"Gross!" Beth covered her nose and ran from the smell. By this point, we'd all gotten used to breaking through in the body refining stage but this time it was over the top. The impurities in Rick's body had been forced out with such force that it shot out between the cracks in his armor and the mouthpiece of his helmet.
Connor wasn't nearly as lucky as Beth as he'd been standing close to Rick, protecting him and had been covered in the muck. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" He yelled, running towards the center of the village. Pushing people out of his way, he grabbed a bucket that someone was trying to use to fight the fire, and after pulling his clothes off took a cold shower in the middle of the street.
I covertly turned on my recording function, figuring it'd make great blackmail material. Also, cultivating had just made him more handsome and now that more people had joined the school I was sure the fan girls would be chasing him around again. I'm sure I could make some good money with this...
After getting a few good shots I walked over to Gunthar. Grunting in exertion, I helped him to his feet. Even after breaking through to the peak of the 4th layer of body refining it was still a struggle to lift the massive man. "You alright?" I asked him as he shook his head woozily.
"Yeah," he turned to look closely at the bear before sighing in relief, "Thank god! It's soul is free now. I've never seen such a horrible fate before."
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
"Shaman's can see the souls of animals and beasts. The soul of the bear was shackled and controlled by whatever that stone was made out of. It was slowly twisting it, torturing it, corrupting it... but it's free now. While his body may be dead, his soul is free and can reenter the cycle of reincarnation. If we'd gotten here too late it would never have been able to recover." As he spoke, he slowly walked over the the bear while pulling out some incense. He lit it before he beginning a shamanistic ritual.
Turning away from the scene, I found that Connor had put his clothes back on and was being harassed by Beth. Rick was still sitting in a trance, adjusting after breaking through. From experience I knew he'd be there for a while, so I left him alone.
"Where's Sarah?" I asked, I could see everyone but her.
Alexandra had come close to me at some point, and pointed to where the fires were starting to be snuffed out. "She said that she'd take care of the fires."
Looking at where she pointed, I could see a figure in the middle of the flames. She was sitting cross-legged and with every breath she took, the fires around the entire village would be drawn towards her. Slowly, the fires where being put out as she absorbed all of the Elemental Energy from them.
Connor came back as he tried valiantly to ignore Beth's comments. "You could really use some sun, your ass is so white the glare nearly blinded me."
"Thank you for your help." Connor bowed graciously to the woman with the bow and arrow even as his face twitched and he tried to control his temper. At some point, she'd started gathering the remaining guards together. Looking more closely at her, I realized that her armor resembled that of the guards but was of a higher quality.
"No, thank you." She said, a sad smile on her face as she turned to us and held out her hand for Connor to shake. "I'm Eveyln, the captain of the guard. Without your help the village would've been destroyed, we are truly in your debt." She looked back over the dwindling flame where we could hear the injured moaning and people running through the streets in a panic. "I'm afraid that the situation is still just as dire as before. At least 14 more of those things have escaped and we have no way of dealing with them, not to mention the damage done to the village needs to be repaired as quickly as possible."
*Ding*
*Mission Offer*
*Save Ironmarsh*
*Description: Ironmarsh Village has been destroyed in an attack by a corrupted being and it's minions. Aid Evelyn in rebuilding the village and removing the threat*
*Hint: Seek out the alchemist's guild, they may have a way to fight the corrupted.*
*Rewards: ??? (Hidden)*
We all accepted the mission offer immediately, it's the reason we'd come here after all. "Would you be willing to go into the woods and bring back some timber, it's too dangerous to send a normal woodcutter into the woods with these beings around. We need at least 200 large tree's worth to rebuild completely. " Evelyn said, and the mission notice updated for all of us.
*Ding*
*Gather at least 200 large trees worth of timber and return it to the village within 24 hours.*
*Rewards: 1 silver per tree.*
Nodding in acknowledgement, Connor said, "We'll get on it right away."
"Thank you, that should free up my guards to begin clearing the dead bodies and helping the village." Evelyn said before she walked away while barking out orders in a clipped, professional tone to the rest of the guards.
"Well, that was enlightening." I said, reading through all the messages that my implant had sent me.
"Quite." Connor agreed as he continued to examine the surroundings, "I think this whole event was staged. The dungeon outbreak just after a group manages to defeat all of the high-level monsters in the area and is almost ready to enter the dungeon. I'm interested to see if something like this happens in other special zone's when people there get strong enough."
Thinking about it for a while, I nodded in understanding. "That does sound like something Shade would do, it matches well with his attempt to turn 2nd Chance into a video game."
While we'd been talking, Rick had finally woken up from his trance and gotten cleaned up while Sarah finished putting out the flames. Rick walked over and smiled as he patted Alexandra on the back, making her jump in surprise. "Let's go to the Alchemist's Guild before we head out. We should get some potions and try to figure out how they can help out with fighting the corrupted."
Nodding in agreement, we all trailed along behind him. A couple of blocks over, we found that the Alchemist's Guild, Formation Guild, and the Blacksmith's Guild where the only buildings left standing. My jaw nearly dropped when I realized that the blacksmiths had activated some kind of gigantic dark metal shield that glowed with formations. It was slowly receding into the ground as we watched. In comparison the massive glowing barrier formation around the formation guild was lacking in impact. Meanwhile, alchemists from the Alchemist's Guild had brought out a neutralizing potion and were spilling it on the ground around the building carefully, making sure not to miss a spot. If you looked closely, you could see piles of bones dissolving as whatever potion they'd spilled on the ground to keep the hoard of beasts away did it's work.
Walking up, Rick called loudly to one of the alchemists. "Is it safe to enter?"
She looked up from her spot and examined us for a moment before nodding and pointing to where some planks of wood had been laid on the ground around the building. "Stay on the wood, they're covered in the neutralizing potion. So as long as you're careful you should be fine."
Slowly and carefully, we all made our way along the wood in a single file line. The wood was wide enough for two of us to walk side by side, but none of us were taking any chances. When we'd finally entered the building, we found that it was mostly deserted but a middle aged man stood behind the receptionists desk going through it in a rush. The man's hair was sticking up in multiple places as if he'd been pulling on it repeatedly in agitation, his gold-framed glasses were askew, and his Giant Spider Silk Robe was covered in stains and burn marks.
"AHAH!" He yelled in excitement, nearly jumping as he found what he was looking for. Looking up from his frenzied search of the desk he looked surprised to see us. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
Connor took the lead again, pushing past Rick with a genial smile on his face while saying, "Hi, Captain Evelyn asked us to help with rebuilding the village and fighting off the rest of the corrupted and said something about the Alchemist's Guild being able to fight them."
"Ah, yes! I was just looking for that formula. It's a rarely used one in 2nd Chance since the high-level corrupted cannot come here and the low-level ones are so easy to kill. For us though, it'll come in very handy." Holding up the paper, he examined it closely before comparing it with another paper on the receptionists desk.
Sighing, he shook his head in disgust. "We don't have the materials, and we can't send people to find them right now. Plus, some of the materials are extremely dangerous to acquire."
Connor smiled, "Our group killed the corrupted being in the village and will be leaving to go collect some wood for rebuilding soon. If you give us a list of what we need to gather we'll get it for you."
The man looked up in surprise, examining us closely. He touched the side of his glasses, and they flashed in a green light. I felt energy particles pass through me, examining everything about me closely until it ran into Patrice in my mindscape who huffed in irritation and the energy dissipated as a lightning bolt struck it.
Looking around, I saw that the image of the statue in the lake appeared behind Beth glaring at the man. Sarah had transformed into a flame, burning the green energy. Connor's eyes flashed and his whole body somehow turned into a massive sword that chopped the energy to pieces. An image of the formation that'd purified the corrupted bear flashed behind Rick's head, absorbing the energy to power itself. Finally, Gunthar closed his eyes and basked in the energy as his spirit animals frolicked happily in it.
"My god!" The man exclaimed in excitement as he turned to stare at Alexandra who was blushing in embarrassment, "You actually managed to train the Furnace Method?"
The man ignored all of our glares as he rushed over to her, a look of pure joy on his face. "I can't believe it, this changes everything!" He kept talking to himself under his breath, so excited that he forgot we were here until Rick reached over and smacked him on the side of his head. "Oww!" The man said, then turned and realized we were all glaring at him.
Properly chastened, the man got ahold of himself and said, "Excuse me, I was just so surprised." Now that the man wasn't looking at her anymore, Alexandra rushed over to stand behind me, peeking over my shoulder to watch the man. "You may be strong enough to gather all of the materials, but it'll be difficult and extremely dangerous." The man pulled out a blank piece of paper and did something with it, copying the details of the alchemy formula onto the page.
"Most of those you'll be able to find anywhere, but these three." He pointed to three particular items. "Can only be found in extremely dangerous places. Bark of a mother tree can only be found on the mothertree in the center of the marsh, the most dangerous place in special zone. Water Hyacinth can be found at the bottom of a lake, but it's surrounded by man eating fish and a massive shark." Rick, Connor, Beth and I shared a look at that one while the man raised his head to look at us. "Finally, you need to find a corrupted monster core. Normally that'd be impossible for you to acquire, but there should be at least one in the bottom of the dungeon."