RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 199

A few moments later, the mud lizard came into the visible range of the team. It crossed past the muddy area and even moved on the grass of the forest in the same manner as it did before. All of them placed themselves over trees located in the forest and noticed it moving towards the cage.

Shadow asked them to continue to maintain their surviellance of the areas so that no other distractions are seen by the beast. The mud lizard rode up on a wave of earth hardly moving its legs as it slowly followed the trail and came near the cage where it stopped.

“I don’t think it will enter the cage on its own,” said Agua as it stopped by cage without moving forward. “Hope you have a way to make it move if it decides to not get into the cage. The way it is gliding over the earth, I doubt if our usual tactics would be effective in cornering it.”

“No. The usual tricks wouldn’t be sufficient,” said Balthazar as he started to smear the poison of the horned toads on one if his bolts. “My poison would slow it down. I doubt if it would have an effect on its magic, but that is what I am thinking of. If that fails, we will probably need to cripple it and push it in ourselves. Tell the guardian to be on ready and the warlock if he can use any spells to disorient the beasts.”

“Only got dark bolts that can slow it down,” replied Agua. “Shall we get down then?” he asked.

“No. It will detect any objects or footsteps on the ground. They are quite sensitive to any moving objects on the ground upto a certain range. It was definitely able to do it in a muddy environment, but I doubt its capabilities would extend even to the harder soil of the forest,” explained Shadow. “Let the warlock shoot his dark bolts if I shoot my poisoned bolt. Then, we will try to physically wrestle it into the cage.”

About half a minute later, the mud lizard started to move into the cage for the meat, when they got another announcement that more mud lizards are heading their way from the archer who was closest to the waterfall where the mud lizards resided. He was making a map of that area for the Divine Swords guild.

“We are having other beasts joining us,” reminded Agua again as there was no response from Shadow. Balthazar had previously informed them that it will get harder if other beasts get involved and they will have to keep other beasts at bay.

“Don’t attack before this one gets into the cage. There are no other beasts in the vicinity. If other mud lizards are coming close, it might affect this one to get into the cage faster,” said Shadow. “If they come too close let the two fae get to attack them and keep them away.”

In another few seconds, the beast finally entered the cage. Shadow quickly shot two poison bolts into the beast and it was followed by warlock’s dark bolts as Shadow went to the cage and locked it before the beast tried to get out. He quickly summoned out the two horse that he had and told the others to distract the mud lizards as he connected their saddles to the mobile cage. He also had the warlock to join him to secure the cage to the horses and the pair of them got on top of the mobile cage as the game didn’t yet introduce mounts and prevented players from mounting onto beasts.

“Let us move,” said Shadow as he commanded the horses to ride through the forest. Though the previously made their way through the forest, it was on foot. For the cage which was about 2 metres long and a metre wide with two horses side by side attached to it, they need proper space and the horses couldn’t move through the same path they used to get to this region.

Balthazar had already expected this and through the journey when he was scouting the path for the others to move, he had already marked a path for the horses to have enough space to move. It was a bit zigzag and curvy and not a straight path as they had used to reach the mud lizards. So, there were bound to be a few monsters that would notice them. Even if they could use the same path that they traversed to get to the waterfall, some monsters would still be respawned in that area.

So, Balthazar requested the fae and others to keep them busy while he rode on the way back. He had already given the path he would follow to Agua who was coordinating the team to just attack the beasts and lure them away from the horses. It wasn’t a hard task as the horses led by Shadow moved quite fast even with the cage strapped to them.

The rest of the team actually had a hard time to maintain their pace with the horse, so it was similarly difficult for the monsters to follow up with the horse. He already had warlock beside him on the cage to slow down any beasts that came too close to the horses.

This way, they moved through the woods towards the town. In twenty minutes, the horses and the cage were out of the woods. The rest of the team were still behind. Balthazar decided to wait for them before proceeding ahead. With a pair of horses and the mobile cage, he was sure to gather attention and he wanted to make sure that he had some extra security before he did so.

Agua led the rest of the team from the forest in a few minutes. They joined and made their way to the town. On the way, the players started to stare at them as Balthazar had expected. The cage as well as it being drawn by the horses was a new thing for them to see. They had seen horse drawn carts and carriages in the city but not one which is managed entirely by players.

The cage was also a new sight to most of them. The tamer profession and use of pets hadn’t yet become a common thing to most players. So, they found the cage to be very interesting. Quite a number of them began to ask about it and by the time they reached the town gate, posts were already made in the forums about the incident.

Balthazar had expected a bit of publicity, but it was more than what he expected. With this small incident, the local guilds were already notified of them. Balthazar had put on a disguise when they were travelling on the cart, but the others were noted by the people and that they ended their journey in the direction of the tamer in the town. As they reached Kiran’s office, the secretary immediately took them to Kiran.

“Ah! You got the mud lizard I asked for,” said Kiran with a smile. “Faster than I asked and no physical injuries,” he continued as he walked around the cage observing the beast.

Quest Completed: Kiran’s acknowledgement

Description: Captured a mud lizard alive.

Rewards: Tame beast skill and instruction from Kiran in taming.

He held out two books in front of Balthazar as finished examining the beast. One was the tame beast skill book that Balthazar immediately recognized. The skill could be used to tame wild beasts when their health is very low or they are dying, but it has a very small percentage of success. The skill basically sends mana to an animal at very low health as a friendly offer. Sometimes, the beast would accept it and become tame but most of the time it fails. The beast could even take the mana and use it to attack him. Thus, it was a very risky skill that could even have adverse effects to the person that used it.

The other one was something different as it had the name of Kiran on it and had a title that said, ‘A guide to taming beasts’, on it. “I got the idea from the guide written by the alchemist Arius. It is a better way to let a person learn, give an option for experimenting and getting to have a practical knowledge without a monitoring personality over your head. There would a chance that one could die, but to immortal adventurers, it isn’t much of an issue. With this you could be considered an in-name apprentice of mine. I hope you wouldn’t disappoint,” said Kiran pointing to the book.

:”Let me take the beast off your hands and you can deposit the poison with my secretary. You can collect the blood by tonight,” said Kiran as took the cage and moved inside his stable. With that Shadow and the others came out of his place after Shadow gave a couple of vials with the poison of the horned toad to the secretary

“So? What next?” asked Agua.

“I am going to the Alchemist association. I want to try a few things before we get to the coast,” said Shadow as he handed him the map of the marshlands and a few of the resources that he had collected from the marshlands. To a guild these were more important as they could investigate the area with much ease. He clearly put in all the information including that of the cave and the different kinds of monsters that were there. One could think that they could get this information from any of the players, but it is best if they gathered it from a scout as they don’t disturb the beasts and make a proper assessment of the location and patterns of the monsters in an area. Most of the others in such raids fire blindly as they are brought in to compensate for lack of firepower.

“We will talk after your trip to the beach then,” said Agua as he took them from Shadow as they took their leave

Balthazar could use the meat from the beasts of the marshland to experiment on alternative antivenom which doesn’t need the blood from the tamer, but he wanted to do those experiments during the night time of the game. He didn’t want to use the fireglows to hunt in the night as he didn’t want others to know of the method anytime soon. So, he decided to go hunting alone and only work on potions during the night.

He also received the tame beast skill book and learnt it. But he hadn’t yet used it against any beast. He currently wanted to check the skill and experiment with some animals. He went back to Kiran’s secretary and bought a pet pouch which could hold another 5 pets.

He went to a tavern to book a private room to check the nook that was provided to him by Kiran. The book was like an idiot’s guide to taming and was differentiated into multiple sections. The first section described about different beasts that he had encountered and how to determine a few basic qualities and nature of the beasts based on the environment and their physical features. This were common knowledge to most players in his past. So, Balthazar skimmed over it lightly before going to the next section.

This was more about using the tame beast skill on wild beasts. These were written in the form of Kiran’s own experiences. The most important thing is to make sure that a beast was alone. If it perceived that other beasts could help it overcome the player, even if they were of other species, it will try its best to not allow itself to be tamed and will attack the player. The best chances for taming are when one could make it believe being tamed was its best choice.

It works better when the beasts are in a weak condition. One could see beasts in various conditions like crippled, poisoned and even pregnant in various places in the game. The pregnant ones and smaller ones would be found in caves. These could be easily tamed than the other kind of beasts. Sometimes having medicinal agents or things which the beasts would like or crave would also increase the chances of taming the beasts.

The other sections indicated the use of various growth agents, food, first-aid, healing medicines and training techniques. These were explained for different beasts with different kinds of specialities and it even included a few aquatic beasts which were hard to find and maintain. After going through them for an hour, he decided to go and attempt taming on a few beasts. Even if he got more beasts or managed to tame beasts that he didn’t require, he could always sell them to the tamers and others. So, he decided to use the tame beast skill and level it up as much as he could. He also realized that this skill could be used quite frequently when he was hunting for experience.

He checked the map and decided to start with smaller beasts. The chance of it being tamed was always higher when the beasts were of a lower level than the player. So, he first thought of going to the forest and capture a few deer. It was the best option he could see currently as deer were usually docile species. If they are alone, they could be tamed far easier than the other beasts.

As he moved in that direction, he realized that there were lot of players in the forest. A majority of all the players in the town area were hunting in the forest. He didn’t want others to know of his tame beast skill yet. So, he decided to try the marshlands instead. The marshlands have undergone a raid, but there were many players who died and so there were still a lot of people avoided it even after there were a lot of players selling information about it. The only ones who would probably go there are guilds and adventurer teams who intended to pioneer a new area.

It was still a better area than the forest ast it would have lesser number of eyes, but these beasts in that area are all very aggressive in nature. So, it would be harder to tame them. Still, he finally chose to practice in the marshlands. He had the venom of the horned toads which could be used to weaken other beasts to tame them and going to marshlands would allow him a chance to collect more venom.

He made his way to the marshlands and found that the player density in the area was less than that he had expected. He went inside in stealth and came to a level 15 area. This was an area which had silver scale snakes and black-tongue lizards which he could practice against. There were also red-spot toads but those were fast and small. It was hard to control one’s attacks in a way that they survive with a low health. Even after he captured the silver scale snakes and lizards, they wouldn’t be much useful to him as pets unless they were at a higher level. He would have to research with various medicines to promote their growth and he had no intention of doing that with these beasts. He only planned to sell them.

He quickly went and started to attack the beasts that he could find. As an assassin, ambushing single targets was something he was good at. He could quickly cripple a beast once he ambushed it, but usually there would be other beasts in the vicinity and the ambush only serves as a starting point. It was not a problem for Shadow while dealing with silver scale snakes. His first attempt provoked 6 snakes, but he still managed to kill five leaving one alive and impaled by his weapon at the last.

He tried his skill, but it failed, and the snake bled out to die. He collected the useful remains and went again to attempt it. He failed about 4 times, three just bled out in refusal and one retaliated agains him, before he got lucky with a black tongue lizard which finally accepted to be a pet when he offered it some gharial meat while he cast the skill. The data about the pet appeared as soon as it accepted in his pets list.

[Black tongue lizard] (Common pet)

Level 15;

HP: 200/4500;

Movement speed: 65;

Claw attack: 100;

Poison smear: Uses its long tong to poison the opponent causing a poison damage of 35 HP per second for 4 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

“Got no use for this, except to squeeze out it venom periodically. Best put it for sale,” thought Balthazar as he saw its characteristics. It was true as it had very little movement speed and it would be easily mauled by higher level beasts. Bringing it out in the middle of a fight would be the same as offering the monsters a free meal.