Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 62: Let's Make a Deal

There were six other figures sitting around the small fire as Alex walked forward. Even though Obby seemed rather pleased with the idea they could get attacked, the System notification had already made it explicit that violence wasn’t allowed inside the node.

For the current moment at least, PvP was turned off.

A risk was still involved in interacting with them, sure. But Alex could at least talk to them without worry of being killed right out the gate.

The first set of figures that he saw looked to belong to a Martial Sect, given their strong builds and the matching martial robes that they wore. Each had on black robes with golden trim, a logo of a bird of some kind showing next to their left shoulder. They looked like what Alex imagined old-school monks would back on Earth, except with black attire instead of orange.

Orange looks better. He confirmed in his mind. Orange robes, spiky black hair. Training by a guy who looks like a turtle. Yeah, that’s the type of guy you need to look out for.

Before his mind wandered too much, Alex brought his attention back to the people in front of him. One looked male, with short brown hair in the front, but a long braid in the back. Alex had seen this style before and had started to call it the ‘martial mullet’ in his head.

The second looked to be female, her hair was pulled back into a single braid that reached to the small of her back.

Sitting opposite the martial mages were two even bigger and burlier men. They didn’t wear robes and instead had on metal armor that looked to be a slimmed-down version of a medieval knight from Earth. One, a blonde-haired man, had his helmet removed, and Alex could see a row of three scars running from his right temple down to his chin, as well as a fourth scar running diagonally over his nose, which had a large chunk missing.

The second knight still had his helmet on, so Alex couldn’t see what they looked like besides their obvious body build.

The final duo was a little different. The first of which was a person wearing nearly all black with their hood drawn up and a black mask over the lower half of their face. Alex got the distinct impression that should he get attacked by them, the figure would be rolling a butt load of extra D6’s for damage.

Sitting next to the dark figure was a woman in more typical adventuring attire. Wearing a back brown black, worn trousers and a tunic. Besides a glittering golden ring on her hand, they didn’t have anything on them that would have indicated they were anything but a common person.

“Greetings. May we join you all for a bit?” Akus was the first to speak, even giving a small bow to them all.

“Greetings to you, and please, yes, claim a log and hunker down.” The blonde knight with the scarred face said with a smile, waving them both closer.

Akus sat before Alex did, but after an awkward moment he joined his teammate, sitting on a large log in front of the fire, one that didn’t seem to have any source, given Alex saw no trees in the room from which to log might have come from.

“I’m Leeson, this is Braghun,” the blonde said, indicating their fellow helmeted knight.

The moment he said their names, Alex’s vision flashed and System notifications appeared above each of their heads.