{-Myr-}

Cahacu smiled when she saw them all come down. “Have a good night’s rest, I hope? If I may ask, what’s your plans for the rest of the day?” She paused before giving the explanation, “The higher ups want to poll players about it for one reason or another. I never question it—well, I can’t, they kinda just stick the code in there and walk away.”

“We’re going to try to find another quest,” Reynneak replied. “There’s plenty around here, we just need to find an easier one to help prepare for the harder ones.”

The next question seemed mechanical: “On a scale of one to ten, one being the worst and ten being the best, how satisfied are you with your experiences in The Secrets of Masylm?”

“Ten.”

“Nine.”

Zetai glared at Reynneak. “Nine?”

“I like having some room for failure!” Reynneak defended. “It might as well be a ten, okay?”

She didn’t seem too satisfied with that answer, but she didn’t say anything.

“Anything specific you’d like me to mention to the developers?” Cahacu prompted.

“Can they make that fire sword thing from Farrar’s shop an actual weapon?” Zetai asked. “Make it, like, actually be able to inflict [Burn] and do some other cool things and I’m willing to pay you for it.”

Cahacu looked at Reynneak, but he just shook his head. She waited another moment to wave. “Alright, that’s everything! Have a safe trip, wherever you’re going, and be sure to pay another visit whenever you’d like! I’m always here when you’re in Anthalas and want a place to rest.”

Myr waved back even if no one else did. She stayed in the back of their group for that reason, close enough to the others that she didn’t bother completely catching up with them.

“So, where’s our next stop?” Zetai questioned, giving a short glance in Reynneak’s direction. “You’re the guy with [Quest Finder], you’re automatically supposed to be on top of this kind of stuff.

He was looking at his map, glancing at all of the quests there and what information there might be about them. “There’s a quest over here that should be good,” Reynneak remarked, pointing to one closer to the edge of the city.

Zetai looked at where he was pointing and then began to lead the way. That is, until they all stopped; Myr couldn’t see who it was, but she could hear a vaguely-familiar voice. She moved so that she could see the face of the speaker.

“Why, hello there, players!” He was taller than Reynneak and wore amber-colored [Swordsman] attire. He gave them all a wide and welcoming smile. She had an inexplicable feeling, though, that there was something he was hiding from them. “I’m Shemle. I was wondering by and I realized that it appears you have a [Mysterious Scroll] in your possession. Is that correct?”

There was a pause, like they were waiting for something. Finally Zetai said, “I don’t see a quest menu pop up, so what are you here for?”

“I want to look at that scroll you have,” he explained. “I think it may greatly help the group I work for.”

“You’re from the story quests, aren’t you? The Rune Reactivation Project guy?” Zetai guessed dryly. “I didn’t think you had a quest around here… or at least not to players who haven’t even accessed Kyirius or Kehnore yet.”

Shemle was quiet for a moment then, realizing there was nothing to hide, responded, “Yes, I am a member of the Rune Reactivation Project. Like I’ve already said, I’d like the scroll that you have.”

“Why should I give it over to someone like you, since you literally just admitted to being part of the bad guys?” she questioned. “I’m not that stupid, you know.”

“Oh, I know that. But I’m also scripted to take it from you if you don’t hand it over.” He quickly grabbed the scroll from her and ran away with it.

“Hey! Why are there so many thieves around here..?” She shook her head and turned to the others. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but I’m pretty sure we’re still expected to follow him.”

Reynneak checked the map and nodded. “It shows up as the active quest. It looks like all we have to do is follow him. We might as well finish it now, if that’s really all it’s going to be.”

Llewel and Myr, with nothing else to add, simply nodded; but they were also the faster of the four so, once they started their chase, they were the two in the lead.

Shemle looked like he’d been prepared for it, trying to take advantage of his familiarity with the place and its people. While Zetai and Reynneak may have fallen behind, in no way spending a long time in any city, the twins had no problems keeping up. Myr, already the more agile of the two, had even less of a problem keeping him with him despite differences in size.

Shemle ran outside of Anthalas City and out into the plains. Nothing was there to try to slow them down, but they still weren’t quite able to catch up to him. The only time they got close was when he stopped, but it seemed he only did so in order to unlock an entrance to a cave; by the time they caught up to him, he’d already disappeared on the other side and the door was shut.

“Now what do we do?” Zetai moaned, poking the rock that blocked their path with her sword. “We can’t go anywhere if we can’t unlock it.”

“We wouldn’t be able to get this far if we didn’t have everything we needed, right?” Llewel turned to Reynneak. “Do we have anything else that we’ve gathered along the way that might be able to unlock this?”

Reynneak opened up his Inventory and looked through it. “There’s a couple of keys here, but they’re all pretty clear of what they go to. I don’t think any of these are what we need.”

Myr ran her hand along the rock, feeling the natural bumps and indents on it. “It doesn’t look like there’s any keyholes… or at least, there’s not any obvious spots where it would be.”

They all took to observing a part of it, trying to find some clue to what they were supposed to do.

“There’s not any deep indents in here at all,” Reynneak observed. “Nothing that would suggest that a key is supposed to be used here.”

“There’s no buttons either,” Zetai mumbled with growing impatience. “Everything that looks like a suspicious lump is just… a completely normal lump.”

They seemed to be stuck until Llewel noticed something. “Reynneak, can you give me that shield that Yullun gave us?” he asked. Once the request had been fulfilled, they watched as he carefully placed it in a large indent.

It turned out that he had the right spot. There was a quiet but unpleasant sound that came from the other side as the rock slowly moved away to reveal the entrance. It didn’t look like there was very much there, but the darkness consumed everything but a bit of the space closest to them; there were writings on the walls, though they eventually vanished into the shadows, and a lone torch seemed to be more responsible for the light they had than the sun was.

“You know, I have a bad feeling about this,” Reynneak remarked. “Should we make sure we’re ready for whatever we come across in there before we rush into whatever it is?”

Zetai shrugged. “We’ll probably be fine. I mean, I’m pretty sure I remember my brother doing this way later, but maybe that’s just when he got around to it. I kinda doubt it would’ve triggered a kind of quest that we weren’t supposed to be accessing until later in the game.”

“I agree with Reynneak,” Llewel mumbled. “Something just doesn’t feel right.”

“But we’ve already gone this far,” Myr pointed out. “We’ve got plenty of stuff here, I’d say we’re well enough prepared for whatever we’re going to come across. If we’re not, then we always have the option of leaving and coming back later, right? It's like we’re forced to stay there until we complete the quest.”

“Well, we probably aren’t,” Reynneak muttered.

“Myr’s right,” Zetai assured him confidently. “If anything, we’re over-prepared thanks to you two. We’ve got, like, half a dozen weapons for each of us and hundreds of [Heal]s.”

Staring into the black abyss in front of them, though, Myr had to understand what the boys were thinking; there was something ominous about it, a kind of calling that was best to be ignored. The more she stood there the louder noises became, too, that she couldn’t distinguish from monsters or machinery. She had to wonder which one she would hope to find, even if neither of them sounded particularly pleasant as a malevolent presence.

Zetai seemed completely unfazed by everything and walked in. She took the torch off from its spot and gestured further inside. “Come on, what are you guys waiting for? Let’s find the thief and head back to the city.”