Ember Wind: Online

Runes of Ruse

October 28, 2042

The difference between day and night is a matter of light. The difference between months are the holidays associated with them. As October began to draw to a close, the real world holiday of Halloween arrived. In the game of Ember Wind, it was known as Goblin Party.

In a matter of hours, the whole decor of the city changed. What was once a normal stone building had become retextured as a goblin hut. Overnight, the whole city changed. Every building was on foundations of compacted clay held up by walls of leather lashed to bone posts. The shops in town were also redecorated and the crafter NPCs adjusted their stocks to fit the occasion.

When we, the small group of Falcher, Dailin, Night and myself, ventured off to the Shattered Helm to obtain our newly crafted gear, Rafael enlightened us on some interesting details...

Rafael dropped a mound of plate metal gear and steel weaponry on the counter. "Creoft came in here earlier today."

Dailin began to equip her gear and asked him, "What for?"

Rafael bobbled his head around. "He mentioned something about the crew screwing the day up. A mad man's rantings if you ask me."

"What did he come here for though?"

"He was asking around about some special enchanted rune. Over the past few days, word of an ultra-rare rune started spreading like wildfire."

Tangurple stared at his new helmet, half tuned to the conversation. The helmet resembled that of an ancient Spartan. He slipped it under his arm and turned to Rafael. "What's it do?"

"I've heard a few various possibilities, a blacksmith's shop is the equivalent of a barbershop when it comes to gossip and rumors. The commonality is that it's a communication stone. Who or what it speaks to is pure conjecture at this point."

Falcher looked at Dailin, "You don't suppose he's trying to communicate to the outside world?"

The idea raced through Dailin's mind. She thought about it for a minute. "Who would he contact? Raf, how many of these are there?"

Rafael shrugged, "One probably. If it does make contact with the outside world, then this would be a one time object."

You should've seen the look in Dailin's eyes. Pure determination... well it had a hint of disdain for Creoft. We knew at that point he ran off after it, chasing down some lead on it. We ran around town asking NPCs and players about it. Many players were interested in the object themselves and who wouldn't? But to our disadvantage, every player mislead us. Everyone talked about different locations, different mobs to kill. We weren't getting anywhere close. Creoft had left the group function so we couldn't track him. The guild online/offline tracker doesn't state locations, not even for the guild master. However, the guild population was also down from the days before. It sat around five hundred or so.

When it came down to a literal manhunt for him, we split up all went our own directions to find him. Dailin's focus was on the northern mountains and the land near the city. Falcher was dispatched to the field of horrors; our area of nightmares and bat attacks. Night was sent to the western forests and me to the east ridges.

We, as a guild and group, have done very little in terms of exploring the region and to think we were so arrogant as to believe we would've found the World Boss by now. In the past, we knew where the boss was because of dumb luck or a distinct marker. However, with this boss almost doubling as a roamer made it all that much more challenging. With Creoft now acting as yet another distraction, the task of hunting the boss was delayed.