The village elder looked over the trio that came in and explained they found a way to save the village. "What took you so long? I asked you to help us a long time ago." He inquired of the warrior.
Shiarra nodded. "There were unusual complications. The water elementals were being corrupted by necromancy. We couldn't obtain a strong enough untainted elemental core. But that is where these two behind me come in. They can summon the rain and fill your well with water. However they will need to go into the well to accomplish the task."
The elder frowned. "Isn't that dangerous? What if they drown and contaminate the water?"
Jericho stepped forward. "Respected sir, the two of us can walk on the water. We won't drown."
The old man's eyes widened. "You are a miracle worker?"
Jericho shook his head. "I'm a bard. She is a dancer. We use our performance abilities to make things happen. Please trust us and allow us to go into the well."
The elder started laughing. "Young man, you must not understand how wells work. Underground there are natural pathways of water. We have dug into these underground rivers of water. One cannot simply fill the well with water. You must restore water to the reservoir feeding the well. Follow me." The man started to go up the nearby rocky mountain slope.
The three followed. After traveling for a few minutes they arrived at a very large open pit. Water bubbled up from one side and trickled down into a small underground river.
"As the water passes through the underground rocky path, the water cleans itself before making its way to our well. In order to restore the reservoir, the water in the ground must increase. It won't be simple. Do you still have the confidence to do it my young friends?"
"Yep!" Princess replied before anyone could say anything. "You can leave it to me and my brother!"
The elder smiled. "I will do so then." He started to walk off.
"Wait," Shiarra called out. "While they are working on the water problem, is there anything else I can help with?" She asked to avoid getting soaked by their skills and to watch out for enemies.
"Sure, follow me." The elder motioned.
The two left.
{So that is how a human well works; interesting.} Glaw spoke to Jericho.
Princess looked up at her brother. "Should we get started?"
"Yeah. Let's get started." He pulled out his violin to start playing.
{Wait!} Glaw shouted to Jericho.
The bard lowered his instrument. {What's wrong?}
{There is a better place to restore the water, and it will hide the two of you. I'm surprised you didn't sense it.} Glaw emerged. {Follow me.}
"Oh, hi Mr. Water elemental!" Princess said.
"We are following him." Jericho replied. {I only have that cool water vision when I am in my water elemental form, Glaw. That is probably why I didn't sense it.} He explained.
The three entered into a cave with an open roof. The sound of running water could be heard inside. {Play your music, have your sister dance, and use your water elemental form to bring water to this place. It will be the most effective. It will take a long time by human standards. I will help you to speed up the process.}
{Thank you, Glaw.}
{Of course, I know you will return the favor.}
Jericho nodded to the elemental and turned to his sister. "Now we will get started. I'm going to shift into my elemental form to help speed things along." The bard shrunk. His body became liquid. Like before, he formed his arms into the violin and the bow. He started playing.
Moira danced. She summoned her water elemental background dancers to amplify the effects of the rainfall.
{Jericho, also use Create Water. You can form a second pair of arms to do so. When we finish filling up the pool here, use Command water to push it into the soil.} Glaw reminded the bard about the advantages of Mutable body.
The water violin's form collapsed a few times as he formed two additional arms and split his concentration between three different tasks. Only the song was practiced to the point of not requiring a large amount of focus.
The process ran on and off repeatedly because of the lack of MP and Stamina. They were only level 4. After a few hours of calling for rain and dumping massive amounts of water, the two logged off for dinner and Moira's homework.
"This is so boring. Performing the same dance repeatedly for nobody quickly loses its fun." Moira said at the dinner table.
Jericho nodded. "True, but how did you learn to get good at dancing?"
The girl frowned and lifted her pointer finger as if quoting someone. "By repeatedly trying to dance. By watching other's dance. By finding and correcting mistakes in my dancing."
Jericho nodded. "Right, my ever famous misquote that I have shared countless times. Do you remember what mom used to tell us all the time? Practice makes progress. I bet your skills have improved greatly these last few hours."
"Yeah…" She replied.
***
On the bug forums, the Free Team sent an official reply to the video in question.
"Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention. After careful analysis and data scanning we have determined that this was not caused by a bug in the system. While we were surprised to see it in an early game area, battles like these will become more frequent in the future. For those who have not read the details of our NPC disclosure this information may be useful to consider in the future. NPC do not normally 'Spawn' unless called upon by magic. Every NPC in game is born, lives, and dies similar to how we do. Monsters just grow at a faster rate than Humans and other normal races.
One example you may remember is the extermination of the foxes in forest near the starting village of Pren. Because the players had hunted down almost all the NPCs, the fox population in the forest has become practically non-existent.
The NPCs in the video in question have different AI then the previous monsters fought. Given enough time, or exposure to certain things, NPCs of all types can learn new skills. This will be seen more frequently when facing NPCs of higher intelligence. Guides on how to fight certain enemies will be just that, guides not scripts. We hope you continue to enjoy the ever-changing world of Freedom Online. -- The Free Team --"
***
Brotillian the self proclaimed druid and his four companions hiked up the muddy slopes of the village mountain. "Why would Emerald leave halfway? What is so important that he gave up on the chance to watch someone squirm? Why would he try to call off this mission? It doesn't make any sense with his sadistic personality."
The fighter wielding a large warhammer shook his head. "I couldn't tell you. But, I'm glad he isn't here to fly off the handle. He can be a real pain when he gets angry."
Laughter echoed from the surroundings.
Brotillian shook his head. "Adler, there is no reason for you to be in stealth mode right now."
The rouge appeared. "But laughing creepily from the shadows is fun; especially when it freaks people out." She replied playfully.
The rain started pouring again.
The druid looked up. "Sudden rainfall, just like when we were fighting the elemental boss. Do you think the elementals learned the skill from Jericho?"
Adler smiled. "It's likely. There are recordings of him at the well performing on the forums. He has a song that brings the rain as well. In fact I am fairly confident it was the same song."
Brotillian frowned. "So, not only did he refuse our kind invitation, he is here stealing our quest to bring water to this place, and he taught the elementals his mystical music arts to interfere with our quests. I agree, it is a good thing Emerald isn't here. The whole mountain would be on fire by now."
The warrior laughed. "No it wouldn't, everything is soaked which would make our fire mage even angrier. Besides, you need to get over your bad habit of painting everything in the worst way possible. It only makes him angrier and it isn't like he is targeting us on purpose."
Adler laughed.
The druid frowned. "I won't heal you two in our next boss battle if you keep it up."
Adler vanished from sight. "Bro's upset. I'm going back to the shadows. It's nicer there."
The archer looked over the muddy slopes. "The rain has washed away their footprints. We are searching blind."
***
The next morning on their way to Moira's school, Jericho and his sister were feeling quite relieved.
"Thank goodness that is done!" The twelve year old sighed. "That was tiring."
Jericho smiled. "Indeed. But you got your rain dance up to a higher level of Adept."
"Yep, Rain Dance is at Adept 6/10 now and my Ritual Dance skill has also reached Adept 9/10." She confirmed. "But I want to perform different dances again. It will be more enjoyable that way."
"I agree, I think I want to be done with water for the next bit. Unlike you, this was the second time I have used water elemental skills while in that strange morphic body for hours on end. I still feel a little weird."
"But you look so cute in that form!" Moira teased.
"You aren't wrong… but still, a change of pace would be good. When you get home, let's turn in our quests and go find a different one to do."
The girl thought for a bit. "I've got a friend who is playing the game too; he wanted to play with us. Maybe he has an adventure we can enjoy. I'll ask him."
Jericho nodded. "Which friend; Kenneth or Alexander? They are both good kids and the only two friends you ever talk about."
"Ken," She replied. "By the way, I was curious, since you were using a lot of skills what are their ranks now?"
"Part 1 of The Storm (rain) is now at adept 4/10. Mutable body is at Adept 7/10. I had to form fake lungs and a fake voice box to talk with you while we worked otherwise it wouldn't be so high. Create Water, the skill I got, actually reached Adept 8/10 I used it a lot. Finally Control water reached Adept 0/10 Most of the controlling of the water was done by Glaw since he was the expert. I am really glad he helped us out, it would have taken way too long otherwise."
Moira smiled. "Impressive. By the way, when are you going to finish parts 2 and 3 of rain portion of The Storm?"
The bard laughed; "after I get an accordion and a clarinet. It has been tiresome not having the right instruments for most of my songs. Besides, I want to have enough instruments to play the full rendition of the Storm; not just rain."
"True. But what if you get other instruments before those two?"
"Then I will wait until later to finish The Storm. There are plenty of other songs for me to play once I get the right instruments. We are here, see you after school!"
"Wait one last question. Since we have finished the quest other than turning it in, what are you going to do until I get home?"
© J Eranoth