Chapter 130: Fire of the Night
November 13th, Earth time, the third day of the second internal test.
Xi Shisan got up early in the morning and rushed online.
Yesterday, Xi Shisan received a task from the zombie NPC Hugh Porter. She only had time to complete two small steps before she had to go offline to work. In the evening, she was left to work overtime and had no time to take care of anything in the game. Today, she bribed her colleagues with a week's supply of milk tea to cover for her, took a leave, and freed up two days, vowing to complete this task that made other players envious and jealous.
After refreshing from the login point in Exile Town, Xi Shisan discovered that the players who had agreed to do this task together yesterday had already arrived and were waiting for her near the login point.
"San San, over here, over here!" The player with the ID July Snow saw Xi Shisan and waved happily.
"I'm sorry, I set the alarm late. How long have you been here?" Xi Shisan quickly ran down the earthen platform and reunited with his friends.
"It wasn't long ago. We just came here too." Another female player with the ID "August Melon" said with a smile, "My husband couldn't come, but I asked a great player to help. Look who this is?"
Qin Guan, who was standing behind the two-month player, grinned to show off his big white teeth.
"Vanilla wife... Boss!" Xi Shisan took a closer look and immediately stepped forward to shake hands with excitement. "Boss Vanilla, will you join us on the mission? That's great!"
"Hello, hello." Qin Guan shook hands with the girl with a little pride, "Don't call me wife casually, I am still a virgin."
Xi Shisan is also a player of World of Warcraft Classic. She met the sisters Bayuegua and Qiyuexue when she was playing the Classic. However, when she played with them, Qin Guan had already abandoned the Classic and switched to "Another World", so she had never met Qin Guan.
After several people formed a team, Xi Shisan apologized to the Yueyue sisters and Qin Guan who came to help: "My task cannot be shared. The introduction said that this task is a world view breakthrough task. If you can pass it, all players will benefit."
"It's okay. Tell me about the story of this mission first." Qin Guan waved his bone claws with full experience, "Start from when the mission is triggered. Don't miss any details. The details of the story missions in this game are very important."
"Okay." Xi Shisan opened his mission interface and introduced himself. "This mission is called 'Fire of the Night'. When I triggered the mission, I was walking on the road. Suddenly, the zombie NPC Hugh Porter called me and said to me, 'Seeing me reminded him of someone', a person named 'Merry Bowen'."
"Hugh Porter said that it had been in a daze for many years and had forgotten many people and events . Its memory of Merry was vaguer than that of the Border Guards. It only vaguely remembered that there was one very important thing related to Merry and that it had to find her."
"The first part of the mission required me to find the zombie NPC Bildad. After I did an errand for Bildad, Bildad told me that it remembered the name Merry Bowen. Just like Hugh said, it always felt vaguely that this name was related to something very important, but it couldn't remember the more important information."
"Then Bildad asked me to go to the north of the town to find its former residence... to find the quest item."
"Bildad?" Qin Guan asked, "Is he the NPC next to the river?"
"Yeah." Xi Shisan nodded. "I checked it after I logged off yesterday. It was the NPC who infected the male protagonist Morris in the quest "Family Letter" that your friend, Vanilla, took medicine for me to take."
Qin Guan participated in the entire mission at that time, and was deeply impressed. He stroked his chin and analyzed: "From the two plot missions, the "Letter from Home" mission received by Taiyao and the "Brave Jin" mission received by Ji Tang later, the zombie NPC Hugh Porter was not a member of the pioneer group, but a soldier of the border guard team that came to help later; Bildad was a member of the pioneer group, and Bildad had died before the border guard team that Hugh Porter was in came to help... In other words, this Merry Bowen is someone they both know."
"Yeah." Xi Shisan nodded again.
"The people in the pioneer group and the border guards think that Merry is very important, but the name Merry Bowen has never appeared in either the "Family Letter" mission or the "Brave Gold" mission. In other words, the plot of this key NPC Merry Bowen has nothing to do with the town of Camor and the evil god pollution incident, and it is very likely that it happened before the evil god pollution incident." Qin Guan said deeply.
"Yeah, yeah." Xi Shisan nodded vigorously and looked at Qin Guan with admiration, expecting him to come up with some guidelines.
"There is too little information to analyze anything. Let's go find the mission props first." Qin Guan, who couldn't pretend any more after reaching this point, said nonchalantly.
"Uh... okay." Xi Shisan's tone was a little stiff.
Bayuegua patted Paixi Shisan's shoulder and said, "It's okay. If Vanilla doesn't work, we can just wait for Master Miaobishenghua to come back."
"What do you mean I can't do it? I'm very capable, okay? With just this little information, even if Huahua came, she would be as clueless as I am!" Qin Guan said angrily.
The newly added brick and tile buildings in Liufan Town are concentrated on the east, south and west sides of the town. Except for the relatively neat living alleys on the north side, the rest of the place is very empty. Apart from the mud house of the town hall, there are only scattered old wooden houses.
The mission props can be scanned out using the identification technique. After finding the wooden house at the location provided by Bildad, the four of them made an identification inside and outside the house, and soon found a specially marked "loose soil pile" under the large water tank outside the wooden house.
After digging up the pile of dirt, the four of them successfully obtained the mission item "a locked small wooden box".
No one was bothered by how a palm-sized, poorly sealed wooden box could survive being buried in the ground for decades without decaying. The four players who only cared about the result immediately took their items to the river to look for the zombie NPC Bildad...
Bildad, whose interactive program had been preset in advance, quickly opened the box, took out the diary stored inside, and handed it to Xi Shisan who triggered the task.
Xi Shisan quickly flipped through the diary and frowned, "There are a lot of missing pages. Only a few pages can clearly read the words."
"It's normal. The missing characters can save us the trouble of thinking about the task text. The copywriter just needs to edit the key parts." Qin Guan, a veteran player who is familiar with the tricks of the game industry, said indifferently, "You can read the recognizable characters. The key information must be in it."
Xi Shisan: “…Okay.”
In the entire diary, only the handwriting on four pages is recognizable.
The first page contains the following:
"...General Charlotte's scouts discovered a valley suitable for development. As long as a wall is built, it can defend against most beasts and monsters..."
"Everyone is very happy. We have been wandering aimlessly in the wilderness for more than a month and everyone is exhausted."
The second page contains the following:
"...The logging machine broke down. Fortunately, everyone's houses have been built almost completely..."
"The forest outside the valley is too dangerous. In order to obtain fuel for the winter, we lost several outstanding companions... Among them was my friend Hawke. I am very sad."
The third page contains the following:
"...I'm really tired of working for nothing on Charlotte's long-wool sheep ranch, but I can't show it. Who doesn't want to be the owner of a new ranch? I can't afford to offend him."
"Poor Merry. If she privately complained about General Charlotte's brutality and dictatorship, someone must have reported it to Charlotte. Otherwise, she would not have been sent out..."
The content of the fourth page is as follows:
"Charlotte's long-wool sheep ranch is really strict. We built it together, but he doesn't allow us to get close. Does he think we are thieves? It's really uncomfortable that such a person is the leader of everyone."
"It's been almost a month. Why haven't Merry and the others come back yet? Did something unexpected happen?"
After Xi Shisan finished reading, Qin Guan started to complain: "Why is General Charlotte everywhere? Is he the boss who is going to enter the game?"
Seeing that the three girls were all looking at him, Qin Guan coughed and continued to analyze seriously: "The span of this diary is quite long. Although it is not marked with a date like Morris's letter, the time span should be more than half a year."
"From the text, compared to Morris, who is more supportive and trusting of the villain General Charlotte, Bildad should belong to the other faction who is more dissatisfied with Charlotte." Qin Guan pointed at the zombie NPC Bildad standing next to him, "Merry Bowen, the key NPC, made things difficult for Charlotte and sent her out to perform some dangerous mission. This should be the main plot of this breakthrough mission."
"Hmm..." Xi Shisan looked at the zombie NPC Bildad, who had no reaction after the interaction and did not continue to release the next round of tasks, and humbly asked Qin Guan, "Then, Mr. Vanilla, what should we do next?"
Qin Guan is an old player after all. He has personally witnessed the world view cracking tasks done by Miaobishenghua and Entropy Buzeng, so he still has some useful information. He said confidently: "In the last two pages of the diary, Bildad is too lazy to call Charlotte a general, and mentions the Long-Wool Sheep Ranch twice. If we want to continue this task, we must go to the old site of this ranch to look for information."
"Hey, are we going to leave town?" Xi Shisan asked in surprise, "That rat is blocking the way, how can we get out?"
Qin Guan smiled confidently: "Follow me!"
This guy led three girls to the construction site of the Traveler Guild and shouted, "Three copper coins each, four locomotives to attract rats!"
Immediately, several players who were about to log off raised their hands to sign up, and immediately found the NPC to settle the tasks at hand and make some extra money...
Xi Shisan: “…”
So, is this how you leave town?
The big rats in the south of the town are indeed a stumbling block for players to leave the town, but as the saying goes, as long as your mindset does not slip, there are always more solutions than problems. The largest number of traveler players need to leave the town to complete the job transfer steps and often hire people to catch rats. Over time, this has become a way for some players to make extra money - if they accidentally die, they can just log off, if they are not dead, they can pick it up for free.
