Taking a couple of steps into the tailor, Jack looks around the room for Mai but is unable to see her, it’s a fairly empty large workshop with spindles of yarn, black iron wool, ant carapace and various tools to create weaving and knitted clothing causing Jack to wonder where all these tools came from.
Jessica and one of the tailor NPCs, a middle-aged woman, are currently standing around a workshop table in the middle of some job but hearing a noise and peering up, they notice Jack has entered the building, Jessica stops what she is doing and walks over to Jack after trying to sneakily hide something under the table.
Jessica gives Jack a quick hug as she greets him, "Jack, why are you here and why are you so dirty?"
Jack’s clothes are muddied from slamming into the walls and flooring while trying to capture the rabbit.
Jessica starts to clean some of the dirty parts of Jack’s robe, he wants to take off the robe and change since they're in the tailor with new clothing around but feels like that'd ruin his image and restrains himself.
"Just some training, don't worry" Jack starts to laugh as he joins Jessica in patting out some dirt and mud causing clumps to fall on the ground.
"So, what were you doing?" Jack asks Jessica who has returned to what she was doing before he showed up.
"Just trying to solve a design flaw in some armour" Jessica explains trying to hide her foot kicking something under the table.
"Really, what armour?"
"Chest armour, you keep getting hurt so I wanted to make you a robe made of black iron wool"
"Is that it?"
"Yep" she sharply replies looking away.
"Ok then let me try it on" Jack found his excuse to change out of the dirty robe that's full of mud.
Jessica's eyes start to dance around the room, her expression tries to relay an act of confidence but her eyes betray her as she hasn’t actually started making anything for Jack as if noticing Jessica’s reaction, the middle-age tailor speaks up.
"Lord, I have made some trial armour but it's not ready" She pulls out a simple looking t-shirt, well start of a t-shirt. Jack holds the piece of fabric, it feels metallic but soft, like a very smooth wool fabric sweater
Jack has a smile on his face as he inspects the clothing more and speaks with the tailor for some time just discussing the intricates of the fabric and other mundane things.
"It might take me a few days but I'll present something to you when it's done, thank you for this task my lord" the tailor salutes Jack and gets to work, Jack turns to Jessica with a smirk.
Jessica has been following what they have been saying and taking note herself, learning about Jack and what he likes she just quietly looks into his smirking face for a few moments before asking, "What?".
"What's that by your foot?"
She turns red before turning away, she doesn't mind showing Jack what she has been doing but it's not done because she can't work out a problem with it. Jack slowly stretches his foot forward under the table but Jessica intercepts his foot, stamping on it causing Jack to retreat, "No looking until I solve a problem".
"Ok, I won’t force you but remember that my world is more advanced than yours in many ways..." Jack says before leaving the store leaving Jessica standing by the table in silence picking up the fabric she was hiding, a breast armour almost like a bra but made of iron wool and ant carapace giving it good protection but it's too pointy.
Jack walks from the tailor to the blacksmith area, they're hard at work banging the black ant carapace after heating it up giving it a metallic sheen instead of the normal ant look. This must be the process that the larger ants go through, or so Jack assumes.
He has nothing to do at the blacksmith or smeltery just yet and goes towards the farmland, instead of the brown and black splotchy plains grassy areas it's fields of yellow and green indicating life and where Mai would most likely be after the tailor.
The fields aren't very large but they're enough to support the population within the village currently. As the detoxification factor of the village speeds up, it'll clear the poison in the land allowing them to use the whole plains area as farmland. It feels wasteful to build settlements over prime farmland after the detoxification but everyone is currently trapped within the region, even beings far beyond him such as Leah.
Jack finds himself thinking about Leah's dark purple hair, her purple irises and her purple robe, she has a clear theme but she is able to pull it off very well because… she's beautiful, slightly older than Jack but not much, Jack can still remember her blush and gets lost in his thoughts, not noticing that Mai has appeared beside him.
She notices his goofy smile and adopting her own goofy smile attempts to trip him up.
Jack is pulled out of his daydream while he feels himself falling forward stumbling over but Jack uses his new reaction speed to right himself before looking at who did it, Mai is standing there looking proud of herself.
"Mai, I need to talk to you, are you able to grow some vegetables for me?" Jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of the bait carrot, Mai takes it and looks at it before a green glow is emitted from her palm over the carrot, it disappears quickly before she looks at Jack shaking her head.
"It feels icky like it's not grown but something else"
Jack lets out a sigh before throwing the carrot out into the field of yellow wheat, he is curious to see if there’s any special rabbits out in this field. A rainbow coloured blur can be seen cutting across the field very quickly, going from one side of the vast field and intercepting the carrot Jack threw and disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Jack starts to smile; this is clearly a rabbit that’s a step above the Golden rabbit that he previously caught.
“We need to capture that rabbit”
“No, I don’t want to get near any of those weird rabbits” Mai pouts as she remembers getting kicked by the weird standing bunny.
“Ok uhh, did you go through any of the seeds I brought back from Horse City? You should check them out” Jack tries to give Mai a task as he rushes back into the village, forgetting he needed to ask her about the surrounding regions.
Mai is just left standing there after this rude guy ran away, she rolls her eyes without saying anything and disappears into the fields of wheat.
Jack heads into empty village to find a squad of people to help him capture the rainbow coloured rabbit, the only squad of people he can find are the trappers who are currently designing a net to capture all the water rabbits.
“Ok guys, we need to dig a few pits in the fields!” Jack says with enthusiasm.
The trappers let out a half-hearted shout in response, they really do not want to go dig pits but they follow Jack out in the field and start to setup little areas to trap the rabbit, just little one-way areas that’ll be useful to corner the rabbit.
The sun starts to set causing the fields to adopt a stronger yellow sheen over it and the other squads out in the field controlled by Drakon and the other village leaders start to spread out in search of special rabbits.
They spread out west towards the open plains area but also north towards the ants and goblins, slowly the sun sets lowering visibility but the plains area is just a field of shining lights in various colours acting as beacons.
“General Laoshe, we have received reports from some of the scout cavalry that a few squads of kobolds have gone missing”
A military officer supporting Drakon reports to him causing Drakon to start thinking about what this can mean.
“Are there any reports of kobolds leaving because they’re disgruntled?”
“There are certainly murmurs of that but so far, no kobolds have been willing to leave their existing groups until now” the officer reports reading an intelligence report provided by Bane.
“Where were the squads that disappeared stationed?”
The officer pulls out a simple map of the region indicating where everything they’ve scouted out so far is, the map also marks out the suspected location of a couple of settlements of some creatures they’ve found by these massive military movements.
“Here” the officer points towards a point towards the north of the village, “Here and here too” he points to a few other areas close by but all located north of the village.
“DEEYO!” Drakon yells out, causing the little goblin to appear riding a wolf before Drakon.
“General Laoshe”
“Where was the United Goblin Town located?”
“North from the village, uhh I think it’d take two hours to ride from where Dragon – Phoenix village is located” DeeYo says patting the wolf, he hasn’t changed his job to goblin rider and is unable to use the mount for battle but it’s fine to ride around on.
Drakon pulls out the simple map and explains it to the goblin upon where they both agree to a location the United Goblin Town is, Drakon only stopped by it shortly and was in a mad rush previously so he has to rely on DeeYo.
“We might have some problems going north, send word to avoid going north for the time being, I will set out with the Lord as soon as possible to sort this out” Drakon announces to the small group that has gathered around him.
They all quickly part and spread the word to their respective groups, recalling most of the squads that went north and giving Drakon a new problem to deal with but he’s glad to do so.
Within another part of the region, a red robed young man is standing before a statue. This man is from the group of red-robed people that fought with the group of blue-robed people near Jack not too long ago, he is inspecting the glowing red statue.
“This statue is giving off massive demonic qi, if I’m able to harness this power it’ll make undertaking the trials of the Mountain God much easier” the red-robed man smiles as he pulls out his weapon from a storage ring, it’s a long glowing spear giving off clear fire qi.
The man twirls the spear in the air causing a ring of fire to appear in the air as he channels his energy through the spear getting ready to attack, he steps forward and lets off a simple yet powerful spear jab digging into the ugly statue of a strange looking creature.
The man could feel his spear easily sink into the statue; he wants to break it apart so he is able to discover what part of it is giving off demonic qi, he doesn’t care what the statue is for or what it does, he only cares about retrieving the object located within it.
*STAB STAB STAB*
The man speeds up his spear as he stabs into the ugly statue several times, each time large chunks of stone can be seen falling off, unknowingly the area is adopting a red glow as demonic qi starts to fill the area.
The man’s stabs don’t stop, they get faster and harder as his expression changes into one of madness, he is unknowingly being infected by the massive amounts of demonic qi that is seeping into the environment.
*Crack*
The statue suddenly cracks in half, as though the restraints are released on something contained within it as the stone falls to the ground, a red glowing orb can be seen hovering before the now crazed man.
The man starts to cackle madly to himself, “The demonic qi within this orb wont just allow me to pass the trials, but even take over the sect and pay back all those that crossed me, maybe even take over the whole world!” he continues to cackle to himself.
The man steps forward, his body is now deformed and twisted, corrupted by the demonic qi as his skin boils, blotches appear on his skin as spikes develop all over his body and two horns start to poke through his scalp, he reaches out to the orb.
*POP*
The man touches the orb but before he can do anything, his body bursts into a fountain of blood as the orb starts to absorb the essence of the young man but it’s clearly not enough as the demonic qi spreads further in the surrounding area infecting countless animals causing them to burst as their blood flies into the floating red orb.
The only creature that hasn’t burst after being infected by this demonic qi is the many Easter Rabbits, they don’t look any different but if one were to look at their eyes they would see a clear red glow and their behaviour is much more vicious instead of running away, they will now attack savagely.
The orb finishes absorbing the essence within the large amount of blood it acquired before turning into a simple looking red orb and dropping to the ground, but it doesn’t just stay stationary it starts to roll in a particular direction, towards a road.
The Easter Rabbits are now going crazy infected with the demonic qi, they are attacking the any creature that is unlucky enough to get close; pigs, deer, wolves and anything else including other Easter Rabbits making the demonic qi spread among them.
The red orb quickly makes its way to the road where a single man is leading a huge procession of people, animals and materials. This is Albert returning from acquiring all these resources from the neighbouring villages, there’s at least 150 humans of various ages and genders but nearly all of them malnourished, 100s of sheep and several carts loaded with raw materials such as ore and wood.
Albert stops to look at the huge procession that is following him, he isn’t sure why he was recalled so suddenly but he wont question the command he has been given.
“Come on everyone, nearly there!” He yells trying to keep the motivation up, these people were sold as slaves for various purposes and had mostly lost hope.
“OHH” the group shouts without much spirit, Albert just bitterly smiles as he isn’t able to do much more before turning around and continuing to lead the procession to Dragon – Phoenix Village, they will be there around dawn while they take turns to rest on the carts.
Albert goes to take a step but pauses for a moment, he notices that a red orb has appeared by his foot, reaching down to pick it up he isn’t able to notice that his eyes have gained a red glow to it before quickly placing the orb in his pocket and mounting the horse.
A few of the animals within the procession have started to act out, as if they’re afraid of something and want to leave this area quickly but the animal herders in the group quickly bring them under control.
Just as they get the animals under control, they can hear strange noises coming from the distance, evil sounding noises with clear sounds of flesh being ripped apart and bones being crunched by something.
“Quickly” Albert yells, he isn’t sure what’s going on but something has changed within the last few minutes. The procession speed up leaving the area behind.
Luckily, they did as only a few minutes after they left groups of; pigs, deer, horses and dogs appear on the road infected by demonic qi, their bodies becoming deformed as their eyes glow red and attack each other.
Albert continues on the road, not remembering that he picked up the orb. Jack is still trying to capture the rainbow rabbit as groups of kobolds and goblins return to the village for food and rest, Jessica has left the tailor and is walking towards the fields when she spots a strange looking man slumped over near a building holding out a small bowl.
She is confused as to what this man is doing but she does remember Jack’s words regarding beggars and how she has to be nice to them. Jessica doesn’t have any problems with beggars as she would have been in that position herself if couldn’t find a job or if she didn’t meet Jack.
“Sir, do you need help?” Jessica softly asks the old haggard looking beggar, he is wearing a dirty poncho looking cloth and a pair of pants, his face has a trace of wisdom from his advanced age but his eyes are strange, they contain the brilliance of the moon.
“Ma’am, my tired old bones just need to find a good warm meal and I’ll move on and not cause you any further trouble” the old man says while pushing his bowl forward and lowering his head towards Jessica in respect.
“It’s no trouble sir, if you need a safe place to rest for tonight, I’ll be happy to offer it”
“Young lady, I thank you for the offering but I really just need to rest here for a few moments of respite and a warm meal to fill my belly before I move on”
“Ok sir, please wait here for a few moments while I fetch you a meal” Jessica runs off without taking another glance at the man.
Jessica rushes to the kitchen and just grabs several random plates full of food before piling them onto a tray, rushing out to the man and explaining several of the dishes.
“This is rice congee, it’s mushy and probably good for your teeth, this is something we call goblin loaf, it’s various plants baked into a bread giving it an interesting flavour…”
The old man happily eats all the food that Jessica dumps into his bowl, when the final plate is finished, he stands up and gives a deep bow towards Jessica holding her hand.
“Thank you young lady for the delicious meal, very few people in this world will give a sumptuous meal such as that to a tired old beggar like myself, I do not have any money to give but on my travels, I did find this special object maybe it will help you” the old man takes an object from his robe.
It’s a stone object that looks like it’s used to crush things, a pestle from a mortar & pestle. Jessica takes the object that feels much heavier than it appears and looks at it for a moment before speaking up, “Thank….”
She wanted to thank the old man for the object but while she took her eyes off him to look at the pestle, he disappeared.
“Old man?” Jessica looks around the area and can’t see signs of the old man.
The clouds quietly shift high in the sky and block the moon rays coming down as if to hide them, Jessica gives up looking for the old man and walks toward the white tent not knowing what to do with the pestle she is holding.
‘I wonder if this is what Jack is after?’ she questions herself as she walks inspecting the pestle.
