Zectas Volume I: Enigmatic Village of Nanahuatl (13 page)

 

 

As Smoke left Darius' house he saw him putting the zecs into different money pouches. It seems like he was gonna give the zecs to his future archers, as pocket money for their trip to Coatl City.

 

 

"That's Darius for you alright, he may seem like a needy greedy guy but deep down inside he just wants to help people out."

 

 

Smoke toured the whole village and was amazed at all the changes. Nanahuatl Village didn't look run down anymore. Everyone was busy with something, he tried offering them help but was politely declined.

 

 

"Well I guess I should try hunting some monsters or something."

 

 

Smoke tried the forest nearest to the village. The forest was filled with stone deers. Smoke remembered that this was the monster that greeted him in the forest of the Maneator. He was curious to find out how he would fare against this monster now.

 

 

Taking out his bow and arrow Smoke swiftly fired 8 shots in rapid succession. Each making 1000+ damage points. After hitting the stone deer the life bar appeared and indicated that it had only 7000 HP and then fell down dead.

 

 

Smoke was happy with himself he was able to take out the stone deer in one volley of arrows. It did take Damien and Veiz, the range members of Tristan's party just 2 hits making them have damages of around 3500 each but Smoke's rapid fire, more than made up for the lower damage.

 

 

After spending a couple of hours hunting the stone deer, Smoke decided to do some experimentation on his abilities and items. He wanted to try the deer meat that he got from the stone deer. He prepared a dish following the recipe of the 'medicinal rabbit stew' and it came out as 'medicinal deer stew' which gave a much higher regen. He then activated the 'Heart of ReenTe'.

 

 

"Well time to test out this perilous theory."

 

 

GULP

 

 

Smoke ingested a poison pellet. Immediately he took damage that was almost 3x the amount of the poison attack that he got from the slime.

 

 

- poison continues to lower your life. Health -115.

 

 

If it wasn't for the 'medicinal deer stew' and the 'Heart of ReenTe' he would surely be dying right now. Instead he was still gaining +10 HP as regen even with the poisoned status.

 

 

Smoke continued some more experimentation with his abilities and equipments. On his 5th day of experimentation his awaited event finally happened. His bow finally got broken as it consumed its last point of durability.

 

 

 

"Finally! Took long enough. I expected it to be much sooner because of my increased attack speed."

 

 

Smoke happily switched out his broken weapon and used the dual knives that Darius gave him. He had thought that he would learn this ability just as he did with the 'knife mastery' ability. Everything was going according to plan. He had planned that during this one week's wait he would learn 'Bow Mastery', improve 'Dual Wield'  and then increase his poison resistance.

 

 

Smoke moved around the forests near Nanahuatl Village for a week. He had gained 4 levels and improved his targeted abilities, he had also raised his poison resistance to 40%. At that point he no longer took any poison damage from the poison pellets and no matter how many poison pellets he ate his poison resistance no longer increased. He concluded that it was the maximum resistance he could gain from using the poison pellets.

 

 

He returned to Nanahuatl Village with some feathers from the iron owl, pelts from the rabid raccoon, and meat from the stone deer. It seems it was only those monsters that were inside the forests near Nanahuatl Village.

 

 

Among his loot he found the feathers of the iron owl most useful. Darius told him that if the arrows were made using the feathers of the iron owl it would give an extra distance of at least 100 meters from his current arrows.

 

 

"Those arrows using owl feathers are great and all but I can't use them since I broke my bow. I was hoping that maybe you have another spare beginner bow?"

 

 

"Ohh... I'm sorry I don't have any spare beginner bows left. I do however have this experimental composite bow. If you don't mind its negative effects then I'd let you have this one."

 

 

"That bow sounds intriguing can you show it to me?"

 

 

Darius showed him his experimental composite bow.

 

 

"Well -20 dexterity is a really big draw back, but since I placed all of my stats into dexterity then it shouldn't be much of a problem."

 

 

During the past week Darius was also paying everyone for their services and items. So zecs were now available to everyone once again. Smoke was glad that regular commerce was coming back but they were only buying and selling amongst themselves. They needed to have some kind of outer influx of zecs.

 

 

The promised date has finally arrived its been one week since James told Smoke to return. Inside James' house was another figure. It was Howard Hide the clan head of the Tanning family of Nanahuatl. They greeted him with big smiles and excitement on their faces.

 

 

"Smoke thank you for coming as promised. First of all let me apologize for the way I have treated you earlier this week. You see I was filled with jealousy, and hope. Jealous that you took on that insane quest of the Briars first. Hope that maybe if you did somehow manage to complete their quest, you could also manage to complete ours."

 

 

Next it was Howard's turn to speak. He told Smoke about the reason why it took them one week to have this meeting.

 

 

"You see, James and I are not originally from here. We were born in the noble warrior village of Condortl. Children born from this village are bred to be warriors. When we were ten years old, our Shaman Priestess told everyone in the village that we have offended the great spirit god Tlazotl. As a means to appease the great spirit god we were told to strip off all our weapons and equipments and become as pure as the day we were born. Everyone was then gathered in the center of the village in front of the newly made altar. By chance it was our 2nd day of officially becoming warriors. So naturally we wanted to test our mettle against the monsters near the village."

 

 

Howard stopped his narration as the look of pain and dread overcame his face. His body started to tremble involuntarily. James tapped his shoulder to snap him out of it. James decided to continue the explanation.

 

 

"We wanted to try our skills against the mighty mountain griffons. As we reached near the summit of Mt. Aeriloc we got a glimpse of the whole village from below. From there we saw the carnage. The Shaman Priestess was actually a  fecund lizard. They are the females of the lizard people, they have the ability to shape shift into any person that they have eaten. She trapped the whole village using the males of the lizard people, the virile lizards spewed out their paralysis spray."

 

 

This time it was James who stopped. However in his eyes you could not see fear but rather immense hatred. After regaining his composure he continued.

 

 

"The people in our village are excellent fighters. Even if the virile lizards were twice their size they could have still managed to defeat them if only they were equipped with their weapons. The virile lizards continued their sprays as they pummeled everyone. All of the warriors tried to fight but their fists could do no harm to the virile's thick leather. The virile lizards continued on paralyzing people until they caught everyone. The fecund lizard then revealed to be the matron of those lizard people and has made all of the survivors into her slaves in order to dig for the precious 'Vitalis'. A life giving gem stone said to enhance the regenerative and reproductive abilities of the lizard people."

 

 

"So after witnessing such a traumatic scene James wanted to jump off the cliff in order to go fight all of the lizard people, I stopped him and told him that we should escape and try to look for help. We tried asking all of the nearby villages but every last one of them denied us of aid. We continued wandering until we reached here, ragged and half dead. It was good old Darius that found us right near the entrance of the village. He nursed us back to health and listened to our story. He told us that we should first do reconnaissance so we can make an intelligent estimate on the help that we may need."

 

 

"Howard and I did just that. We settled in on one of the empty caves in Mt. Aeriloc and started watching every move that the lizard people took. They divided the villagers into cages with a maximum count of 5 persons per cage. All the weapons were kept in a weapon vault at the center of the village. The village now had new huts besides each cage. Apparently the 5 maximum count per cage was used as an defensive measure. Making sure that the warriors can never have the chance to regroup and attack them. The captives' cages were also kept apart from one another."

 

 

"It took us 4 months to understand how the lizard people operate. However during the 4th month we realized something dreadful. It was the incredible reproduction rate of the lizard people. In just 4 months the lizard people who attacked our village grew from 500 virile lizards into 2,000 virile lizards."

 

 

"We came back to Darius asking for help, but as Nanahuatl isn't a fighting village they could only send 100 people at best and those persons were not even warriors. Some of them were fishermen, tanners, tailors, miners, and cooks. The residents of Nanahuatl Village locked us up, preventing us from joining the battle. They said that it was no place for a 10 year old.... Sadly in the end they couldn't defeat the lizard people. If Darius wasn't there I think all of them would have been wiped out, but even with Darius there two people still died. They were Jovas Swift and Henric Peterson. The master tailor and master tanner of Nanahuatl Village..."

 

 

"The death of those two heroes drove James and I to become the master tanner and master tailor of this village. To somehow honor their valiant sacrifice for trying to save our village."

 

 

It took a few seconds before Howard continued on...

 

 

"It has been 50 years since the day Condortl Village was enslaved. We've continued looking for help but everyone always said no. Today with high hopes we ask you Smoke, will you free Condortl Village for us?"

 

 

"Yes of course I will. I can't think of a way to liberate them right now but I won't give up until I've freed every single one of your people."

 

 

Smoke was moved after hearing NPCs' story. He was only captured for a couple of hours by the Maneator, he can't imagine what it would feel like to lose your freedom for 50 years. Even if he did say yes, Smoke had no idea how to proceed with this quest.

 

 

"THANK YOU VERY MUCH SMOKE! We knew that we could count on you, with you on this quest I'm sure our people is as good as liberated."

 

 

"In our hope that you would accept this quest. We have prepared some items that maybe useful for you."

 

 

James took out a black leather suit of armor. It looked like an armor set for an archer. Smoke was so pleased to see that he would be graduating from his novice clothes.

 

 

"Normally this suit is only wearable by those with the job of a sniper. It took me 4 days without sleep to convert it to any job with a dexterity of at least 350. I'm sorry I couldn't make it any lower. I hope that you can pass this requirement?"

 

 

"Wow! What a lucky break. If I didn't train this past week I wouldn't be able to reach that requirement. I currently have 355 dexterity. So if that's the only requirement of that armor set. I'm more than OK with it!"

 

 

"I'm glad to hear that. Howard also prepared the maps and a summary of our investigations on the lizard people."

 

 

"Aside from those I also prepared this mask. It only covers half your face, but it should give you enough protection against the virile lizards paralysis spray."

 

 

+ Received ModBlackSniper Suit by James Jackal

 

+ Received Specialized Gas Mask by Howard Hide

 

 

Smoke examined the details of the items.