The party spoke on skills as they crossed the third gate and were graced with the sight of the crystal crafting floor yet again. "That was a nice walk, but now we need to find Bree."
"Should we go to her brother's home?" Su made this suggestion but none of them even had to wait for the answer because a familiar darkness spirit showed up behind her shoulder. "Hello there little one, can you tell us where Bree went?"
"Home. She said to bring you home!"
"The spirit said that Bree is at home and that it waited for us here." Walker let Su know what the spirit was saying.
"Thank you for waiting for us. Want to play tag while we climb the stairs?" Su wanted to play with the little spirit since she had enjoyed doing so before. She also knew that the spirits like nothing more than to interact with others and entertain themselves. Walker could only imagine this trait came from their extremely long lives as elemental spirits. It made sense why some would go dormant and sleep for extended amounts of time.
"Yes. I will win!" Walker told Su the answer of the darkness spirit and yet again he waved goodbye to the crafting floor. Hew had wanted to spend more time there but since he was limited to the time they had available he decided to save it for another visit.
While they climbed the steps the party encountered the remaining spirits making Walker wonder if Bree really left them to wait or if they had boycotted working on crystals for play. Unfortunately for Bree, the party was not about to tell the spirits to rush home ahead of them so instead, the spirits were allowed to join the party and play games the entire walk back to the crystal shop.
The elves around the streets watched as the party played with the spirits and were amazed. They had seen fellow elves play with spirits and converse with them as long as they had the proper skills to do so. Yet, the humans were a new addition to their city and had already adapted so well that they could play with spirits openly. It was even more of a surprise to see Midnight and Onyx joining in on the activities since they were monsters and not even considered the same as elves or humans. Even Midnight was not an ancient dragon so she was still close to a regular monster.
As the shop came in to their view the spirits left the party and crowded around the door with hyper energy. Bree felt them on the other side and opened the door to see the party waltzing up with smiles on their faces. "It looks like you all had a nice time. I take it the quest wasn't too hard?"
"It was less of a challenge than we had expected. But since we had so much information and took things slowly we were able to safely defeat the glowing mole and three sharp tongued basts. We were lucky you avoid any other trouble. We also sealed the natural cave that is below your section of cave so there shouldn't be any other problems for now. Oh, and we have this for you that we found in the glowing moles' nest."
Walker started to pull the crystals from his inventory to Brees' surprise. They p[iled up on the floor equalling at least two months worth of crystals. She was so startled that she stumbled back and sat on the stool at the counter.
"You managed to get all of this? That mole just has been feasting for weeks." She couldn't believe her eyes. " Why didn't you bring these to Bart? Hed is the one that will be working on this?"
"Miss Bree, you said that he rarely comes up to the surface, correct?" Su saw Bree nod and continued, "Now he will need to come up to do his work. You can have him walk in the light for a little while and keep from being a hermit." Bree could only smile and shake her head at this.
"You all do much more than I expected. I may have twisted you all to do what I needed but now I see that you would have helped if I just asked. I will remember this next time. Let me go and get the crystals I promised to give you as a reward." Bree went toward the back of the shop and retired with the crystals.
'Heroic quest completed- liberate the high crystal mine
The high crystal mine unkempt by Bart is under siege by a large glowing mole.
Defeat the large glowing mole
2 heroic quest points
8 high water elemental crystals'
"Thank you again for this. Now let me have this little earth spirit take a message to my brother for me." Bree wrote a quick note and rolled it up. She tossed it on top of the dirt portion of the floor and the earth elemental spirit rushed to it. Before any of them could ask what it was doing the spirit made the earth on the ground swallow the note. Then it sank in to the ground leaving no trace whatsoever.
"It really enjoys traveling that way. It becomes one with the natural earth mana so it is able to move very fast. I do envy it sometimes for that reason." Bree was falling in to her own dreamland.
"We will be off then. We could still use some rest and food. We will be fairly busy for the next few days and hope that we can see you before we rush off anywhere else." Walker and the party waved their goodbyes to Bree and the spirits. Walker had the feeling that the spirits just might try and avoid their work by finding them to play later, but he kept this thought silent.