Elora

Elora turned to him, smiling brightly once again. Since the two of them were still enveloped in darkness, he wouldn't be able to see the patches of dirt that matted her hair, face, and arms.

"Thanks! It really wasn't so hard to get into the rhythm of things when I felt like I was about to die. That helped add some urgency to my decision-making." The only thing better than pulling off something awesome was doing so when other people could witness it and praise her for her success. Victories came rarely to her in the past, and she felt more inclined to attempt overcoming new obstacles after receiving validation from others. It'll feel so rewarding once I become even better at battling and crafting. Every day will be a celebration of what I've accomplished" 

She walked out of the cave with him, looking even prouder than she did after her previous battle. The Sun had finally passed the apex of its arc in the sky and now began to drift downward into the afternoon. "Guess we'll probably have to hurry on to the next quest. Hopefully it's short and we won't get stuck outside of the city at night. I've heard it can be dangerous then, especially if there are any player killers around."

Elora paused for a moment before reinforcing the point of discussion, "Besides, I want to make it back to the town in time to have a drink!" She didn't want Freyd to think she was worried or scared of the possibility.

The golem finally lowered its arms, repositioning them to haul a large boulder from the ground. At least, that was what Elora inferred was happening from hearing the course grating sound that resounded throughout the cavern, rattling its passageways. The unpleasant sound did nothing but amplify her fear regarding the situation. I need to figure something out! Eyes darting and struggling to perceive anything in the dim light, Elora resorted to relying on her sense of touch. Based on the reverberations, she could guess that they were still occupying a narrow corridor of the tunnel. She began to kick her legs back and forth until they may contact with stone. Elora tightened her core and leveraged her momentum to run up the side of a nearby wall. Swinging into and coming out of an overhead arc, her weight broke the spear from the Cave Guardian's back, causing both her and the weapon to fall onto the ground. 

"ha-HAH!", she exclaimed before remembering that the battle wasn't over yet. In a moment's notice the colossus was facing her once again, but this time, it was carrying a weapon of its own. Elora shot up to her feet and charged the monster without a second thought. Just as it started to unwind a throw, she lifted her spear upwards and into its gemstone heart. The shattered centerpiece exploded in an array of light, sending the monster crumbling under the pressure of its own weight. 

"AHH!", screamed Elora, crossing her arms in front of her as the gigantic stone came sailing down on top of her. Thankfully, the game had registered that the boss had been defeated. This caused the boulder to phase through her body, leaving it unharmed. 

 CAVE GUARDIAN DEFEATED. RETURN TO HANNAH TO COMPLETE THE QUEST.

There was no time to waste. Elora needed to attack the beast swiftly before it had the chance to hurt her. She ran a short distance before jumping high into the air ready to impale the Guardian's che -- the monolith quickly maneuvered to evade her attack. The tip of her spear found its way into the colossus's back, lodging snugly between a series of interlocking shale plates. Without her strike causing any actual damage, Elora clung to her weapon's staff, hanging a good ten feet off from the ground. 

Sh*t 

Without warning, the golem began sprinting, well, hurriedly hobbling, deeper into the grotto. Elora yelled as the thing swatted at her from over its shoulders, trying desperately to squish her like she was some sort of nasty parasite. Her legs flailed beneath her as she struggled to hoist them and find footing somewhere in the monster's back. It was impossible to focus on anything as sporadic fractals of light danced between her vision and every object around her. At a loss for what to do next, Elora clung to her weapon and hoped that an opportunity would present itself to her.

"Don't worry!", remarked Elora as she stood taller and puffed up her chest, "I'm gonna kick this thing's ass before it even knows it has one!" And with that, she charged into the cave, brandishing her spear enthusiastically. Now here's to hoping I can actually find wherever the hell I need to go. Darkness quickly draped around her as she descended into the azure canyon. It's floor was composed from segments of smooth stone whose surface rippled with striations, like sand from an ancient riverbed that had settled and solidified over time. Small crustaceans scuttled to hide beneath scattered pebbles upon hearing the sound of her footsteps. 

She took a sharp right turn at the next bend to find a narrow tunnel flooded with a fine, almost iridescent white sand. "Oh" At the base of a few different areas along the wall ahead, she could see clusters of cerulean crystals emanating a steady light throughout the cavern. Guess this is how you can tell it's a level 1 quest. The game doesn't even TRY to make the items difficult to find. Elora approached one of the gemstones and gently began to stab it with the point of her spear. Huh, seems a bit stubborn. New tactic -- As she had started to rotate her spear so she could instead hit the gemstone with the butt of the weapon, a force behind her began to rumble. "Guess it's showtime" Spinning to meet her foe, Elora took a second before she proceeded to look UP to meet the eyes of the Cave Guardian. "O-oh, you're uh -- kind of gigantic"

At this point, Elora couldn't tell if it was the creature causing her surroundings to shake, or just her own legs.

Elora had trouble keeping up with Freyd as he lead them to the next location. Part of her wanted to yell at him to slow down so she could ask what had gotten into him. Another part of her knew that it was better not to test people when they already seemed on-edge. She had had her fair share of experiences with being quiet and learning how to disassociate with her emotions during heated fights. Maybe he was was taking a similar, but more evasive approach. 

By the time she heard him beginning to speak again, Elora could barely understand what he was saying. She picked up her pace until she stood perpendicular to him, where she was able to make out: "It's easy to defeat, but I suggest you take it on yourself." He must have been directing her on how to battle the Cave Guardian. Sh*t, hopefully I didn't miss anything important. No point asking again in case he gets frustrated...

Elora took a deep breath and hesitantly crept deeper into the cave. I'm sure I'll be just fine, so long as I keep my guard up.

Elora attempted to create the appearance of leaves and clouds by stippling and wiping her dry paintbrush across the paper. This helped give the landscape some texture, but not really the sense of dimension that she had been hoping to achieve. Hannah was able to imply depth by layering intentional strokes that created clusters of leaves, patches of moss, and wisps of grass. I think I just need to add more colors and find out how to apply the paint in other ways. While she continued to place and smudge gobs of paint uncertainly around the landscape, she could hear Freyd acting increasingly frustrated nearby. With a brief glance in his direction, she noticed that he had grown tense as he began to scribble harder with a piece of compressed charcoal. He must be about as frustrated as me with this whole process. She turned her attention back to the painting and soon found herself criticizing every aspect of its design. This looks so unrealistic, like it was made by a child. I don't know how I'll ever be good enough at this to record the things that I find. Sighing heavily and slumping forward, Elora started cleaning up some of her supplies. I can't believe I thought I could do this.

The sudden sound of something hitting the ground made Elora jump in her seat. She quickly came to a crouching position and spun around, anticipating a fight. To her surprise, Freyd stood shaking and glaring angrily at his canvas, which he had thrown off into the distance. Her stomach immediately knotted in fear, worried that he was going to destroy something else in the outburst. She wanted to help calm him down, but her body felt paralyzed and she was afraid to approach him. Before she had the will to break the daze, Freyd's emotions had already seemed to neutralize. He hurriedly collected his gear and began walking away from her and the NPC. Elora realized if she didn't follow after him with equal haste, he would be lost to her in a matter of heartbeats. Fully coming to her feet, she quickly exchanged the package meant for Hannah in return for the next quest objective. Without the time or the care to pick up her workspace, she ran to catch up with Freyd, leaving her artwork behind. 

Hannah flipped to a fresh page in her sketchbook before using the end of her pencil to gesture to a vague point in the distance. "I would recommend using the horizon line as your point of reference.", she began by dragging the pencil from side to side across her canvas, marking the place where the skyline blended with the ground. "Perspective gives structure to your piece. It allows the landscapes you create to feel more life-like by causing them to appear three-dimensional."

"Feels weird to have a fictional character teach us about how make things realistic, doesn't it?", Elora whispered to Freyd after giving him a subtle nudge with one of her elbows. 

"There's one, two, and three point perspective that can be achieved through the use of different techniques. It's best to begin with one-point perspective." She demonstrated how to create this affect by drawing a triangle, like a stretch of roadway, that got more narrow as it approached a point off in the distance. "You can then have all of the objects in your landscape recede into space by drawing them along similar lines that stretch back to and meet with the vanishing point." Hannah took a moment to regard her diagram from a distance before adding, "The mind can trick us to perceive things differently than how they really are. Humans are designed to make decisions quickly to help them survive. The eyes reduce the amount of information they gather so that the brain can process it more efficiently. It's the reason why we identify parts of an object before we see the complete picture, like the colors and pattern of a tiger's body before it attacks." She leaned forward to erase a small segment of graphite, proceeding to dust off her canvas."This can be a difficult instinct to overcome when making art. Experienced artists know to draw things as they are, not as they think they should be."

By the time Hannah had begun to draw what looked like grids around various fences, light posts, animals, bushes, and buildings, Elora was already beginning to feel overwhelmed. She opted to swivel from her current position to a view that was facing the meadow and a sparse patch of trees. This would probably be easier for her to reference than the large assortment of objects that decorated the city. Elora didn't really feel like using a pencil to map out the entire scenery before she got to painting. So, she promptly disregarded that step and began by mixing her colors. The action was actually kind of soothing, and it was exciting to see what hues she could get from trying out different combinations. She then moved onto applying the paint, somewhat heavy-handedly to different areas of the landscape where she wanted vegetation to occupy.

The announcement didn't seem to jolt Elora from her daze. Instead she quietly lifted her attention from the rose, to Freyd, then toward Hannah. "Oh", she remarked, feeling a little surprised by how quickly their trip across town had seemed. "I'll go talk to her then." 

Elora veered a ways over to where the young woman was sitting criss-crossed in a small meadow surrounded by trees. The Artisan seemed to be sketching the general shapes of plants and creatures before washing her designs with translucent pigments. The landscapes and portraits she created were nothing short of beautiful. 

Wow, these are so amazing! This is exactly the kind of thing I want to learn how to do! Early on in Elora's journey to becoming an Alchemist, she had decided that being able to document the properties and appearances of different plants she found would be a helpful way to aid her in producing potions. Not only would keeping a field journal allow her to relocate the herbs with ease, it would also serve as a sort of recipe book for creating new concoctions. 

"How do you do that?", she found herself asking the NPC. Hannah patted a spot in the grass next to her to imply that Elora should have a seat if she wanted to listen. The woman briefly described how she preferred to use stylized strokes and shading to imply intricate details in different objects without having to reconstruct to every little observation. She offered a few other tips to Elora about how painters created the illusion of three dimensional space with the appearance of tones, highlights, and shadows. Before long, Hannah had given her a piece of sturdy paper, three small bottles containing paints in the primary colors, and a wide variety of brushes.

Elora looked over to Freyd and nervously scratched her head and chuckled. "It looks like I might have gotten myself a bit deep into this tutorial. Would you like to try painting too?"

Potential.

That was a word she hadn't heard in a long time. 

Elora remembered when her parents used to tell her she had it. That was before they gave up on her. She had always held a complicated relationship with "potential". It felt like it existed just outside of her grasp, in a place where she could never seize it. As much as she struggled to earn success, her attempts -- or rather, her failures -- were never enough make others proud. With every wasted opportunity, it became increasingly harder for her to build up the confidence to complete, or even begin to overcome new challenges.

Lost in her thoughts again, Elora's eyes fixated upon the metal rose clasped tightly in front of her. Minutes must have passed as she walked alongside Freyd with her stare unwavering, her senses inattentive to the world around her. She hadn't expected for something Freyd mentioned in passing to have caught her this off-guard.

The copper rose he had given her appeared dun, failing to sparkle and gleam in the sunlight like fancy jewelry and trinkets sold in the markets of Aincrad.

However, something about the object seemed to strike a visceral response from her.

I've...never won a trophy before...

Elora couldn't help but laugh hysterically once Kiluia broke his cool. Her voice quickly changed from the initial chuckling to hyperventilating and shrill wheezing. It was difficult to refrain from making fun of Freyd's predicament when the event played out to be so over-the-top.. How the hell had all of that even happened? Poor guy. Elora barely had enough control of herself to catch the roasted nuts that were tossed her way. Her breathing eventually began to settle once Kill had begun to regain his composure and they were no longer endlessly contributing one another's amusement. Elora crouched down to address Freyd who was still sitting on the floor, "I'm sorry -- I just --", she began before losing it again.

"I just wasn't expecting you to deal with all of that. Are you ok?" She offered a gloved hand to help him get onto his feet. Hopefully the soap would be able to reset this mess and Freyd wouldn't have to go through a whole process to clean off.

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

"Wow, nice work Kill!", she exclaimed lifting up both fists in front of her chest. "You're sure going to need to do a lot of gathering to make full meals. I guess giving potions to increase the odds of you and Freyd finding items really would be a big help." She nodded to affirm the idea to herself and crossed her arms. "Guess I'll need to start working on that soon then..." Hopefully it'll be easier than cooking. 

A small clattering noise nearby caught her attention. She turned her head to see a series of glass bottles, cardboard cartons, and wooden kegs that began to tip on their sides and collide into one another, like a line of dominos that had just been set into motion. "Uhh..." Well that looks like a disaster about to happen. Someone should probably take care of that. 

Elora immediately scanned the vicinity to find someone she could alert of the problem. The only person she noticed was sitting silently in a dark corner of the room. She narrowed her eyes at him in order to distinguish his features in the dim light. To Freyd, this probably looked like a glare. 

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

Assuming I had any, Elora thought in response to Freyd's mention of having friends assist her in completing quests. It seemed that her hunger had finally driven her to feel more grouchy in her reactions to otherwise well-intentioned comments.

Elora's mouth began to water in anticipation for eating whatever Kill managed to cook. While scavenging in the fields had served as a good distraction for her earlier predicament, standing around now had made her feel intense hunger once again. Regardless of her restlessness to eat, she was confident that whatever he was able to put together would taste better than her sad attempt at cooking a meal. As long as she was able to taste a bite of what true cuisine tasted like, the adventure had probably been well worth it.

"Maybe the next time you make slushies out of a snow monster, Kill can make them into the kind that we can drink" Her comment did little to imply that she wanted to get something in her stomach soon and felt more like playful banter. Maybe that was for the best.

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

"Explosive?", she crossed her arms and shook her head to dismiss the accusation, "No, I'm just pissed that you don't have to sit through the same thing I did. Earlier the guy wouldn't stop talking, and now that I fulfilled all of his wishes and have time to listen, he has nothing to say about it." Her anger appeared to gradually simmer down. "I don't know, I guess I was just hoping he might congratulate me a little more for going so far out of my way to get him everything he asked for." The statement made it sound as if she believed she was doing him a favor for completing a completely optional quest that gave her a reward. 

"Oh well, let's bring this to the other lady I guess" She snatched the package from Lyle before pausing at the shop's exit to realize what she had assumed -- that Freyd would help her in seeing through the completion of the next objective. Her shoulders visibly slumped as the package lowered at her side. Oh that's right, I guess this is where it ends. Warren was tired of everything by the time we finished the first chapter of this quest. I guess Freyd must feel the same.

"I mean...I'll see you around", she assured him, flashing a brief and somewhat superficial smile across her face. "Thanks for helping me today."

"What happened to you exactly? Did you get amnesia or something?" Elora felt like there was a gap in her knowledge in regards to Kill's situation. She didn't understand how a player could be 'inactive' from the game or even how doing so would influence their memories. Honestly the idea of it seemed very meta. Elora hoped that the question hadn't been too forward, but he seemed to have a way of wondering onto sensitive topics himself. On the other hand, she couldn't help but shudder to imagine his shop residing on Floor 6. She'd heard stories of the area's dangerous wildlife, especially its gigantic snakes. Even if Kill perfected his craft and transformed into a five-star chef, she didn't know if she had it in her to visit him in such a place. "Floor six is...a ways away, haha", she remarked chuckling nervously. Maybe by the time they would cross paths next, she would be strong enough to take on anything she might encounter there.

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

Elora had almost forgotten that she was promised a meal for accompanying this...she really didn't know what to think of the duo. Her initial impression that they were part of a cult that wanted to cook up and sacrifice other players to Cardinal may have missed the mark a little.  "You're lucky that this stuff probably doesn't go bad", she mentioned as the group began heading back to town. Her arms lifted and folded behind her head in a relaxed, but pleased posture. "Imagine being a traveling cook and trying to keep all of it refrigerated." 

"Then again, figuring that out would make you cooler than everyone else" She grimaced at the stupidity of her own pun. Well. Guess there's not recovering from THAT.

She held her gaze forward and tried to admire the scenery. It would be awhile before they made it to... I'm guessing some sort of medieval food court. There seem to be some eateries stationed between different vendors while others are arranged in a circle around different district's squares. Wonder what sort of location he's planning to settle into.

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

While Jackpot began offering up suggestions, Elora once again tried and failed to collect one of the honeysuckle flowers. Hmph. So much for getting these I guess. "Well I suppose if your eyes aren't irritated...", she considered, "carrots might actually do the trick." She sighed heavily, as if in response to his claim that she would need to locate the crop. "You seem a lot better at this than I am. We should probably just stick to gathering whatever you think will work." The admission seemed to weigh on her spirits more than it should have, considering she had no reason to have preliminary knowledge or experience with the Alchemic profession.

Taking his advice, Elora began to lead them in a random direction that she figured carrots might spawn. As they were walking, a low rumbling sound slowly grew louder around them. Wonder if rain will be coming in shortly. If that's the case, we'll probably want to get out from the middle of this field. She suspected that the darkening sky was probably a sign of a storm rather than nightfall approaching. The two of them stepped atop a nearby hill and were suddenly greeted by the sweeping scenery of lakes, rivers, and waterfalls cascading across the landscape. "Whoaaa!", Elora marveled aloud. A fine and cooling mist sprayed in the air around them. "This seems like a good place to find some herbs!"

"Hmmm. Do you think that he gets the nights off? Maybe goes home to his wife and children to have dinner with them?", Elora seemed contemplative, as if she was truly entertaining the thought. "Maybe one of these days we should follow him somewhere and see what his programed schedule is all about. Bet we'd make some interesting discoveries, assuming he ever actually moves."

Finally, Elora had made her way back to Lyle's workshop. After exchanging a greeting with him, she opened up her menu and gifted him four boar pup tusks with their complementary pork bellies. "Here's the materials as promised", she proclaimed contently. 

"Thank you", said Lyle with a respectful bow, "Please deliver this package to Hannah, the artisan"

 QUEST COMPLETED. FIND HANNAH TO RECEIVE THE NEXT OBJECTIVE 

"WHA -- THAT'S IT?! You're not gonna go on some big rant about how you're going to be seasoning and cooking each individual slice of bacon to absolute perfection?!" Elora huffed angrily. Considering she had been annoyed with the NPC earlier for telling her his whole life story, she was actually disappointed that he didn't offer a conversation upon her return. "Talk about no emotional payoff", she scoffed.

Elora continued her search, all the while listening to the two of them talk. The river really had proven to provide plentiful resources for them to gather. Passing by a section where the riverbed was shallow, Elora noticed a cluster of plants with long stems and buoyant flower buds. They almost looked like lily pads that bent sideways to flow in the direction of the current. Long ruffled leaves resembling seaweed streamed from them while the buds floated and bounched atop the water's surface.  Once again, she used her spear to separate a segment of leaves and a flower to add them to her inventory.

At this point it seemed that the conversation had circled back to discuss what they were currently experiencing.

"So were you a spy?"

Or not.

 "Yes", she replied with a stifled sarcastic grin. Kill seemed insistant that she answer his prodding questions, so she humored him with one. She attempted to give him an intimidating side eye to back up her response, but she probably appeared too close to bursting out laughing for him to take it seriously. 

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

"You had a feeling I was going to tell you that exact story?", she smirked dismissively at the thought. There was no point berating him with questions or insults concerning his confidence in the matter. He seemed to fall fairly silent until the returned to the town's entryway, where he started making small talk with its guard for the second time today "Seems like he's been giving you the cold shoulder. Hey, I know! Maybe you can try bribing him to be your friend! My mom always did that with officers and it seemed to work really well!" It was a bad joke that she herself took some humor in telling. Mainly, she was hoping to see if the comment would elicit a reaction from Freyd. 

Elora wasn't expecting the quest to only take a matter of, what, an hour at most? What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my day? Maybe I can get a drink to celebrate my victory! I can invite him to come with me...well, no, that might come off the wrong way. She grew frustrated at what was honestly a trivial predicament. Drinking alone is so lame though. 

Elora was thankful that the conversation had moved on a little from the initial question. It gave her a natural opportunity to contribute without divulging details any about herself. "Wait, so you buddied up with NPCs to find company?", she directed at Kill. The thought was actually kind of fascinating. In order to do something like that, he probably needed to ignore the uncanniness of it all or succumb to madness. Whichever it was, she honestly couldn't be that surprised. It seemed now more than ever, players were divided into either one of the two camps. Elora almost wished she had taken the opportunity to exploit the life-like programming of the system. Maybe then, she wouldn't have spent those years feeling purposeless, trying to sleep away the nightmare. 

She picked up on something else he said in passing: "But it was really nothing since it was orphans of NPC's"

"Was it really nothing though?" The defensive tone of her response surprised even her. Nonetheless, she continued, "You clearly still have a fond memory of your times interacting with them. Even if they aren't real, your perceptions of them are. That's what makes the difference" Elora paused just long enough for her statement to cause a stiff silence in the air. She had taken too long to grasp and articulate any further considerations on the idea, and now the atmosphere surrounding it just felt awkward.

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

"Nah, not really" Elora raised her arms and clasped them behind her head in a relaxed posture. "Well, I guess Warren had really terrible luck. He failed gathering like ten different items. Oh, and we also fell into a river and almost drowned because of how heavy our armor and equipment was. Not to mention, we were attacked by a few monsters. Warren was almost eaten by one that had him trapped him in its root -- BUT I RUSHED IN AND TOOK THE THING DOWN BEFORE IT EVEN HAD THE CHANCE!" Once she said this, her arms flew down in front of her, hands clasping into excited fists. 

"Oh yeah, didn't you ask something about delivering the package too? Like, it getting stollen? Didn't happen to me at least, can't say the same for Warren. Now that I think about it, it is kind of weird that we only got one box to deliver. I don't know how Warren was able to move onto this quest since he handed it off to me."

Elora seemed to silently beam with anticipation at the promise of being able to taste her favorite treat again. She would wholehearted look forward to the day Kill could make and share it with her. As if by prophesy, she spotted the same species of mint-like plant that she had gathered once before in this region. Then, it was used to create an eye drop serum to sooth the merchant's 'impaired vision'. This time she picked the herb to save it for a special occasion. 

Meanwhile, she listened in to Freyd as he introduced the location of his shop. Angel's Point? That sounds kind of...opulent. And on Floor 13th...doesn't he realize there's superstition associated with that number? Eh, maybe it isn't unlucky in the culture that he's from.

"What exactly did you do before all this craziness happened you two?"

The suddenness of such a personal, and almost taboo question caught her off guard. No one had ever asked her about her life outside of this one. Without an immediate answer coming to mind, Elora choose to remain silent to buy more time. She'd let Freyd take the initiative on this topic since he had seemed so chatty. 

@Freyd - The Whisper in Shadows

"Yeah, I guess you're right", she agreed before tucking the spear into its holster across her back. "I can't believe I was able to defeat them all at once", she paused momentarily before another wave of excitement shot though her, "I GUESS THIS MEANS THAT I CAN DEFEAT THINGS WAY STRONGER THAN ME NOW AND START HEADING TO THE OTHER FLOORS!" Good thing she didn't have her spear out or should likely would have been flailing it everywhere. And once I reach them, I'm going to learn everything there is to know about this game. She happily scampered in his footsteps. It was honestly kind of concerning how quickly her emotions seemed to sway from one extreme to the next, almost as if she had a large reservoir of energy waiting to be unleashed through either a positive or negative reaction. But overall, she seemed a lot more confident in the abilities she had come to learn.

"Hannah, huh?" She tuned back into the conversation with him. "That sounds like a boring name for a world like this" 

"So, basically a feedback loop?", remarked Elora. "I guess that's not a bad idea" Part of her took offense at the idea of creating products to give to him free of charge. Even though it seemed fair in regards to the two of them mastering their trades, she was hoping to immediately find costumers who would recognize and pay for the value of her potions. "When it comes to starting out, I don't know that we have much of a choice but to do just that", she admitted.

It seemed that the change in landscape had helped her odds. Elora easily managed to finally find an herb that was growing within a shallow pool of algae near the river. With thick stems and rigid oval leaves, the plant almost looked like a succulent sitting atop a mesh of mangrove-like roots. She used the end of her spear to saw through its tough roots to collect it in its entirety.

Elora's ears perked up at Kill's mention of dessert. "Do you think you'd be able to make something that tastes like chocolate and mint? I've been dying to have something with that flavor for so long!"

Elora knew that she could handle taking down an enemy. After all, she'd done it to save Warren when the two of them had been scavenging in the forest. The difference now was that her targets were actively chasing her. She knew she wouldn't have the stamina to outrun them forever, but turning to face them now felt like she would be volunteering to take damage. 

Freyd's words of encouragement did little to quell her fears. If anything, they just made her more pissed off about getting herself into this situation. If she had been less negligent in her approach, maybe then she could have started the battle holding the upper hand. Regardless of how she felt, he was right. Unless she started learning how to mow down monsters with her weapon, she wouldn't be going anywhere.

Suddenly grinding to a halt and spinning to face her attackers, Elora frantically swung her spear back and forth to protect herself from being trampled. Remarkably, her spear managed to sweep through and kill all three pigs at the same time. The MOB exploded into a cloud of pixels that gleamed, refracting sunlight as they spun suspended in the air. When they finally disintigrated, Freyd could see her frozen with both eyes squeezed shut. She was still crouched close to the ground, pointing her weapon in front of her defensively.

A small chime announced that Elora had received a notification:  ALL MATERIALS GATHERED. RETURN TO LYLE'S SMITHY TO COMPLETE THE QUEST., read the text appearing before them. She slowly opened one eye then the other before both grew wide in surprise. "D-did I...did I kill ALL of them?!" Her voice nearly cracked from the amount of excitement it carried.