After taking down the three players who tried to stop him, Rastel hurried towards the escaping mage. He wanted to catch up with him before he entered laron as there could be reinforcements waiting there. The mage was at the head of the group, looking tired and ready to drop but still running hard for his life.
When he felt he was close enough, he used earth pillar to launch himself forward towards the goon at the back barreling into him with a kick!
The man crashed into the floor while Rastel used him to break his landing as he activated lightning blast on both hands and smacked the two men by his sides heavily. They dropped like wet sacks as the attack fried their insides.
The mage yelled to the remaining two men as he kept on running.
"Stop him! Kill him now!"
But the men also never stopped moving.
'Bro you're running away and you want us to stop him? Your entire family must be cursed with shamelessness!'
Rastel launched two earth pillars towards the two men sending them flying to the sides. With a big leap and another earth pillar, he crashed into the red mage smashing his head into the dirt!
"UMPGH! GRRRH!" the mage groaned as the floor muffled his cries.
With one of his legs stepping on the mage's head, Rastel heaved as he smiled while looking down at him.
"You're a hard person to catch, I just wanted to talk"
"UFURGH! UMURR!"
"Oh yeah, you can't talk like this" Rastel flipped him over roughly.
The mage coughed and spit out pieces of dirt from his mouth. He looked up angrily at Rastel, struggling as if he wanted to tear him to pieces.
"Damn you! You think you can get away with this!? You will be hun – DARFGH!"
Rastel roughly shoved his face back into the dirt once again as he cleaned his ear casually with his little finger.
"People don't even know basic courtesy nowadays, you say your name and allow the other person speak, simple basic courtesy."
He waited for a while before turning the mage over again. This time, the mage didn't speak or struggle. He just kept glaring hatefully at him.
"Now that's better. Okay my name is Rastel, what's yours?" Rastel asked enthusiastically.
The mage didn't reply, he just kept glaring. Rastel sighed then decided to change the question.
"I was planning on discussing some business matters, are you the boss around these parts or perhaps there's someone higher? Where's your base?"
The mage still said nothing as he continued glaring. Seeing his interrogation was getting him nowhere, Rastel decided to end it here and move to another place. This place was too open anyway and he couldn't guard it.
Activating lightning blast, he bashed the mage's head a few times before he successfully knocked him out. Although the mage kept crying out as he was bashing, he didn't care.
"It's your fault that your level is so high, but damn I really need to level up my skills. They're too far below my actual level."
After he knocked out the mage, he tied him up with some cloth rags and searched his clothing and found about 200 kryts.
'Broke bastard! Where was he getting his confidence from giving those poor players a mission for a thousand kryts each?'
He also took off his mage robe for himself. As he looked at it, he was almost moved to tears.
'My first robe, I can't believe how far I've come'
He equipped the robe and carefully observed how he looked.
The robe was bright red with short sleeves and a short collar. It was split down the middle and It had an accompanying belt but Rastel took it off as he felt it wasn't cool enough which left the ends dancing with the early morning wind as his tail poked out the back swaying along. There were tiny writings like inscriptions all around the robe and when Rastel looked at the stats, he was satisfied.
Mage Robe
Rarity: Common
Type: Accessory
Attribute: +10% casting speed to all fire spells
It was a robe that increased his casting speed. Even though it only worked for fire spells, his most offensive spells right now were his two fire spells so he still found it acceptable.
He lifted the mage and carried him onto his shoulder to sneak into the village. It would soon be dawn and there would be a few guards around, he didn't want to raise an alarm.
He went to the village's inn and dumped the mage in the alley behind the inn. He then walked inside normally to purchase a room.
The inn was a big building with two floors. The lower floor had a bar counter and lots of tables and chairs, there was an open fire pit in the center to warm up the place and sometimes cook large meals. There was a part sectioned off behind the bar which was probably the owner's residence. The top floor was where the rooms which were rented out where located. As it was a village inn, the rent was cheap only costing 10 kryts per night.
Rastel wanted to rent a room so that he could secure the mage and log off for the day. He had been playing for a while now and all the action had left him feeling tired. As it was early dawn, the inn was empty and there was only a young human girl cleaning the tables around the inn and a woman who looked to be in her late thirties behind the counter arranging drinks on the display.
The girl looked to be about 14 and had light skin, brown eyes and hair which was tied into a ponytail, this was the typical look for most humans in laron. The girl wore a plain brown dress with short sleeves and there was a yellow outline on the collar with a yellow belt tied around her waist. It looked very cute on her.
The woman on the other hand wore a huge black dress with frills at the end of both the dress and sleeves which were long covering up to her wrist. There was a big yellow sash tied stylishly around her waist and the collar of her dress was covered with numerous designs made with yellow thread. She looked like an older version of the little girl and although her looks were about average, she had a well proportioned body that would still have men attracted to her.
'One is a cute girl with a ponytail looking simply dressed while the other is the mother than is extravagant in…ahem! …. more places than one to put it tactfully. This is what I'm talking about! Stereotypes are really not bad in these types of situations after all!'
As he closed the door, the woman noticed him as she put down the last drink. Picking up what looked like a wooden tobacco pipe from below the counter, she called out to her daughter as she took a deep puff.
"Anna dear attend to the customer"
The girl, Anna looked up from her work which she was previously doing with her full concentration. She bounced up to Rastel looking full of energy.
"Good morning, what would you have? Breakfast? Or maybe a drink?" she asked with a smile
Rastel smiled back as he answered.
"I want a room please, two nights. And maybe I'll have some breakfast first."
Anna nodded absent mindedly as her eyes seemed glued to Rastel's tail which was waving slowly behind him.
"Anna" her mother called out behind her.
"Yes? A room…. b-breakfast…..right away!" she stuttered as she quickly went upstairs to prepare a room.
Rastel shook his head as he went and sat at the counter to wait. The woman looked at him as she blew some smoke from her lips which surprisingly smelled nice like a mixture of fragrant herbs.
"So you're a muan? I barely see your type around. What brings you to this part of Aelmar?"
Knowing that this world was called Aelmar, he quickly formulated an answer. Muans are a race bordering on extinction in the world due to some war that had happened in the past which they were involved in, so there was not a lot of them around other continents except for their home island which was closed off to no one except members of the race. Rastel wasn't up to date with the world's lore as the village's library was only filled with books on local events and there were only mentions of some larger happenings.
'I should find some books and read up soon enough' he thought.
"Ah I'm just passing by, I wanted to adventure around and see the world before I got too old to. I'm planning on heading to the capital before leaving Gorm and seeing another kingdom, maybe one of these elven ones" he replied sounding like he was an experienced adventurer.
"So you're an adventurer huh?" the woman eyed him and his robe for a few seconds then lowered her pipe.
"I am the innkeeper here, you can call me Marilyn"
"Rastel" he smiled
"I'm wondering if you can help me with something then, the reward would be generous" she instinctively lowered her voice.
"Of course, I wouldn't mind" Rastel nodded calmly while feeling excited in his mind. It was likely a quest! His first one, not counting the unique class quest.
"Thank you" the woman smiled.
"Our village has been enduring in silence for a while now, the village hall had been taken over by some outsiders since a few months ago. They captured the chief's family and all the guards and imprisoned them. With our chief imprisoned, we couldn't bear to leave him to his devices. Many had tried to free him or even escape the village but they always end up being hunted down and made an example. So we came to accept our situation and live quietly." She narrated quite the sad story.
'Looking at the situation, it seems they had no way to contact the outside world for help. The outsiders she's talking about must be the same syndicate that the mage belongs to. A kill request sounds more likely as it seems they don't have the power to take down the syndicate. I'm not sure my power would be enough either' Rastel thought to himself.
"I don't need you to do anything drastic, if you can rescue the prisoners from the holding cells under the village hall and bring them to my inn, you would be heavily rewarded and have the villager's gratitude" the woman told him her request.
New quest!
The villager's dilemma – Rank C
The villagers of laron are under threat by a group of unknown men. Rescue the captured villagers from the village's holding cell under the village hall and safely bring them to the inn.
Reward: 1000exp, 2000kryts
'Just a rescue mission?' Rastel narrowed his eyes.