[[QUEST: TEAM SYNERGY] [RANK: D] 2nd Part: You have retrieved the recipe for the cure to the Maenad's Tears. Now you must find the ingredients so that Apothecary Harkness can create the remedy enough for the patrons of Dante's Drip: 1x Blood Lotus from the Dark Forest, 5x Dust of Shattered Dreams from the banks of the River Styx, 12x Hell-Slime Cores from the Weeping Meadows. The time limit for this task is four hours — any longer will result in the death of patrons from Dante's Drip. Good luck!]
"I bloody hate chain quests," Lyghtning yelled over the noise of the gathered crowd.
Ath3na's party had chosen to retrieve the hell-slime cores first as the Weeping Meadows was located to the west of Adventour. From there, they could travel southeast to the River Styx and then east to the Dark Forest. Ath3na figured this was the most efficient way to save time during the commute. Unfortunately, every other team must have thought the same thing for the Weeping Meadows was crowded with players.
"How're we supposed to hunt for slime cores with this lot all over the place?" Lyghtning asked.
Hers was an apt description of the chaos unfolding before their eyes. Nearly a hundred players were gathered in the meadows fighting over the hell slimes that popped up from under the bushes of white lilies that carpeted the meadow.
"Can you imagine if this game allowed player-versus-player outside of duels?" Thorminator commented.
"That would save us the trouble," Black Howler replied as he pulled out his claymore from its strap behind his back. "So… how do you want to do this, Ath3na?"
"There's a theme here too," Ath3na answered with barely a whisper while her eyes continued to gaze out at the scene before her.
Lyghtning glanced sideways at her with an eyebrow raised. "I don't follow… can you explain your idea, love?"
"The first task emphasized trust which is a foundation of teamwork," Ath3na answered. "This second task seems to be pointing out another important aspect of working together… communication."
The faces of the other three players lit up with understanding.
"Most of the other teams are clumped together just to deal with one hell-slime, but you want us to move separately," Black Howler guessed.
Ath3na nodded.
Black Howler pointed a finger at a nearby party that was fighting against a blob-like creature that was the size of a human teenager. It had the color of dark blood with a fiery orange sphere floating inside its mass.
One of the players attacked it with his battle-ax, but his weapon was repelled by the hell-slime's liquid body.
"Physical attacks don't work as well against these things… We might have a harder time if we separate," Black Howler noted.
"Don't worry," Thorminator answered. "I've got you covered."
Thorminator pulled out the two-and-a-half-foot wooden rod slung to the sash on his waist and raised it forward with one hand while his other hand twirled its fingers over the blue orb on the rod's tip.
"To your blades I'll add a feature, the awesome power of mother nature!" Thorminator chanted. "Elemental Weapons!"
As soon as he'd finished his chant, his teammates' weapons became sheathed in violet arcs of electricity.
A notification appeared in front of each player.
[YOUR WEAPON NOW HAS +1 LIGHTNING ATTRIBUTE FOR THE DURATION OF THE SPELL'S CAST TIME.]
"If I'd chosen an Ice Rod instead of the Thunder Rod I bought yesterday, we might have had an easier time now," Thorminator shrugged.
"Don't sweat it, big guy," Lyghtning said as she patted him on his broad shoulder. "I'm more impressed that someone with your physique opted to be a mage-type. You're aces."
Her compliment made Thorminator's cheeks go red.
Ath3na clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "Now that we're sufficiently armed, let's move separately. I'll take west, Black Howler takes east, Lyghtning to the north, and Thorminator here in the south… We'll use Whisper to communicate when we pick up a slime core."
"Roger-roger," Lyghtning answered.
"They may just be slimes but don't underestimate them. We all know how imbalanced this game is with its shadow beasts," Ath3na reminded everyone.
With that final warning, the four teammates separated, each to their designated target area.
Ath3na had chosen the west side of the meadows because it was teeming with players and she wanted to give her other teammates an easier time. Obviously, she was worried about the possibility of enemy scarcity as there were just too many people farming hell-slimes. She needn't have worried however, for no sooner had she crossed into her zone when the flower bushes on her immediate left began to wiggle.
A hell-slime launched itself forward like a miniature tidal wave in an attempt to swallow Ath3na whole.
"Soul Pulse!" Ath3na roared just as she raised her spear tip forward.
A salvo of spiritual blasts launched out of her spear and smacked the hell slime's gelatine form, and because her weapon was under Thorminator's enchantment, the blasts, which had changed to bright violet, managed to also stun the slime.
"Interesting…" Ath3na lowered both her legs and readied her spear for a thrust. "The slime's susceptible to lightning damage."
However, before Ath3na could deal with the stunned slime a deathblow, the unthinkable occurred. The slime was gutted from behind by a glaive Ath3na had never seen before.
The goddess of gaming wisdom frowned. Someone had blatantly stolen her kill.
"Oops, my bad," sneered an obnoxious voice Ath3na was unfortunately familiar with. "Sorry, Ath3na… I swung my weapon by accident."
A face Ath3na loathed appeared behind the form of the disintegrating slime which burst into a hundred pieces of glass and coalesced together to form the low-grade soul stone on the flower bed below.
"Don Coyote," Ath3na said, frowning even more now.
Don Coyote was a tall, lithe man who wore a black coat underneath a fel iron chest-plate. His hair was brown and spiked. His eyes, hidden behind horn-rimmed glasses, were a deep grey. Underneath his villainous-looking mustache, there was a smile on his lips, almost as if he was visibly elated by the annoyance showing on Ath3na's face.
"We meet again, goddess of gaming wisdom," he chuckled. "I like the look. You should keep it when you log off… makes you more interesting than the bore you usually are."
"The pleasure's never mine…" Ath3na wrapped her arms around her chest and glared at him. "So, how much did the Easter Egg cost you?"
"Way more than your monthly Wetube earnings," Don Coyote laughed.
"You realize you just admitted to buying your way into the Abyss?" she said while raising an eyebrow at him.
"I don't know what you mean," he replied right before he swooped down and picked up the soul stone on the ground. "Too bad the drop rates in this game are horrible. My team of six would have gotten all twelve cores by now."
Ath3na thought it was a small blessing that Don Coyote didn't get any cores from his steal.
"We already have nine so far," he said in a gloating tone. "How about your team?"
Ath3na's brow furrowed. She couldn't very well tell him they hadn't earned any cores yet. He'd just rub it in her face some more. And just as she was contemplating how to answer him, a crow landed on her shoulders and whispered in her ear.
"Lyghtning here... Just so you know, I'm on my third soul core," the crow whispered in Lyghtning's cheery tone. "Luckily, there aren't too many players in my zone."
Ath3na smiled after the crow had flown away.
"We've earned quite a few already," Ath3na said which she reasoned in her head was technically not a lie.
"Sure, I believe you," he taunted right before turning around with a flourish so his red cape would billow behind him. "I suppose we'll run into each other again, Ath3na."
Seconds passed by while Ath3na just stood there and stared incredulously back at the arrogant idiot who'd ruined her day. And by the time she'd breathed out her annoyance, two more crows had landed on her shoulder.
"I've got four cores now," Black Howler's crow stated in his gruff voice before flying away.
"Yo, sis, I managed to pick up two cores. Let me know how the others are doing?" Thorminator's crow explained in his voice.
"Holy sh*t," Ath3na cursed. "I better get my head in the game or Howler will never let me hear the end of it…"
She hefted her spear and readied herself for the hunt, but just as she noticed another patch of shrubs wriggling close by, a scream assaulted her ears. Then another scream, and then another. Ath3na turned around, and the sight she saw made her eyes go wide in alarm.
"Holy sh*t!" she cursed. "What the f**k is that?!"
---
Watching from the shadows of a nearby tree Leo and Morgana were rubbing their hands together in a very evil-villain kind of way.
"We need popcorn for this," Morgana said.
"I told you," Leo chuckled. "This part's a lot more interesting than a simple fetch quest."