GH - 204

“Did you guys wait long?” Megan shouted as she and Nitana trotted towards us.

“Sho-should we respond?” Paritor hesitantly asked Kezo. “It might be inappropriate to shout. We should wait for them to—”

“No, we didn’t!” I yelled, waving at Megan and Nitana.

Kezo laughed.

“No need to be so uptight among friends,” I told Paritor. And also, a reminder to myself.

“I-I suppose you are right,” said Paritor.

“Nitana took so long to come online,” Megan rapidly spoke when they neared us. “I was already prepared, but she—”

“What are you talking about?” Nitana cut in. “You were the one who almost forgot our schedule because you were on a date with—”

“What’s this big fire kitty?” Megan loudly asked, stepping in front of Nitana and shoving her to the side. “And this, uh, weird no-face man? Are they yours, Paritor?”

“Yes,” he replied. “My new summons.”

“Oooh. Brand new?” Megan exaggerated her excitement as she tried to cover Nitana’s mouth. “I like the cat. The other guy gives me the creeps though. But not as creepy as Nitana’s new fairies.”

“You bought something?” I asked Nitana, who trotted away from Megan.

“A Skill Shard from Chief Nogras’ event shop,” Nitana drawled. “And, no. They’re not that creepy. Megan’s just being dramatic as always.” Nitana held out her staff; puffs of glowing green smoke came from its end. The wisps solidified into three orbs. Each one opened, unfurling into wings, revealing the creature cocooned inside each one.

They were… fairies. But they differed from Nitana’s usual summons.

Upon peering closer, I noticed their flesh was decaying, peeling off their limbs to expose pencil-thin bones. Their eye sockets were swirling hollows, and their open mouths were lined with small jagged teeth. When they flapped their wings as they flew around Nitana, they left trails of black spores, visible against the backdrop of white snow, that looked dangerous to inhale.

“Don’t smell that, Herald,” Megan warned.

“What? I wasn’t going to.”

“Sometimes, you do weird stuff like manually consuming food, so I thought you’d sniff Nitana’s gross fairies. Better not ‘cause they smell like leftovers from a restaurant supposed to be for pets but forgotten in the car over the weekend.”

“Sounds oddly specific, and I’m not going to ask why you’re familiar with that smell.”

“I know the answer,” Nitana muttered.

“If you’re comparing that smell to the odor of these fairies,” Kezo asked Megan, “does that mean you sniffed them?”

Megan said, “Nitana forced me to!”

“You lost a dare,” Nitana quickly replied. “You forced yourself into doing it.”

I looked at Nitana and nodded at her summons. “Are they Blighted fairies?”

“The Shard’s name is [Putrefied Nymphs]. I’m not sure of their lore or whatever, but they’re probably Blighted, yeah.” Nitana shrugged. The decaying fairies shrugged too. One of them dropped their shoulders as it did. The falling limb faded into green spoke before materializing again on the fairy.

Megan made a face. “Make them go away already. It’s worse that they’re so… expressive. They’re looking at me!”

“When I saw this Shard,” said Nitana, wiggling her body so the fairies would do the same, “I just knew I had to buy it. I got lucky that all of the Blighted Tokens I farmed were enough for it. Yeah, I didn’t farm much. But hey, it’s still expensive.”

“What do they do?” I asked. “Your other fairies exploded. Are these damage dealers too? Or debuffers?”

“Both. Got good debuffs and damage over time,” Nitana replied. “Doesn’t deal a ton of damage upon impact, but the DoT can be really painful because it stacks with each hit per fairy. Like, there are three fairies now, so that’s immediately three stacks if all the AoEs overlap the same target. Can get pretty wild damage ticks during my tests. I’ll need to rearrange my LSPs to level it up more.”

Megan snickered. “Weird to hear you going all scientific with experiments and stuff.”

“Oh, shut up, you,” Nitana sternly said.

“Sounds like it’s worth the Blighted Tokens, Nitana.” I scratched my tusks, imagining myself playing an instrument while Blighted fairies swirled around me and attacked my enemies. Since I was tanky, I was in no rush to kill monsters, and I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to—that was why I went with retribution and poison DoTs to deal damage. Stacking damage over time with Blighted fairies would go well with my general theme.

“There’s another lucky thing,” said Nitana. “Passives from my Ocadules also affect my new fairies. I didn’t even think about that when I bought the Shard. Like this skill refreshes the duration of the debuffs of the Putrefied Nymphs if other fairies hit the same guy.”

My theorycrafting brain was getting pulled into yet another tangent. I stopped it by reminding myself that the event shop was already closed. Even if there was a way to get [Putrefied Nymphs], it was too difficult to fit it into my build.

“That’s good for long fights, against bosses,” said Kezo.

Nitana nodded. “The longer the better.”

“Pfft!” Megan held her stomach as she uncontrollably giggled.

That’s what she said, I quipped in my head. And Nitana did actually say it, but I kept my mouth shut. Though I had mentioned that one shouldn’t be uptight among friends, I gauged our group wasn’t close enough that I could pull off that joke without sounding offensive.

“Grow up, Meg,” said Nitana, rolling her eyes.

“That’s your comeback?” Megan burst out laughing. “Super lame and generic.”

“Oh, wait,” said Nitana, holding up a finger. Then she placed the finger on her temple and pretended to think. “It’s wrong to tell you to grow up. You’re a big girl now, going out on dates and—”

“I’m glad the world quest is over!” Megan interjected. “No more icky stuff.”

“The ickiness might not be over just yet,” I said. “Bawu’s still out there.” And I’m going to find her, I added in my head. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when we’d meet. Kill her? Join her side? The option that’d be most beneficial to me and would bring me fame might not be the same one.

Megan groaned, “Ugh, I don’t like Bawu very much. Or at all. Let’s avoid her.”

“I doubt that’s possible,” said Kezo. “I agree with Herald’s intuition. We haven’t seen the last of the Mad Brewer or her creations. We’ve defeated her monsters before and we will do it again the next we meet. Our group will be stronger then.” Kezo pumped his fist in the middle of our circle, looking intently at each of us in turn. “It wouldn’t be farfetched that we’ll find another world quest. I’m confident—I know we can find and complete it.”

Ehem, I started the world quest, I mentally corrected him.

My party mates only helped me. I probably couldn’t have done it without their help, but that wasn’t the point. Bottomline, this was a main character-side character setup; not all of us were main characters. Also, like Kezo, I was confident that I would start the next world quest.

“The NPCs’s dialogues include mentions of Bawu,” said Paritor, stepping forward into our circle. Good for him to try to be more visible in the group. “More prevalent recently. Bawu will most likely affect this coming Great Hunt. I speculate this event will be significantly different than previous ones.”

“Speaking of the Great Hunt, where’s Melonomi?” I asked, looking around. “Did anyone tell her that Megan and Nitana are here? Maybe we can squeeze in more practice to face whatever new challenges this Great Hunt brings. Scout out the place, and the like.”

As if she was waiting for someone to look for her, Melonomi messaged us through the party chat.

[Melonomi: GH Registration open. Come to the village. I’m here.]

[Kezodilla: Thanks for the heads up! We’re going there.]

[Megantress: Yeyyy!!! Great Hunt!!!]

“Talk about timing,” said Kezo, waving us along to follow him. “It hadn’t been half an hour since I was in the village and the Hunter-Warriors were still—oh, there we go.” The majestic note of a reverberating horn reached out. It was followed by heavy drum beats with a tribalistic melody.

We slowed down as we watched streaks of light of various hues shoot up from the village and explode in the sky, reminiscent of the concert at the red goat’s hut. But instead of coming from one area of the village, the spells were from all over. The cheering became louder and louder. We can hear the buzz of dozens of shouts even though we are outside the village.

“It really is starting,” I said. Excitement surged through me. My unconscious body in the real world was surely grinning as schemes floated in my head.

Previously, I had no plans for the Great Hunt beyond achieving what was fit for my low level. I’d settle for scraps, not aiming high for there was nothing to aim for then. Trying to compete with stronger players like Luds was a vain hope and a waste of effort. Herald Stone was GREAT, but not stupid or delusional. Now, however, I intend to make an impact once again.

Not on the leaderboards, obviously. We had a… serviceable… team, with Paritor and Melonimi to complete the lineup. But no amount of luck or strategy would help us match the amount and level of monsters that teams like Chimi’s or Luds’ or SpartanDonkey’s could kill.

Unless we had so unnatural good luck that all stronger teams just decided to sit this one out.

No, my impact would be affecting the Mardukryon storyline once again. The attention of the community would be back to me, as it should be, soon enough.

Megan got swayed by the celebrations—no surprises there—hooting as she also fired off spells. What was unexpected was Paritor joining too. He ordered his tiger summon to spew a whirlwind of fire into the air. It was such a large blaze that the snow beneath our feet melted, and some Snowy Swinelings got killed.

Kezo heaved a huge sigh of contentment as we were painted by myriad lights. “I do miss this,” he said, gazing up. “This was like the old times. When Mardukryon players left in droves because of the lack of progress, the Great Hunt became less and less of a fanfare and more of a routine. Only the strongest players cared about the leaderboards for the Great Hunt.”

“Including your party?” I asked.

“Yes, we did prepare for it. But it also felt very routine. All this—” Kezo gestured at the sky “—used to happen in the early days of the game. Every Great Hunt seemed like a huge deal.”

As we entered the village, the cheering got louder.