[Treasure] Hidden Watering Hole

Hidden Watering Hole

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Deep within the forest hides a watering hole where some of the local streams merge together. It's well hidden by the nearby foliage and endless blankets of tall grass and brush that grow wildly due to being left untouched by civilization for quite some time. The sound of birds and other wildlife are slowly drowned out as trickling water slowly overtakes any other sounds as one draws close. The chest itself is somewhat obscurely placed, hidden beneath the water's turbulent surface and barely visible save for an occasional glint of metal reflecting off weak beams of light that drift in past the treeline.

Hidden: Mysterious Tunnel

A dark tunnel off in the distance leads to the base of the watering hole. It opens up to reveal a lake formed from the collection of pooling water.

Hidden: Watering Hole Edge

From atop the watering hole, one can look down from the edge and into the pool coalescing below. Though the journey down looks rather slippery however as the sides are draped in thick sheets of moss.

The Chest: The chest is fairly new, perhaps recently misplaced or concealed here away from prying eyes. It's littered in magical runes that glow when interacted with. Perhaps the right interaction will cause it to open momentarily? The chest has a ticking timer as well, and you seem to only have enough time to grab 1 item.

Note: This is an event for people who have yet to open a treasure chest this week (timer reset's Sunday).

Briefly tell a story about what were you doing up until this point, then, describe how you would retrieve this chest. (400 words minimum)

3/3 Reward Claimed​

 

Aaron swung his sword, severing a branch. He sighed, before sheathing the weapon. He'd come to this forest to explore for a bit, but slowly he was starting to get bored. He groaned out loud. He wanted adventure, or excitement, or something! The last few missions he had been on hadn't left him feeling very heroic. Still... he was optimistic. He had the feeling something would be happening soon, and he wanted to be ready for it. As a result, he wanted to be sure to be fully geared up, and have a decent number of mastery points already put into his four main skills.

The sounds of waters reached Aaron's ears. Curious, and with nothing else to do, he decided to look for where the noises were coming from. He pushed further into the forest, and listened as the sound grew louder and loud. Soon, he came to a river. "Why hello," he said. "Where do you lead to?" He asked it. Knowing the only way to get an answer was if he followed it himself, Aaron began to walk along the edge of the river, following it's flow.

Before long, he reached a cave-like structure where it seemed several creeks, streams, and rivers were all flowing into. With no reason not to, Aaron entered the cave slowly.

The sound of dripping water and splashing echoed through the cave, and his footsteps reverbated in the tunnel. It was dark, and he could barely see what lay within. Aaron drew his sword once again. "Perspicuus in loco isto ut videam," he spoke. His sword began to glow softly, casting light into the tunnel.

He trekked inward, dispelling the light of his sword once he could see from the light that had begun coming in from the other side. As he stepped out of the tunnel, Aaron found himself at a strange watering hole. He looked down the edge and saw a pool of water coalescing from where all the streams of the forest seemed to merge. Not watching his step, Aaron got caught on a root. "Shit!" He cursed, and stumbled close to the edge. The ground gave out, and Aaron found himself sliding down the edge of the cliff, cursing the entire time. "Oh, shit, fuck, ow!"

When he reached the bottom, Aaron groaned in pain. He looked at his health and sighed. That fall had taken nearly all of it away from him. He pulled open his spell menu and activated his healing spell. "Curandi cicatrices uulnerum et numquam," he found himself saying. His hand began to glow, and he found that wherever its light touch began to hurt less. His health bar slowly raised.

Once he could stand, Aaron walked over to the watering hole. That fall had made him thirsty. As he bent down to take a drink, he noticed something seemed to reflect from within the pool. "How strange..." he muttered. At first, he intended to ignore it, but slowly his curiosity grew. He leaned in for a closer look, and he could have sworn he saw a treasure chest at the bottom. Aaron looked up at the sky. How could it have gotten there? Then again, this was a game. He ought to use game logic.

Unable to contain his desire to know more, Aaron decided to investigate. He back to take all his clothes off, save the bare essentials to protect modesty if anyone came by. Once that was done, Aaron dived into the pool.

The chest had strange runes upon it. Aaron brushed his fingers against them, and as if by magic, the chest slowly began to open. As quick as he could, for already his lungs were beginning to ache for air, Aaron reached into the chest. His fingers closed around something he hoped might be a sword or a maybe a shield. With no time left to spare, Aaron swam up to the surface.

He coughed and gasped for air when his head broke the water. Then, he looked in his hands to see what exactly his prize had been.

 

Felicitas stifled a loud laugh as some small animal fell from its branch, landing safely, but comically, on the forest floor. It seemed to her that the deeper she ventured into this forest, she funnier the wildlife became. What would have been a worrying movement before, she could now recognize as a small rodent managing to somehow be clumsier than her.
"Oof!" A could of dust and small flying bugs rose around her as she fell to her knees, glaring at the offending plant, A small spray of wildfowers that was almost sad to have crushed. They were... interesting, if not pretty. The surviving flowers were a deep, disturbing blue, and the petals shaped like corkscrews. The curshed petals, odly, gave off green liquid, and she quickly wiped it off of her ratty clothes, and moved forward, watching out for more.
Soon, the patches of those wildflowers thinned, and she saw taller, greener plants, some looking similar to cat's tails. She grinned, she hadn't seen what type of flora and fauna lived near the streams, and if she could find any pretty rocks, mabe she could use them to decorate helmets and gloves. Or, she could use them to decorate her inventory. As she drew nearer, the sound of water seemed to drown out all other sound. The chirping birds, the sway of leaves in the winds, and the sounds of insects all faded as she neared not just a stream, but a wonderful collection of streams, all coalescing in what seemed to be a watering pool, set in a deep hollow in the ground She sat down next to the pit, looking down, searching for signs of fish, frogs, or water striders, and hummed quietly to herself, settling in to wait for something insteresing,
She didn't have to wait long. First, a fish bumped straight into what seemed to be a very square rock, and then, a wild breeze blew around her, shaking the branches and leaves vigorously, and letting more light though the canopy than she'd seen since she appproached the water.
There- was that?
A glint of metal!
Felicitas leaned forward, pressing her first two fingers to her temple in an effort to see it more clearly.
There it was again!
It was definitely metal, and it was definitely that square 'rock'.
Felicitas stood quickly, searching the hollow for a safe way to climb down. She could see the mouth of a tunnel at the bottom, but she didn't see anything that looked like an entrance nearby.
Maybe climbing down wasn't the safest option, but if she had any gamer instincts, it was that this chest was imprtant, and she should definitely touch it.
She found a place that seemed to have footholds and began climbing down slowly. Very slowly.
The footholds were fewer than she anticipated, and they really didn't work well as handholds.
So, nearly halfway down, Felicitas lost her grip.
She gave a loud yell as she fell, and tried to take a deep breath before she hit the water.
Suddenly the world was deafening, then silent. She was underwater. A fish seemed to mock her fate, and she let out another yell, kicking furiously upward.
As the approached the surface, a current buffeted her backward, impedeing her progress and slamming her right into a pile of rock.
On top was a very square rock.
Her eyes snapped open, and she immediately regret that decision. She grabbed the 'rock', which she could now see was a chest, and yanked herself onto the pile of rocks beneath it, finally surfacing.
She gasped for breath and coughed furiously, her hands quickly trying to examine the chest. She saw mysterious runes swirling on its surface and praised the game developers that it hadn't hurt her yet. However, she knew there must be a key to opening it. She Pressed her two first fingers to her temple again, and looked closer.
Seeing nothing that could help her, she sighed, shrugging.
"Well, doesn't hurt to try," she mutttered, forcing her shaking fingers to pry at the lock.

 

@Aaron Marone

As you quickly swipe at the chest and resurface, your in-game interface indicates the following item now rests in your palm:

Apprentice's Training Sword - 1H Short Sword - Though not particularly valuable, the sword radiates a sense of devotion. Countless hours of practice and sweat can be sensed from this weapon's weathered hilt.

 

@Felicitas Hellewege

As you quickly swipe at the chest and resurface, your in-game interface indicates the following item now rests in your palm:

Rusty Sabatons - Heavy Feet - They look rather well worn... perhaps too well worn.

 

Roland grumbled as he stumbled down one of the various trails in the Adecus Forest, it had been a long day, and even worse he had made very little profits. Again. It seemed to be the way things worked in this MMO, starting without a weapon, or armor was a major handicap since he had only taken weapon and defensive skills. As such he was regulated to doing the lowest level fetch quests he could find. Unfortunately, unlike most games he was required to find even those wasting precious hours tracking down NPCs only to find out their quests were impossible at his current skill level. Still he was at least able to find some work, he thought as he rubbed the cat scratches on his arms, but it was a slow process.

“Talk about a hardcore game.” Roland thought out loud as he aimlessly wandered the empty alley purposefully getting lost to see if he could find some sort of extra event hidden somewhere in the city. “At least today wasn’t a total lost.” The traveler said as he raised his pointer finger to his temple. He had learned today that there was a hidden skill every player including himself knew by default. It was called investigate, and it was activated by one placing their finger upon their temple and focusing on the immediate area. Roland did so, and within a few moments several contextual windows began to pop up in front of him describing various things in the forest.

None of the text boxes were of much interest but Roland was curious if the skill could be ‘leveled’ up through use as opposed through using mastery points to invest in something like tracking or hunting. He doubted it could be, but at the very least he would learn the limits of the ability with his current investments. So he continued in a meandering pace forward quickly becoming bored with notifications of ‘tracks of unidentified animal’, ‘animal droppings’, and ‘herbal medical plant’ (though the latter he though could be useful in the future), and began to scan the visible tree line between the various brush.

After a good chunk of time had passed he caught sight of something glimmering in the air. His investigation skill didn’t have any contextual box for it, but outlined it in yellow, meaning he wasn’t close enough to identify it completely. Yet. Intrigued he carefully pushed his way through he leafy overgrowth towards the glimmer, quickly coming to the entrance of a large dark tunnel. Undeterred, and not particularly in a hurry, Roland carefully chose his footing and pushed forward coming to a large reservoir of water.

Roland scanned the surface of the pool utilizing his investigation skill until he lay sight on his prize, it was a box of some sort right underneath the water’s surface. The traveler paused at this however looking for a way to descend. The walls of the pool were slick with water and he doubted his character had the necessary dexterity to climb down them without falling in. “I bet I can use the moss to climb back up if necessary, but getting down without breaking my neck is the tricky part. I could just jump, but if the pool isn’t deep enough I’ll break my leg.” He said out loud to himself as he pondered the situation, “Well if I try to climb down, and lose my footing I could bring that moss down with me, and end up without a way out, I had best just jump and hope for the best, at least I don’t have any equipment to weight me down. “

Banishing any lingering fear from his mind the fighter jumped feet first into the lake in front of him, landing with a loud splash and a wave of relief as he felt himself fully immerse in the water. Not wasting time, he pushed himself over to the chest searching for some sort of latch. He didn’t find one, instead he discovered a complex series of runes covering the chest, which glowed faintly as he touched them. He tried to examine as many as he could before he was forced to resurface for air.

As he breached the water above he took in a sharp breath thankful for the first time he wasn’t weight down by any heavy armor, it made staying buoyant much easier, though it seemed his character lacked proper swimming skills. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and focus on the chest below, the runes were clearly the key to opening it, but he wasn’t sure how many times he could dive below so he needed a clear plan. Being a lifelong gamer and coder, the player Jin, was quite accustomed to the occasional puzzle and began to think of various different common variations to the puzzle he saw below. He decided the easiest approach would be to consider the runes as a binary input, and that a certain combination of them needed to be lit in possibly specific order to open the chest.

Roland grit his teeth as he took another long breath returning back below to the chest, where he began to paw at the boxes various runes causing them to light up. It seemed his earlier guess was correct, depending on which rune he hit, i the intensity of the light would change. Picking the more obvious route, he decided to hit the runes in order of dimmest to brightest but after hitting the last rune there was no result. His lungs straining, and not being able to think of another option, Roland quickly did the exact opposite, hitting each rune from brightest to dimmest. To his satisfaction, as he hit the last rune he heard a ‘click’ as the chest began to slightly open. Out of time Roland didn’t bother to glance at the contents and merely swiped it as swiftly as he could before returning to the water’s surface and swimming to shore.

 

@Roland Rutledge

As you quickly swipe at the chest and resurface, your in-game interface indicates the following item now rests in your palm:

Mystery Egg – a random mini pet will hatch after you have travel with it for a few weeks!

Congratulations on the stroke of luck!