The bells rang as the door creaked open, eyes turning around to look towards the direction of the person who had just entered the bar. The fragrance of flowers entered the room the moment the doors swung open, strands of white hair flowing in the wind, so translucent that they would turn glowing silver when they catch the rays of sunlight on its ends. The owner of the said perfect hair was a girl no more than 19 years old, dressed entirely in black, a fellow Blue Pegasus mage and it was no other than a fellow android named Snowflake. Cerulean hues danced around the room, searching for a vacant seat nearby. The room that was once so noisy had suddenly gotten still, almost too quiet for her to withstand until a blowing whistle sparked from the corner of the room. From that onwards, the bar grew rowdy once again and comments would be thrown towards her about her large bosom and other female assets albeit, Snowflake would not do anything in return but ignore all the remarks.

”Pint of beer, please.”

The young woman seated herself at the empty seat by the bar, her elbow placed on the oaken structure while her chin was supported by the palm of her hands. A sigh left her lips, a habit that she had collected a rather long time ago when she had nothing in mind. After causing a bit of a scene inside the bar, the men had returned back to their peers, clanking their glasses of alcohol while they cheered for some nonsense that they had brought up. Snowflake was not one to visit the bar, not to mention – she rarely even consumes any sort of alcohol however, her desire to get tipsy had overwhelmed her which was why she had ended up at the nearest pub in Magnolia. Apart from that sole reason, there was someone she was required to meet after she had managed an important appointment a few days prior although, she wondered if the person would be able to find her.

Drops of water started to form on the floor as more and more of them came bombarding out of the sky. The ants that were peacefully scavenging were thrown in a disarray because of the now danger of drowning. Since they were so small one drop could be enough to just swallow them up. Through this panic a sole of a boot trampled between the ants. Going up leather pants and then a belt formed. Above the belt there was a nice suit coat laying over the man’s shoulders. Underneath he was wearing a silken white shirt. All neatly ironed and washed. He was wearing a red tie and had combed his hair nicely.

He was the embodiment of a gentleman look. But not that he normally was so vain. He just had a really important meeting with a person that meant a lot to him. Next to him there was a small orange creature hopping along as he was holding his pants high over his belly. They arrived, under the pouring rain now, near a building with small windows. The light was coming from them and it was giving a very family and cozy feeling. On the small signboard hanging from the outside, there was a wild boar above a fire being shown.

“It’s this place, let's go in”, the man said in a deep voice to the creature.
“Sure boss”, The creature said back in return and the man opened the oaken door with a squeaking sound as the hinges were rusty from the rain. He saw the silver hair and the face of the most beautiful girl in Magnolia and walked up to her. Putting his hand up in a greeting before he talked and sat down. “Snow, if missed your face like a precious artwork missing on my wall. How have you been?”, he asked of her while he put his hand up with only his pinky sticking out. The universal sign of ordering a pint of beer. He wondered what the reason was she had called him all the way here. He waited for her answer while he was pressing the rain out of his hair.

It had already been her fifth cup of beer and Snowflake was starting to get slightly tipsy. Her vision was starting to get a little bit hazy and soon, she would find herself moving along to the beat of the song that was playing inside the pub. It was a very rare side of her and if anyone would witness her in a situation like this, she would probably be embarrassed to death afterwards. Her arms swaying from side to side, she danced along the song, a content smile curving onto her lips as the rest of the men inside the bar would cheer on her. A figure came and sat beside her, whispering words to her that she could barely understand. ”Huh?” She tried to speak as loud as possible, over the growing music that overwhelmed the voices of the customers.

Blue eyes studied the features of the man standing right beside her and suddenly, a pang of nostalgia struck her. ”Chelvaric!” Snowflake has been enjoying her time inside the pub that she had almost forgotten the reason she was there; to meet her friend for the quest that they had taken up together. ”Oh god, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot.” She placed a hand against her forehead and closed her eyes for a brief moment to regain composure. Retrieving a few jewels from a pocket, she placed it on the bar to pay for her expenses on numerous cups of beer. ”It’s too loud here. Let’s go out.” Without bothering to wait a response from Chelvaric, she began dragging him towards the door.

A sigh escaped her lips as she buried her face into the palm of her hands. She couldn’t help but feel embarrassed that Chelvaric had to see her in this situation although that was of the least problems that she was worried about. Through the effect of the alcohol, she tried to remember what the quest was originally about, starting from the bits and pieces of the lines she had read from the quest paper. ”Sorry you had to see me like this. Should we go meet the client?” It wasn’t until then that she noticed that it had been raining the entire time.

Chelvaric looked at Snowflake as she seemed to be moving on the tunes. In a spiral of quick events, she recognized him and dragged him out of the bar before he could drink his beer. He didn’t mind too much but a small tear left from his eye. He said goodbye to the beer in his thoughts.  He saw that Snow buried her face in her hands. He wondered why she was doing that. It was raining really hard and Snow wasn’t covering or taking out a jacket at all. Chelvaric was worried what if she got sick or something. “Don’t mind that come here”, he said to her and pulled her close while opening an umbrella to protect against the rain. He had to hold her close because the umbrella wasn’t that big for two persons to stand underneath it. “Sorry if it’s a bit close to me but the umbrella doesn’t cover that much underneath it. I hope I don’t smell or anything”, he said to her and looked at her while her face was so close to his. He could see her vizor really close to his he could recognize a bit of blue underneath the cloth. They looked so beautiful he could drown into them if he stared much longer into it. He started to blush and pointed to the caverns. “Yeah, that’s fine let’s go meet him. He is supposed to be at the caverns. It’s gonna be a slight walk but not that long so just stick close and will be there in no time”, he said. They started walking close to each other to not get hit by the rain towards the cavern.

When they arrived at the cave’s there was a big crowd hiding under umbrellas ranging from black to red and orange. They were all being kept at bay by Rune knights. They were dressed in their uniforms and were pushing the crowd back. It seems something had happened. He wondered how they were gonna get past this to get to the client. But they didn’t have to think about it when a guy suddenly waved to them. “Hey you two you look capable mage's. Can i talk to you two for a bit i need your help with something.”, the man said to Chelvaric and Snow and motioned to follow them.

Droplets of rain poured down from the sky and Snowflake could feel the gentlest drops of rain on her face. Puddles of water filled the pavement of the roads and there were less and less people in the streets due to the downpour that had just occurred. Strong arms were wrapped around her shoulder as the two mages took shelter underneath the umbrella. It was fortunate of her that Chelvaric had brought an umbrella otherwise they would have ended up running in the rain towards their destination and she had no idea where it was. Her body was stiff and she felt uncomfortable from the close contact that she had with Chelvaric albeit, she somehow seemed to like the fact that he had his arms around her. It was cozy and reassuring, just the two of them underneath the umbrella and their skins touching each other.

Snowflake couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle to herself when Chelvaric mentioned about his odour. Just as they started to engage into a conversation, she found herself locked in a gaze of his ruby eyes, fused with a diversity of colours though, she wondered if he would be able to see her though her black cloth that concealed her eyes. The young woman averted her gaze away quickly, not to appear awkward in front of him and they would proceed onwards their destination in silence. Their arrival at the cavern was greeted by the sight of a small group gathering in front of the structure. Noticing their appearance, a man approached towards them and after he found at the they were the ones that he had been waiting for, they would be invited into the group for a little conversation.

There, they discussed about the details of the quest and explained that there were rumours about the cavern, which stated that there was a rare metal located inside that can be used to forge weapons and armours. Of course, the quest offered jewels and rewards if the mages ended up venturing inside the cavern to prove if the metal actually exists and obviously, the Blue Pegasus mages were not ones who would reject such an interesting offer.

”We’ll definitely take up the offer.”

Chelvaric listened carefully to the people around them as they were discussing a rumor about the cavern. Apparently, some rare ore was to be found inside the cavern. It peeked his interest as he had done a smiting job and was quite interested in finding ores and making weapons lately. He wondered what they would make out of it and how strong it would be. He would love to hold it once there finish with it. But of course, they should first check the caverns if there truly was something inside there and that it wasn’t a hoax or just a false rumor. He hoped they wouldn’t run into any monsters inside the place. But even if they did he was sure Snow would protect them and he would protect her in turn.

The metal appeared to be blue in nature and glowing. It shouldn’t be too hard to find in the darkness of the cave if it’s all glowing. They both accepted the request and moved to the side of the crowd as they had to find a way to get past the rune knights before they even could get inside and start searching. He looked at a number of rune knights and if there were any passages behind them. it did seem they had done their job well and covered most of the area. So just walking around wouldn’t be much of an option. He probably could sneak past them since he could be really silent but Snow wouldn’t be able too so that was not an option either.

Maybe they could distract the rune knights by making the crowd all scolding and pushing. But that could make it risky for the people involved. Chelvaric sighed as he couldn’t think of anything concrete. They could always just wait till they all went home but that would take a while. He turned to Snow hoping she would have an answer. “I am at a loss on how were going to get past here. We can’t hurt them since there rune knights. Do you have any idea on getting past them Snow?”, he said to her while rubbing the back of his head.

After they had finished discussing about the details of the quest, Snowflake glanced over to the entrance of the cavern which was guarded with several Rune Knights. It appeared that the rumours were true after all, albeit, regarding Chelvaric’s question, there was no way to get past them at the moment; unless they planned to sneak into the cavern without being noticed or wait until noon and the guards would be off duty by then. However, there was no time to wait. ”Should we do some sneaking?” A playful smirk grew on her lips and it was then she saw a glimpse of white fur in a distance, sprinting towards them.

”Vysella!”

Snowflake called out for her companion in surprise and gathered the small fox in her arms while snuggling into her thick fur. She hadn’t expected that Vysella would be able to track them down all the way but her companion’s senses were not one to be underestimated of. Now that her companion was here, she was able to come up with an idea that might able to get them inside the cavern, though it depends on whether or not her plan would succeed or fail. Whispering into Chelvaric’s ears, she would explain her comrade on how Vysella would distract the guards and they would use the opportunity as an advantage and enter the cavern.

With the last stroke on Vysella’s head, they departed separate ways and Vysella would approach towards the Rune Knights while the two mages would hide near the cavern and wait for the perfect timing to escape. Although she felt rather distressed about leaving Vysella behind, she entirely trusted her companion to come after her when she would be done with the knights. Using Vysella’s cuteness as an advantage, she tried to lure out the knights away from the cavern. As silly as they were, they fell for the trap and began to stroke and snuggle Vysella, unable to resist her charming looks. Not wanting to let Vysella’s efforts go to waste, they seized their chance and entered the cavern without looking back.

After she was sure that they were away from the knights’ sight, Snowflake turned to look back at the entrance of the cavern with a sorrowful expression written across her face. Silently, she hoped her companion was safe and somehow, would be able to follow her lead soon enough.

Snow seemed to be really into sneaking as when she mentioned the word sneaking she started to smile. Well, he wasn’t sure if that was the reason she smiled as not much later after that a small fox as white as snow was running towards her. Chelvaric remembered the small fox from all the other times they had done jobs together and spend time together. It was Vysella the fox pet of Snow. Scraggy was waving his hands and jumping up and down as it seemed he was really happy to see her. He wondered why the demon had such a big liking to a snow fox. Well, some things you just can’t explain so it was fine if he liked the fox. It’s not like Chelvaric had anything against the two of them anyway. Suddenly Snow came closer and whispered an idea into his ear. At first, he was a bit skeptical as for how would guards be distracted by that. But then again you never know so he nodded his head in agreement they should try it out.

The three of them sneaked to the side of the guards while the Vysella was walking up to the guards. Chelvaric was quite surprised when the guards picked her up and started to stroke and snuggle the fox. He thanked the fox in his head and followed Snow into the cavern. The cavern was one hole of darkness. It was so dimly lit that a normal human wouldn’t be able to see here good at all. Luckily for Chelvaric he had his night vision and this place was like broad day light to him.

“Snow you Should stay behind me it’s really dark here. I can see perfectly fine tough so will lead the way if that’s fine with you? We better don’t fall into any holes into the ground. Hold my shoulder or my hand or something else”, he said to her. Not that they would be walking really far because just in front of them was already a part of the tunnel collapsed. It didn’t seem too bad but he didn’t think he could lift those rocks out of the way at all. But Snow was defiantly stronger then him.

The further they ventured inside the cavern, the light from the entrance would get dimmer each passing second. Although Snowflake might be able to detect the statistics of a person, her vision was not that good inside the dark and she couldn’t help but squint to have a clearer vision of what was ahead of her. Chelvaric seemed to have noticed that she was struggling with her vision and suggested that she should hold onto him so that they wouldn’t get separated. It was then she recalled that her comrade belonged to a race called Neko and one of their abilities permitted them to have perfect vision in the dark. Nodding although slightly embarrassed, the young woman pulled onto his loose clothing as they treaded deeper into the cavern.

After walking for a quite a decent amount of time, they would stumble upon numerous pathways which were blocked off by fallen rocks as if someone wished to prevent anyone from coming inside. Approaching closer towards the rocks she could see a slight gap between the rocks. Taking off her gloves, her arms wandered around the rocks, searching for the gap and just as she had predicted, she could feel the flow of air and hear the sounds of air currents through the gap. Since it might be the only passage that would lead them to their destination, they had no choice but to break through the rocks. ”I’ll break through this.” Her voice was full of confidence and she had full trust in her abilities. After all, she had been working hard to get stronger each and every single day.

Lifting up her hand, she would curl her fingers into a tight ball, summoned all the energy inside her into her fist and pummelled into the rocks. At first, there wasn’t any difference, until a loud rumble resounded the walls of the cave, followed by the shook of the ground and the rocks that she had just punched through had started to crumble apart. ”Get back!” She yelled over the rumbling sound of the rocks and pushed Chelvaric further away from the scene. Smoke and dust filled the entire area, which whisked into her nose and forced a cough out from her throat.

”Are you alright?”

They walked a while trough the cave and quickly found themselves walking for a long time. Snow was tugging on his shirt and Chelvaric quite liked it. While scraggy was tagging along at the back. They soon reached a place that was blocked by rocks and they couldn’t get any further. But Chelvaric saw on Snow her face that this wasn’t gone stop them from reaching their goal. She stepped forward and not much later her fist landed onto the rocks. The cave shook so hard. “God damn snow what did you eat. ”, Chelvaric said but before he could finish snow pushed him back as the rocks fell. Chelvaric landed on his ass and rubbed it as the dust was settling. God he didn’t know that Snow was such a power house. He knew she was strong but not this strong. He wondered how much she had trained to get this strong.



“Are you okay Snow?”, he asked to her and after hearing her answer he pointed to the next room. “it seems there is light up ahead let’s move to there”, he said to them and Chelvaric walked over the ruble entering the room. The room was quite big in size but not in walkable path as in the middle of the room there was a huge hole gaping into the floor. Chelvaric stopped Snow behind him before she could fall into it. “whoa there lets be careful before we fall into this”, he said to her and walked further along the edge. They would soon fight themselves on a pathway with three different ways to go.
Chelvaric looked at all of them and just decided to do one by one. It wouldn’t matter if they just picked one the result would probably be the same.
They walked for a while in silence but the way was blocked at the end by a really huge boulder that not even snow would be able to break in pieces. They looked for a way around it but it was just to big and too heavy they would never get past it. “Let’s just go another way then I suppose”, Chelvaric mentioned to snow and walked further while hearing her answer. The second tunnel was a hour walk before they came to nearly the same boulder as the first. Chelvaric cursed and again they didn’t find any way past it. “ugh I hope this last path is the good one!”, he yelled in frustration.

”Yes, I’m fine.”

Snowflake didn’t have to worry about herself after all, she was an android and even if her body got injured, she could fix it up easily afterwards although not by herself. After the rocks tumbled down onto the ground in pieces, a beam of light shone towards them as if it intended to lead them into the area. Without hesitating, they proceeded onwards, into the bright spark of light until she found herself in an area entirely lit up by a single pillar of light. Seeing the light in the middle of the area was strange to her as she began to wonder what it might be fore. Just as she was about to proceed forth, there was a big gaping hole in the center of the room, as it was preventing them from going any further, just like the rock incident they had encountered before.

”Whoa.”

The cyborg stumbled, rocks slipping underneath her and down into the abyss. She peeked further into the hole though, wondering what might be inside though there was barely anything but an empty abyss filled with darkness. Her eyes glided towards the edge of the room and noticed that there was a path which would allow them to cross over the large gap. Following Chelvaric’s lead, they decided to go around the hole only to stumble upon more pathways. A sigh escaped her lips, this time out of frustration. She was starting to grow sick of these mind games and puzzles and pondered what the purpose of these traps might be. Snowflake let Chelvaric choose the pathways from and decided to follow his lead which only brought them towards a dead end.

Returning to their original position, the youth made a silent prayer in hope that this would be the one to lead them out of the cavern and entered the pathway. It was way shorter than the tunnels they had entered before and once again, rocks were blocked in the middle of the pathway. Her eyes glided over to the roof of the cave and noticed that some of the rocks were connected to the bridge of the cave which would mean that if she ended up destroying these rocks like the last time, the entire cave would end up collapsing. ”We can’t destroy this so, we have to move the rocks carefully.” The girl suggested and began to put herself into work. After she had confirmed herself that there was enough room for a person to break through the rocks, she ceased the labour. Now, the remaining part was to discover whether the rock existed or not.

Chelvaric noticed that Snow was making a silent prayer of some sort. Or at least something similar. He made the whisker sign over his cheeks and asked for safety when they entered the last tunnel. “lets hope Sekat has some luck for us”, he said to Snow and they walked through the rather short tunnel this time. Albeit it was still blocked into the middle. He stepped to the side and let the gorgeous white haired girl do her job. She was the demolition expert here. Maybe not officially but still she was doing all the demolition work. It took a bit of time before she was done inspecting the rocks and he heard her say they had to move the rocks. “alright Scraggy time to put our arms to work.”, he said and he started to pick up the smooth shaped stones and put them to the side. It was rather chilly inside the cave but he didn’t mind it that much after a bit the whole was big enough to fit a person through and he tapped Snow’s shoulder. “Since I am the only one who can see her it’s best I look for a stable ground to step on.”, he said to her and started to squeeze himself through the gap.

The air in the tunnel was very faint and nearly non-existing since the tunnel was blocked off. He had a bit of trouble breathing but saw a nice path to walk on. He beaconed to Snow that she had to come through the gap as everything was safe. They walked further down the tunnel and started to see a dim light at the end of it. It was blue in nature. When they arrived at the location where the blue light came from it was nothing else but the ore they had been searching for. the floor was scattered with small crystals all over the ground blue in color. They looked beautiful and pointed to them and smiled at snow. “It seems we founded them. let’s head back the way we came so we can tell them”, he said to her and they started walked backwards down the path. It would take a while before they had walked all the way out of the cave.

After clearing out the rocks, Chelvaric was the first one to go through the gap between the rocks. Gesturing to her that it was safe on the other side, Snowflake began to crawl to the gaps and brushed off the dust on her dress afterwards. Even in the midst of troublesome situations, a girl has to look her best, or so she thought. Fixing her hair and her eyeband, the two of them continued down the pathway which finally led them to what they have been searching for the entire time; the blue ore. As disappointing as it may be, there was only a small amount of the ore. Since they have already discovered the existence of this rare item, they prepared to exit the cavern just like Chelvaric had mentioned. It wouldn’t be safe for them to stay here any longer.

It was a lot of work, since they had to go through all the trouble that they had just went through albeit, she did somewhat remember which path they were supposed to follow and also had a rough sketch of the entire map of the cavern just in case it might be necessary. Despite how she might have terrible memory, she was useful at times as well. By the time they reached the exit of the cavern, she caught sight of the Rune Knights that were stationed earlier at the entrance before once again. Her eyes wandered over the area ahead, searching for Vysella to see if she would still be here. Her signature move of calling her companion was a whistle although if she did make a move of that sort, the knights would discover that they had sneaked inside the cavern and who knows what might happen to them afterwards thus, there was no choice for them but to wait for Vysella to appear.

Not long after, Vysella would come into view from a distance and noticing the smell of her owner, the white fox sprang into action. She sprinted off into a distance, forcing the knights to chase off her and therefore, allowed the two of them some time to escaped. Once they had exited the cavern, she relayed the information to Barras and they would be rewarded with a plenty amount of jewels in return. Vysella returned soon after and it seemed that Snowflake will have to reward her when they get back home for what she had done for them.


(20% Wordcount Reduction from Team & Guild Perk)

It wasn’t too hard to get tot he exit as they knew the way really good and they already had walked these parts. Chelvaric was quite getting bothered by the dripping water that sometimes fell from the celieing so he was happy to be outside. So he didn’t had to dodge the drops of water now and then. He breath in the nice fresh air but they couldn’t come too much outside as the rune knights were still waiting for them. dammid this was annoying. It would have been better if they were off duty. But nothing to much to handle tough. Snow whistled and Chelvaric saw the little white fox run trough the rune knights. He put his tumb up for good job and thank you fox and Scraggy was looking dreamy at her. They quickly ran past the rune knights and then walked all the way to Magnolia to get to the clients house. They then explained the location of the ore and all the holes and traps in the cavern. Once he was informed he smiled bright and paid them the jewels not much later they would be walking there separate ways to there houses. He was a bit sad his job was already over with snowflake.