RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 196

All of the players realized that there was no point in continuing forward. Even Karma whose quest was the reason for mobilization of such a large force had no hopes in moving forward when the area at the entrance itself was guarded by these beasts. He found it hard to believe that any level 20 beast would be so strong and wanted to raise a complaint.

Balthazar also wasn’t sure if he could achieve his objective in the Greybark marshlands. He hasn’t ever had information of the area during it’s first month. The information he knew in his past life would probably be updated information which probably didn’t match to the current situation at the Greybark marshlands. Especially stuff about the knuckers which were his objective for his trip to the marshlands.

Seeing the combined attack, he was sure that he had very little chance to kill these monsters. He needed to be prepared to die, but that would cause a whole other set of issues. He had a very high chance of dying if he attempted to fight all those knuckers together at his level. He had 70 Human reputation points currently and would be considered a citizen in all human occupied regions. So, death would respawn him in the Murk Water town. He didn’t want to lose experience that had gained with so much effort and time.

He could currently only use his hearthstone to return to the BlackRock Town or White Heart City. Though he has 70 human reputation points, those would only be considered if he wanted to use his hearthstone to teleport from other-species controlled region to human controlled regions. If he wanted to teleport from a human occupied region using hearthstone, he could only get to BlackRock Town or White Heart City where he is a citizen.

So, to be able to escape situations where he could be killed or avoid uncomfortable situations, he urgently needed to gather reputation at the Murk Water Town. With that in mind, he let go of all other distractions and made way back to the town. As he was focused only on travel and didn’t care about the monsters it took him an hour to get back to the town.

The best way to get reputation in a place was quests given by the town NPCs and the town head office. After it has become necessary for players to become third-class citizens to use their hearthstones, most players have begun to search for way to increase their reputation to at least a third-class citizen in some towns. The competition for the quests has increased drastically due to this change in the game. This made it much harder for players who didn’t spawn in a specific town or country to develop in that specific town or country.

Apart from that, from the upgrade which had this new rule, there were a large number of new quests that gave the players a chance to increase their reputation. There would be a few based on the secondary professions and gathering quests but these would give a very small amount of reputation. It was always best to attempt a quest which could be found in the difficult and special terrain of the places.

Balthazar knew that for any town close to a large water body, the best quests would always be found near the water. So, he had to go to the coast of the Murk Water bay. He first made his way back to the town and contacted Agua for a map of the town and anything he could get about the Murk Water bay.

The town map was immediately produced but the Murk Water bay map was much harder. The coast of the bay was completely made of silt and mud from the bay and the beast there were mostly crustaceans like crabs. They were all ranging from level 10 to 15. The area was currently being monopolized by the Valhalla Raiders guild due to its economic value.

Though none of the players have yet to get into the bay to explore the water, the coast itself was a kilometre wide and it had a number of herbs growing on it. Moreover, the tides of the bay brought several things to the shore. These ranged from food stuff like clams, fishes, to important materials like pearls and gems. But the players had to usually fight with beasts like large crabs, turtles, tortoise, etc even for them.

Though the bay was currently impossible for players to travel by boat or any way due to the high level monsters that are found in the bay, the NPCs of the kingdoms have a few ship using the bay for trade and military purposes. In fact, the coast along the Murk Water Town was left by the NPCs because it was too shallow boats to move. Still, there would some precious gems and other materials that was ashore from the bay onto this shore from shipwrecks of these NPC sh.i.p.s.

This is the main reason for the Valhalla Raiders to create a monopoly for the place. There were players always patrolling the coast to prevent others from finding out about this. They initially were just after a level 10 to level 15 farming region with decent herbs but soon found out that gems and other items including weapons would wash ashore. So, they kept it isolated.

Balthazar also knew this information and guessed the reason for the Raiders actions as soon as he heard that they were maintaining monopoly over the coast. The bay was a place which both the fae and the human empires have been fighting to grasp and it formed a natural barrier between those two regions.

Fights between sh.i.p.s moving in the bay was a common sight and certain areas in the bay were considered war zones. So, the coast always saw the occasional weapon or two. The bay was considered a treasure spot and many players try to use diving gear from their sh.i.p.s to collect weapons from the bottom of the sea floor. There would also be a few treasure chests on the bottom of the sea floor randomly and sometimes those would even be found on the coast.

Still he was sure of one thing that the coast was bound to have – a coastal guard station. That would have the NPCs who would monitor the coasts. Though the Valhalla Raider try to prevent others from entering the areas, they have their very own problems. They couldn’t be looting all the items that wash ashore either.

Occasionally groups of NPC soldier would march along the coasts and gather up any useful item they see. In that case, if they see any adventurer taking an armament washed up to the shore, the adventurer would be attacked, and the armament would drop down. It would be considered stealing by the coast guard and even their reputation would suffer a blow.

Balthazar wanted the location of this coastal guard station as that would have quests. One that could provide him reputation quickly. The best thing he could do was to get them a weapon design that could use materials from the surroundings similar to the one that happened with the White Bane Corps in the Black Rock Town. For that he would at least need to get to the coast and get some materials if he had any intention to craft anything, but first he needed to get a good idea of the goods available in the town. So, he first decided to get know of the information gathered by the Divine Swords.

“Mr. Shadow, the Divine Swords have very few members here in this town. Most of them are at the fae region. Only a few us have chosen human race and were spawned close. I was an old member and have quite a few friends in the guild. So, I didn’t want to stay far and moved to this place and managed to get a few passes for moving to this town, which were used by some fae to explore this side,” said Agua. “I was actually in the fae region till the leader requested to support you. I don’t have much idea about this place. So, I don’t have such maps. Most players wouldn’t have a map of the coast. The only other influence that could have is the Ardent Ronins, but they would also not sell it easy.”

“How much would it take?” asked Balthazar.

“If it had been a day before, I would have suggested that you get some materials from the Greybark marshes, but now it I am not sure about this,” said Agua.

“What can I give them? You have any idea what they might need?” asked Balthazar as he didn’t know anything more than Agua.

“I really can’t help you with this. Just sneak into coast and check for yourself. Just avoid the coast during high noon and dusk for an hour each. Even most of the Raiders retreat at that time. There seems to be some kind of NPCs patrolling who attack the players who are at the coast,” said Agua.

Those words were the very ones that Balthazar wanted to hear. The coastal guard would be the only NPCs that would be moving in the coast in patrol. If he wanted to get to the coastal guard station it would be best if he chose the time when the members of Valhalla Raiders retreated. He had to just follow any coastal guard he would see. He considered contact with those NPCs less dangerous as any patrolling NPCs would be low-level characters and it was better than contact with members of the Raiders. If the NPCs are seen, he could have a chance to negotiate as they didn’t discriminate between all adventurers, but if the members of Raider see him, they would definitely try to kill him and hunt him even in the town as they had plans on monopolizing the beach near the town.

“OK. Thanks for your help. I will see if I can do anything,” said Balthazar. “Where can I find you if I want to contact you again?”

“You can message me anytime. We are hunting in the forest behind the town in the direction opposite to the coast,” said Agua as he bid his farewell.

It was already past noon in the game and the next chance he would get is during the dusk. He decided to check the market and the town before the dusk. He went into disguise as the Dormant Blade character he had previously used and asked around for a few minutes and found the shop owned by Valhalla Raiders.

Looking at the shop, he found that there were quite a few things being sold by them, but it was limited to consumable and a few normal weapons. No armaments looked like they were made form the materials that could be found from the coast. So, it was one thing that Balthazar realized he could still use. He knew that there would definitely be items that the guild kept for themselves and wouldn’t sell to help increase their number but expected some lower level special armaments at the very least. He was disappointed by the items he found there.

He went around the rest of the market to check the various items that are available at the NPC shop. The thing that he found most attractive were the underwater breathing potions. This were the best thing that he could stock up on as most players weren’t using them because they couldn’t get in the Murk Water bay due to the Raiders maintaining a monopoly of the coast and they knew that waters actually had beasts at a much higher level than them.

He would have emptied the entire stock if he had a decent way to carry them back to the BlackRock Town. Lack of such means, he just took a few to attempt a looking into the Murk Water bay. He also checked the rest of the marketplace along with Agua to get a decent idea of all the available stuff.

Apart from the coastal guard, the town head and temple of the twelve were his next best option for getting town reputation points. He went to the town headfirst and checked for quests. There was a common quest that allowed them gather reputation and contribution points by providing the town head with food supplies. The contribution points are easy to acquire, but it is much harder to increase reputation points which would require a lot of meat. He had collected the meat from the beasts at the marshlands, but most of those were poisonous and not edible.

Most towns had such quests after the upgrade of the game, but he had hoped for something better. This kind of quest was extremely time consuming and was the last thing he wanted to do. Still, he took the quest as he knew that he would be fighting some beasts and might as well get a little reputation out of it by taking the quest, before he made way to the temple of the twelve.

The temple of the twelve was an entity that would be there in all the towns in the light faction and he had an iron-grade membership of the temple. He would have the privileges for membership in every place in the light faction which could get him better quests. He put on his badge of iron grade membership as he entered the place.

The temple was right in the centre of the market area like it was in Jarko town. But instead of stone and metal, the temple was made of marble that was greenish brown almost the same color as that of the Murk Water bay and was made as a tower with four floors.

As he went inside, he found that the first floor was a large white walled meditation hall with ten-meter-tall statues of the twelve lords opposite the entrance. The distinguishing feature was that there was thirteenth statue behind them of an armed knight kneeling front of them and the walls of the temple had paintings that depicted this person fighting beasts of sea on the coasts and the waters of the Murk Water bay.

This was clearly different from the temples of the Black Rock Town. Such pictures usually depicted the story of some important person in the lore and was the method used by the game to indicate that a special treasure or quest could be found in the region. He began to observe the paintings and after some time came to the statues to have a closer look at the knight when he heard a voice.

“Greetings adventurer,” said a deacon who had come close to his side. He had white hair and looked very old. “You seem to be interested in the statue of Nodentius, the knight? Are you one of those who had travelled to this town in search for his inheritance.”

“Yes and no, deacon. I am traveller who came to this town recently. How did you guess that?” asked back Balthazar.

“The badge signifying your membership, I haven’t given that to you in this town and I am the only one who can,” said the deacon. “And there was another adventurer who had come here a day before who was on a quest to discover about our protector, the knight who made these coasts a safe haven for humans.”

“So, Nodentius. He was a pupil of the twelve lords?” asked Balthazar who intended to find out more information about this person. Even, if he already had an inheritance, he was sure someone else could make good use of it.

“Yes, he was a resident of this very town back when it was a village,” said the deacon pointing to the pictures on the walls. “There was a constant danger of the beasts during that time. He grew up fighting these beasts and hearing of his deeds, he was recruited away by the army. He didn’t forget his roots though. He came back a captain and commandeered his men to push back the beasts.”

“That was a time when there would be no men on the coasts. He set up a coastal guard and showed that the bay was a treasure that could help develop the nation and thus, the present coastal guard and town came into being. Even this temple was made only due to his assistance. He was one of us. The town was renamed into Murk Water Town after the bay as he had his hometown as his base. Alas, after his disappearance the situation changed and the town that almost became a city once is in this state,” said the deacon in a sad tone.

“Where did he disappear to?” asked Balthazar.

“A mystery, son,” said the deacon. “Some say that he went into the lands of the fae, some say that he died doing what he always did and was lost to the waters of the Murk Water bay. There are also some who say that he had fought under the command of the twelve lords and decided to continue following them to wherever they had gone to.”