Seeds of Discordia

Liam arrived at the Fiddler’s Spider Web without any issues. He arrived at the location a couple hours before noon and walked through the door after using Spirit Weave on his Shadow Moon Blades. As he walked through the door he saw Lady Arachne talking with Noxi by the counter.

“Good morning,” Liam greeted as he approached the two.

Both people turned and looked both surprised and confused to see him.

“Good morning to you as well Little Kitten,” Lady Arachne greeted back while giving him a slightly teasing and confused smile. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I came by to see if I can use the Crafting Rooms,” Liam replied. “I wanted to replenish some of my Chemicalized Creation items I used.” Liam took a good look at his stock and saw how low he was on the materials and asked, “Do you think Silent Saboteur would trade some of the items he requested for some of the supplies I need?”

Lady Arachne brought a hand to her chin and thought about it. “He might be able to for some, but to be honest it might not be for a lot. Not as much as you had gotten from him last time that is. Although I did hear him say he needed some Liquified Shadow Mana Extracts. If you can make some of those he might be willing to add in a few more to the trade.”

Liam thought about it. It wouldn’t cost him much to make those. Only mana and some time. After thinking about it, he nodded and said, “I can only make Weak and Minor versions of those. Do you think he would be alright with that?”

Lady Arachne smiled as she nodded and answered, “I believe that should be fine. Weak are uncommon to come across while Minor are closer to rare. Anything above that are extremely hard to get your hands on.”

Liam nodded as he understood what she was saying. Not many people liked to advertise they had the Field of Shadows. People selling Weak and Minor versions of the Liquified Mana Extracts could pass it off as them getting it from someone while anything above that raised some questions. From what he was told since the field was rare, no one wanted the hassle of advertising they had it and have random people pester them how they had received such a rare field.

He could make the average quality of the crafted item, but like many he didn’t want to reveal that quite yet. That and the average quality of the liquified mana extract or any liquified mana extracts at the quality took a bit longer than the weak and minor to make.

“How many do you think would be acceptable for the trade?” Liam asked.

“I’d say at least twenty each,” Lady Arachne stated after thinking about the right amount. “I won’t let him pester you for more than that.”

Liam nodded. “Alright then I’ll go ahead and make those really quick. Can you please ask him and see if he has any of the extracts I asked for last time? I don’t need anything outside of that.”

Lady Arachne nodded before looking at Noxi and requesting, “Can you please see to it?”

Noxi turned his gaze at her for a long moment before letting out a sigh and answering, “Yes Lady Arachne.”

Liam gave the two a curious look as he watched Noxi head to a door, open it, and walk through. Before he could say anything, Lady Arachne swiftly turned her attention towards Liam and stated, “Since you’re here earlier than anticipated, I was wondering if it would be alright for you to meet up with Silent Paw and Echo Talon so they can give you the details of what you need to do and what you’ll be looking for. Also planning and any other details needed for your Field Mission.”

Liam took a minute to think about it. While she had told him about the time they were going to originally meet up wasn’t until later in the day, getting ahead and going over everything early wouldn’t be too bad either. “Okay,” Liam responded. “Can it be after I finish with my crafting sessions?”

Lady Arachne nodded. “Yes. You should have plenty of time to take care of that before they arrive.”

Liam smiled under the mask. “Thank you.”

For the next couple of hours Liam created several Weak and Minor Liquified Shadow Mana Extracts. He made the amount Lady Arachne suggested and some more for himself. After that he stepped out and met with Silent Saboteur. The amount of materials he was willing to trade with the man along with the twenty Weak and Minor Liquified Shadow Mana Extracts was enough for him to get some materials for his crafting session. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for him to make two Weak Poisoned Null Zones, two Weak Poisoned Shadow Ashes, two Weak Crushing Dark Fogs, three Magnetic Shockwaves, and two Implosive Heatwaves.

After he was done with that he used what materials he didn’t trade to Silent Saboteur to make seven Minor Mint Health Potions, six Minor Blueberry Mana Potions, and eight Minor Orange Stamina Potions. That was the last of those materials. While he was reluctant to use them, he was low on his potion stocks. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for those materials or ones similar to them for future potions. He wanted to make the Average Quality of the potions, but after looking into what they entailed he would barely be able to make two of each. He decided that the Minor Quality versions were fine for now.

Liam thought about making more poisons, but with the materials he had left he could only make one Minor Paralytic Toxin or four Weak Paralytic Toxins. He decided to go with the Minor version for now since majority of his poisons were already weak. He needed to start making more of the Minor versions, so he had harder hitting poisons.

Thanks to all his crafting he was able to level his Chemicalized Creation Section from level five to level seven. His Potion Making Section went from level twenty to level twenty one. His Mana Extraction Section also went from level twenty to twenty one. All in all, Liam felt his crafting session went well. He had also used Devour to refill the small amount of Spirit Pool while he was in there. He was lucky enough to raise his Spirit Pool from two hundred and ten to two hundred and thirty thanks to his Devour ability. Even that ability raised a level now sitting at level twelve.

After he felt he was done with all he could do, Liam reactivated his Spirit Weave ability and stepped out of the Crafting Room and back into the main room of the Fiddler’s Spider Web. As soon as he stepped through he saw two people standing by the counter talking to one another. Liam didn’t see Noxi, Orchid, or even Lady Arachne around. It was just the two Beast-kins he had briefly met yesterday. The same two he was going to kind of work with during this Field Mission Test.

One was a male wearing leather armor, a bestial designed mask that covered his mouth and nose, and a bandana that wrapped around his forehead. The bandana made his short dark brown hair stick up in a spiky hairstyle which blended his dog-like ears with it.

The other was a female. She wore a short cloth-like skirt with shorts sticking out over her knees, a chainmail like vest, and a bird-like mask that cover only her forehead eyes and nose. Her outfit looked a lot like a close ranged fighter which Liam assumed was the type of class she held due to the gauntlets that covered her hands and forearms. Her golden blond hair, which was tied back in a ponytail, matched the wings that rested against her back.

As he slowly approached them, the two turned to look at him. He stopped not too far away from them and stared back. He could feel and see they were not happy with what was going on. The body language of the male told Liam his were a bit confused, but also very wary of him. The female’s body language showed slight hostility, but also some cautiousness. Liam wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but waited to see if they would give anything away.

For a long moment no one said anything. Finally, Silent Paw was the one who broke the silence and the stare off by asking, “So…what is he like?”

Liam was confused by this question. What was who like? He didn’t know what this guy was asking. “What is who like?” He decided to inquire.

Silent Paw narrowed his eyes at Liam’s question. With an irritated tone, Silent Paw clarified, “What is the Wild Card like?”

Wild Card? Liam asked himself mentally. Who the hell is…Liam suddenly had a light bulb moment as the Web Name for Nabal clicked into place. He’s asking about Nabal. Liam let out a sigh before answering, “He’s…interesting.”

“What do you mean by that?” Silent Paw questioned, showing a bit of interest after getting that kind of response.

“I mean everything he does, his mindset, and the training habits he tried to instill into me were all interesting,” Liam started. “Our first encounter was rough, but also fun too.”

“Rough but fun?” Echo Talon finally broke as she asked. “What do you mean by that? What did he do?”

“Well I was looking for a Dagger Mentor while I was in the Tutorial Area and he happened to be the only one available at the time,” Liam explained. “When I met with him for the first time he told me that before he decided to train me I would have to pass a test. Pass it and he would train me, fail it and he wouldn’t.”

“What was the test? You obviously passed since you became his apprentice, but what did he have you do?” Silent Paw inquired, his excitement to hear what happened slowly filling him. His tail slowly moving back and forth totally didn’t give him away.

“I had to dodge, avoid, or block one of his five attacks,” Liam answered.

“How many did it take?” Echo Talon asked while keeping her eyes on his through her bird mask.

“I got hit four times. It was the last attempt where I won,” Liam stated as he smiled back on the memory. He let out a chuckle as he added, “Although, I only won due to a gamble I took. Lucky for me, that gamble paid off.”

Both Silent Paw and Echo Talon looked like they were about to say something but were cut off as Lady Arachne appeared behind the two and stated, “As much as I would love to hear more about this, I think we should move to the meeting room so we can discuss the Field Mission you three are going to take on.”

Echo Talon and Silent Paw swiftly turned around, bowed, and greeted her as Liam gave her a smile. Even though the only part of her face he was able to see was her lips, he could tell she was really curious as well.

Liam followed the three into a room that was as big as a conference room for business meetings. Inside was a big oval table with several chairs around it. Already sitting at the table were Noxi, Silent Saboteur, and Orchid.

“Go ahead and take a seat,” Lady Arachne stated as she took a seat on the other side of the room with Noxi to her right and Silent Saboteur to her left.

Orchid was sitting on the other side of Silent Saboteur. Echo Talon sat next to her and Silent Paw next to Echo Talon. Liam sat next to Noxi. As he sat down, Lady Arachne began, “Since most of us are already up to speed on this Field Mission, I am going to explain to Little Kitten here, so he is up to speed.”

Everyone nodded their heads. Liam noticed Silent Paw’s and Echo Talon’s body tense a bit. From the sudden jerk he could tell they were trying to hold back a laugh. He sighed internally and told himself he couldn’t wait to gain an actual Web Name.

“For a while now our client has been tasking us with some reconnaissance over the city,” Lady Arachne started. “At first their reasoning was because they felt something weird was going on with the city. Normally we don’t take requests based on feelings like that, but the client has a lot of ties to the higher ups so we couldn’t refuse it.”

Liam nodded. If the client did have those kind of ties then it would be hard to turn them down. They wouldn’t want to get reprimanded for doing that from the higher ups.

“After half a year we finally came across something weird,” Lady Arachne continued. “People were starting to disappear. Now in a city with a Teleportation Tree that shouldn’t be a cause for concern, but after some snooping around, the people in question didn’t have any trail that showed they used the Teleportation Tree to leave and there were no sightings of them leaving by boat. The only clue we had were they stayed at a certain inn in the city.”

Liam’s eye rose at this information. A certain inn? Why would that matter?

“This inn had records of them having a room there for at least five days,” Lady Arachne stated. “However, they were only seen there for three. Notes in their records in that inn ranged from never came back, never used the room, or died to an accident. The one thing they all had in common though was the people themselves never paid for the room and the money for the remainder of the time not used was returned. However, the notes in their records never stated who the money was returned to.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed as he heard all of this. What Lady Arachne was saying sounded remarkably familiar, but he didn’t want to assume it was the same with what he had gone through. Instead of saying anything he continued to listen.

“For a while we couldn’t find any leads with this information,” Lady Arachne said before looking at Echo Talon and Silent Paw. “That is, until these two got a tremendous lead with recent events.”

Echo Talon and Silent Paw straightened their posture, looking proud of themselves.

“There was an incident a couple days ago where a couple of people were attacked in a dungeon. While many people only heard about the monster attack, these two were able to find out that a team of adventurers were after someone in the dungeon. After the attack they went to the inn that has been tied to each missing person before and found out the same happened there. However this time…the supposedly dead person in question walked in alive.”

Lady Arachne passed a photo around as she continued, “Silent Paw and Echo Talon happened to be around when this person tried to get into their room. They were on their way out when they heard the person talking to the receptionist about it. They found this intriguing. They claimed that they noticed the person suddenly act strangely before leaving the inn. Not too long after that they found out someone was trailing them. Albeit, that person wasn’t doing a good job at tailing him since they were able to feel their bloodlust. What happened next surprised both the two who identified the one trailing the target and the trailer himself. All three had lost the target in question. Isn’t that right?”

Echo Talon nodded.

“Yes ma’am. He walked into an alley which we thought was strange, but after looking into the alley he was nowhere to be found,” Silent Paw informed. “It was like he was never there.”

“Not even my Echolocation was able to find him,” Echo Talon stated as she passed the picture to Liam.

As Liam took a good hard look at the picture, the suspicions and assumptions that had grown within became clear. The one in the photo was him. As he passed the photo to Noxi, so many questions and thoughts raced throughout his mind. With all that was going on in his mind he almost missed the next part that Lady Arachne said.

  “Echo Talon and Silent Paw trailed the one following the young man in the photo after he confirmed he had lost his target,” Lady Arachne started back up. “They followed him right into the Teleportation Tree, which tells us the one he was working for has to be in this building. We do not know where in the building or who the person would be reporting to, but they never came back out no matter how long our two members waited that night. There was some speculation that the person left via teleportation, but we were just informed that the person finally left this morning and went into a dungeon.”

Lady Arachne noticed Noxi was staring at Liam who was staring hard at the table. With a curious yet strict tone, she asked, “Little Kitten, is there something on your mind?”

Liam didn’t respond to her question right away. He took some time trying to decide how he was going to proceed. He had some questions of his own that he needed answered, but at the same time he didn’t want any of them suspecting he was the one in the picture. After contemplating everything, Liam turned to look at Lady Arachne and asked, “The others that you said you have looked into. Did any of them have anything in common besides the inn they stayed at?”

Everyone looked confused as he asked. As they looked at each other and shook their heads.

“No. Why do you ask?” Noxi questioned.

“The person in that picture was a newly integrated arrival. I was just trying to see if the others were as well,” Liam informed.

Everyone narrowed their eyes at him. Lady Arachne asked the question they each had on their minds, “How do you know that?”

“I was at the Adventurer’s Association that same day everything happened. He was there signing up as a new Adventurer,” Liam stated as he looked each of them in the eyes.

Lady Arachne brought a hand to her chin as she slowly nodded her head. “That is some interesting information. If that is true then we have our first location we must inspect. Thank you for sharing that information.”

Liam only nodded in response. He didn’t want to think it to be true, but the person he was now starting to question did act a little too friendly with him and had seemed to know where he was at almost all times. The other person he wanted to point his finger at was that damn Weasel-folk, but he didn’t want to say anything yet about that. If his endeavors at the Teleportation Tree ended in failure then he would figure out a way to point them in that direction.

“Do you happen to know who his New Arrival Agent was?” Lady Arachne asked.

Liam wasn’t sure if he should say who it is or not. Would revealing he knew who it was out him as the person in question? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to chance it since he was trying to keep his real identity a secret like Eri had told him to do. He shook his head as answer.

Lady Arachne frowned as she slowly nodded her head. “I didn’t think there was a good chance he would reveal that to anyone. Still having that bit of information is still helpful. Now that we have an idea of where to start our search let’s go over what the mission entails as well as the lay out of the building and create a plan from all that.”

Liam and everyone in the room nodded. For the next few hours they went over everything. Liam had to excuse himself a few times in order to refill his Spirit Pool. He used the excuse he had to use the restroom. At some point Silent Paw started teasing him. Echo Talon was curious, but Orchid told Liam about their first mission and how Silent Paw almost threw up and Echo Talon was so tense she tripped over herself a few times before even leaving the room.

This caused some light teasing, which Lady Arachne decided to chime in and tell everyone what happened to Orchid before her first mission. This got a rise out of everyone. After the briefing was completed, they all agreed to a time to meet up later. Liam took this time to head to the dungeon and harvest some souls since he was starting to run out of the Flawed Soul Orbs. After replenishing his stock as well as refilling his Spirit Pool, he was ready to take on this mission.