Nightmare Fantasy Online

"*Cro-croaaaaack*..." - Giant toad

Finally...after an hour of in-game time, the toad finally collapsed. Cheers and sighs of exhaustion filled the Blastfields as dwarves armed with huge butchering knives came out of the shadows and started to carve up the corpse before it could decompose into black dust.

Level 47...just three more levels before I can evolve. I sorta wish I could improve my skills and classes before that. They probably will affect my evolution path. 

Nyx looked proud for some reason. She must probably also have obtained those extra APs. I should have brought Nala and Bloom with me even if they would have been no help...

Anyway, guess I could take a look at Nyx's stats. 

Skill list:

Title list:

Hey, she's been growing. Good girl~.

"YA-HOOO!!" - Black Bone

"Stop shouting," replied Aino while she held her hands over her fox ears.

Bones suddenly shouted in joy after he got his reward from the dwarves. And soon, other players joined him. Are the rewards that good? 

I got several L-sized "Memoria Alloy" ores...memoria? As in "memory"?

As for the other reward, it was split between the Skill-Up Potions or a bunch of yellow-like rocks called "Grade-Up Gems". The dwarves gave me these, saying "mere Potions isn't enough to pay ye back, lass!" or something among those lines. 

"These rocks, they let you evolve skills!" - Black Bone

"Huh? ...he's right. How handy, even if it's random." - Aino

That is something. If the Potions leveled up a random skill, which would normally take 3 AP for the tier-1 skills, then these rocks can compensate for 6 AP, the price of evolving skills of the same tier. And since these rocks only affect skills that can evolve, AKA those that have reached Lv.10 (or so I've concluded from overhearing players who didn't get any reactions from their rocks), you can manipulate what skill the rocks can affect to certain degrees.

Yup. Now I get why the dwarves thought these were more valuables. All the players who only got potions are glaring at us who were rewarded with them now. Hey, your fault for not contributing more to the "raid". 

So without further adieu, I crushed three of the rocks I'd gotten and saved the last three for Nyx, Nala, and Bloom. 

Tch. Two of the rocks hit web-related skills, even when I can't use them most of the time here in the Blastfields!

Though, I had no clue that skills could be merged when they evolved. Glad that only the "selected skill" was random and not "what the skill evolves into". When used, the rocks showed me a list of the potential skill evolutions I had access to. That was damn close, now that I think about it...

Testing the new skills will have to wait for a later date. First...

"Hey," I asked one of the dwarves I caught.

"Can't ye see I'm...oh! Lass!" - Elder Dwarf

Whaddaya know. It's the boss dwarf from before. 

"About these alloys-" - Garami

"Yeah, no worries there, lass. I've already prepared the letters of introduction right here," said the old dwarf as he handed me three letters, one for each of us, along with a map of the settlement near the train station. 

"The blacksmith lives here," said the dwarf and pointed at a big X on the map, "but at this time, he must have closed his shop for the day."

"Then we'll meet again tomorrow?" asked Aino after the dwarf left.

"Good for me. I need to go to bed soon." - Black Bone

Oh, that's right. Unlike me, these two have proper lifestyles. So we agreed on a time to meet and then I saw the two log off before returning to the Fort to give Bloom and Nala their "presents" before going to bed myself. 

---

The next day, the four of us (Bloom accompanied me) met up in front of the smithy of the famous smith. 

"[Grus' Smithy]...quite simple." - Garami

"That could mean he does not need a fancy name for people to remember him." - Aino

If our resident crafter is saying so, I guess the blacksmith's as good as his rep is. I had Bloom look him up before coming here, and he "seems" to be quite popular with the locals. As in being bad-talked by the other smiths. Let's hope that's due to jealousy and not incompetence... 

We entered the smithy. The place is...not filled, but it has many weapons on display. Some of them look...familiar...

"Welcome," said a voice from the back. A sturdy dwarf dressed in a letter apron and a bandana came out from the back room and greeted us. 

"Are we talking to the owner of this establishment?" asked Aino, acting as our representative. 

"If you're looking for Grus, that's me," said the dwarf, Grus. "Now, what can I help you with?"

"We were given these letters of introduction by Gammalgorn Broder." - Aino

Gros accepted the letters from Aino, Bones, and me, and glanced at them.

"Good ol' Broder! It's the first gtime he's introduced someone of the undead though. Then you four got your gears eaten by one of those toads? No, that girlie over there's a servant, so..." - Grus

"These two had their weapons eaten," said Aino. "We heard that this alloy would allow one to make items with power equal to the strongest piece of equipment it ate."

"Ah, yes. That ol' folklore." - Grus

"I-i-it's fake!?" shouted Black Bone, the other guy in our group who lost something to the toad. I'm keeping calm...for now.

"Calling it a complete hoax wouldn't be fair. Feeding it higher-quality items will greatly improve the durability of weaponry created with the alloy, but that's that. But yeah, it's mostly some PR stunt to attract more tourists." - Grus

"Aw, come on! All that mess for some fancy armor and shields? And nobody in our group needs that stuff!" - Black Bone

"You sure you shouldn't have some guys like that?" - Grus

That question silenced Bones. Yeah, we're in serious lack of a proper vanguard. 

"So you guys lost some fancy stuff then?" - Grus

"My weapons. Twin daggers. Ex-rarity." - Garami

"Ouch. My condolence there, lass. Seriously. But, you've come to the right dwarf. I should be capable of salvaging your weapons." - Grus

Grus then led us to the rooms in the back. A huge forge took up most of the room, and the walls were covered with smithing tools. 

"Another property of the Memoria Alloy is that, for the original owners only, make the rumors about it inheriting the former equipment's traits come true." - Grus

"So you're saying...?" - Black Bone

"You can reforge the weapons back to normal?" - Aino

"V." - Grus

Old dwarves shouldn't throw out peace signs...

"If you have some other rare materials, I can even add that to the pile, turning the weapon better than ever. For free, even." - Grus

But you're forgiven today!

"You guys! Go and..., they're already gone." - Garami

Only Bloom and two dust clouds were remaining. 

"It was like watching a Spectral Grasper fleeing with the help of a Missile Tortoise." - Grus

"A what with who? ...no, don't explain that. Also, can you use this somehow?" - Garami

I took out my lucky stick from my Storage. The same guy who I found in the Swamps right before encountering Miranda, the current spider-boss of the Darkland Fort (one of many, considering the new Boss rules). 

"This is...!? Lass, where did you get this?" - Grus

"From a Haunt. I stumbled across it by coincidence. ...is it something bad?" - Garami

"No, not at all. If you were the one who found it, things should go okay." - Grus

I'm not sure I like the way he's phrasing things, but the dwarf completely refused to talk anymore about it. 

"But lass, what weapon do you want?" asked the dwarf in an attempt to change the topic. Hmm, but he has a point. 

"They used to be a set of two daggers," I told him as I pointed at the alloy. 

"Daggers, ey? That's going to be a problem. I can only create one piece of equipment if you want to include this branch." - Grus

Geh!? Come on...not that it's too unreasonable. In most games, you'd need to gather several dozens of copies of materials after all. I should consider myself lucky that I don't need 100 lucky sticks.

"And what type of weapon do you want? Daggers are not good as wooden equipment." - Grus

"Ugh!" - Garami

"You never gave it any thought?" - Bloom

"But ii's my lucky stick..." - Garami

"How about making a different kind of weapon?" - Grus

"But I only have [Dagger Proficiency]..." - Garami

"Bah! Only amateurs walk around with just one kind of weapon. Lass, you see that door over there?" - Grus

The dwarf pointed at a different door than the one leading to his forge. That's strange. I never noticed it. Looking at Bloom's face, I could see that she was as surprised as me.

"It's my storage room. You can find a copy of any weapon type I've created inside there. Try finding a weapon you like from among the samples. I'll try to base the weapon on whatever you find to your liking." - Grus

"Why not just make a pair of daggers?" asked Bloom who was sporting a bored-looking...hey! You're getting punished for that disinterest in your master's future partner!

"It's against my pride as an artisan to do a half-assed job. And knowing what the client wants is half the job." - Grus

He's got a point there. So I accepted his deal, and shut up Bloom by asking Grus to make a new cauldron for her with some of the special alloy (just a little of it). 

After I touched the doorknob, a message suddenly appeared.

...huh? Is it a quest just to look at the weapons? Weird. Well, time to do some window shopping.