Chapter 187: Uncovering Ghostsaw's Secrets
rlin imdiately checked his quest information, and while imdiately scrolling past the wall of text he was already familiar with, he saw a couple of extra lines added to the bottom.
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[Hidden Mythical Quest]
A door without a key.
Within galopolis stands several ruins from an ancient civilisation...
...
During a full moon, a strange spectral film seems to fill the space within the door fra, and for so unexplained reason, souls and anything related to them are unable to pass through the door fra, whether that be souls themselves or even soul-infused equipnt.
It seems as though this door fra has so connection with the goddess Hecate and the spirit realm. Her na is clearly written on the stone fra in what you believe to be ancient Arcadian. What is the purpose of the door fra, and why is it blocked off?
Figure out a way of opening the mysterious door fra.
? Reward: ???
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'So... It's a portal to the spirit realm, of which Hecate has so sort of domain over... Right.' rlin thought to himself, 'So it's likely that my interest in the door fra is the reason why she has suddenly taken interest in , and why she requested for help.'
'There is a very large likelihood that this has sothing to do with whatever had cut off Hecate's connection with the temple and the prayers of her worshippers.' rlin thought.
'She suddenly returned after I ssed around with the rift.' He thought to himself, 'Sothing must be preventing her from interacting with the world. But that shouldn't be possible, she's a boundary diety.'
'There are too many holes in that idea... What sort of barrier could stop a boundary god but be slightly inconvenienced by so serial killer's dagger?' rlin shook his head, 'Unless the blade is a little more special than I originally thought... But that's doubtful.'
"Dalai, as an earth mage, you have a spell for identifying the material components of a piece of equipnt, right?" rlin turned and asked Dalai, who was busy repairing another statue.
"I can... Yes." She said while finishing a repair, "Is this important?"
"It's relevant," rlin said while pulling the Ghostsaw blade out of its sheath, "I would like to see what materials this blade is made from."
Dalai reached out to take the blade from rlin's hands, but it seed the sudden drop in temperature from rely getting close to the blade had caused her to retract her hand in surprise.
"It's a little cold to the touch, don't worry," rlin reassured her while handing the weapon to her once more.
"While I do this, you'll run around collecting statue parts to be reassembled, right?" Dalai asked.
"Of course," rlin responded.
Dalai had picked up the blade properly this ti and sat down with it in her lap. When she began chanting and focusing her magic on the blade, it slowly began to hover slightly in the air.
rlin let her do her thing while he started picking up chunks of rubble.
Several minutes went by, but the results of Dalai's investigation had co in.
"So? How is it?" rlin asked.
"It's a special blade..." Dalai said while handing the blade back as quickly as she could, "First of all, it's clearly infused with the soul of a ghost."
"But not only is it infused with the soul of a ghost, but the blade also seems to have quite the strong affinity for the infused soul," She explained, "You see, it turns out that one-fifth of the blade is refined soul steel, which is why it has such a strong bond with the infused soul, any undead soul would."
'Ahh, that makes sense.' rlin thought to himself. 'That's why it reacted so strongly to the portal in the first place.'
Soul steel is a special material that could be used in all manner of crafting recipes. It's a tal that had been fused with necrotic energies to produce a material that implented aspects of both. Ores of soul steel rarely form in areas with high undead activity, such as in a crypt, a dungeon full of undead or even within a necropolis.
This ore could be mined by players for use in crafting, and it had quite a strong affinity with undead souls for the purposes of soul infusions. It was rather valuable for weapons in the early ga, as it gave non-magical weapons the ability to damage certain ethereal creatures such as ghosts.
"Other materials that make up the blade are mostly regular sword steel, but there are traces of cobalt and tungsten mixed in..." She continued, "But, the most concerning material in this blade is what I believe to be blood... And lots of it."
'Oh, dear...' rlin thought to himself, 'How am I going to explain that.'
"It's not even just that the weapon has been used to inflict several wounds in its lifeti... But blood seems to have actually been used as a material during its creation..." She said with a tremor in her voice, "Where did you get such a cursed weapon?"
"I received it from the corpse of a murderer who tried to take my life, but that's not the important part." rlin said while trying to brush the whole blood thing away, "This blade is unable to pass through the mysterious door fra on a full moon... It's as if there's a barrier in the way that blocks souls and soul-infused items from crossing."
Dalai's previously worried face had partially lit up at the ntion of the door fra, and especially a unique behaviour that she was previously unaware of. Although it seed that a part of her was still worried about the blood, and now the ntion of a murderer.
"Alright, let's finish up here," rlin said while sheathing his dagger. "We can continue this conversation on the way back to the city."
Dalai nodded and quickly went back to restoring statues, although it seed to just be enough to read the na tag and get an idea as to which god the na belonged to. And after a little while, it seed that they were finally done.
"Got everything you need?" rlin asked.
"Yes, let's go back," Dalai responded.
As the two stepped out of the temple and made their way back to the abandoned village, rlin started explaining what he knew about the door fra. But once he brought up the strange old man, that seed to be the only thing that Dalai focused on, even when he had more things to talk about regarding the door fra, it was rather strange.
Dalai had stopped the conversation briefly while she began chanting a spell, causing rocks and dirt to float into the air before compressing into the shape of two horse-like golems.
The two got on a golem each and began riding them towards the city. For the first few monts, there was silence between them, but Dalai spoke first.
"A door without a key," She said, "Did you hear this phrase from that old man?"
rlin looked at her with a curious gaze.
"Yes, I did," He said, "Has the old man said the sa to you?"
rlin naturally assud that Dalai had encountered the old man at least once while researching the ruins. He seed to be very interested in the sa thing that both of them were interested in, so it was only natural that they would cross paths eventually.
Even rlin had t the man twice, and that was on both occasions that he visited the portal during a fool moon.
"Yes," Dalai said, although it sounded like she was choking up slightly, "I've heard him say it once or twice."
The atmosphere between the two had gotten strange for a mont, but it quickly recovered and rlin had finally explained more about the door fra, his antics with the dagger and also ntioned his experience with Hecate at the temple.
All of these points seed to cause Dalai to go quiet as she thought to herself. It was likely that she would co to a conclusion similar to that of rlin.
as the two rode silently towards the city, now able to see that the wall was only a small distance away, a red alert box appeared before rlin, informing him that he had five minutes to log out or be forcibly logged out.
rlin swiped the notification ssage away as the horse golems began slowing down. Monts later the golems had stopped near the wall, and once dismounted by their riders, dissolved back into a mound of earth.
The two walked towards the gate, greeting the guards as they stepped into the city.
「You have completed the quest, "Revisiting the Acacesium temple.", rewards have been delivered.」
"Thank you, rlin," Dalai said, "I'll be going back to my office to work on this translation. Feel free to pay a visit at any ti."
With that, Dalai began walking away from rlin who remained near the gate.
"Take care," rlin said before walking in another direction, he slipped into a more quiet location, where he told his stream that it was ti to go. "Thanks for watching everyone, I'll hopefully see you all next week."
He turned his stream off before uttering the command to log out.
His body was quickly warped out of the ga and into the black void, rlin went through the many steps of logging out before the machine finally freed him.
After escaping his capsule, Arthur made his way toward the briefing room and took a seat in his usual spot, greeting the developers who were finishing off their briefing notes before everyone woke up.
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