The wail of anguish that Paige lets out truly makes Cain feel horrible for completing the quest. Even after seeing the notification.
[Stone Of Greed] Destroyed
[Quest Complete]
"Paige, calm down, see, it was a trick. The stone was cursed and hiding its true nature." Mary whispers in her friends ear as she holds her.
It takes a while for Paige to calm down, but when she does, she's got a determined look that says Cain isn't forgiven yet.
"Why not try your random spin? See what you get? I've seen some pretty crazy things in that list." Cain suggests.
Paige doesn't look hopeful, but closes her eyes and collects her reward. They all watch in interest as her facial features change while she checks the visible possibilities, from hope to confusion then to concentration and back to hope, finishing with joy and a little dance before she opens her eyes.
"The random thing this time was a set of chests to pick from, and it gave me a great prize.
[Consolation Stone] Legendary Item. Generates one Gold coin every 24 hours.
"That's actually pretty awesome. It might not be as amazing looking as the fake Stone was, but it's a Gold Coin every single day. That's more than enough for spending money." Mary cheers, still holding the Princess.
"You're up next Mary, let's see what you get." Cyrene demands, wrapping the pair of Elves up in her excitement to find out what everyone got.
Unlike Daisy, who panics at the thought, Mary doesn't mind the Lamia's antics and simply retreats into her system interface to see what she can get.
"Adventuring with you always brings out the weird things doesn't it?" Mary asks Cain when she returns from her random roll.
"Not always, but they're a pretty good chance of fun and unusual things. What did you get?"
Mary links an item in party chart with a big grin.
[Ring of True Luck] Increases Item Drop Rate. Condition: group must contain more female members than male.
"Hey, that's a pretty good item, not something strange. Especially for a female Puppet Master, because even alone you fill the requirement." Cain points out, making everyone laugh.
Even he had to admit, that's not a bonus condition he's ever seen on an item before. Other than classes, very few things are gender locked. A few rare spells and items, but that's about it.
Cyrene collects her own next, wriggling and wrapping happily around the two Elves in celebration.
"What could be so good that you're crushing your party members?" Misha asks, bonking the Lamia on the head and pulling her free from the Elves to wrap around her instead.
"I'll tell you later." Cyrene whispers, then giggles.
Since she's not going anywhere for a moment, Misha goes next, getting herself a new Epic Tailoring Recipe for a set of robes that require level 300 to use. Another oddity, as items have levels, but usually not level requirements.
"It seems today is the day of odd and unique items. Let's see if I can keep the lucky streak up." Cain laughs, opening the reward interface to see a row of chests.
[Please Select One Chest To Receive Reward]
[Enchanted Ration Pack] can be opened once daily to receive a hot meal. Meal will always be breakfast. Non transferable.
"I got unlimited breakfast for life." Cain laughs, linking the item to the group.
"Breakfast in bed every morning? That doesn't sound half bad." Misha teases and Cyrene nods enthusiastically.
"On a practical note, an item like that would save the life of any number of stranded or captured transfers. Some regions of the Eastern Continent don't allow bank access, so if you're stuck there it's fairly common to run out of food and water." Princess Paige informs them.
"Then we'll need more of them. Breakfast for everyone!" Mary cheers.
"On a serious note, are we going to keep doing these dungeons every day? I'm getting incredible experience, and Mary here has gotten a load of levels already." Paige asks.
"For a few days, then we need to return to Skyview for the coming of age banquet for King James. He's announced that he will be bringing non humans into the Royal Harem for the first time, so we all expect that there will be some level of trouble.
You can come with us if you like, I'm sure I can get passes for a few more. I am technically the defense minister after all."
"How about one more run to get you to a nice even level 260 and then we can all go visit Skyview early? I've never been to the Central Continent and I'm certain mother would approve me as an envoy just to get me to stop teasing her." Paige suggests.
The extra levels will help Mary as well, increasing her Summon numbers and then merging them is a great way to increase her combat effectiveness against higher level targets.
But first they have to wait for the Puppets to finish mining the last of the possible materials before they leave this instance.
Judging by the responses of the Crafters in Guild Chat, the drops this time have been pretty good. They got a lot of high quality leather as drops from the Beastkin, and the ores they're digging up from the open caverns contain a lot of materials that are new to the Guild, materials that are not commonly available in the Central Continent.
That's exactly what he had hoped for, new materials to help the Guild build up their skills and repertoire. They've already made a reputation for themselves making high quality goods, and higher level materials will let them keep it up and not stagnate at lower levels.
That's the fate of almost all Guilds, they get comfortable in one region and never progress beyond that point, simply living a good life in the place they call home with the materials that are available.
The Darklight Host has done better than most, thanks to the members that venture out to new places, but they're still in danger of stagnation once most of their Crafters have progressed to the peak of the Central Continent.
Their plans for a second run are cut short by an urgent message from Daisy. A large number of people are at the apartment looking for Cain and they're getting mad at her for not being able to tell them where he's gone.
[We will be back there in a few minutes. Tell them all that I'm on my way.]
"It seems I have a lot of visitors at the apartment and Daisy is freaking out. Neither her or the Maid has any real combat skills, so we should go see what they're after before they tear the apartment block apart trying to get in." Cain sighs, making the others laugh.
"It must be hard being popular. But you just got here, there shouldn't be many people who know you here, and even fewer that would come looking for you in person. Plus, they know where you live, so there's a good chance it's the nobility and The Queen or one of her attendants let slip about how she recovered." Mary points out the obvious.
"If they're just showing up at my door to harass me for cosmetic alterations, I'm totally going to turn the whole lot of them into Dark Elves." Cain grumbles and Paige laughs.
"Can you imagine the uproar? The entire nobility becoming Dark Elves? If nothing else, I should be able to talk to them and calm them down to find out what they want." From the look on the mischievous Princess' face, she wouldn't actually mind if that happened, just for the entertainment factor.
"You spent a lot of time alone in your room, bored as a child didn't you?" Misha asks as they walk out of the dungeon towards the travel circle.
"Yeah, why?" Paige asks, startled and Mary bursts into quickly stifled laughter.
"Nevermind."
As they feared, the entire building is full of Elven Nobles, but they quickly make way for Princess Paige, and Cain transforms himself into an Elf to confuse and distract the crowd until they can rescue Daisy.
Because they're looking for a big human man, the disguise works wonderfully, and the Nobles assume that Paige is here to help them with whatever they're after, smoothly clearing a path for her party through the crowd all the way to Cain's door, where the group enters and Cain transforms back to talk to the Elves.
"Alright, I'm home from my morning Dungeon run. Now, can we pick a representative and tell me, clearly and one at a time, what you've all gathered here in front of my apartment for? It had better be good for this scale of disruption, the residents of the building can't even leave their homes for the crowd of bodies."
The crowd discusses it among themselves for a while before a truly ancient looking Forest Elven woman with a walking cane and one blind eye steps forward to represent their cause.
"You see, it's about the future of this city." The old woman begins in a slow but musical voice.
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