Chapter 117: The Temple
Chapter 117: The Temple
Kalli returned to her office, and found the scout team waiting for her.
"Ah, perfect timing. I’m sure many people are waiting for me to come back to turn in their quests. But I did need to talk to you to record the details of the temple."
The group laughed.
"Of course, we made full notes, but it’s actually not all that exciting from the outside. It’s just an abandoned temple, with living bushes that are similar to the tubers in power level. They cleared the ash away and dredged the water channels between them.
But other than that, we saw no signs of life.
You can see the ash accumulated inside and on the exterior surfaces, as the building has no window glass in most of the upper levels.
However, there was no sign that it had been cleared by anyone.
The inside appears to be empty, just bare stone.
It might be intended to be a refuge for us heroes if Marimgar Academy had fallen. However, we can’t say for certain until we’ve cleared enough magma monsters from the area.
On that note, the monsters come back after you kill them.
Not coming back to life, but if you clear an area, new ones appear even if the old bodies are removed. I believe that it’s magic imbued into the volcanic ash that is generating monsters to defend the area.
How to deal with that is your department, but there don’t seem to be any new species among them. I think that it only generates species that died to the volcanic eruptions."
Kalli nodded, "And that means we might see humans among the monsters. There were almost certainly at least a few human victims of the eruptions.
That’s a concern for later, through. For now, we can focus on keeping the area clear, and keeping the laser turrets that I placed charged enough to defend the walls. We still need more of them, but I don’t have the points to buy them yet.
So, that’s a problem for later.
However, I do have enough for the scout team to get some motorcycles. That will let them search a bit further out than on foot."
"Oh, that will be excellent. We need more information about what is happening in the region. If there are other human survivors, we can collect them, or find surviving ruins to loot for materials. There are so many things that the students of Marimgar could build if they only had the materials."
The scout team turned over their notes, and Kalli made a grand gesture to create five motorcycles for them.
She was going to make ten, to give the whole extended team a ride, but she was down to twenty points now, not enough to buy another.
"And the rest will have to wait.
It looks like most of the others turned in their quests at the statue’s booth while I was out, so I’ve collected most of the points that I’m going to get for the day."
The heroes laughed. "And you have no idea how disappointed they were that you were gone, and the snacks were locked in the cabinet."
"This is going to become a regular thing, isn’t it? Like gold stars, snacks for quest completions."
The Rogue shrugged. "Well, it’s not like we can just ask for a random reward instead."
"Well, I likely could give you a random common grade reward, but they’re ten points each."
"Damn, we get them for easy missions, and those are only one point. Or is it actually eleven, but we get one box and a point?"
Kalli shrugged. "There are no options to change it, or I’m sure that most of you would have started to take straight points by now."
"That’s not true. I got a twenty kilo bag of popcorn kernels a few days ago, and that’s a priceless, peak after hours snack."
"Twenty kilos unpopped? That’s a LOT of popcorn."
"Right? The dorm building movie theatre has an entire drum full of it in storage, so we didn’t need it. But the thought is there."
Another group entered the hall, and rushed over to the counter. "Boss, good to see you back. We need a shield. Our tank only had a wooden one, so we’ll pool our points and get a metal shield to fight the magma corrupted."
Kalli laughed. "The Uncommon metal shields are only two points. I think that each of you got that from the quest today, and I don’t have a way to do fractional credits."
"Wait, they’re that cheap?"
Kalli shrugged. "Even if they’re pretty, they’re still basic equipment according to the store. Now, if you wanted an energy shield, that’s uh, 100 System Points."
"You’re deliberately not telling us about the cool stuff you have hidden in the store because none of us can afford it, aren’t you?"
Kalli shrugged. "Would you rather know that there are things you could buy if your entire team lived off nothing but cafeteria food and never upgraded your gear for a decade?"
"When you put it that way... I kind of still want to see it."
Kalli laughed and pulled two items up on the screen.
{Augmented Mobile Flight Suit} Uncommon Grade, maximum speed 500kph, burns 200 mana per hour of flight time. 800 armour, ignores attacks dealing 5 points of damage and lower. 10,000 Points.
{Disaster Survival Vehicle} This armoured recreational vehicle comes with four mounted laser turrets and a defensive barrier that can resist enemy attacks up to Level 20. Requires 200 mana per hour to travel at maximum speed. Additional mana needed for weapons turrets.
Cost: 500,000 System Points
"Oh, that thing’s giving me the good tingles." The healer whispered, staring at the entry for the flight suit, while all her teammates laughed.
"See what you’ve done? Your crazy is rubbing off on all the others."
Kalli shrugged. "That can’t be blamed on me. How does that saying go? A lady’s true passion is a beautiful killing machine?"
"WHO says that? You know what? I don’t want to know."