Chapter 223 The Origin of the Tripodal Mark?
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/Crunch!.../
"Hum… Is this all for this session?"
Back in his room, Dale scrolled through lengthy archives inside his computer as he ate from a bag of cookies on the side, strawberry flavored.
'Oh?... Sigh... This isn't it.' He thought as he closed his page
"I've been here for almost two hours and nothing on Witches yet." Dale said as he grabbed another cookie
/Crunch.../
'It's not that there isn't anything on them, it's just that what there is just isn't what I'm looking for.'
'I have all kinds of books and materials from the last game, Virtual Game Books, Podcasts, discussions about Raids/Metas/Other things, Downloaded videos, images, and much more…'
'I did not hold back in acquiring these during the last year.'
'But if I search for Witch amidst this sea of content, I'll only find disappointment.'
"Most mentions of Witches here refer to monsters, distorted Humans that usually live in swamps and isolated areas, the kind of monster you'll see like in a Goblin, like a Kobold Witch Doctor or something of the sort…"
'Tribal monsters seem to always have a Witch of some sort...'
"But this isn't the kind of Witch I'm looking for unless they do have a connection."
'Though so far, I have found none, mayhaps the source of their powers are rooted in the same ground.'
"There were, however, a few things that caught my attention." Dale mumbled as he opened a notepad on the side
/Tap tap tap.../
He moved his hand to the side, but he didn't feel anything, he had already eaten all of the cookies.
"... ??... Sigh."
'From what I've found, first, there was a questline issued by a strange NPC in a small Town to the West of the Starting Village.'
'Though calling it a Town is a bit of a stretch, they were rather closer to Resko than a Town, a group of people living in the carcass of a greater infrastructure they cannot sustain.'
'On that topic of Starting Villages, different from Azimuth, the previous game didn't possess a global server with multiple starting options.'
'Everyone had only one choice known as the Starting Village and they would explore than world from then, normally being unable to go back as it was a much more linear experience.'
'There were a few points of "No-return" where the world might change due to some major event or some areas may become inaccessible for some time due to them either being destroyed, blocked or other similar events.'
'All of this would eventually have the players arrive at the Capital of Pil-Iros, the last Major city of the game if you followed the Questline, but not the final one per se.'
'As you followed the story, your character would level up to match the difficulty of the encounters, you rarely had to farm anything unless you wanted to get an item or if you just ran through the story without paying too much attention.'
'So you would arrive at Pil-Iros around Level 50+, but you could go beyond that by doing higher level content and continue on your search for harder content and eventually, Over-Level content.'
'It was... A much more user-friendly experience as compared to Azimuth.'
'In comparison, while the previous game had a storyline you followed to some extent, this one doesn't have any, you'll have to find it.'
'Usually, it's not hard to find a storyline to follow, every Village normally pushes you somewhere else, and from there, unless you're ignoring everything, you should be able to find something else to do.'
'Each Village had about a 1000 people limit and as you went deeper into the Continent and into bigger areas, the bigger each server would become, but never global and usually localized, and most of the time, the servers never really reached their maximum capacity, so in a sense, players from smaller countries or low populated areas were in advantage due to lower competition.'
'While players from bigger countries like China would need several servers to even accommodate their players...'
'This allows for players to explore and gain unique rewards per server to grow very strong, unlike Azimuth where it's a single world where you can only get a Unique reward once and it's gone.'
'Kind of unforgiven compared to before, but that is only through the eyes of an ordinary person...'
'The biggest server they had was the Main Capital Server during a super Event that amassed a total of twenty-five million concurrent players, and several of them had conflicting Titles, Achievements, Items, and so on.'
'For example, one of them followed a super hard questline to become a Noble and a very high one at that.'
'But so did someone else, and another person, and one more too...'
'However, only one of them was supposed to hold the Title.'
'No in-world problems ever occurred due to this, but it was a break of immersion, though it led to some fun roleplay, if they didn't gush out with one another at first…'
'Either way, I have yet to find any mentions of a Witch that is similar to Tina.'
'The NPC from this quest however was the closest I could find.'
"Quest: Grasshopper Harvest." Dale said as he read through the Quest description
'The Quest required the player to harvest 10 grasshoppers, pretty simple stuff, even a child can do it if not better than an ordinary adult.'
'In return, they would receive a good potion that allowed them to jump thrice their limits, but it wasn't repeatable and that was the sole time they would be able to contact the NPC.'
'A player would eventually find out that by handing the NPC 10 red grasshoppers, a type of variant that is bigger and more dangerous than the ordinary one making it harder to safely capture it without damaging it.'
'Pretty hard to grab one when they bit your fingers, not a problem for those with low sensibility though.'
'But if they managed to do so, they would be praised and given a better Quest, one that when followed correctly would lead to a lengthy line of Quests eventually ending with a permanent buff to one Stat of their choice.'
'It's important to remember that the max level in the past game was 60, and players always received one Stat per Level, they had to make up for it through Accessories, Items, Consumables, and Skills from other players.'
'Rare would be the opportunities to receive permanent buffs like this.'
"What's important is the name of the Buff…"
"The Mark of the Witch." He said with a heavy expression
'This was the buff they would receive, it usually had an extra affix tied to it depending on the Stat they chose to increase.'
'This alone already made me interested, however, there was one player that managed to go beyond this.'
"By completing a 'hidden condition' this player managed to activate a new Quest that ended up having him become the disciple of the Witch that was tied to a Hidden Class."
"And after completing an even bigger Questline where he helped her finish her research, it led to the creation of a new Mark."
'... The Tripodal Mark, the same one as in my right hand.' He thought as he closed his eyes
"This isn't a coincidence, it cannot be, unless the concept of a tripod holds great significance for Witches in general or maybe even the people of Zenith as a whole."
'A kind of detail I never really paid attention to, I know a lot about Quests, monsters, drops, rituals... But little about the people themselves.'
'Much can be inferred, but I wonder how much was lost, maybe Ermin knows more about this given he's more thorough than me.'
'Or just batshit crazy...'
"Is this really the story of how this Mark came to be? Someone had to have made it sometime in history, was this Quest that tale?"
"The Witch that successfully created something that would last a Millenia? But if so, what did that tell about Zenith and Azimuth?"
'Did the events of Zenith really happen thousands of years before? Or just hundreds?'
'How does everything connect? To whom did the Witch pass the mark to following the end of her questline for its existence to eventually reach my hand?'
'Thinking about the fact I'm witnessing history like this despite already reading about this before is... Strange.'
'The same thing I read many times years ago when I was trying to make my characters, I'm now doing it again, but my expression and thoughts are completely different from then.'
"... Reading through these archives always leaves me with a headache." Dale said as he touched his head
/Din!/
"Hum?"
While Dale was focused on thinking about what he just read, he received a message from his usual messenger app…
And from none other than Jelly!
It read as follows:
[Hey man, I see you're online on the PC, rare to see but I thought you would be interested in knowing I translated those Runes, so if you have the time, let's get on a call]
An interesting message at a most convenient moment, Dale chuckled as he pressed the phone icon without any hesitation.
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Notes
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