"Huh? Yeah, I'm married, although just for a few months." Brody answered Xenia with a confused expression before the High-Elf looked over toward the others with surprise. "Wait, how did you guys know about it?"
With a wry smile, Eisen then slowly moved his fingers through his beard and answered the young woman. "We asked how else? But why are you so surprised? You do realize that Brody doesn't look like this in real life, right?"
"Of course, I know that! I don't know, and he just didn't seem like the type of person to settle down at his age, that's all it is." She answered, somewhat embarrassedly before Brody loudly laughed and nodded.
"Yeah, I can see that. Lots of people told me that I seem like some bed-hopper, but that just ain't me." He pointed out, and Xenia scratched her cheek with a grin. "W-Well, anyway, Eisen, who did you recommend?" She asked, trying to change the topic toward what they were talking about before, and the old man chuckled lightly before beginning to explain.
"Since Xenia didn't recommend someone and Evalia's recommendation was a bit complicated, Prime industries asked us if we want to recommend someone else besides who we already recommended. So, now I'll be joined by two people, my oldest Grandson, and Granddaughter. I hope you'll be able to assist them somewhat if they are interested in each of your areas of expertise." Eisen said with a smile as he looked at the four other originals next to him, who nodded their heads immediately.
"Of course, I'm not expecting you to mentor them throughout the whole game or something. But giving my grandchildren a few quests every once in a while so that they at least have some pointers, and something to reference would be lovely," Eisen said with a smile before the four others looked at each other and the old man in surprise.
"Erm, we can't give out quests Eisen, only NPCs can do that." Jyuuk tried pointing out this blatant piece of game logic, but Eisen swiftly shook his head. "That is not the case, no. Usual players won't be able to hand out quests, but since our role in this game is different to that of those players, and we're supposed to guide them, we can hand out quests. I gave a quest to my three apprentices before, by the way, so I know that it's the case." He explained, and all of them, especially Xenia and Jyuuk who were incredibly in love with videogames, looked at the old man with surprised expressions.
"W-Wait, do you mean that?! We can give out quests! Does that mean I can be the awesome overlord at the bottom of a tomb that people seek out in search of adventure?" Jyuuk asked excitedly, looking at the bone-tattoos covering his hand, and Xenia wildly grinned as she stared at Eisen.
"And I can be the beautiful Wizardess at the top of the tower that will teach only those magicians that manage to slay the Demon King for me?" She asked happily, before Eisen stared back at them in confusion, before turning to both Evalia and Brody to see if they have any idea of what the two of them were talking about,
"Sorry, I have not the slightest clue of what these two are even referencin' here." Evalia shook her head as she shrugged, really not sure what either of them was saying, and Brody similarly didn't have an idea either.
With a loud sigh, Eisen then shrugged. "Sure. But for that, we need that tomb and that tower first, don't we? Anyway, let's move on from this topic. I don't know what the direct requirements for giving out quests is, so we'll have to figure that out first anyway. Now, if possible, I would like all of you and your parties to gather whatever materials you need and already have on hand. Also, all of you come up with detailed ideas for any equipment you want. However, I'll only craft it if I have the materials for it." Eisen exclaimed, trying to move on before this conversation turned weird, or slightly weirder.
"Huh, really? You'll make anything at all?" Brody asked with surprise in his voice, and the old man swiftly nodded.
"Yes, of course. Since the trip to the islands are going to take a while, and everyone here needs to have the best equipment they can get to clear everything out easily, it only makes sense for me to work on everything while on the ship. Since I will be here almost constantly again for a while." Eisen explained to them, and it was a little bit silent for a while as they all thought about what kind of things to have this old man make for them before Eisen looked at Jyuuk, who he wanted to ask a few things since he was quite interested in what happened in the wastelands.
"Jyuuk, what are those bone tattoos on your hand?" He inquired curiously, before Jyuuk looked at Eisen in surprise, then his hand, and then back at Eisen with a smug smile.
"Ah, this! I told you there was this necromancer in the wastelands, right? I met him, completed a quick quest for him, and then he offered me to become a necromancer like him. But due to my preposition in regards to taming, I got a different class. I'm a Life and Death Minion Master now. I was quite surprised, and the occupation titles are quite long sometimes." Jyuuk said with a smirk as he waved his hand and a black smoke appeared from his fingertips before changing shape into a humanoid figure, albeit only being made of bones.
It was wearing an old rusty armor, and it was overgrown with vines that kept its body together, and there was even a small flower growing in one of its eye sockets. "I told you about my Beast Storage before, but now it changed into a Minion Storage skill. Depending on what kind of minion it is, the way it's represented changes. Undead via bones in a rather accurate anatomical representation, and Tamed Monsters still through tattoos. But right now, I can only store my undead in my hand, and nowhere else."
The Monkey-Beastperson explained with a smug grin before Eisen nodded as he looked at the Undead standing in front of him. "Maybe I should make you a Necronomicon, then. That would surely be useful, right?" Eisen suggested, and Jyuuk nodded with appreciation. "That would be great, thank you!" He exclaimed, and Eisen smiled back. "Of course, don't worry about it. And go ahead and think up a few items for your monsters as well. Especially your undead, I already feel my hammer-hand twitching when I look at that rusty armor."
As the old man told this to his friend, Jyuuk simply laughed and unsummoned the skeleton soldier, before apologizing with a smile. "Thanks. Well, anyway, what do all of you plan on doing for the rest of the day?"
"Hmm, I'm thinkin' about sculpting a bit, so nothin' special," Evalia answered first, and Brody nodded his head. "Yup, me neither. Want to see if I can find any new weapon types that they didn't have in the Wastelands here to get some new skills, but other than that…" Brody replied as he scratched the back of his head, and Xenia, smug as ever, responded next.
"I'm going to start working on some creation oriented skills! Like Alchemy or Enchanting, although I only want to find ways to make my magic better! And I want to see if I can find an Elemental Spirit soon, so I'll look into that for a while." She said, and Jyuuk looked at the three of them with a smile.
"I see. I'll be training with some of my beasts for a while to see what each of them can do, now that we can calm down for a little while. What about you though, Eisen?" Jyuuk asked the old man, who thought about it for a while before then putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out one of the Soul Stones that Jyuuk brought with him for a single purpose.
"I think I'll give a form to a soul today."
---
Soon after his conversation with the other Originals, Eisen then sat in his Carriage where he had everything that he could possibly need while giving the soul a form, including peace and silence.
With a smile, Eisen then grabbed one of the soul stones in his pocket and held it in his hand, before using transmutation to slowly crack the sphere open, making the soul float in front of him.
It was a lot smaller and harder to see than the soul he had with him before, but that was somewhat understandable considering that this was a Rank 1 soul.
[Blank Soul][Rank - 1]
[Soul Strength - 50]
[Integrity – 1][Mana Generation – 1][Thought - 0]
[Form – None]
[Options]
-[Edit]
-[Refine]
-[Give Form]
Eisen slowly nodded as he looked through the information in front of him and one after another went through the options, first choosing the edit option, but finding a light problem with it.
[Soul is too unstable to be edited]
[Increase Soul Strength through Refining to continue]
With a sigh, Eisen waved these notifications away and quickly chose the next option, which was to refine the soul.
[Place Soul into a Refining Pot and feed it other souls of same or higher soul strength to refine]
[For Blank Souls, any Refining Pot can be used, but an unspecialized type is recommended, as this will keep the souls pure]
[Certain Souls will require a specialized type of Refining Pot]
"Interesting. I should look into that at some point. But first…" The old man muttered as he waved these notifications away again and chose the last of the three options.
[To give a soul a form, you will need to rely on all of your senses to make sure that you create the form that the soul wants to have]
[You will need to use different skills and materials to create a vessel whose form the soul will take, and will, in turn, devour the vessel whole, even if the soul does not like the vessel you have offered to it]
[The higher the Soul Strength, the pickier a soul becomes and the vessel will need to be as specific as possible]
[To connect with the soul, you will need to enter its Soul Realm momentarily]
[Do you want to Give a form to a soul?]
Excitedly, Eisen read through the information and broadly grinned as he activated this part of his Soul Engineering Skill. Soon enough, the world around Eisen completely disappeared, and he found himself in a dark space.
Soon enough, his eyes got used to the dark, and he noticed where he was; inside of a simple cave. There wasn't much in there, and it was just a dark, spherical room more than anything else while concentrating on what was in there, or instead if anything was in there at all.
But Eisen quickly noticed that this was not the case. And as he was looking around, Eisen noticed a notification.
[You can leave the Soul Realm at any point by merely willing yourself to do so]
With a smile, Eisen waved this notification away and took another look around to make himself familiar with the visuals of this cave, before he closed his eyes to concentrate on his other senses.
His back that was exposed to the air as he was wearing his leather apron was feeling cold due to a gentle gust of air coming from an unknown source, and there was not a single sound coming from any point. In this complete and utter silence, Eisen thought that he could only find a relatively abstract image for the 'vessel.'
Dark, isolated, and cold. It was something that was hiding away in this small space, so it for sure wouldn't be anything large or flashy. Just something little that could be placed into something else and carried with you safely while the item itself was just there in your pocket.
It wouldn't be something practical, merely an item that you would have just because you could. And Eisen had just the perfect idea what item that would be.