With the pirate captain gone, everyone looked around for loot and while they had only killed pirates, they ended up being very lucky and had 2 of them drop equipment. While the pirates were only common rarity, the high level would be useful regardless.
Swabby's Leather Cuirass (Common Chestpiece) Lv. 20
Sunburnt Leather Pants (Common Legpiece) Lv. 20
While neither of them had an ability, the extra defense would be incredibly useful. Debating on whether to give it to Luna or Diana was the difficult part. In the end, they decided to split the two pieces to give the overall team better survivability. The chest going to Diana, and Luna took the legs.
Sol wandered over to Luna and whispered. "So what do we do now? Do you know of this place Luna?"
Absentmindedly shaking her head while staring towards the foresty island, Luna pondered. "I've been trying to remember anything about a fog-covered island or anything similar but either I forgot or the opportunity for someone else to find it had passed. There have been plenty of cases where the world of Elem changes constantly and quests and places can move or even be missed out on entirely."
Motioning towards the rest of their group, Luna took charge. "Alright, let's get a move on before Rend recovers. We have to be careful though, who knows what creatures might inhabit the island."
Just then Minerva piped up. "You'll have to go on without us, the damn bastard pirate captain sabotaged the ship before he left and we have to repair the core. It will take us a while but we can also guard the beach in case there are any straggler ships out at sea that have yet to return."
'Hmmm that's good news, the fact that they are being held behind means that what we should face isn't too hard for our group to accomplish.' Waving the Seabreeze crew goodbye, the rest of them gathered and headed quickly towards the center of the island.
As they reached the end of the beach, a thick forest of thick trees covered in vines was brought into view. While the trees themselves weren't too large, the thick canopy they created blocked out a majority of the sunlight making the forest dark even in the blazing sun.
Sol led the group forward through the forest and called out to the rest of the group. "Be careful, there's a thick fog up ahead. Also, watch your step, there's a bunch of vines all over the roots."
The trek through the fog-filled forest was tense, everyone kept vigilant of the vines due to their experience from the Vine Boas from before. Not too far into the fog though, a group of two elementals passed right by them and quickly attacked.
Fog Guardians (Rare Water Elementals) Lv. 22
Special Ability: Misty Body - Absorbs and Heals 50% of all water-based damage taken
~Stalwart Guardians of the Island Shrine~
Getting into formation, the team faced these new elementals. At this point, Luna and Sol were level 22 while Diana and Minerva were just shy of 22 themselves.
As for the elementals themselves, they were covered in a greenish thick fog which was shaped a lot like a suit of armor. Their top half was what you could imagine a medieval suit of armor would look like while their bottom half was a swirling mist that propelled it forward much faster than Sol had imagined would be possible. Each of them being equipt with a fierce-looking golden trident, the Fog Guardians quickly approached the group.
As the first Fog Guardian charged forth, it stabbed forward at Sol who defended the strike but was almost blown off his feet. Shouting to his teammates, Sol shivered. "Careful! These elementals pack a punch, they are much stronger than anything I've faced yet."
While the first Fog Guardian constantly attacked Sol, the other split off and attacked Minerva. Shocked at how direct and intelligent these elementals were behaving, Luna immediately rooted the elemental which did stop its momentum slightly and prevented it from being able to attack Minerva.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Sol was unable to shake free from the attentions of the Fog Guardian or even have a moment to attract the other one. At least he was able to hold down the one and stay fairly healthy by using his Aegis of Light and Eilyria's healing support and counted on the others to take care of the second guardian.
With Sol being held up, the other had a handful with the other Fog Guardian. Luna's attacks while being converted to ice now were still based on water and thusly did half the amount of damage than usual. Thankfully the slow from her attacks and the roots from Aquis helped out a lot to kite the guardian while Minerva kept everyone healthy whenever an attack got through.
It took a while for the one guardian to fall, however with the constant damage from Diana and expert reactions and slow from Luna, they were never in danger of dying. After the first guardian died, it dispersed and its trident fell to the ground. As soon as the guardian died, they were able to focus entirely on the one attacking Sol. Not having to constantly kite, the other guardian died much quicker and like the first guardian, its trident also was the only thing left.
Picking up the tridents and expecting them to be equipment, the notification surprised them.
~Water Aspect's Golden Trident~
These tridents are bestowed upon the guardians of Brach's Shrine and are the key to opening the shrine to those that are deemed worthy.
2/10 Tridents Collected
Minerva sighed loudly. "We have to kill 8 more of those things? If we face much more than 1 or 2 at a time I don't know if we can manage that. While we did kill those two fairly easily I'm almost out of mana after the fight since they did a ton of damage when they were able to. Plus they seem a lot more intelligent than anything we've faced so far."
Both Sol and Diana agreed with her as the fight was indeed a limit tester that they didn't really expect. At least on the level of mini-bosses in terms of their tactics while their reach and damage were difficult, the less talked about factor was that their armor was pretty tough and even took them a while to defeat just two.
Unlike the rest of the group, Luna was shellshocked that they were able to find an Aspect's shrine so early on and for one of the more elusive Aspect as well. Aspect's shrines were considered by the player base as Goddess' Gift as they were very difficult sure, but the rewards were so incredible that every time a group had managed to successfully complete one would pave their way to the top.
Some shrines were more common than others, such as the Light Aspect Lumi and the Earth Aspect Flora. While the Darkness Aspect Noire and the Water Aspect Brach were rarely found. Regardless, every shrine was obviously very rare to find and only the first group to stumble across one could attempt the trials. Should they fail the shrine would disappear.
It was unknown if the shrine would permanently disappear when not overcome, but over the years that Reign was online, no player had ever heard of two shrines being the same in either location, trials, or rewards.
At least the groups that were able to beat the shrine's trials spread information about their success everywhere, while no one would be caught dead blabbering about failing one of the most sought after occurrences in the entire game.
"L...Lu...
Hey Luna, are you there?" Minerva waved her hand in front of Luna's face.
Realizing that Minerva was trying to get her attention, Luna looked around only to see the rest of the group healed up and ready to go. Still a bit perturbed that they were able to find an Aspect's Shrine so early into the game, Luna took it in stride and was thankful that at least one of their party would benefit from the reward when they complete it.
Diana then was able to comment soon after Luna was ready as well. "I found another Fog Guardian, this one was alone patrolling and thankfully was able to be far enough to where it wouldn't aggro onto me."
Nodding to the others and quickly gathering that they had caught onto the trial which was killing 10 of the Fog Guardians for the tridents they held. Traveling a short bit to the solo Guardian, the group pulled it and killed it after a bit of time. Sol was getting more used to their attack range and without the second one to cause any issues, they were able to get another trident.
Over the next couple of hours they were able to find and kill 2 more of the Fog Guardians. Despite their practiced teamwork, the process of finding the Fog Guardians was not easy with how thick the forest debris was and the island seemed to be incredibly larger than they had expected.
With fatigue from the earlier fights and walking around in an environment that looked the same for hours, the group quickly decided to call it quits. After confirming with Luna that they would still be here when they logged back in the next day, they all selected a fairly clear area in the forest and collectively logged off at the same time and set a time for them to convene tomorrow and continue their adventure.
Taking off the NLA and sitting up to stretch, Melody looked at her phone and realized that she had gotten a few messages with most of them being positive. It was then that Melody heard a knock at her bedroom door. "You can come in Alex."
"Hiya Luna, bleh I mean Mel. How are you doing? Man was today stressful. Those fog elementals are so annoying, their tridents hurt so much and they like to move around so much. I was talking to Eilyria for a bit and she was telling me all about the Aspects and their personalities, was pretty interesting that they aren't just lore figures but actually out in the world somewhere. I dunno about you, but I'm really enjoying spending time with you, Diana, and Minerva.
Smiling and listening to her brother talk about all the exciting things that happened today made Melody feel at ease and happy that she was able to spend this time with Alex. Sometimes Melody wondered how things might have been if things had gone differently.
Alex flopped down next to Melody and grabbed a stray pillow. "Oh, I almost forgot! My old boss messaged me to meet with him sometime soon and thought I should pass the info by you."
Thinking carefully and wondering how to approach someone she remembered in her past life who had been so supportive and shown Melody a path forward in her darkest moment. Thinking back, she never really did understand how Alex's boss was able to guide her or why he choose to and even when she had gotten powerful and influential was never really able to find any information about him.
"Sure, we can meet him after we complete the shrine which shouldn't take longer than a day or two depending on how fast we can pass the rest of the trials. We can do it this Friday, you can tell him that we will come by sometime around dinner."
Sitting up and giving a thumbs up, Alex rubbed his stomach. "Gotcha, I'll get on it after getting something to eat. Do you want anything?"
Looking at the time, Melody realized it wasn't too late and decided to treat them both to some ramen.