As a person who had been at a high managerial position in the game of vita-nova, Balthazar had always read through many posts in the forums and any information that he could get hold of. The best way to understand game lore and the local situation was through the local libraries. Many books for secondary occupations and spells and magical arrays, tools, etc. were also found in the libraries.
Most towns and cities have the town libraries which have almost all the information on the various historical things and the NPCs that have either visited the town or were in the town. One usually required to be a citizen and requires having more reputation to get to the more confidential information.
Apart from the city and the town libraries, a number of organizations and powerful NPCs, would have their own libraries in every town or city. A player needed at least some reputation to be able to access these libraries. Sometimes, the information that these organizations have might not even be found in the central libraries in towns and cities. That is the reason most players used to try and get reputation in various organizations. Sometimes, a good reputation in some organizations of the game was enough to promote a player in their respective guild or workshop.
Shadow was a member of the temple of the twelve and had an iron grade membership. It allowed him to get to library of the most local temple branches. Though it probably didn't allow him to get to the confidential areas, it was enough for him to find information of the local lore.
They stopped at large door and the token that Faroon gave him served as a key to open the door. The library was quite large and had a few hundred books in it shelves. There was another door at the other end of the library. Shadow asked Faroon as soon as his eyes fell on it.
"That would be the confidential part of the library. I can only provide access to a person who is a deacon or has a standing above it. I am sorry, but it wouldn't be of much use to you. Most of it is filled with accounts of various transactions done by the temple," said Faroon.
"Oh, in that case, I would spend my time here," said Shadow. "This is completely a detection type quest. Luckily, I managed to get good information because I had read about these previously. Hopefully, the end of the quest wouldn't be a hard fight as those guys wrote," thought Balthazar. "A good part of the quest matched the things that I have read. I hope the end of the quest isn't too hard,"
"Good, I will be in the confidential area of the library. You can call for me if you need anything," said Faroon as he opened the door at the other end and went inside it. Shadow quickly made his way to the shelves and started browsing through the books available there.
There were a lot of books in the shelves. Most of them were related to any profession or anything. They had information about geography, the monsters around the town, the various important personal in the town and other information.
He didn't find anything about the NPCs as he went through the books. As that provided him nothing significant, he went through the history of the town. He had never heard of the Jarko town. He had been in the White Heart City and clearly the Jarko town was close to it, so he was sure that the town had been renamed.
Most of the towns that were renamed were due to some player managing to get enough reputation to become a noble and change its name or some kind of quest or event that led to the name change. Either way, such towns tend to have a speciality or resource that could be found easier at that town than other places. So, getting a reputation at this town or having his guild develop at the town was a good thing to do. So, Balthazar wanted to make sure that his guild takes this opportunity.
If he were in the game since its start in his past life, he would have been able to identify the towns very quickly and plan accordingly. As, he wasn't he was only left with the option of identifying the town through its history and geography.
Soon, he went through the important names and headings of various events that occurred at the town but was unable to identify. So, he finally had to examine its geography. The temple library had a good map of the town, which provided a lot of details, but that wasn't enough as most renamed towns would change quite a bit. Sometimes, they might even end up becoming larger towns and in rare cases small cities. Unable to get anything from it, he went to the priest's cabin and knocked on it to meet up with Faroon as it was time for sundown, and they needed to prepare to catch the demon.
"You got a map of the location of this town in relevance to the White Heart City," he asked Faroon as soon as the priest came out. Even though, he couldn't find any clue about the towns name in his previous life, its relative location would help him guess some significant details.
"It is to the west of the White Heart City. I have no map of it, but the baron has a map of the town and a few relavant trade routes. He depends on it for improving the trade of the town," said Faroon. "He might be willing to let you have a look."
"That would be helpful. I guess, I have to meet him up after we are done with the demon," said Shadow as he got out of the library behind Faroon.
The deacon led him to the back of the temple and into a tunnel which was dug at the backyard of the church. "Move in, quickly Mr. Shadow. It is almost nightfall and the demon would be stronger from this hour," said Faroon as he left the trapdoor open after they went in.
They walked into the tunnel which was a few dozen metres long. The finally stopped at a room which was made of white marble. It had a lot of sockets fitted with gemstones and there seemed to be a red granite floor. There were large markings on the floor in the form of some kind of magical array with a lot of its pieces missing.
"There seemed to quite a few pieces missing from this array, deacon," said Shadow as he noticed it. He had enough knowledge of the magical arrays of the game to deduce it. "Are you sure that this would be successful?" he asked as doubts crept into his mind.
"Yes. I am sure," said Faroon but it was clear that he was also a bit worried. "Well, I haven't used it before, but deacon Lockhart had assured me that it was good enough to stop even mid level demons. He isn't one that would lie about something like this which could be considered as one of the defences of the temple," continued Faroon.
"I hope so," said Shadow. "It might be some high-level array, which even when only partially complete could help against smaller foes," thought Shadow as he observed the floor. "I better get a hold of some kind of high-level appraisal skill technique or artifact. Else, it would be really hard to deal with such things."
He had heard of several players having high-level appraisal skills, which allowed them to identify various arrays, items, weapons, camouflage, etc. These skills were highly helpful to make one's character strong, clear special quests, find new quests and even the trade occupations. Appraising of artifacts itself was used as a trade by a few players who sold their service to other guilds and workshops. Most guilds employed such players in determining the legitimacy of artifacts and armaments in various auctions in the game.
"You don't need to worry. I will conceal myself in the control room. Originally, Bistam should be the one who could lure the demon and hold them in the array," said Faroon pointing to a small room at one corner of the room. It was hardly enough for one person to be standing in it and was behind a pillar in the room. It was the only pillar in the room and Shadow immediately felt like that pillar was only there to conceal the control room.
"Ok. Get there and keep safe. If the demon notices you, it is best if you get out from there. It would be hard to escape if it gets close to you in that small space," said Faroon.
With nothing to do, he went to the centre of the array on the floor and sat down. He waited there for a few minutes before he could hear a scraping sound from the tunnel to the room. A demon about 7 feet tall wearing pitch-black leather armor. It held a large halberd and wore a large cloak which would easily cover another human along with it. It had thick arms with bulging muscles and a stifling aura that would numb most minds who aren't used to bloody fights.
[Barakdoros] (Minor Demon)
Level 15;
HP: 10000/10000;
"You guys and your tricks," laughed the demon as he saw Shadow in the room. It held the halberd at Shadow and jumped at him trying to impale him with the halberd. Shadow managed to side step it and throw a dagger at the demon managing to make a deep cut on its weapon hand. Thought the demon was at level 15 and Shadow at level 13, his attributes were high enough to match and even beat the demon due to the effect of the pair of unique armaments he had on him.
"If you were a bit slower, I would have definitely disarmed you with that," said Shadow. The demon seemed to be looking down at him and laughed at Shadow as soon as it entered the room. So, taunting it to anger it was a good idea. As in any game, taunts tend to excite the opponent. Verbal taunts were the simplest ones in vita-nova.
"You are a strong one," said the demon uncaring of his taunt and examining him. This behaviour made Balthazar realize that the demon is a monster of higher intelligence and it wouldn't be easy for him to defeat the demon.
Taunting and irritating monsters to excite them and using this to fool them into circumstances was a well-used practice in his past life, but there were always exceptions. Some monsters had higher intelligence which wouldn't be easily taunted. Some were even more intelligent and could cast skills that put the mind of the player in an aggressive mood and would cause the players to be the ones to be affected by the monsters' taunts. Those were a nightmare for most players.
"It had to be an intelligent one," cursed Balthazar in his mind. "Well, I guess at least this had to be expected from the quest, since the demon is the only monster I encountered in the entire quest."
The demon tried a few more attempts to attack Shadow, but his speed allowed him to evade them and land a couple more hits on the demon. It was sort of a stalemate and they were trying to circle each other. Though he managed to evade the attacks, Shadow knew that if he took the attack it would have a strong blowback effect and also cause high damage.
Shadow could see that the demons was also waiting and taking its time to attack him rather than continue with a series of quick attacks like other monsters and beasts. He suddenly realized something and began to look at its health bar.
"Shit, it might be a minor demon, but it definitely has some kind of secret," thought Balthazar as he saw the rate of its recovery. It was healing at about 100 HP per second. This was quite high for a demon of its level. A 1% recovery rate would usually only be seen in higher demons or at the very least middle order demons. So, the recovery rate immediately made put him on the guard.
"So, you noticed," said the demon suddenly as if it had realized that the adventurer in front of it noticed the peculiarity. "I am not the usual minor demons you find in these areas. It won't be that easy to defeat me."