165: Chapter 165

Chapter 165

0"What are your plans for your stay in Assah?" The Black Dragon asks as they walk through the gates. 

"The beach, new snacks, and the beach, and maybe later some dungeons?" Laura answers, getting distracted at the end by a hotdog cart.

"Well, we can help you out there. Red has a massive sweet tooth, so he knows all the best places in town to get dessert." The Black Dragon informs them. 

The Red Dragon shoots her a dirty look, but does point the way towards a plain looking shop with a picture of pie and coffee as it's sign. 

"No words? I take it not everyone who visits speaks the same common language? Everyone we've met so far has." Misha asks from her place under Cain's arm, subconsciously in full defense mode against the women of this city. 

"Mostly everyone will speak the human language, but we do get some merfolk, selkies and others who aren't great with it. There are 5 great continents in total, this one being Central." Red informs them. 

"All but West have a significant human presence. If we get visitors from West, which is rare on this side of the continent, they'll speak Frost Giant instead." Red continues with a bit of annoyance. Either for the language or out of an innate dislike of Frost Giants. 

"That's a relief then. Learning a new language to travel to new cities would have been a pain." Misha smiles, looking at the shop, which appears to be a Cafe. 

The Dragons lead the large party in and take a pair of tables to push together into one. The whole place is 50s retro diner and reminds Cain a lot of the one in the very first village they transferred to. There is a sitting counter at one end for solo visitors, as well as more seating at a long table that looks out the large front windows, in addition to the tables and Red vinyl clad booths. 

The important part is what's on the counter though. Dozens of cakes and pies, for sale by the slice, sit within glass domed cases waiting for someone to order them. They're easy to see from the tables the Dragons picked, and they're the only ones in the place at the moment, other than a waitress in a yellow dress and white apron that just hurried out of the back. 

"Welcome dears, what can I get you started off with today?" The aging Spirit Folk waitress asks with a big smile, her dark brown hair streaked with white and carefully curled and pinned.

"Let's start with a round of coffees, and a large sample platter of the cakes." The Black Dragon says with a nod of her head. That must be a thing because the waitress simply smiles back before disappearing to go get the drinks. 

"I feel bad for not asking earlier, but what are your names?" Cain says, as the aroma of fresh coffee fills the Cafe. 

"I'm Red, I know it's cliche and all. But it's easy to say. This is Cupcake, but most people who value their lives call her Black." The Red Dragon smirks, before getting smacked in the head. 

"My name is not Cupcake. It's Blashamarial. Which is hard to say, so people call me Black." The other Dragon corrects him. 

"Can I call you Arial instead? I like that better." Laura asks, shamelessly assigning a new nickname to the other Dragon. 

"Not bad. Like the play about the mermaid. Years ago one of the transfers got a group together to do a lot of the plays and movies he had seen in his past life, that was one of them." Arial tells them with a smile and Kone gives Cain a 'we are seeing that' type look. 

The waitress is back with their order, a large pot of coffee, including an assortment of flavored creams is placed in the middle of the table and everyone gets cups, then a half dozen smaller trays are placed around it, each with ten different small round cakes on it. Forget about a light snack, there's at least three full cakes worth on the table right now. 

None of the Dragons have an issue with that though, confident in their ability to finish off any amount of sweets. The little cakes are on paper doilies, so they can be picked up and transferred to a plate and everyone grabs an assortment until the trays are empty. 

While everyone else is taking alternating bites of their cakes to compare flavors, Laura has placed hers in a circle around the edge of her plate and seated herself in the middle, surrounded by a wall of cake. She's working her way across, cutting slices with a tiny sword and eating a portion of each cake to build her own fluffy fortress on the table. 

The waitress is smiling at her antics in amusement, but seems reluctant to ask the obvious question on her mind. 

"Yes, she uses this form instead of a full sized human so she can get more bites out of every cake." Cain tells the waitress while Laura pointedly ignores him in favor of carving a row of windows through her mostly finished miniature cakes. 

"These are amazing. Ten flavors of tiny cake reminds me of the cupcakes they made for you during that level up party, but these are even better." Laura finally speaks as the first section of her cake wall has been devoured.

That was a pretty good party too. So many of them leveled up at the same time. 

"Want to see the skill library after this? It has got a full skill tree for most classes in the first and even second advancement, and you can pay to have books copied if you want a skill they've got in the shelves." Arial suggests. 

"Yes, I need to work off some of this sugar, keep my svelte figure." Su jokes, swinging her short Nymph legs under her seat. 

"Dragons transformation changes to whatever they want it to be, with a little practice. Would it be rude to ask how you two ended up with such strange forms?" The Black Dragon asks, indicating Su and Laura. 

"I tried a human an Elf and a Spirit Folk form in the past, but I missed my leaves. At least a Nymph has a few. But Laura really did pick that form to get more enjoyment out of cake." Su teases.

"Seriously?"

"Have you ever seen a whole cake when you're ten centimeters tall? It's glorious." Laura confirms. 

Now fully loaded with caffeine and sugar they pay the bill and head towards where Red indicates the Skill Library is. It's a grand building, carved limestone with stained glass windows depicting myths of the sea. Even been the door the building smells of old books and Misha gets a happy, vacant smile as she takes in the distinctive scent of an ancient library. 

"Why don't we split up a while? We've all got different interests, so staying together would be a waste, Cain suggests only a half second before everyone starts doing it anyways. 

He's going to find that book with information on the Puppet Master and see what exactly he's got coming for skills. 

The class skill outlines are all in the same area of the library, sorted by Class type. Cain is saved the search though, when he sees the assistant who brought the book to Earl RhickJaymz coming in with a large leather bound time in his hands. 

"Does that book have a full skill tree for the Puppet Master Class?" Cain asks as he approaches. 

"Unfortunately no, it's a second progression class, and normally only unlocked by a restricted quest, so details on it are limited by the low numbers. It's got a general outline of the expected abilities, but as you've been one for a hundred levels now, you should be familiar with it by now. I'm told you picked Lord Path first, so your summons are much stronger than usual, the next would be General, increasing the numbers by a huge margin and supposedly allowing you to Summon entire armies to fight for you. 

Most of what we know of the class comes from a Northern Continent Lord. At level 320 or so he simply founded an entire city. His summons run everything from government to the banks and the Adventurers Hall. Every city worker is one of his summons or puppets. The way he uses them though, made a lot of people think his city should be avoided. One of the early General Path skills lets him appoint Lieutenants, which gain extra strength. But he can also give them orders, and with an S Rank Skill he found somewhere, he can make those orders mandatory, basically enslaving them."

Cain thinks a while on this information, it makes sense, he already got Appointed Companion in the Lord Path, so Generals should have Lieutenants. Mixed with a mind control type skill, like the Succubus ability [Suggestion] you could make the Lieutenants into living puppets. Not his style though, micromanagement isn't for him. 

pqdm.com