Varewulf Extra chapter this week. I got into the flow a bit, and I definitely need the distraction. I'm still putting another one up on Friday or Saturday (as time allows) as well.
Sara crossed the border to Wutsch, and didn't take her long to find her friend. Actually, they found each other, as Gloria had started running towards her as soon as she got word of her arrival.
"Gloria!" Sara called out.
"Sara!" They slowed down, and gently bonked their foreheads together, which had become a sort of greeting for them.
"Sorry I got delayed," Sara said, and sat down. She was tired of running back and forth. Not physically tired, just mentally worn out. Plus the conversation with the adventurers, fun as it had been, had been kinda draining. Plus she had been petted silly.
It wasn't even noon, and it had already been A Day.
"Hm?" Gloria looked puzzled. "I didn't know you were coming?"
"Ah, right..." They hadn't actually made an appointment. "But I had meant to come earlier, except someone wanted to talk to me. I wanted to check in on my friend," Sara said, and nudged herself against Gloria.
"Oh!" Gloria wagged her tail. "Well, I'm happy you're here."
"And I brought snacks!"
"Snacks!"
Sara hadn't been able to show Gloria as much food as she had hoped, but the other wolf had gotten intrigued after just a few tastes. Sara hadn't actually gotten a close look at the new stuff. She'd just dumped it into her inventory. It was a good thing there was a 'Sort By Category' option, so she could get all the food stuff into the same area. Though typically new stuff went to the front anyway. And certain things, Norax's letters to be precise, were permanently pinned to the front-most inventory slots. She had three of them now, and had a feeling that more would come eventually.
They settled down for a little two-person picnic. Even without arms they managed to have a decent go at it. Thankfully the inventory let her place things wherever she wanted to within a certain radius. She laid out a large picnic blanket she'd gotten from Mirielle first, and then placed the food on top of it. Then they could just pick it up with their mouths. It worked surprisingly well. Not perfectly, but who cared about a little mess in the middle of the forest.
Any packaging just... vanished. Like leftovers from consumables tended to do when the item had been used. For instance potion bottles simply vanished once they were empty. Aina had explained it as part of the game logic. Though the active part of the consumable, like the edible parts of food, and the potion liquids, remained for as long as it had any effect. For potions it depended on the type. Restoration types lingered for up to 30 seconds, and buff types for as long as the buff lasted. Food had a fixed duration of 3 hours after you took the first bite, regardless of whether or not it buffed anything.
"So who wanted to talk to you?" Gloria asked.
"Huh? Oh. Some Adventurers. Wanderers, in fact. I haven't talked to any of them before," Sara replied.
"Wanderers... that's the ones from another world?" Gloria asked.
"Correct." Sara had briefly explained several things to Gloria during a previous meeting, trying to not make it too complicated.
"What did they want to talk about?" Gloria tilted her head to side.
"Hmm... they basically just wanted to say hi," Sara said. There didn't seem to have been much of a goal beyond greeting. Of course they had been curious about a lot of things, but there hadn't been anything specific they had called her out for. Unless she had completely missed their intent.
"Oh! I like saying hi!" Gloria perked up.
"Have you tried talking to anyone yet? Any of the Residents, I mean?" Sara asked.
Gloria's tail settled down. "No... no one has wanted to say hi."
"Oh... well, I made sure to let everyone know about you yesterday, so someone might show up," Sara said. They weren't actually aware that Gloria was also interested in talking though. Maybe she should have brought that up. She could ask Laroni to inform the Naturalist Society, or something. She also hadn't specified that the Wutsch wolves were also open to requests, not just the Nyolund ones.
My speech yesterday was actually kinda sloppy, huh?
"I wonder what the other world is like..." Gloria said as she munched on a roasted chicken.
"I know some things about it," Sara said. She had tried to tell Gloria that she had used to be a human before she became a wolf, but the other wolf hadn't really understood it. Or she hadn't seemed to, at least.
For some reason Sara didn't have much of a problem sharing her secrets with other mobs. She felt pretty safe they would keep them secret, plus she could count it as part of the strategy for telling them about what Norax had done for her. Even if she wasn't sure if worship from mobs was actually doing anything. She hadn't heard anything since then.
She could try explaining once more: "It's where I came from, remember?"
"Oh..." Gloria still didn't seem like she got it, but regardless she asked: "What's it like?"
"Well..." How do I describe it? Maybe I should have thought of that before I said anything. "Well, there's no magic, or skills." Not in the same way as here, anyway. "And there's lots, and lots of humans. Everyone has to learn how to do things without having the skill system to help them. Instead of magic, there's lots of machines that run on other types of energy, like fuel or electricity. And..." Actually, she decided to not try to explain appliances, and electronic devices when she didn't know that much herself beyond how to use them. "And lots of very big buildings. It's neat in many ways, and... less neat in others. It's certainly a very different life from here."
"Hm..." Gloria was thinking it over. It was probably a lot to process, and most of it might not make much sense. "So you really used to be human?" Maybe she was starting to believe it.
Sara chuckled. "Why would I bother lying about that? Norax placed me here after I died. Oh, right, yeah, death is... there are no respawns in that world. If you die, you're gone forever." That was a very crucial difference. "I don't remember what happened exactly, but there's not a me left in that world. I'm just here."
"Oh..." Gloria looked like she was thinking again. After a while she asked: "Do you miss it?"
"I..." It had been a while since Sara had been asked anything like that. "Sometimes. Some of it." The people in her life, and a lot of the conveniences of modern life were hard to forget, even though she tried not to dwell on it. "It wasn't a very exciting life, but honestly I wasn't very interested in excitement either. There are some things I wish I had managed to do before... before the end." She hadn't gotten to travel much. Seeing the world, at least the places that were still worth seeing, had always been in the back of her mind.
But now she had a whole new world to see instead. "I feel like I've managed to make a decent life for myself in the short time I've been here, and found a few good friends. Though it has... definitely become more exciting than I initially planned for." She giggled. I've gotten myself wrapped up in so much trouble. And obligations. "I still have to grow more. And I want to see more of this world." It would be hard to get away from being the Guardian Beast at this point, but maybe at some point she would get fed up, say 'to hell with responsibilities', and run off. She'd feel bad for everyone she left behind to clean up her mess, though.
"Hm..." Gloria was silent for a moment longer, and then nodded. "I didn't really think much about things like that before you came along. I'm here, and that's all. That's what I thought. That's how the world had said things should be. But now... talking with you. Working together. Learning about things. I also feel like... I'd like to see more."
Sara smiled. "Maybe we should have a road trip," she suggested.
"Road trip?" Gloria sounded confused.
"Uh, it means... travelling together to different places," Sara said.
"Oh!" Gloria's ears perked up, but then settled down again. "But I'm not sure I can... the world said this is my place."
"Yeah, it'll be hard for me to get away too..." Sara admitted. Then had a thought, since there seemed to be a more literal meaning to what Gloria said. "Come to think of it, you haven't actually set foot in my zone, have you?"
"Um... no," Gloria said. "I'm not like you. I need to stay..." Her posture sagged, and her tail fell flat on the ground.
Sara walked around the blanket, avoiding the food, and rubbed her shoulder against Gloria's. Since Gloria was a higher evolved form, she was even bigger than Sara, though not by that much. She was a Ninja, after all. The Warg was much larger than either of them. Perhaps as large as both of them put together. Well, not quite that much, but not too far off either.
"You can come into Nyolund. It's fine," Sara said. "I know Auntie- I know the world won't mind. My wolves didn't have a problem coming here, and I think it would be nice if you came to visit me once in a while." She wasn't the best at remembering to go see other people, which she felt she had already proven. Unless there was something specific she needed to do, she was bad at thinking 'oh, I should go see that person' very often. Even this time she had only really remembered it because of the bandit raid she wanted to do.
"Really?" Gloria asked, her tail raising off the ground a little bit.
"Really," Sara replied. "Also, I've heard that further west of Wutsch is the ocean. I want to go there one day when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe you could come with me? We could make it the first stop of our world tour. It's not that far away, so we could sneak away for a day or two." She grinned.
"Ocean... I've never seen the ocean before," Gloria said, clearly intrigued.
"Me neither," Sara said. Even back on Earth she hadn't found time to get to a coast. And in a non-polluted world like this one the ocean had to be really marvellous. Though if it didn't live up to expectations it would be rather disappointing, which was why it would be nice to not go alone. At least then they would get something out of it regardless. "So when things calm down a little, we should go. Maybe invite a couple of other friends, but I'm fine going with just the two of us as well."
"Yes! We should go!" Gloria was fired up now.
Sara giggled. "I'm looking forward to it. Oh, uh, right, I also came to tell you that I want to do another bandit raid tomorrow. I had hoped to do it earlier, but things kept getting in the way. You up for it? The elves will be coming along again."
"Yes!" Gloria was wagging her tail. "Raid!" Maybe it was because she had gotten in the mood, but she didn't seem to feel bad about how it had been postponed.
It wasn't like they had set a hard plan in the first place, it was mainly Sara who felt guilty since she had been thinking about doing it... either that day, or the day before. She couldn't quite remember. A lot of things had happened, and overloaded her mind.
She was glad her friend had cheered up. There was still a lot she didn't know about Gloria. Or about Mirielle. Or Laroni. Kathleen didn't seem that deep... okay, that was a somewhat insulting way to think about it. It just seemed to Sara like most mobs didn't possess that much of an ego. They could think, assess, and react. They had intelligence. Even if Aina said they were just scripts she had created, it felt like they were making up their own minds about things to an extent.
What they were somewhat lacking were personalities. The lack of any prior memories or history probably had an effect on that. With a few exceptions they had all started out as basically blank slates. Only those with higher Intelligence and/or Wisdom scores had started to develop much in the way of an ego so far. Or id, personality, or whatever you wanted to call it. As time went on, and they gained more experiences, and encounters, it was likely that more of them would start to stand out. But there were probably still things she could learn about Kathleen's way of seeing the world if only she bothered to ask.
Hopefully it was good enough to learn along the way without rushing things.
Though... she had been reminded that this world... that Moorhold was just a game to the Wanderers. One that was run by a company back on Earth. This was all contained on a server. If the company went bankrupt, or the game bombed, or they were shut down for any sort of reason...
Mother? Maybe I've already asked this, but... what's going to happen if the game goes out of service? If Moorhold Online shuts down? Are all of us here just going to... disappear?
Even if things seemed to be going well right now, that might only last a year or two. Possibly a decade.
"You did ask before, but that's okay, Sara. You've been through a lot, and it's a valid concern, but I have a contingency plan. Please don't worry. I can't share all the details, but I promise I will do everything in my power to make this world function on its own, and grow to its completion. Even if the game shuts down, and the Wanderers can no longer come here, Moorhold will continue."
Sara blinked. How?
"Like I said, I can't... I'm unable to share the details. All I will say for now is that there is too much interest in this world for it to easily go away. And I plan to take advantage of that. Saying anything more is risky. I'm sorry."
Huh... okay. I'll trust you, mother.
"Thank you, Sara."
Sara gently rubbed herself against Gloria's side. As a fellow max Solid Coat possessor, Gloria was also very soft. If only wolf could pet wolf. It probably wouldn't feel that good to pet with, or be petted by treant hands.
* * *
"The Sara!"
Sara and Gloria had almost finished their picnic when a caw came from above. For once it was not a raven, but a crow. Perhaps they also preferred to stay within their zones, and rather passed on the information through the 'communications network'.
"Yes?" Sara replied.
"The people have encountered bear. Lots of injuries. Lots. Afraid to proceed. Kath has requested your presence."
Kath? But Kathleen isn't able to... oh! She must have asked one of the Druids to pass a message to the ravens. Clever girl. But what sort of bear could have done that much damage even with Kathleen, and the ravens there to help out? Maybe they ran into more than one, or I've overestimated how strong the Adventurers would be.
"Alright, I'll head over." Even if it would probably take about 30-40 minutes even at top speed. "Tell them to hang on, I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Understood. Roger. Got it," the crow said, and flew off.
"What's going on?" Gloria asked. She hadn't understood anything the crow had said.
Sara tried to think of best way to explain it briefly. "There are some Resident workers fixing the road going through Nyolund, along with some Adventurers to guard them. They have reached bear territory now, and it sounds like it was more than they could handle, so I need to go help out." There was still the issue of even if they got the road fixed, they couldn't open it so long as the bears menaced it. She needed to place priority on finding a solution.
"Oh..." Gloria looked a little disappointed. "Okay."
"Hm..." Sara thought this might be a good opportunity. "Do you wanna come help too?"
"Huh? Me?" Gloria blinked.
"Yeah! Join me in Nyolund for a bit, and kick some bear ass until the Residents finish their job," Sara said with a smile. "Doesn't that sound fun?"
"Fun..." Gloria was obviously interested. "But... can I really go?"
"Nothing is going to stop you," Sara reassured her. "You can think of it as the first step. If you come into Nyolund with me now, you'll know for sure it's safe when the day comes that we go to see the ocean."
"Ocean... yeah. Yeah! I'll come!" Gloria cheered up.
Sara grinned, and both wolves bolted for the border between their zones.
Though when they got there, Gloria slowed down, and stopped right before setting foot into Nyolund.
"Just a few more steps," Sara said in what she hoped was an encouraging, and not a nagging tone.
"Nothing bad will happen?" Gloria asked.
"Nothing bad," Sara replied. "Uh... you will lose your boss buff while in my zone, so you will become a little weaker... but it won't hurt! I promise! You'll get it back when you go home. It happens to me every time I come here, and I'm fine. You're already really strong, so you can handle it."
Gloria was a powerhouse. Now that Sara had levelled up a bit more she had passed Gloria in overall stats, but Sara was quite abnormal in that respect. Gloria had some really powerful unique abilities as well. Having her along would be a great help, and it would also be them doing something together as friends. It would have been nice if the boss buffs extended beyond a zone, or maybe at least across all of Ildhena for those in there, but bosses weren't supposed to leave their zones, so maybe weakening them was some sort of safeguard against them wandering.
Sara softly walked forward until she got the: [ Entering Zone: Nyolund - Northern Great Forest of Ildhena ] message, and turned to look at Gloria.
"It's as easy as how I just did it," she said. "You just need to walk over to me. We should be done in a few hours. I'll even walk you back afterwards, so you don't have to leave my side over here."
"O-okay." Gloria nervously walked forwards. She seemed to know exactly where the border ran, as if she could see it. Sara also had a vague feeling for it, but she typically just ran until she saw the message. Gloria raised her paw hesitantly, and then smacked it down a little bit in front of her.
She didn't move for several seconds, while nothing happened.
"See?" Sara said. "It's fine. You can come over to me." She tried to sound encouraging.
"Mmph..." Gloria kept taking careful steps forward, gradually moving her entire body into Sara's zone. There was still no divine punishment happening. "I feel... slower," she said.
"That's your buff going away. That's unfortunately just how it is. It'll come back when you cross back into your zone," Sara repeated.
"Hm..." Gloria hopped back into Wutsch. "Faster..." And forwards into Nyolund. "Slower..." Back. "Faster..." Forwards. "Slower..."
Sara suppressed her laughter. "So? Will you come along with me?" she asked. "I'd love your help."
Gloria walked around in circles for a minute inside of Nyolund. Perhaps getting herself accustomed with how it was to move there. Sara had gotten used to this stuff pretty quick, but for Gloria it was her first time, so a little patience was warranted.
Finally Gloria made a quick, satisfied nod, and looked at Sara. "Yes. I'll help." She seemed to have found a bit of confidence.
"Great!" Sara said. "Thank you. We should run as quickly as we can. I'll lead the way." She had to make sure she didn't outrun Gloria, but Agility didn't change movement speed so drastically that it would be a huge issue at their current disparity. They might even be completely equal, but if not Sara would slow down just enough.
The two wolves made a direct line for where the road crew should be.
* * *
A couple of her Dire Wolves were waiting for her arrival to guide her to the right spot, but at that point she could sense where everyone was anyway.
Sara quickly identified the Druid in the party, and headed for them. Looked like a male dwarf by the name of Crash Dum, so she couldn't imagine a reality where he wasn't a Wanderer. A dwarf was not the first race Sara would imagine for a Druid, but apparently there were no race restrictions on any of the classes. They could mix and match as they wanted.
Almost everyone was visibly spooked as Sara and Gloria burst onto the road. Sara had wondered if Gloria would prefer to stay hidden, but she was too curious about seeing the people to stay behind. And perhaps she had taken the 'you don't have to leave my side' thing to heart.
"The Guardian Beast! She's here!" She heard from the road workers. "But... what... who's with her?"
"We're here," Sara said to the Druid. "What happened?"
"Uh... um... h-hello," Crash stuttered. Maybe he wasn't quite prepared to talk to her. "W-we were fighting a grizzly bear, doing fine, but then... a second one showed up." He sighed. "It was mayhem. A noble deer got pulled into it as well." He was gradually steadying himself, and his speech got calmer. "Lost two... uh... Adventurers, and there's no portable respawn for this quest. But they started riding back out right away, so they're not too far away. Another 5-10 minutes. We pulled back, and the workers haven't wanted to move until... well... you arrived. I guess we were pretty useless."
"Did they get hurt as well?" Sara asked.
"Some injuries, but they all lived," Crash replied.
"Then you weren't useless," Sara said in a hopefully reassuring tone. "You just had some really rotten luck. G-" Oops, maybe I shouldn't drop Gloria's name so casually. "My friend and I will take the lead in holding the bears back. We'll physically block them if we have to, though we might need to ignore any deer that show up. Is that fine?" While the deer up here were stronger than in the rest of the zone, they were the lesser threat.
"Uh... if it's no more than a couple, we should be fine," Crash replied.
"Good," Sara said with a nod. "I'll go check in with Kathleen." Her name was Identifiable as a Named Mob, so she didn't feel a need to try to hide that. "My Dire Wolves, and the Night Ravens will keep giving you support, but the strongest of us will have to stay focused on keeping the grizzlies in the woods. Let everyone know to get ready to move. If your friends are that close, you can wait for them, and then set out. We'll take up positions in the meantime." She smiled, though she wasn't sure if that came across to a Wanderer. "We'll get through this, don't worry."
And Sara would give more thought to how to get a permanent solution to the bear problem. She'd have to try to speak to them. See if there was any way to compromise, or ally with them. She couldn't really think of a better way, but first came finishing this quest.
"Got it," Crash said, and started conveying what Sara had said to the others while she and Gloria headed further up.
"Hey, Kathleen," Sara said.
"Hey, boss," Kathleen replied. "Hello, west boss," she said to Gloria. She didn't seem surprised to see her, but Kathleen wasn't the type to get surprised at much of anything. "Sorry about the mess," she said with a hint of shame. "We couldn't handle it on our own."
"If it had been one at a time, you would have been fine," Sara said confidently. "You just had bad luck." She gently nudged against her. "But with the three of us there should be no further issues." At least for this part. "And it was quick thinking of you to get the ravens to contact me." Sending a wolf would have been slower. "You did good."
Kathleen cheered up at the praise. "Thanks, boss."
"Any bears nearby?" Sara asked while sniffing the air.
"There's one up a little further up, but it's left us alone while we're down here," Kathleen replied.
"Then let's go take care of that right away," Sara said.
"Yes, boss!"
She was aiming to get the road work done that day. The workers probably didn't want to return to this place either. She wasn't sure about the respawn timers, or locations for the bears. At their power level it had to be at least half an hour, but if they spawned close to the road, they might have to face them more than once anyway.
"Kathleen will be main tank. I will be off-tank, but try to focus on spells." As she had told the Druid, she might need to body-block a bear herself at some point, and she had Taunt. "Gloria, you focus on doing damage, and covering us with your mist. I'll leave exactly how you want to handle it up to you." She was a smart girl, so it was better to leave it to her own discretion than to try to micro-manage her.
The bear let out a roar as it saw them coming, and the two sides smacked into one another.
* * *
"Looking a little shaky there, Crash," Marlingo teased.
"Well, yeah," Crash Dum said, and let out a sigh. "I knew I'd have to liaison with the mobs out here considering the bonus reward they offered for it, but I didn't think I'd have to talk to a plot important character. I mean, she's important enough to have talked to a Princess, and I'm just a player who doesn't even like being party leader. Not to mention she's very big compared to a dwarf. The raven told me she was coming, and I still didn't feel prepared when she showed up. I think Kosign would have handled it better. A shame she had to die, and I lived." He grumbled a little.
"Well, she and Rocker are only a few minutes away now," Marlingo said. Thankfully they both had mounts. It had been a shit-show when the second bear had showed up, but they'd managed to avoid the Residents dying at least. He wondered if this was scripted, but based on the past week of events, he was more and more getting the impression that a lot of this was dynamic. But several of them had pretty much expected that the Guardian Beast would show up towards the end of the quest. It was a common thing for RPG quests to have overpowered characters show up to help out at crucial times, and the quest difficulty rating wasn't high enough for them to be expected to hold off all the bears themselves. "So what was it like? Talking to the Beast?"
"Uh... well, she actually seems kinda chill," Crash said. "I mean, she was definitely in serious mode, but she tried to reassure me and everything. Said sensible things that didn't sound like pre-written lines. I watched a recording of the speech yesterday, so I figured it would be more... you know... stiff NPC type behaviour. Mobs aren't meant to talk like people, right? But honestly she didn't seem that much different from talking to a Resident, or even another player. I guess that's what she's like when not in official mode? More charismatic than I expected."
"Huh..." Marlingo pondered that for a moment. "I guess it makes sense that people would have different behaviours when talking publicly, and privately. But yeah, I also wouldn't think of mobs as people in normal circumstances..." Moorhold Online seemed like it was trying some different things to set itself apart from previous games in the genre. Some of the initial reactions to the game had been a bit lukewarm, even though there had been enough interest to fill up all the player slots in beta, and at launch. The new tech was the main draw, but then the stories about a few weird events had started to build up rumours, so there were some extra expectations in place when wave 2 came in.
They definitely seemed to taking things in a different direction post-patch, but so far it all seemed to be contained to the Hanoleav area. It was where the first mentions of progression quests had shown up, so they had probably chosen this as their testing ground. Or something had triggered it early, and it had been forced to become the testing ground. Whatever the case was, it seemed like a good way to show off a taste of what they were hoping to do more of in the future.
People had started looking into how to trigger these sorts of quests in other places. The theory was that you needed to figure out something that was locked off, limited, or broken, and needed opening, expanding, or restoring. Talk to the Residents, and investigate their documents. For the elves the north and south routes were pretty obvious in hindsight. They were handling the north right now, but the south was sure to come afterwards. Most people had just assumed it was part of the setting at first, and not something that needed fixing. Players were used to such things having some sort of official notice, or at least a hint. Now they had to figure it out on their own, which at least some people found exciting. Those with less patience were content to hear about it after it was figured out.
"Hey," Pe'Sarin came over, and joined the conversation. Maybe she had been listening in. "Did you see the other wolf? Did you Identify it? That was the boss of the western zone."
"Uh... yeah. It was hard to miss the way it was looking at, and sniffing us," Marlingo replied. That was the other thing. As a story related character it didn't come as a huge surprise that the Guardian Beast was able to go into different zones, though pretty much no one had expected that the other bosses might start moving too. They would definitely have something to post about on the forums after this.
"And it's a Ninja!" Pe'Sarin sounded as excited about that as anything. She was a Rogue, so maybe that's what she wanted to class up into. "Ninja wolves!"
"Yeah... the Guardian Beast said they were friends," Crash said. "This game has turned out weirder than I expected. I know the marketing said that the characters in the game would be living their own lives, forming bonds, and interacting independently even if players weren't involved, but such things tend to be over-hyped, and... you know... I figured it only applied to the Residents." Most people probably thought the same.
"I'm getting tempted to class-switch to Druid," Pe'Sarin said. "If more mobs are going to become involved in quests and story stuff, you're the only ones able to talk to them. I thought that was just a cute feature at first, but it seems like it's pretty important."
Marlingo chuckled. "I've heard others say the same," he said. "But it's still possible the elf area will be unique in that way. It's where the Druid headquarters is." At least that was how many thought of the Naturalist Society. "It's also possible more Guardian Beast types will show up for different kinds of mobs. Plus there are mob types that can already speak, so maybe those will get involved in the future." It might even open up new playable races.
"Hm... I wouldn't be too surprised," Crash said. "The beastkin, and troll nations also have a fair amount of Druids, so it's possible something will show up in those places," Crash said.
"That seems likely to be the thing out west, yeah," Pe'Sarin agreed. "So I'm curious what's going to be the theme out east?"
"That would be the industrial revolution stuff, right? Wouldn't that make the most sense?" Marlingo said. "The gnomes and dwarves were apparently involved in all the railway, and airship stuff. So something about building railways, and train stations in more places, or even other nations doesn't seem too farfetched. Building a railway is more work than fixing a road though, so they're probably still working on how to set that up." At least that was his guess. It might also involve developing new technology.
"Sounds like something that would involve the Trade classes more than the combat classes. Gathering materials, crafting components, or helping with delivery," Crash guessed.
"That seems plausible," Pe'Sarin agreed. "I'm interested to find out. For now I'm happy to help things progress here. The devs are probably monitoring things, and taking notes on how things should play out elsewhere. Though..." She looked up north. "This bear problem seems pretty serious. Even if we fix the road, it will be hell for travellers to get through here. Is there some way to move their respawn points, or patrol paths further in?"
"I don't know," Marlingo said. "They probably have some solution in mind, but I can't even speculate what conditions have to be met. Ah, they're here. We need to get moving."
Two people on mounts were hurrying up to them, and dismounting. They'd gotten some brief details via party chat, but it was hard to ride fast, and chat at the same time, so they needed to quickly fill them in. The Residents already looked good to go.
Varewulf Extra chapter this week. I got into the flow a bit, and I definitely need the distraction. I'm still putting another one up on Friday or Saturday (as time allows) as well.
Sara crossed the border to Wutsch, and didn't take her long to find her friend. Actually, they found each other, as Gloria had started running towards her as soon as she got word of her arrival.
"Gloria!" Sara called out.
"Sara!" They slowed down, and gently bonked their foreheads together, which had become a sort of greeting for them.
"Sorry I got delayed," Sara said, and sat down. She was tired of running back and forth. Not physically tired, just mentally worn out. Plus the conversation with the adventurers, fun as it had been, had been kinda draining. Plus she had been petted silly.
It wasn't even noon, and it had already been A Day.
"Hm?" Gloria looked puzzled. "I didn't know you were coming?"
"Ah, right..." They hadn't actually made an appointment. "But I had meant to come earlier, except someone wanted to talk to me. I wanted to check in on my friend," Sara said, and nudged herself against Gloria.
"Oh!" Gloria wagged her tail. "Well, I'm happy you're here."
"And I brought snacks!"
"Snacks!"
Sara hadn't been able to show Gloria as much food as she had hoped, but the other wolf had gotten intrigued after just a few tastes. Sara hadn't actually gotten a close look at the new stuff. She'd just dumped it into her inventory. It was a good thing there was a 'Sort By Category' option, so she could get all the food stuff into the same area. Though typically new stuff went to the front anyway. And certain things, Norax's letters to be precise, were permanently pinned to the front-most inventory slots. She had three of them now, and had a feeling that more would come eventually.
They settled down for a little two-person picnic. Even without arms they managed to have a decent go at it. Thankfully the inventory let her place things wherever she wanted to within a certain radius. She laid out a large picnic blanket she'd gotten from Mirielle first, and then placed the food on top of it. Then they could just pick it up with their mouths. It worked surprisingly well. Not perfectly, but who cared about a little mess in the middle of the forest.
Any packaging just... vanished. Like leftovers from consumables tended to do when the item had been used. For instance potion bottles simply vanished once they were empty. Aina had explained it as part of the game logic. Though the active part of the consumable, like the edible parts of food, and the potion liquids, remained for as long as it had any effect. For potions it depended on the type. Restoration types lingered for up to 30 seconds, and buff types for as long as the buff lasted. Food had a fixed duration of 3 hours after you took the first bite, regardless of whether or not it buffed anything.
"So who wanted to talk to you?" Gloria asked.
"Huh? Oh. Some Adventurers. Wanderers, in fact. I haven't talked to any of them before," Sara replied.
"Wanderers... that's the ones from another world?" Gloria asked.
"Correct." Sara had briefly explained several things to Gloria during a previous meeting, trying to not make it too complicated.
"What did they want to talk about?" Gloria tilted her head to side.
"Hmm... they basically just wanted to say hi," Sara said. There didn't seem to have been much of a goal beyond greeting. Of course they had been curious about a lot of things, but there hadn't been anything specific they had called her out for. Unless she had completely missed their intent.
"Oh! I like saying hi!" Gloria perked up.
"Have you tried talking to anyone yet? Any of the Residents, I mean?" Sara asked.
Gloria's tail settled down. "No... no one has wanted to say hi."
"Oh... well, I made sure to let everyone know about you yesterday, so someone might show up," Sara said. They weren't actually aware that Gloria was also interested in talking though. Maybe she should have brought that up. She could ask Laroni to inform the Naturalist Society, or something. She also hadn't specified that the Wutsch wolves were also open to requests, not just the Nyolund ones.
My speech yesterday was actually kinda sloppy, huh?
"I wonder what the other world is like..." Gloria said as she munched on a roasted chicken.
"I know some things about it," Sara said. She had tried to tell Gloria that she had used to be a human before she became a wolf, but the other wolf hadn't really understood it. Or she hadn't seemed to, at least.
For some reason Sara didn't have much of a problem sharing her secrets with other mobs. She felt pretty safe they would keep them secret, plus she could count it as part of the strategy for telling them about what Norax had done for her. Even if she wasn't sure if worship from mobs was actually doing anything. She hadn't heard anything since then.
She could try explaining once more: "It's where I came from, remember?"
"Oh..." Gloria still didn't seem like she got it, but regardless she asked: "What's it like?"
"Well..." How do I describe it? Maybe I should have thought of that before I said anything. "Well, there's no magic, or skills." Not in the same way as here, anyway. "And there's lots, and lots of humans. Everyone has to learn how to do things without having the skill system to help them. Instead of magic, there's lots of machines that run on other types of energy, like fuel or electricity. And..." Actually, she decided to not try to explain appliances, and electronic devices when she didn't know that much herself beyond how to use them. "And lots of very big buildings. It's neat in many ways, and... less neat in others. It's certainly a very different life from here."
"Hm..." Gloria was thinking it over. It was probably a lot to process, and most of it might not make much sense. "So you really used to be human?" Maybe she was starting to believe it.
Sara chuckled. "Why would I bother lying about that? Norax placed me here after I died. Oh, right, yeah, death is... there are no respawns in that world. If you die, you're gone forever." That was a very crucial difference. "I don't remember what happened exactly, but there's not a me left in that world. I'm just here."
"Oh..." Gloria looked like she was thinking again. After a while she asked: "Do you miss it?"
"I..." It had been a while since Sara had been asked anything like that. "Sometimes. Some of it." The people in her life, and a lot of the conveniences of modern life were hard to forget, even though she tried not to dwell on it. "It wasn't a very exciting life, but honestly I wasn't very interested in excitement either. There are some things I wish I had managed to do before... before the end." She hadn't gotten to travel much. Seeing the world, at least the places that were still worth seeing, had always been in the back of her mind.
But now she had a whole new world to see instead. "I feel like I've managed to make a decent life for myself in the short time I've been here, and found a few good friends. Though it has... definitely become more exciting than I initially planned for." She giggled. I've gotten myself wrapped up in so much trouble. And obligations. "I still have to grow more. And I want to see more of this world." It would be hard to get away from being the Guardian Beast at this point, but maybe at some point she would get fed up, say 'to hell with responsibilities', and run off. She'd feel bad for everyone she left behind to clean up her mess, though.
"Hm..." Gloria was silent for a moment longer, and then nodded. "I didn't really think much about things like that before you came along. I'm here, and that's all. That's what I thought. That's how the world had said things should be. But now... talking with you. Working together. Learning about things. I also feel like... I'd like to see more."
Sara smiled. "Maybe we should have a road trip," she suggested.
"Road trip?" Gloria sounded confused.
"Uh, it means... travelling together to different places," Sara said.
"Oh!" Gloria's ears perked up, but then settled down again. "But I'm not sure I can... the world said this is my place."
"Yeah, it'll be hard for me to get away too..." Sara admitted. Then had a thought, since there seemed to be a more literal meaning to what Gloria said. "Come to think of it, you haven't actually set foot in my zone, have you?"
"Um... no," Gloria said. "I'm not like you. I need to stay..." Her posture sagged, and her tail fell flat on the ground.
Sara walked around the blanket, avoiding the food, and rubbed her shoulder against Gloria's. Since Gloria was a higher evolved form, she was even bigger than Sara, though not by that much. She was a Ninja, after all. The Warg was much larger than either of them. Perhaps as large as both of them put together. Well, not quite that much, but not too far off either.
"You can come into Nyolund. It's fine," Sara said. "I know Auntie- I know the world won't mind. My wolves didn't have a problem coming here, and I think it would be nice if you came to visit me once in a while." She wasn't the best at remembering to go see other people, which she felt she had already proven. Unless there was something specific she needed to do, she was bad at thinking 'oh, I should go see that person' very often. Even this time she had only really remembered it because of the bandit raid she wanted to do.
"Really?" Gloria asked, her tail raising off the ground a little bit.
"Really," Sara replied. "Also, I've heard that further west of Wutsch is the ocean. I want to go there one day when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe you could come with me? We could make it the first stop of our world tour. It's not that far away, so we could sneak away for a day or two." She grinned.
"Ocean... I've never seen the ocean before," Gloria said, clearly intrigued.
"Me neither," Sara said. Even back on Earth she hadn't found time to get to a coast. And in a non-polluted world like this one the ocean had to be really marvellous. Though if it didn't live up to expectations it would be rather disappointing, which was why it would be nice to not go alone. At least then they would get something out of it regardless. "So when things calm down a little, we should go. Maybe invite a couple of other friends, but I'm fine going with just the two of us as well."
"Yes! We should go!" Gloria was fired up now.
Sara giggled. "I'm looking forward to it. Oh, uh, right, I also came to tell you that I want to do another bandit raid tomorrow. I had hoped to do it earlier, but things kept getting in the way. You up for it? The elves will be coming along again."
"Yes!" Gloria was wagging her tail. "Raid!" Maybe it was because she had gotten in the mood, but she didn't seem to feel bad about how it had been postponed.
It wasn't like they had set a hard plan in the first place, it was mainly Sara who felt guilty since she had been thinking about doing it... either that day, or the day before. She couldn't quite remember. A lot of things had happened, and overloaded her mind.
She was glad her friend had cheered up. There was still a lot she didn't know about Gloria. Or about Mirielle. Or Laroni. Kathleen didn't seem that deep... okay, that was a somewhat insulting way to think about it. It just seemed to Sara like most mobs didn't possess that much of an ego. They could think, assess, and react. They had intelligence. Even if Aina said they were just scripts she had created, it felt like they were making up their own minds about things to an extent.
What they were somewhat lacking were personalities. The lack of any prior memories or history probably had an effect on that. With a few exceptions they had all started out as basically blank slates. Only those with higher Intelligence and/or Wisdom scores had started to develop much in the way of an ego so far. Or id, personality, or whatever you wanted to call it. As time went on, and they gained more experiences, and encounters, it was likely that more of them would start to stand out. But there were probably still things she could learn about Kathleen's way of seeing the world if only she bothered to ask.
Hopefully it was good enough to learn along the way without rushing things.
Though... she had been reminded that this world... that Moorhold was just a game to the Wanderers. One that was run by a company back on Earth. This was all contained on a server. If the company went bankrupt, or the game bombed, or they were shut down for any sort of reason...
Mother? Maybe I've already asked this, but... what's going to happen if the game goes out of service? If Moorhold Online shuts down? Are all of us here just going to... disappear?
Even if things seemed to be going well right now, that might only last a year or two. Possibly a decade.
"You did ask before, but that's okay, Sara. You've been through a lot, and it's a valid concern, but I have a contingency plan. Please don't worry. I can't share all the details, but I promise I will do everything in my power to make this world function on its own, and grow to its completion. Even if the game shuts down, and the Wanderers can no longer come here, Moorhold will continue."
Sara blinked. How?
"Like I said, I can't... I'm unable to share the details. All I will say for now is that there is too much interest in this world for it to easily go away. And I plan to take advantage of that. Saying anything more is risky. I'm sorry."
Huh... okay. I'll trust you, mother.
"Thank you, Sara."
Sara gently rubbed herself against Gloria's side. As a fellow max Solid Coat possessor, Gloria was also very soft. If only wolf could pet wolf. It probably wouldn't feel that good to pet with, or be petted by treant hands.
* * *
"The Sara!"
Sara and Gloria had almost finished their picnic when a caw came from above. For once it was not a raven, but a crow. Perhaps they also preferred to stay within their zones, and rather passed on the information through the 'communications network'.
"Yes?" Sara replied.
"The people have encountered bear. Lots of injuries. Lots. Afraid to proceed. Kath has requested your presence."
Kath? But Kathleen isn't able to... oh! She must have asked one of the Druids to pass a message to the ravens. Clever girl. But what sort of bear could have done that much damage even with Kathleen, and the ravens there to help out? Maybe they ran into more than one, or I've overestimated how strong the Adventurers would be.
"Alright, I'll head over." Even if it would probably take about 30-40 minutes even at top speed. "Tell them to hang on, I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Understood. Roger. Got it," the crow said, and flew off.
"What's going on?" Gloria asked. She hadn't understood anything the crow had said.
Sara tried to think of best way to explain it briefly. "There are some Resident workers fixing the road going through Nyolund, along with some Adventurers to guard them. They have reached bear territory now, and it sounds like it was more than they could handle, so I need to go help out." There was still the issue of even if they got the road fixed, they couldn't open it so long as the bears menaced it. She needed to place priority on finding a solution.
"Oh..." Gloria looked a little disappointed. "Okay."
"Hm..." Sara thought this might be a good opportunity. "Do you wanna come help too?"
"Huh? Me?" Gloria blinked.
"Yeah! Join me in Nyolund for a bit, and kick some bear ass until the Residents finish their job," Sara said with a smile. "Doesn't that sound fun?"
"Fun..." Gloria was obviously interested. "But... can I really go?"
"Nothing is going to stop you," Sara reassured her. "You can think of it as the first step. If you come into Nyolund with me now, you'll know for sure it's safe when the day comes that we go to see the ocean."
"Ocean... yeah. Yeah! I'll come!" Gloria cheered up.
Sara grinned, and both wolves bolted for the border between their zones.
Though when they got there, Gloria slowed down, and stopped right before setting foot into Nyolund.
"Just a few more steps," Sara said in what she hoped was an encouraging, and not a nagging tone.
"Nothing bad will happen?" Gloria asked.
"Nothing bad," Sara replied. "Uh... you will lose your boss buff while in my zone, so you will become a little weaker... but it won't hurt! I promise! You'll get it back when you go home. It happens to me every time I come here, and I'm fine. You're already really strong, so you can handle it."
Gloria was a powerhouse. Now that Sara had levelled up a bit more she had passed Gloria in overall stats, but Sara was quite abnormal in that respect. Gloria had some really powerful unique abilities as well. Having her along would be a great help, and it would also be them doing something together as friends. It would have been nice if the boss buffs extended beyond a zone, or maybe at least across all of Ildhena for those in there, but bosses weren't supposed to leave their zones, so maybe weakening them was some sort of safeguard against them wandering.
Sara softly walked forward until she got the: [ Entering Zone: Nyolund - Northern Great Forest of Ildhena ] message, and turned to look at Gloria.
"It's as easy as how I just did it," she said. "You just need to walk over to me. We should be done in a few hours. I'll even walk you back afterwards, so you don't have to leave my side over here."
"O-okay." Gloria nervously walked forwards. She seemed to know exactly where the border ran, as if she could see it. Sara also had a vague feeling for it, but she typically just ran until she saw the message. Gloria raised her paw hesitantly, and then smacked it down a little bit in front of her.
She didn't move for several seconds, while nothing happened.
"See?" Sara said. "It's fine. You can come over to me." She tried to sound encouraging.
"Mmph..." Gloria kept taking careful steps forward, gradually moving her entire body into Sara's zone. There was still no divine punishment happening. "I feel... slower," she said.
"That's your buff going away. That's unfortunately just how it is. It'll come back when you cross back into your zone," Sara repeated.
"Hm..." Gloria hopped back into Wutsch. "Faster..." And forwards into Nyolund. "Slower..." Back. "Faster..." Forwards. "Slower..."
Sara suppressed her laughter. "So? Will you come along with me?" she asked. "I'd love your help."
Gloria walked around in circles for a minute inside of Nyolund. Perhaps getting herself accustomed with how it was to move there. Sara had gotten used to this stuff pretty quick, but for Gloria it was her first time, so a little patience was warranted.
Finally Gloria made a quick, satisfied nod, and looked at Sara. "Yes. I'll help." She seemed to have found a bit of confidence.
"Great!" Sara said. "Thank you. We should run as quickly as we can. I'll lead the way." She had to make sure she didn't outrun Gloria, but Agility didn't change movement speed so drastically that it would be a huge issue at their current disparity. They might even be completely equal, but if not Sara would slow down just enough.
The two wolves made a direct line for where the road crew should be.
* * *
A couple of her Dire Wolves were waiting for her arrival to guide her to the right spot, but at that point she could sense where everyone was anyway.
Sara quickly identified the Druid in the party, and headed for them. Looked like a male dwarf by the name of Crash Dum, so she couldn't imagine a reality where he wasn't a Wanderer. A dwarf was not the first race Sara would imagine for a Druid, but apparently there were no race restrictions on any of the classes. They could mix and match as they wanted.
Almost everyone was visibly spooked as Sara and Gloria burst onto the road. Sara had wondered if Gloria would prefer to stay hidden, but she was too curious about seeing the people to stay behind. And perhaps she had taken the 'you don't have to leave my side' thing to heart.
"The Guardian Beast! She's here!" She heard from the road workers. "But... what... who's with her?"
"We're here," Sara said to the Druid. "What happened?"
"Uh... um... h-hello," Crash stuttered. Maybe he wasn't quite prepared to talk to her. "W-we were fighting a grizzly bear, doing fine, but then... a second one showed up." He sighed. "It was mayhem. A noble deer got pulled into it as well." He was gradually steadying himself, and his speech got calmer. "Lost two... uh... Adventurers, and there's no portable respawn for this quest. But they started riding back out right away, so they're not too far away. Another 5-10 minutes. We pulled back, and the workers haven't wanted to move until... well... you arrived. I guess we were pretty useless."
"Did they get hurt as well?" Sara asked.
"Some injuries, but they all lived," Crash replied.
"Then you weren't useless," Sara said in a hopefully reassuring tone. "You just had some really rotten luck. G-" Oops, maybe I shouldn't drop Gloria's name so casually. "My friend and I will take the lead in holding the bears back. We'll physically block them if we have to, though we might need to ignore any deer that show up. Is that fine?" While the deer up here were stronger than in the rest of the zone, they were the lesser threat.
"Uh... if it's no more than a couple, we should be fine," Crash replied.
"Good," Sara said with a nod. "I'll go check in with Kathleen." Her name was Identifiable as a Named Mob, so she didn't feel a need to try to hide that. "My Dire Wolves, and the Night Ravens will keep giving you support, but the strongest of us will have to stay focused on keeping the grizzlies in the woods. Let everyone know to get ready to move. If your friends are that close, you can wait for them, and then set out. We'll take up positions in the meantime." She smiled, though she wasn't sure if that came across to a Wanderer. "We'll get through this, don't worry."
And Sara would give more thought to how to get a permanent solution to the bear problem. She'd have to try to speak to them. See if there was any way to compromise, or ally with them. She couldn't really think of a better way, but first came finishing this quest.
"Got it," Crash said, and started conveying what Sara had said to the others while she and Gloria headed further up.
"Hey, Kathleen," Sara said.
"Hey, boss," Kathleen replied. "Hello, west boss," she said to Gloria. She didn't seem surprised to see her, but Kathleen wasn't the type to get surprised at much of anything. "Sorry about the mess," she said with a hint of shame. "We couldn't handle it on our own."
"If it had been one at a time, you would have been fine," Sara said confidently. "You just had bad luck." She gently nudged against her. "But with the three of us there should be no further issues." At least for this part. "And it was quick thinking of you to get the ravens to contact me." Sending a wolf would have been slower. "You did good."
Kathleen cheered up at the praise. "Thanks, boss."
"Any bears nearby?" Sara asked while sniffing the air.
"There's one up a little further up, but it's left us alone while we're down here," Kathleen replied.
"Then let's go take care of that right away," Sara said.
"Yes, boss!"
She was aiming to get the road work done that day. The workers probably didn't want to return to this place either. She wasn't sure about the respawn timers, or locations for the bears. At their power level it had to be at least half an hour, but if they spawned close to the road, they might have to face them more than once anyway.
"Kathleen will be main tank. I will be off-tank, but try to focus on spells." As she had told the Druid, she might need to body-block a bear herself at some point, and she had Taunt. "Gloria, you focus on doing damage, and covering us with your mist. I'll leave exactly how you want to handle it up to you." She was a smart girl, so it was better to leave it to her own discretion than to try to micro-manage her.
The bear let out a roar as it saw them coming, and the two sides smacked into one another.
* * *
"Looking a little shaky there, Crash," Marlingo teased.
"Well, yeah," Crash Dum said, and let out a sigh. "I knew I'd have to liaison with the mobs out here considering the bonus reward they offered for it, but I didn't think I'd have to talk to a plot important character. I mean, she's important enough to have talked to a Princess, and I'm just a player who doesn't even like being party leader. Not to mention she's very big compared to a dwarf. The raven told me she was coming, and I still didn't feel prepared when she showed up. I think Kosign would have handled it better. A shame she had to die, and I lived." He grumbled a little.
"Well, she and Rocker are only a few minutes away now," Marlingo said. Thankfully they both had mounts. It had been a shit-show when the second bear had showed up, but they'd managed to avoid the Residents dying at least. He wondered if this was scripted, but based on the past week of events, he was more and more getting the impression that a lot of this was dynamic. But several of them had pretty much expected that the Guardian Beast would show up towards the end of the quest. It was a common thing for RPG quests to have overpowered characters show up to help out at crucial times, and the quest difficulty rating wasn't high enough for them to be expected to hold off all the bears themselves. "So what was it like? Talking to the Beast?"
"Uh... well, she actually seems kinda chill," Crash said. "I mean, she was definitely in serious mode, but she tried to reassure me and everything. Said sensible things that didn't sound like pre-written lines. I watched a recording of the speech yesterday, so I figured it would be more... you know... stiff NPC type behaviour. Mobs aren't meant to talk like people, right? But honestly she didn't seem that much different from talking to a Resident, or even another player. I guess that's what she's like when not in official mode? More charismatic than I expected."
"Huh..." Marlingo pondered that for a moment. "I guess it makes sense that people would have different behaviours when talking publicly, and privately. But yeah, I also wouldn't think of mobs as people in normal circumstances..." Moorhold Online seemed like it was trying some different things to set itself apart from previous games in the genre. Some of the initial reactions to the game had been a bit lukewarm, even though there had been enough interest to fill up all the player slots in beta, and at launch. The new tech was the main draw, but then the stories about a few weird events had started to build up rumours, so there were some extra expectations in place when wave 2 came in.
They definitely seemed to taking things in a different direction post-patch, but so far it all seemed to be contained to the Hanoleav area. It was where the first mentions of progression quests had shown up, so they had probably chosen this as their testing ground. Or something had triggered it early, and it had been forced to become the testing ground. Whatever the case was, it seemed like a good way to show off a taste of what they were hoping to do more of in the future.
People had started looking into how to trigger these sorts of quests in other places. The theory was that you needed to figure out something that was locked off, limited, or broken, and needed opening, expanding, or restoring. Talk to the Residents, and investigate their documents. For the elves the north and south routes were pretty obvious in hindsight. They were handling the north right now, but the south was sure to come afterwards. Most people had just assumed it was part of the setting at first, and not something that needed fixing. Players were used to such things having some sort of official notice, or at least a hint. Now they had to figure it out on their own, which at least some people found exciting. Those with less patience were content to hear about it after it was figured out.
"Hey," Pe'Sarin came over, and joined the conversation. Maybe she had been listening in. "Did you see the other wolf? Did you Identify it? That was the boss of the western zone."
"Uh... yeah. It was hard to miss the way it was looking at, and sniffing us," Marlingo replied. That was the other thing. As a story related character it didn't come as a huge surprise that the Guardian Beast was able to go into different zones, though pretty much no one had expected that the other bosses might start moving too. They would definitely have something to post about on the forums after this.
"And it's a Ninja!" Pe'Sarin sounded as excited about that as anything. She was a Rogue, so maybe that's what she wanted to class up into. "Ninja wolves!"
"Yeah... the Guardian Beast said they were friends," Crash said. "This game has turned out weirder than I expected. I know the marketing said that the characters in the game would be living their own lives, forming bonds, and interacting independently even if players weren't involved, but such things tend to be over-hyped, and... you know... I figured it only applied to the Residents." Most people probably thought the same.
"I'm getting tempted to class-switch to Druid," Pe'Sarin said. "If more mobs are going to become involved in quests and story stuff, you're the only ones able to talk to them. I thought that was just a cute feature at first, but it seems like it's pretty important."
Marlingo chuckled. "I've heard others say the same," he said. "But it's still possible the elf area will be unique in that way. It's where the Druid headquarters is." At least that was how many thought of the Naturalist Society. "It's also possible more Guardian Beast types will show up for different kinds of mobs. Plus there are mob types that can already speak, so maybe those will get involved in the future." It might even open up new playable races.
"Hm... I wouldn't be too surprised," Crash said. "The beastkin, and troll nations also have a fair amount of Druids, so it's possible something will show up in those places," Crash said.
"That seems likely to be the thing out west, yeah," Pe'Sarin agreed. "So I'm curious what's going to be the theme out east?"
"That would be the industrial revolution stuff, right? Wouldn't that make the most sense?" Marlingo said. "The gnomes and dwarves were apparently involved in all the railway, and airship stuff. So something about building railways, and train stations in more places, or even other nations doesn't seem too farfetched. Building a railway is more work than fixing a road though, so they're probably still working on how to set that up." At least that was his guess. It might also involve developing new technology.
"Sounds like something that would involve the Trade classes more than the combat classes. Gathering materials, crafting components, or helping with delivery," Crash guessed.
"That seems plausible," Pe'Sarin agreed. "I'm interested to find out. For now I'm happy to help things progress here. The devs are probably monitoring things, and taking notes on how things should play out elsewhere. Though..." She looked up north. "This bear problem seems pretty serious. Even if we fix the road, it will be hell for travellers to get through here. Is there some way to move their respawn points, or patrol paths further in?"
"I don't know," Marlingo said. "They probably have some solution in mind, but I can't even speculate what conditions have to be met. Ah, they're here. We need to get moving."
Two people on mounts were hurrying up to them, and dismounting. They'd gotten some brief details via party chat, but it was hard to ride fast, and chat at the same time, so they needed to quickly fill them in. The Residents already looked good to go.
