Cain and Misha decided to take the next day off, see the sights and relax. Between power leveling and the nightmare spider forest, it's been a long week.
The town has a huge selection of armor and clothing, mostly cloth and leather. Cain finds a casual outfit he can wear around town, Jeans and a button-up shirt made of black metallic threads that count as a very light chain armor. It's a much better look than the heavy chain pants, though the actual armor rating is terrible.
Misha on the other hand is in paradise. Being a cloth wearer, almost all the armored clothing items are available for her use, the chain items Cain needed are found only at a few specialty stores. She reigns herself in though, not wanting to spend too much. Buying a couple casual looking outfits and one special item for later. Her class somewhat limits her options, all dresses become modest or even completely covering when a Cleric equips them. Much to Cain's disappointment, the Naughty Nun look is only possible with a costume type item.
[Pure Black Lingerie] obtained
Clothing shopping finished they slowly take in the sights of the town and find a comfortable spot in the park to settle down for a while, enjoying a simple lunch of grilled sandwiches from the street vendors.
It's a better looking place than the Beginner Village, which had a very basic, almost wild west level of functionality. The streets are cleaner, there's grassy public parks, and the combination of brick buildings and wooden siding gives the town a comfortably familiar feeling to Cain.
We need more days like this. Grinding is good, but sometimes you just need to relax. " Cain sighs.
"But we will need to grind eventually. That last drop item is all we need and then we can get out of here for somewhere the dungeons are less cold." Misha laughs.
"A day off every week? Or maybe every third day off? If we're doing this well everywhere we go, working two and taking one-off sounds like a pretty good life."
"Can you imagine asking your boss for that in the last world? 6 on 1 off was my usual, even while still going to university, and they made me feel like that was a luxury." Misha laughs, her dark curls falling in her face as they come untucked from behind her ears.
Cain thinks back over his deadbeat former life, resolving to do better in this one. No more drinking himself insensible, certainly not to the point he has ruined his health. No more laying about for months on end until he runs out of even dried Ramen noodles and needs to grocery shop or starve.
He has been off to a good start though. He has a job of sorts. A good place to live. Even what he could call a girlfriend, though they've not agreed to anything so formal. Given the option, he has no inventive of going back.
After a day of relaxation, they decided to head to the dungeon to farm for the last drop from the harpies. They got up a bit late, getting caught up in line, a rarity for the pair of early risers.
"Hey, guys. I see you're down a few people, looking for any more party members?" A lyrical voice, typical of the accent belonging to this world's Elves, asks them. "Oh, hey it's you!"
"Mythryll? What are you doing here looking for a party? Weren't you with a full group just 2 days ago?"
"The party broke up. The warriors kept pulling too many mobs, almost getting me and the shaman killed a bunch of times and it turned into a huge fight yesterday. The others all left town already, but I heard there's a Frost Staff mages can get from this dungeon."
"I know the feeling, I was sure this maniac and a vampire tank were going to get me killed any number of times the day we went for the Iron Man titles." Misha laughs.
"You have the Iron Man titles? That's awesome. The drop rate increase is supposed to make it so much easier to get good gear, and with two in the same party you must get all the loot."
"Except the one drop you need" Misha laughs.
"How about it Cain? Can we add a party member? We could use a good mage."
[Party Invite Sent]
[Mythryll Has Joined The Party]
Mythryll was only level 26, no wonder she was having trouble and almost dying. Being almost ten levels ahead of her, they both were higher level than the monsters and didn't suffer the additional damage that low levels do.
"I've got a Treant if we need an extra tank." Mythryll says. "They never let me really use it though. Elves get a bonus to nature magic, so I went almost all nature spells with a bit of fire at the start."
"Sure, the more the merrier in my opinion." Cain laughs. Turn down extra experience because it might take attention away from his Golems? Not his style.
Once they enter the Icy Caverns of the dungeon, Cain summons all of his Golems and Mythryll summons her Treant. It is a fairly adorable thing, a bit more than her diminutive height and bushy.
[New Form Learned: Summon Greater Golem Treant]
What is this now? He can learn new forms for his summons just by being around other people's? That is awesome.
"Hey, let me try something first before we pull," Cain says and selects Treant instead of Shield in his Greater Golem form menu. They disappear and he quickly summons them back, appearing as 3 meter tall, thick trunked trees with arms like heavy side branches and vines hanging from the foliage with sharp thorns.
Misha and Mythryll just gape in shock. "When did you learn that?" Misha asks.
"Just now. I got the notification a new form was available when she summoned hers. It's the first player-created Summon I've been around, and it looks like The Greater Golems can copy its form."
"But bigger. That must be advancement 2 or 3 of the spell right?" The little mage asks.
"Yeah, something like that. My class is a bit strange about skills. I take it yours is the level 1 basic Treant Summon? Perfect, let's go do a pull and see how it goes."
The treants do a huge amount of damage with his Skilled Creation Amulet, and the vines wrap up enemies, slowing the incoming attacks, but they still take a lot of damage in return.
"Well, that was fun, but for now, I'll change them back to shield bearers. We don't want to anger our Healer." Cain smiles.
"Sorry, Misha." Mythryll giggles "But it was fun while it lasted. Our own little forest in the ice."
With both fire and nature magic, plus a small army of summons, their trip through the dungeon goes very smoothly. Still, no luck getting the drop from the elite harpy though. Maybe it's hidden somewhere? They spend a couple of hours searching everywhere and finally find what they're looking for. A Harpy corpse in a Yeti den.
[Quest Item Obtained]
"Now, should we go look for that Frost Staff? I think me and Cain both know where we're going to find it."
"Yeah, let's go poke the dragon." Cain laughs.
It takes them a while to find the entrance to the hidden cave the Dragon resides in, but checking their hand-drawn map, they find an empty circle just like the first time.