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“Indeed, thanks to Planta’s Heart of the Forest, a wave of spiritual mana is cleansing a lot of the surrounding Miasma, but the underground area of the Forest is still quite filled with it. I had thought and considered going to help the Brownies and the Gnomes there, and even the last surviving Myconid, but I’ve lost a lot of my former strength, and the barrier protecting this area also depends on me. So I can’t really leave at will.” Sighed Titania.
“Brownies, Gnomes, and Myconid?! In here?” I asked happily.
“Yeah, they’re races that enjoy living underground in caves, which they fill with their own special plants and mushrooms. Brownies and Gnomes live near the surface, they have enormous secret gardens in the northeast of the forest. They’re generally very small and frail, so they hide from most of the time and are very elusive.” Said Titania. “Myconid mostly never wander out of the caves unlike their ancestors, and often remain always within the underground. Although the resurrected Kings are dealt with, this Miasma is still there. If you’re willing, could you go check if everything is alright? I remember you were able to cleanse Mana by changing the Terrain, could it be possible to do that with them?”
“Sure thing! I am up for visiting some new place.” I said. “Although I have yet to fully explore the fairy country, if those people are in dire need of help I should go asap, the Tree of Beginnings gave me that major quest to help everyone here and cleanse the miasma.”
And I also want to meet tiny people!
Also, Lily seems to have chosen a Brownie as her race, so she suddenly appeared in their village, if we go there we can meet up with her, killing two birds with one stone. Apparently, according to Titania, Brownies are similar to gnomes as they’re a small race of spiritual people that live in forests, they often enrich soil and create gardens to let nature expand and grow. While gnomes do something similar, they’re also good at mining and at magic, similar to dwarves but not really.
The major difference between the two is that Brownies specialize in Green Magic, the only other race capable of conjuring it aside from Dryads and Ents, and they always retain a very young, almost child-like appearance, they’re depicted as adorable children of the forest, while gnomes are often old looking by default, males got long bears like dwarves, and they’re good at pure Earth Magic, which is their greatest specialization.
Maybe Lily choose a Brownie due to looking very young, she seemed to have quite the complex for her age and appearance and wanted to probably look younger. Well, I hope she’s happy about her avatar. I had already sent her a friend request and she accepted it right away, sending me a quick live chat message, which I could easily answer through something like telepathy.
“Ah, Elayne, are you there?”
“Yeah, I am here! Lily, how is it going there? We are about to go to the brownie town…”
“Ah, it is all good, the people here is overly nice with me. They were surprised when I showed up, but some began calling me a god-messenger or something…”
“Oh I guess they really are happy for your appearance. I’ll be bringing some friends, so try to call me by my in-game name pretty please… There’s a coworker which doesn’t know I am playing the game with me, so I would die if he knows my name…”
“Oh, sure thing then “Planta”.” She said. “You can just call me Lily, I don’t really mind.”
“Alright then. We are on our way, wait for us!”
“Sure, this place is very interesting- Eh?”
“Hm? What’s wrong?” .
Suddenly, I heard a lot of voices around Lily suddenly beginning to panic…
“Monsters!”
“Damn it, did they came from the depths again?”
“T-There are a bit too many this time…”
“Run!”
“Uwaah! Planta, hurry! There are a lot of monsters… I’ll run for now, I don’t know if I can beat high level stuff yet…”
“Yeah, you do that, wait for us!”
And like that, our call abruptly cut. It seems the Brownies and Gnomes were already being attacked by a swarm of underground monsters. We had to quickly hurry there! I wish I could go back to my farm though, but it seems that I’ll have to leave it to the Mushroom Brigade that went back there for now.
“Then we are going there? I thought we would chill out for a bit in the farm…” Said Titan. “Well, I am all up for some adventure anyways but still…”
“Yeah, we did a lot back then but I guess I can’t really say “no” to Titania… Also Lily, my friend, is in that place, she made herself a Brownie, so we’ll get a new party member of that race soon.” I said.
“Ooh, a Brownie player? That’s interesting.” Nieve said. “I wonder if she can wield maces or hammers. Brownies are known for their unexpectedly incredible physical strength; they can wield big weapons despite being small.”
“Eh?! They can? I thought they were pure magicians…” I said.
“Well they’re imbued with the strength of nature and earth, and they might be small and stocky, but they carry quite the punch.” Nieve said.
“Maybe Lily could fight better then… Well, I hope.” I said.
FLASH!
The Spiritual Projection of Titania quickly appeared in front of us, as she seemed more than willing to accompany us through the journey there in this form.
“I’ll accompany you in this form for now, as I don’t want to leave behind my kingdom. I hope it is okay for you guys.” She said humbly.
“It’s fine, we would love to have you with us.” I said.
“Yeah, your help was very big yesterday.” Titan added.
“I’m coming too! I’ll level up and grow stronger like everyone!” Florie said cheerfully.
“Make sure to stay behind me, okay Florie? Don’t do anything reckless.” Nieve reprimanded her little sister who was a bit too pumped up.
“Okaaay…” Florie answered, although she was so childish that she might end up still getting in some kind of trouble.
Florie also decided to come in person, as she was eager to be with her sister in an adventure, and it seems a new quest was already assigned to her to aid us in anything to get herself a Player Privilege Title, she might as well grab some levels, as she’s still Level 2, apparently.
“I’m also going, don’t forget about me!” Acorn ran towards us, quickly jumping over Titan’s shoulders, his favorite spot.
“Sure bud, you’re our greatest support so there’s no way we would go without you.” Titan said, already having grown as a good friend of the squirrel-kin alchemist.
Acorn also came as he was rather free, he spent the morning back at his village and seemed to have prepared new potions and bombs using his alchemy, which I’ll want to spend some time learning at his side later after we are done with today’s little quest.
Ding!
And just as we walked to the Brownies and Gnomes Village, a sudden Quest emerged before us.
[A new Quest has been generated: [Save the Brownies and Gnomes from the Menace of the Underground!]
[A strange group of monsters imbued with Miasma had emerged in the underground of the forest of beginnings, threatening the lives of the three tribes that had been living in harmony there for many generations. Their power and appearances are unknown, but it is your duty to investigate the case and defeat this evil before the Miasma once more spreads into the surface of the forest!]
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