NOVEL NEXT Chapter 139 - Quest Break
That was a pain and a half to do, Archie complained, rubbing the side of his temple.
He knew the report had to be detailed - what they saw, what they found, what they recorded, and every step they took along the way. The idea was simple: if something similar happened again, or if another guild member ran into a related situation, they could check for matching references and retrace their steps to get similar results.
While in this case, not much had really happened - just a Grumblebark murder spree, some light sleuthing, and a whole lot of running away from a parasitic forest creature.
"See, aren't you glad we didn't fight it?" Tim grinned, floating just above Archie's head and peering at him upside down. "Imagine having to track down and kill everything it took over. Total buzzkill."
'No, you're right,' Archie acquiesced with a sigh. 'It would've taken far longer than I thought it would have taken us,' he signed as he recalled what happened an hour ago.
After they entered the guild tavern, the first thing he did was make a beeline for the Welcome to Fractal Info Bin near the front desk. He quickly paid the fee to access four of the Information Crystals that caught his eye: 'The Sapients and Non-Sapients on Fractal', 'A History of Fractal's Major Kingdoms', 'Noteworthy Places and Hidden Corners on Fractal', and 'Bunkers, Hideouts, and Guild Taverns Throughout the Multiverse'.
They'd cost him a pretty penny, especially the last one, with it costing around a Gold coin by itself.
'The Sapients and Non-Sapients on Fractal' was the Information Crystal Tim had referred to earlier while running through the forest. Upon channeling his mana into the light-blue crystal, there was only a slight delay before its contents began streaming into his mind.
With his only outward reaction being a slight crease on his forehead, a drastic difference compared to when he first used an Information Crystal that streamed its contents directly into his mind.
Compared to the tens of millions of words and phrases that had engraved themselves into his mind - along with, in his opinion, the ridiculous grammatical structure of gendered words - from the USL Language Information Crystal, a two-thousand-word encyclopedia on the various races of Fractal, both sapient and non-sapient, gave him at most a momentary headache.
Using his newfound knowledge, he quickly located the proverbial page on the Myrelace - and just as quickly realized how much of a nightmare it would've been to try and kill it.
It was a hive mind parasitic type of plantoid, and those were notoriously difficult to truly kill. As long as even a single Myrelace spore or stem remained alive and managed to escape or hide, it would never truly die.
You'd get a notification saying you'd killed a Myrelace Drone - but not the Overmind. Its subconscious would just hop from drone to drone to avoid facing you head-on. So, unless you managed to kill every single drone it controlled or take out the Overmind before it could jump bodies, it would never truly die.
At least, that's what 'The Sapients and Non-Sapients on Fractal claimed'.
The second Information Crystal he chose to use was called 'A History of Fractal's Major Kingdoms', which, true to its name, gave a detailed accounting of all that had been documented and recorded about Fractal's Kingdoms.
As a bit of a history nut, he found it fascinating. Around thirty thousand years ago, a battle between two powerful individuals - either both newly advanced to B-Grade, or one at B-Grade and the other at the peak of C-Grade - ended up crashing onto their planet at the height of their clash.
Their battle had already wiped out two neighboring planets - Secrea and Tzalr - before finally crashing down onto Fractal's previously largest mountain range. From there, the damage only got worse. Their fight left the surface fractured, the terrain reshaped by the force of their clash.
The massive ravines and wide craters he'd seen on the way to the planet - some remaining untouched by time, others worn and overtaken by time - were all remnants of that battle. Every one of the eight major kingdoms had at least two or three of those scars carved into their lands at a minimum.
By the end of their battle, only one walked away - vanishing off-world and leaving behind a ruined planet. The name Fractal was given by the few who survived, a scattered population of less than four million recently freed slaves.
Due to a planetary war seventy-two thousand years ago, Shevera - now known as Fractal - was reduced to a slave planet under Tzalr's rule. But with Tzalr's destruction at the hands of the two individuals, who were still unknown to this day, the inhabitants of Fractal were slaves no longer.
Yet freedom didn't bring peace.
What followed was over a decade of unimaginable hardship, referred to as the Wretched Thirteen, their version of the Dark Age.
Without the infrastructure imposed by their former masters, the survivors faced ecological collapse, resource shortages, and a total breakdown of order. The already battered population, scattered across distant settlements and the shattered remnants of once-proud cities, was further thinned by famine, disease, and civil unrest.
In just thirteen years, the number of survivors fell to fewer than two and a half million.
Gradually, loose confederations of survivors formed along regions where food and fresh water remained abundant, often led by those with practical skills, military experience, or access to old-world knowledge.
Small settlements evolved into townships. Townships merged into territories. Conflicts still flared, over borders, resources, or ideology, but so did trade, cooperation, and shared defense.
Over the next several centuries, dozens of kingdoms, republics, and tribal coalitions rose and fell. Among them, eight would eventually emerge as the most stable, most prosperous, and most influential. These would become the Eight Major Kingdoms of Fractal: Luterra, Upibbaidia, Yndros, Reophora, Dalmid, Netharim, Crasin, and his personal favorite - based on absolutely no objective criteria whatsoever - George.
I need to visit the George kingdom at least once for the hell of it.
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The third Information Crystal, 'Noteworthy Places and Hidden Corners on Fractal', went into detail about eye-catching locations scattered across the planet, both the well-known and hidden.
It covered everything from stores where you could find rare cyberware and dungeons, to neighboring planetary embassies and teleporter stations that, in some cases, literally cost an arm and a leg to use.
However, much to his dismay, even the lowest-level dungeons listed in the crystal required him to be at least Level 100 - a D-Grade.
There were even mentions of hidden gems, like a leathersmith shop run by a high-level D-Grade in Neo-Eden - one he was planning on visiting to grab a few things from.
The last Information Crystal, 'Bunkers, Hideouts, and Guild Taverns Throughout the Multiverse', wasn't one he grabbed from the Welcome to Fractal Info Bin. Instead, the receptionist - the same one who had first interviewed him - slid it over the counter and mentioned that Paleos had suggested he pick it up for later down the line.
And true to its name, it contained countless locations across the Multiverse where he could find Guild Taverns, hideouts, and bunkers owned or affiliated with the Guild.
Much like the 'Basic-ass Spatial Magic' Information Crystal he'd been reading throughout his and Aoife's travels, this one had locks in place. He couldn't just beam the info straight into his brain like with the other Information Crystals - his current rank as an Iron Trekker didn't give him the clearance to go beyond a certain number of pages.
Thus, it restricted him to being only able to see ones that Iron Trekkers were allowed access to, which had to have been at least a million.
Snapping himself back to the present, Archie cut off Tim mid-pitch, who was enthusiastically trying to convince Aoife to become a tenant in whatever area he planned to take over next.
'We aren't jumping into another quest any time soon, are we?' Archie signed, he'd remembered Tim grabbing and accepting a couple of quests when the first left the Guild Tavern earlier this morning.
Stopping himself mid-tirade, Tim scrunched his nose in thought before muttering, "Lemme check."
Taking out his Iron Trekker membership card, he funneled a bit of his mana within it and began going through the catalogue of quests he'd accepted. "Uh, most of the ones I picked out don't have an end date, but the few that do aren't due until the end of the year - so, like, around four months from now, Multiversal time, of course. Why?"
'Multiversal?' Archie signed, confused. How does that work with every planet having a different day and night cycle?
'How do you even track Multiversal time? Is it on the membership card?' he asked, brows furrowed. 'And how would that even work? Is there just… one time that everyone agreed to follow?'
"Yes, to your second and fourth questions," Tim replied. "If you access your membership card, it should show the Multiversal time on the bottom right, along with a calendar and a few other things."
"As for why," he added, "that has to do with Chronarch, the first god of time."
Ah. 'I see it,' Archie signed as he scanned the display:
Multiversal Time: 73rd Cycle, Year: 3402
Month: 7th of 12
Day: 12th of 30
'There are quite a few similarities to what Earth used to have. Do you know how long a day is supposed to last?'
"Twenty-nine hours in a Multiversal day," Tim supplied casually. "Anyway, back to my question - did you have something else in mind that you wanted to do, or… oh right, your egg, I forgot about that. Hmm, you need to find somewhere to keep it safe when we go on quests."
Well, he's not wrong, Archie thought. 'As fun as that quest was - and the next ones sound just as exciting; I mean, exploring an underground tomb together sounds cool as shit - I'm kind of on a time limit right now, and that's what's keeping me from running quests back-to-back.'
"If I may ask," Aoife softly spoke from beside Archie. "What is it the thing that is making you on a time limit? Is it related to your Second Tutorial Event?"
"Oh!" Tim exclaimed boisterously - then immediately slapped both clawed paws over his snout, eyes darting around at the people now staring at him for the sudden outburst.
"Sorry," he meekly apologized to Archie before whispering to both of them. "I forgot that you had two more left… Is the break you want related to it?"
Archie's eyes darted around, his irises rimmed crimson, more aware now of the people around them, and he nudged his head in the direction of a particularly unpacked restaurant. 'Let's take this somewhere else.'
Swiftly making his way into the restaurant with Aoife and Tim in tow, Archie beelined toward the corner booth, after he handed the receptionist four Silver Coins to leave them alone and direct people away from them.
Once the three of them huddled together in the booth, Archie took out three of the five Obscuring Stakes and handed one to both Aoife and Tim. Each of them either slipped the stake under the right sleeve of the black sweater they'd put on halfway to Neo-Eden or lay themselves on the table and used their wings to cover it before activating them.
Feeling the effects of Obscuring Field activating, Archie answered Tim's question via mana construct atop the table. 'It's not directly related to it, but indirectly it is.'
"What do you mean?" Tim whisper-asked, still a bit meek from shouting in the middle of a crowd and getting unwanted attention on them.
'Okay, so you two know how the gods, goddesses, and whatever the fuck in the 50th Universe basically destroyed Universes 49, 50, 51, and 72 during my Tutorial, right?' he wrote, getting a nod from both of them before continuing.
'Because of what they did, the System did its best to save as many of us as it could - since we were under its protection at the time - but apparently, due to our fragile souls or… something along those lines, we were all put in stasis and let out once we stabilized.'
'In my case, I was let out now a few hours before you and I met in the Temple of the Handlers, Aoife.'
Both Aoife and Tim inched themselves forward subconsciously in interest.
'But…' Archie wrote, his gaze drifting from his friends to a small family sitting in a booth across the restaurant. He watched the kids laughing and shoveling food into their mouths, the parents clinking their drinks together and smiling warmly at their children.
'My father and mother are still in stasis, and they won't be out for a very… very long time. But apparently, my brother is in my batch of Tutorial Participants for this cycle - along with my niece.' He smirked, though there was little warmth in it.
'She was born during the Tutorial. I only found out about her because the System Aspect told me he left with her… moments after I came out of stasis,' he wrote, turning his gaze now onto the salt and pepper shakers on the table. God, I miss them…
"…I'm sorry," Aoife said softly. "I don't know what it's like to have a… family. But I do know what it feels like to have something taken from you."
She paused, eyes dropping to her hands as she rubbed the Deepiron fingers of one hand across the knuckles of the other. "And while losing food and warmth isn't the same as losing people you care about… You gave me freedom. So, if there's ever anything you need…"
She looked up, her expression steady now. "If there's anything at all that you need - I am here for you."
'Thank you,' Archie signed with a soft smile on his face. 'I appreciate it, truly.'
"Yeah, well, while we might not have known each other for long, I'm here for you too," Tim chimed in, cutting into the moment before it got too heavy for his taste. He puffed up his chest slightly. "Emotional support and tactical genius, that's the Tim package."
'Thank you,' Archie smiled at the both of them.
'Anyway, circling back to the reason I need a break for the next few days - it's tied to a bet I made with a friend. But more importantly, it's part of something bigger. I'm working on a way to reach my brother and niece, which may or may not include having to create a teleporter.'
"What?" Tim muttered, blinking owlishly at Archie as the weight of his words finally sank in. "You're trying to create a teleporter as an E-Grade?" he hissed, now sitting upright and using his tail to try and cover the Obscuring Stake.
"I get that you can make armor and cool stuff, but teleporters are - you know… teleporters."
Archie raised both hands in a placating gesture, his expression somewhere between amused and sheepish. 'Not a full teleporter. More like a targeted tether-point relay anchor… thing,' he signed, scrunching his nose as even he realized how that sounded.
Aoife tilted her head, chipping in. "…That still sounds like a teleporter."