Cain awoke in the game world to find Saxon cooking over a fire

“Is that more stew?”

“No, while you were offline I managed to find some nightshade, I’m making poison for my arrows. It should make my attacks stronger for the next encounter with the creatures of the forest”

“Ok, how long will it take? We have to get going.”

After Saxon coated his arrows in poison the two continued their journey to the shine. As neither of them had any mapping or cartography skills they had to guess the way, so they assumed the denser the forest the closer they were to the centre. Making the journey more and more difficult. After a while of mindless walking they came across an old campsite, it continued the remains of a fire as well as the marks of where a tent had been set.

“Do you think other players are doing the same quest? Or could it be the bandits so set off to find the shine months ago?”

“I have no idea, its your quest. You have more information that I do.”

“Well I hope this is a sign we’re going the right way. Lets try and follow their path.”

Even though who ever had camped there had left a while ago, there were some obvious signs of the route they took, such as broken branches and misplaced rocks they must have kicked. In a few sections were there weren’t many signs of disruption to the environment, Cain was able to utilise his tracking ability allowing him to notice fine details that he would have missed. After following the tracks for what felt like hours, the forest began to open up again.

We must be close!

They heard a low growl coming from ahead.

We aren’t alone

The two drew their weapons prepared for a fight, unsure of what was ahead and slowly advanced.

“Cain! Look over there!”

Above the treetops stood the top of a large structure made from white stone.

“The shrine! Lets be careful, there may be traps or whatever beast we heard earlier may still be around.”

They carefully approached the shrine and luckily came across no monsters or traps. The shrine was a narrow temple build from pure marble scaling over 20 meters high, it was in perfect polished condition even though it must have been left alone for hundreds of years. Cain walked up and tested the giant door thinking he would need to use his lock picking skill, yet it opened easily without even the squeak of old hinges. Inside the temple in the centre of the single room was an alter intricately coated in gold leaf, standing over the alter was a giant statue of Parowits who appeared to be holding seeds in one hand and eggs in the other. They explored the temple, though there wasn’t much to look at as it was only a single room. The walls and floors were lined with treasures; gems and gold mainly, but there were some expensive looking weapons and armour in the mix as well. They heard a creek coming from behind the alter.

“Is… is Parowits coming alive?!” Saxon asked cautiously

They both quietly moved outside of the temple and peered in from behind the door, unsure of what to do or if it was just part of the quest.

They could hear the sounds of stone scraping on stone followed by some very heavy, yet human breathing.

“Someone is in there. Lets find out who they are, have your weapons ready.”

Cain crept towards the alter as Saxon covered him with his bow drawn. From behind the alter came a voice.

“Who’s there? Have you come to save us?”

“It doesn’t matter who we are. We have weapons on you from all corners of this place, tell us how you got here and why.”

“We were sent here by our camp to try find a way to put a stop to Parowits’ pillaging our town” Said the voice from behind the alter “We’ve been stuck here ever since.”

The bandits who left the camp months ago!

“Come out, we are friends then. We have just travelled from your camp.”

Two rough looking bandits appeared from behind the alter, both in tattered armour and holding heavily dented weapons.

“Thank you! You’ve come to save us and take us back to our camp!”

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*Quest: The Shrine of Parowits - Completed

The Shrine has been discovered along with the bandits that have been trapped.

Reward:

Leadership of the bandits

1000 Experience

*Level up!

You have reached level 6

Stat Bonus:

18 (+2) speed 13 (+1) attack speed 13 (+1) Agility 13 (+1) Dexterity 13 (+1) Stamina

*Quest: The Shrine of Parowits part 2

Safely return the lost bandits back to the camp, if you complete this quest you may receive some unique rewards!

Reward:

Armour from another time

1250 Experience

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Awesome! It won’t take long before I’m level 10, and this armour from another time sounds powerful, I hope I’ll be able to wear it

“Yes we have come to save you, explain how you are trapped here so we can help you get out.”

QUEST EXCEPTED

The group sat on the ground of the temple as Saxon prepared a stew and the bandits explained their story.

“The task was simple, we were to find the shrine and place our pray to Parowits with our offerings we brought from camp, we came to show our devotion to the forest so the beasts would stop coming. It was fine at first, we found our way here easily, we suspect he wanted us to come, but once we tried to leave we faced all kinds of problems. The first issue is the shrine guardian. A giant possessed gear that must be level 15 or higher that patrols the surrounding areas, after a few days we managed to figure out its route and plan our escape, though once we got into the deep forest we were always led straight back to the shrine. The forest tricks you, our compass will point west but even if we follow it directly we will always come back in a circle. That’s when we decided on our next route. If we can’t beat the forest, then we must leave the forest from here. We started to dig a tunnel, which is where we just came out of. It started off ok and even though our tunnelling was so, we were undisturbed. Until we broke into some sort of nest, thousands of tunnels with viscous giant ants in there! They attacked us from all angles and we would barely make it out each time! But we kept trying, taking different paths every time we went back down, it seems some are unused and we can travel down fine, though the network is so complex we always have to end up retreating.”

Damn this forest and Parowits tricks, if we can’t go back that way I guess we’ll have to explore the tunnels, though that doesn’t seem easy.

“How do you navigate the tunnels or see down there?”

“I have skills in cartography and my partner here is skilled in survival, he is able to make tools such as spades and torches out of raw materials, that is why we were chosen for this task.”

“Show us your maps and explain the routes, we must plan this out before we step foot in the tunnels.”

Over the course of an hour the bandits explained the routes that they had explored and which were safe and which weren’t, they also explained the little they knew about the ants and how they operated.

“The ants don’t have any sight, they live in the tunnels and feed off the crystals underground. That is why their network is ever growing and so intricate. The tunnels we try to take are those exhausted of the crystals and aren’t common commute routes. Thought the ants can smell us so each time we travel we can only spend less than an hour down there before an army is after us.”

Cain thought about this for a while whilst Saxon interrogated the bandits for the finer details.

I can use my cloaks ability to blend in, but if they can smell me it’s useless. Saxon is going to have a difficult time as well if he can’t see the ants from a long range. We might be in trouble.

“Cain, if we aren’t travelling back through the forest, we won’t need protection from Parowits right?”

“I guess so, where are you going with this?”

“Well, if we don’t need protection we can steal as many treasures from this shrine as we can carry! We’ll be rich if we make it back to town loaded up with them!”

He does have a point, I would like to be able to buy the best food in town when I get out of here.

The group loaded themselves up with as much as their pack limits allowed, then shared a meal of stew before entering the tunnels, each carrying a torch and shovel.