Spending My Retirement In A Game

"Possibly. Most curses that were laid on items affect those with a certain intent. Maybe for this, it’s going to affect all those that don’t follow the amulet’s will? Of course, the will would be that it was to be put back together, and since you’re doing that, you’re not affected. That makes me wonder, though... Who put that curse on these shards?"

Confused at what Xenia was getting at, Eisen began moving his fingers through his beard, before the High-Elf continued to explain after noticing exactly this being the case. "Curses can only be placed after some preparation, or through feelings of immense malice. After talking to that ghost just now, we know the second isn’t the case. Spirits of that kind are basically quite pure when it comes to their emotion, meaning that they don’t, or rather can’t, stop showing what they really mean. But at the same time, that being the case, someone needed to place the curse on the amulet beforehand."

Immediately, Eisen stood up and looked at Xenia with a deep frown. "So what you’re saying is that someone cursed Kirisho’s amulet? Why would someone do that?"

"Maybe... Someone messed up. That amulet may just be a failed product." Dien quietly suggested, before Eisen turned toward him, causing the elf to jump slightly before continuing to avoid a misunderstanding. "Please don’t get me wrong! Listen, it just makes sense, right? You’re affected by curses if you don’t follow the amulet’s will. So basically, the curses are punishments. Let’s say you find that amulet somewhere. The spirit inside tells you to do something, but because you don’t want to do that, you simply get rid of the amulet. But that doesn’t work and the amulet returns to you, while then instilling the curse of fear onto you. If you’re an outside person, if you could control the spirit, couldn’t you control the person who currently has the amulet? Maybe that woman is far too nice to be controlled?" The Elf asked, leaving both Eisen and Xenia to think about if for a while, before the old man sighed loudly.

"Do you think that’s possible?" Eisen asked with a serious expression, and Xenia nodded after thinking for a while. "Maybe. We can’t say for sure, but it’s a definite possibility, isn’t it? Well, once you fix the amulet, we may see what’s going on. And I might be able to remove the curses as well, so that it’s just a regular amulet with a ghost inside." Xenia explained, moving her hair behind her hair again, before Eisen looked at her with curiosity.

"Oh, so you can do things like that as well?" Eisen asked her, and she smugly nodded.

"Of course I can. In the end, curses are a specific kind of magic. Shamanism just takes longer to do than other magic, because it’s based around rituals. Anyway, how about I dispose of that seed?" She asked, holding her hand forward, and just before Eisen wanted to hand it to her, the old man hesitated.

"Wait a second, first, can you explain to me how these work? Caria here is a Lesser Myconid Druid right now, and I was told by another companion that she seems a lot like a Dryad, meaning that she’s working on her control over plants. Could she maybe use that seed somehow if you remove the curse?" The old man asked, looking over at the small girl still holding the even smaller girl in her arms, before Xenia began to think for a short while.

"Hmm... Usually, these seeds infect other plants that will then turn into fearsome monsters, really, they just look horrible, and then once it has enough ’minions’ it itself will grow into a plant-monster depending on what kind of plants it infected. I mean... I guess I could try and change the curse, and make it something hopeful instead of fearsome?"

After Xenia said this, Dien quickly jumped up from where he sat, looking at the High-Elf in surprise. "Wait, do you mean you managed to edit them already? I thought you just started looking into that!" With a wide grin, Xenia nodded her head, happy that she could brag a little bit.

"Hehe, it’s nothing special, really. In order to break curses, you already need to weaken them by adding another, opposing effect to it, to then break the curse. Now, that’s really just a way of editing the curse, isn’t it? When you really think about the differences in the rituals for placing a curse and for removing a curse, it’s not that hard to figure out how to play around with the curses." Xenia then swiftly explained, while Dien quickly shook his head.

"Fine fine, but that’s not really the issue here, is it? A curse is always something negative, robbing the affected of either their strength, wisdom or sanity. You can’t change that to something positive or ’hopeful’."

Curious to see where this was going, Eisen chose to sit down at the bench again while taking Melissa from Caria, simply watching the conversation of these two Mages.

"That’s the case for people that can only set curses. I, on the other hand, have also learned of blessings. While the type of rituals needed for curses and blessings are quite different to each other in their essence, it is possible to combine them. I have actually attempted this before, although it never quite turned out how I wanted to. When you try to turn a curse into a blessing, the curse’s effects are automatically changed to be a ’good’ equivalent. So the feeling of fear that is placed onto the seed can be changed to a feeling of glee or hope." And with that, Xenia chose to turn to Eisen, to continue the conversation with him, as that was how this started. "It’s going to take a while though, and I’d like you to at least assist me with getting everything I need, since this is a pretty high-grade curse. It’s a lot of different small things, and a few potions need to be brewed as well."

"Of course, this is my request after all. And we will be spending some time in this town either way, so it’s not like we’re in a rush. Anyway, right now, my focus is on figuring out where the guy with the last shard is. Let’s meet up with the rest of my companions and then talk through everything, maybe they have an Idea on how to deal with everything."

As the old man was saying this, he opened his chat window, quickly messaging Komer to tell him that they should meet up in their Inn. And since Eisen got a message back quite quickly saying that it’s going to take a while, since Sky still didn’t get his occupation yet.

"I guess that’s perfect, then. Xenia, want to tag along and show me around for a bit? I’d like to go to a tailor if possible." Eisen exclaimed, as he smiled at the young woman, taking Caria’s hand while carrying Melissa in his other, and Kiron already stepped to his side.

"Uh... sure? Why’d you need to go there, though. You already bought a great suit, right?" The high-elf asked confused, letting Eisen simply sigh out at the word ’bought’.

"Xenia, as a point of reference, I only ’buy’ materials and ingredients as well as things I can’t make yet. Everything you see on me and my companions was made by me, by hand. Well, except the clothes that Sky and Komer are wearing, but I’ll get on it soon."

"Wait, what? You made all of that? You made your backpack, your suit, that Dragon guy’s sword, that little girl’s hat and even the carriage you talked about?" Xenia asked surprised and in light disbelief, and Eisen quickly nodded as the group began moving, with Dien walking behind them with a bit of distance, considering that he was ever so slightly terrified of Eisen.

"Yes, I made all of that. So I plan on creating everything that I and my companions may need. And that also counts for the other originals and their companions. And by the way, the thing on Caria’s head isn’t a hat. It’s her cap. As in, her mushroom-cap. So I didn’t make that, but I made her dress instead?"

"It’s her cap, huh? Then it became like that just through her evolution? It really does look just like a Witch’s hat though. Wait, nevermind that! You made all of those different types of items? Really? How could you even learn all of that?" She asked, whispering so that Dien couldn’t hear, as this was a question faced toward Benjamin, and not Eisen.

"I’m an old man, Xenia. I’ve had all the time in the world to learn, haven’t I?" Eisen explained with a quick wink as the group made their way back onto the regular streets of Handor, led through toward the different shops and luxury districts, where Eisen noticed something peculiar.

"I’m quite curious, why are there so many shops meant for jewelry?" He asked as he turned toward Xenia again, who didn’t even need to think much about it.

"Ah, I wondered about that as well at first. You see, from all kinds of items, Jewelry is the easiest to simply transform into magic items and imbue with all sorts of effects. Different gems and crystals are completely normal for jewelry, and different minerals that help enchantments are easy to implement as well. On top of that, they’re quite inconspicuous and easy to keep on you at all times. Also, they break or rip far harder than clothes or bags, and since especially mages don’t usually wear armor, that’s the best choice." As Xenia explained this, she slowly pulled up her sleeve, revealing two bracelets and a ring that she was wearing, that Eisen looked at with quite a lot of curiousity.

"The bracelets are for one to increase my mana regeneration and to reduce the time I need to sleep so that I can work longer. It’s really only a minimal increase though, so they don’t do all that much. The type that’s used most is this one here though, the storage ring. It’s infused with the space element so that you can access a ’pocket dimension’ of sorts. It’s large enough for small items like mana crystals, random gems or treasure that people find, as well as important items like potions, food and water, so many adventurers or travelers have them." Xenia continued to explain, while Eisen remembered that Bree talked about them before as well, and that those were the reason that she was always replaced in the parties of adventurers before.

After a little bit of thought, Eisen swiftly nodded. "Hm, maybe I should look into that, then. At the very least into those storage things. I may be able to increase the capacity of my carriage, or generally my storage items. A companion of mine, our supporter and carrier, wears a large backpack, so maybe this might help to make it easier on her. She always tries to figure out how to put more things into it, and I don’t want to make the backpack even larger."

"Ah, that might be a bit expensive. These storage rings work with spatial gems, and they’re a bit hard to get a hold of if you don’t have the right contacts."

With that in mind, Eisen slowly nodded. In the end, money was not a huge problem to him, since he never minded spending a lot of it if it meant he could make something interesting, or if he thought it was worth it. And this definitely was worth it.