quirk, I bet. Like how you and T tends to play chase of each other in a circle.”
“So there’s no problem then,” he told Gituda. “We can just match gear.”
After reading through the NPC conversation, he added, “The marriage bonus wouldn’t hurt.”
Gituda huffed, “Then go marry another fox. You can even chase each other as part of your marriage ceremony.”
“I don’t play often enough with Teenam to make it worth the effort,” he replied without missing a beat.
“I wasn’t talking about Teenam, specifically.”
“Teenam is the only fox I’m actually friends with.”
“Somehow, the two people you consider your actual friends in this game lives several hours ahead and behind you, one in a different country, and the other on a whole different continent.”
“I have more friends in this game than that.”
“Really now?”
“I just like you most, and Teenam doesn’t pretend to be nice to people just because.”
Gituda fell quiet before he managed to sputter out, “Don’t say it like that. People will misunderstand.”
Feffie ran a lap around the flustered elf, amused. “I didn’t mean it in a weird way, G.”
“I know.”
“You’re so inexperienced in life.”
Gituda muttered, “Shut up. I’m just unused to people saying it like that.”
“So inexperienced with friends.”
“That… I can’t argue with.”
Feni hummed as he moved to the archery range to try “show she was worthy” of attending the Moon Hunt. “That’s okay. You got me now.”
He aimed at the target.
“Why does that feel more like a threat than a benefit?”
Feni snorted and missed the shot. “You’re awful, Dad.”
Feffie only missed once, but Gituda got distracted by the talk, and missed more than half twice, and two-thirds the third attempt. It was only during the fourth attempt, Gituda got less than twenty-five percent misses.
“Why are you so good at aiming?”
“I used to be into FPS. I played those all the time until about five years ago. Had a break period from any types of games when I was super obsessed with knitting, and then I found Velkrinni, and lost interest in the craft.”
“You knit?” Gituda sounded disbelieving.
“Not anymore, but if you’d ever like socks or a sweater, I got pretty decent at making those.” Feffie jumped around the archery range. “Let’s go! Where do we go now?”
“Right, you’ve never done the Moon Hunt before.” The elf began to jog from the archery range toward a corridor that lead to a closed door and an NPC that always told people to back off. “So, now that we’ve proven we have the skill, we need to actually enter the S’Daroa Mountain through a corridor of puzzles.”
“I’m bad at puzzle games,” Feni said while Feffie jogged along the elf, sometimes jumping mid-jog.
“I’m not,” Gituda said as he stopped in front of the NPC. Feffie stopped next to the elf and spoke to the brusque lynx, who let them through from the mini game venue to the puzzle hallway.
As the game loaded, to the instance, Feni took a moment to catch up on the guild chat.
[Guild] Sheyna Shadal: i just got to end game content for f2p. someone help me out in the dungeon.
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: There are three dungeons at the end of Stormcaller. Which one are we talking?
[Guild] Kitu Nilan: i can help!
[Guild] Titu Lilin: no you cant
[Guild] Titu Lilin: i will help
[Guild] Titu Lilin: i havent played a sorceress in a while
[Guild] Neya Cheola: Y’ALL I DID IT. I’M LEVEL 200
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: That’s great. But don’t shout in chat.
[Guild] Sheyna Shadal: Wunar Drondaor can tank if need be.
[Guild] Titu Lilin: congrats!
[Guild] Sheyna Shadal: Congrats Neya! ^_^
[Guild] Gituda Tuuk: Haven’t seen Wunar in a while.
[Guild] Hoedi Kodokki: I can join too! I’ve got time.
He toggled the chat closed when Feffie appeared on the screen again.
“Hey, did you do the frost giant raid yet, Dad?”
The hallway was just about big enough to fit a bear. It was dim with barely any light.
The fox kit spirit glowed as it skipped around them. Feffie was bright white and a stark contrast to the wood elf, who blended into the dark. Who was supposed to blend into the dark.
“No. I worked on my Hunter’s Log. Did you get to it yet?”
“I’m almost there. Can we do it together next weekend?”
“Sure.”
Feffie moved forward and immediately walked into an invisible wall.
Gituda chuckled. “We need to solve the puzzle to go to the next section.”
The moon fox ran a lap in the confined space right in front of the door.
“How do we do that? I don’t see one.”
Feni watched as Gituda moved to one wall. Feni imagined that if Gituda Tuuk over there could move naturally, without emotes, according to how the vice captain would move, the wood elf would be touching the wall while examining it.
If Gituda had really been a Wood Elf Mage in the world of Velkrinni, his perception would have been average at best. His inspiration wouldn’t be good whatsoever. But his dexterity would have been above average as a Wood Elf and boosted by being a Mage. So maybe, he would have found it through touch.
Of course, Gituda was a long way from the level one mage that had started playing. His build was focussed on supporting skills for his summons. It didn’t look too unbalanced from an outsider’s point-of-view, although a player who had played as much as Feni at least could sense it looked a little weak compared to the level he had.
But Feni wasn’t an outsider. He had seen the stats and Gituda had a disproportionate amount of points put in INS.
Being Mage and later doing the realignment quest when Summoner was added to count as a Summoner in practice even if his build was still based on the Mage stats… Who would look at the Mage’s INS stat penalties and think “Maybe I should to this limited quest and change to this new class as my main class, permanently”? Sure, mages gave bonuses in WIS and FOC, which Summoners also heavily relied on, but the penalty resulting in INS point having less value would certainly have pushed people not to reassign from Mage to Summoner.
And then opting for Beast Tamer of all things. Necromancers used FOC as secondary, Elementalists used WIS, Puppeteers had DEX… and Beast Tamers just doubled up on inspiration.
“I don’t get you sometimes. You make the strangest choices.”
Gituda was quiet before saying, “I don’t know if that means you think I’m weird or normal. Your train of thought is wild sometimes.”
“My train of thought makes sense.”
“All right, it makes sense. Now look for rune stones,” Gituda told him.
Feffie began looking high and low for the items to hand the wood elf. She found a red stone and brought it to him.
“What do I do with it? It’s the same colour as Jules’ fur.”
“Put it on the bottom right.”
Feffie crouched down in the corner and put the rune in before jumping up, running and trying to find another one. Not needing to stand still was nice.
The next one was pink. There was also a green one when Feffie jumped up on a ledge that Gituda pointed out.
“Are these the colours of the books?” Feni asked as the pink rune was put in place.
“The magic books represent the elements, so yes, the runes ought to be the same colours as them.”
“Then the green one is yours. Can I gift a green rune to you?”
“Just find the next one.”
They needed to do four puzzles in total.
Well, Gituda did four puzzles. Feni just ran around and jumped to keep busy. He wouldn’t have had the patience to do this.
Feffie dashed around Gituda once they were outside. Gituda just jogged toward the path.
Around S’Daroa Mountain, the night had settled. The moon hung low, just at the peak of the mountain.
“So, what do we do now?”
“Did you not read the conversation?”
“I did.”
“Really?”
“I looked at the words, I took in the sentences, I understood the punctuations…”
“But?”
“I was thinking about getting married and having a spouse.”
Gituda fell silent. It was obvious he was trying to figure out why.
“We were talking about looking married, so my brain opened a tab on what having a spouse would be like. All my friends are already married or are getting married and I’m here gaming on a weekend instead, you know?”
“The upside with not getting married is that you won’t get divorced,” Gituda offered.
“I told my aunt that once, and she was not happy. To be fair, she has remarried twice.”
“Well, I wouldn’t even dare saying the same thing to my mother or aunts. I’m pretending I don’t know what relationships even are. If I keep my mouth shut, they might not realise anything when I’m still unmarried by thirty or thirty-five or so.”
“You plan on staying unmarried?”
“Dude, I’m in my mid-twenties. I’m more worried about whether I’m understanding the grading guidelines correctly. I don’t have the mental space to think about marriage yet. Or even dating. Not to mention, if I date I’ll probably need to keep it a secret for a good while or I’ll hear ‘So, when will you have children?’”
“You have it rough,” Feni said. “At least no one’s pressuring me directly.”
“They aren’t pressuring me yet. But a few more years and when they realise I’m nearing thirty, I bet I will start hearing about it.”
“Well, lucky for you, I got a couch to borrow if you ever need a break from the nagging.”
“If I find myself getting into a conversation where somebody is trying to matchmake their children with me, I might take you up on the offer.”
Feni added lightly, “Don’t forget you laptop so we can game when you inevitably travel across the continent to catch a break.”
“Geez. You make it sound like I’ll be packing my bags next week. I’m not in a high-paying profession. No one’s going to think I’m the best possible candidate. I’m pretty low on the list and only on it because my job’s stable and at least I have somewhat of a science degree.”
Feni fell quiet for a moment, trying to find what else to say. It wasn’t often he had no words, but this was one such occasion, apparently.
Before he had time to say anything he heard Gituda explained the game, “You need to hit as many of the targets as possible. You can use any ‘ammunition’ to do that. You’ll find rocks, branches, weapons and various items you can pick up along the path. Because we’re two people in a party, we’re also actually racing each other, but there’s no extra benefit of being first. At this point, veteran players just take it as an optional thing.”
“So, what’s the hunting part?”
“Disturb monsters and they’ll attack. Some of them have a special moon shard stone. That’s what we’re actually trying to get. It can’t be sold marketplace or to NPCs. They can only be exchanged for stuff with a specific NPC and traded between players. The lore is that it’s an old tradition among the lynxkin at this time of year.”
“What do you get for hitting all the targets?”
“That I don’t know. I’m bad at aiming. The prize also changes every year.”
“So you do know. You just have never gotten the prize.”
Gituda paused, then laughed. “Idiot.”
“Since it doesn’t matter if we actually race, how about I shoot targets and you prove yourself useful and kill enemies while also not getting hurt?” Feni said, and then added, “Don’t pick up more pets.”
“What, are you jealous?” Gituda asked.
“To tame something, you’ll have to retract your summon.”
“And?”
“You already have our precious daughter here. Don’t magic her away. Who knows where she goes when you toss her into the aether.”
Gituda let out an incredulous laugh. “I didn’t know ‘Feffie’ birthed this fox kit.”
“Who said it had to be Feffie? She may be female but there’s no lore that male elves aren’t ones getting pregnant.”
“You are ridiculous.”
Feni smiled. “That’s my purpose in life.”
“To be ridiculous?”
“No, to make you laugh.”
That made Gituda flustered again, and he sputtered before his character dashed away, up the mountain path, starting the mini-game. Feffie jogged behind, picking up the first rock she saw and hit the target on the first try.
By the third target, there was a random bow for Feffie to use, which, when stumbling over some arrows a while later, made it far easier to aim and, more importantly, hit. Feffie got more range too, and since she was a fighter to begin with, the range certainly helped.
Meanwhile, the mage turned summoner came fleeing down the mountain before too long. The summon was following him. Feni was confused as to why the wood elf would be in such hurry down the mountain.
“Nope,” Gituda said before Feni could ask why he came back.
“What happened?” Feni asked, baffled by Gituda’s tone. It was something he wasn’t familiar with.
“Big nope.”
Feni blinked, Feffie circling the tall elf. “Did you disturb something bad?”
“No. Just disgusting.”
“…Like what? A rotting corpse?”
“I would prefer that.”
Feni tried to run through everything he had ever seen in the game, but he couldn’t think of anything “disgusting” aside from the undead, like Gengangers.
Well, especially Gengangers. They were disgusting. And strong. But not something that would make Gituda turn the other way to avoid it.
He just had to go check.
“Don’t go that way,” Gituda said.
“What way am I supposed to go? There’s only one path.”
Gituda said, tone disturbed, “Just not that way.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous, G,” Feni said. “I’ll go over there and you stay here. That’s what tanks do. All right?”
“Nope.”
Gituda’s protest was ignored and Feffie jogged up the path. There was nothing in particular, aside from a few targets, Feffie shot on the way. Eventually, she turned to go back and say there’s nothing here.
That’s when it was visible.
A level… five… Swamp Larva. They could be found near S’Daroa, but in a location people seldom went to and definitely not a place one went to when in their hundreds.
Feffie walked up to it and bonked it once.
Dead.
“The slimy bug’s gone. Get up here, you silly elf. Why didn’t you just switch to mage and cast a fire spell?”
The Vice Captain was silent for a long time, then said, “…It’s disgusting.”
This was the same person who told PREDATOR members they would get kicked from their Legendary run. A veteran of the game who had played for eight years now. Who would stand at the backline with a character who couldn’t even protect itself and lead a second party in their guild’s raids.
“You know you can just say you’re scared of slimy wiggly things,” Feni said, slightly amused. “I was expecting something worse than a bonkable maggot.”
“There’s nothing worse than that.”
Feni chuckled. “Fine. Get up here. I’ll protect you from the wigglies and hit the targets. After this, we can spend some time gardening at the Guild House.”
Once the wood elf had caught up, Feni essentially ran the rest of the mini-game on his own, with an elf following along in silence. He didn’t say anything either, and just collected the prize for hitting all targets.
It was an apple. A pale yellow one aptly titled Moonlight Apple.
He gave it to Gituda. “It’s not a rune, but at least you can plant it if you don’t want to consume it. What you do with it is up to you.”