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[F1/SP] «Earning a Living»


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Stats:

Spoiler
  • Level: 4
  • HP: 80/80
  • EP: 8/8
  • DMG: 6
  • ACC: 0
  • EVA: 0
  • LD +0
  • Primary : T1 2H Assault Spear (Dmg II)
  • Secondary: T1 Vanity Light Armor (N/A)
  • Tertiary: N/A
  • Inventory: 3x 50hp potion, 1x 40hp potion

Quest: Earning a Living {Alchemist}

Well rested and ALMOST in a good enough mood to tolerate the smell of... whatever blacksmiths did, the metal melty crap, The Artist Formerly Known As Sabrina took flight on wings of - she walked to the location of her adventure of yesterday like a common pleb. No amount of pleasant mood or fanciful imagination was going to let her strap on some fairy wings and yeet herself across town, and she had asked about that. It seemed like kind of a big omission, she wasn't an expert on fantasy games but she had read enough about elves and pixies and stuff that Sumire was of the strong opinion that they should totally exist here. Apparently boss-man had used up all his creativity on the death game thing.

For better or worse, Zackariah's abode hadn't disappeared overnight, and she had something she wanted to talk to him about before she did this blacksmithing thing. She hadn't promised Lyle she'd show up at a specific time after all, and right now she had some more learning to do. Hopefully.

The old rascal was in the exact same place he had been yesterday, and... may or may not have recognized her, she couldn't remember if this was how he greeted her yesterday. "Hello, young lady. How can I help you?" Hmm. Ah, whatever. "Hey gramps. Can you teach me more about that potion making stuff? It seemed crazy handy, I heard you can make all kinds of cool stuff with it." He blinked, apparently having expected another opening line, but after a moment seemed to regain his bearing. "I would be happy to miss, but I'm afraid my specialty is primarily potions. Alchemy is an ancient art with a great deal of versatility, capable of composing powerful salves as well as crafting crystals with instantaneous effects. May I recommend Ms. Calora? She is quite the accomplished alchemist, and I'm certain she can aid you in that."

Edited by Sumire
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Well, wouldn't be a quest if not for the zany twists, she supposed. After a bit more chatter and some helpful directions, Sumire struck out on her own again, this time headed towards a different part of town where her target was apparently located. As always, Zackariah's directions were solid, but this place seemed more like a... she didn't even know, man. Like a mix between a festival, a carnival, and hippie town. Plenty of stalls and fancy signage, not so much in the wise of street signs and useful info. She would have walked right past the tent had she been paying the slightest bit less attention, catching the sign out of the corner of her eye before barging on in. But... politely. Also, she didn't actually barge into anything, on account of some distinguished-looking old lady coming out of the tent before she could.

"Hello, young lady. Are you looking for something?" "Uh, yeah, actually, I'm looking for Ms. Calora, I wanna learn more about alchemy. 'm Sumire." The old lady brightened up, her sweet look not masking the intelligence in her eyes. Why the fuck did everyone here have to be smarter than her? "You've come to the right place, Sumire." Sabrina was glad she had picked a properly Japanese name for this damn game. It was so nice to have everyone say your name perfectly the first time; it was almost musical hearing it. Not like "Saburina", which sounded like some kinda fuckin' band name, she'd pretty much given up on trying to get people to say that right. "Alchemy is a proud art that specializes in transmuting materials together and from one state to another. While solutions and crystals do not last forever, they can greatly improve your abilities and save your life in a tough situation!"

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'Not dying' sounded like a pretty good feature for a profession as far as Sumire was concerned, and she had already figured out the temporary thing from Zack's explanation yesterday and a bit of asking around town. In her mind it was a pretty simple tradeoff; if she got good enough gear it could last her a while, but a constant stream of potions might be harder to come by. Apparently there were a pretty wide variety of professions, but she was more concerned about just getting one going.

"Now there is one problem unfortunately. The short lifespan of many of the materials we work with means that an alchemist has to acquire new materials regularly, and unfortunately I am running quite low after a few, ah, mishaps with some other young folks I ran into earlier. Would you mind gathering a few for me? They aren't difficult to find and can be acquired in a number of ways; most can be acquired from gathering, and you can substitute other reagents from the abominable monsters roaming the plains. I don't mind too much which you bring me back, just try to fill out a few categories, if you would?" Evangeline continued, listing off a number of options and alternatives that Sumire did her best to remember. "Don't worry dearie, you can check the quest log at any time to see how you're doing." ...That was a thing?

"It's good to see you prepared for anything! I won't take up any more of your time, just be careful out there. When you get back I will happily teach you more."

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Oh, right, the spear and armor. Sumire rotated her shoulder in its cuff and experimentally moved around a bit, still far from comfortable in this crap, much less with the large weapon hanging off her back. This was maybe the... third time she had ever worn this armor-ey crap, and the first time she had actually expected to use it in a life or death situation. She'd actually only worn it in case Lyle needed help with murdering some fools, but apparently this quest had a combat component to it as well. That didn't necessarily mean she was gonna use it, but... eh, what the hell. Might as well give it a shot. "Thanks Mizz Calora, I'll be back soon with the spoils of war!" See, why weren't real people this polite? She didn't think she was unreasonable, but there was a helluva difference between 'Sabrina, would you take out the trash?' and 'Sabrina, what the fuck did you break this time.' Night and day. Light and dark. Some kinda... yin-yang symbology, whatever, she wasn't sure where she was going with that.

Making it to the town gates wasn't much of an issue, especially after yesterday, but the invisible barrier between safety and death was a bit harder to step over this time. In town, it had seemed like a great idea to beat the shit out of a couple of monsters, no biggie, just murder them and feast on their souls. Or at least their loot. Now, looking out at the greenery of the plains, it was a lot harder not to think about how many people had died doing exactly that. And uhh... she didn't feel like THAT much of a badass that she could shrug off any chance of the same happening to her.

At the same time though... Sabrina didn't see much of a choice, really. Okay, maybe there was an obvious one she was just too dumb to understand, but the way she saw it, she might as well at least be able to protect herself on the first floor. Yesterday's gathering had gone alright, but what if she had encountered an enemy she couldn't avoid or outrun?

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...No, she had to be able to take care of herself.

Sabrina wasn't an idiot, she knew it was dangerous, and she knew the frontlines were WAY more dangerous. She didn't really care about those, and this wasn't the first step towards any of that crap. They would clear the game for her eventually, in the meantime she was just gonna live here fine. But in order to do that, she had to get a few of these so-called 'levels' and boost her 'stats', was the lingo for it, so she could gather and explore without risking a fatal end to her adventure.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward, over that invisible line in the ground, over the weakness of her own heart. Not a big step. Not a different person. But progress nonetheless.

Sabrina herself wasn't focused on any of that though; what mattered to her was that she had to find a lone enemy. She didn't know jack or shit about AOE, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to do basic addition and subtraction, and 2 was bigger than 1. No, she needed exactly one enemy to start off with, something... well, ideally as weak as possible. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a pretty good variety of enemies out here, and she didn't know which of them were stronger than others. Was a boar tougher than a wolf? What about a giant bee? There were a surprising number of weird bug things out here, and while they didn't look quite as tough as the boars, they also looked harder to hit.

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It took several minutes of very cautious hunting to find something that looked like a relatively safe fight - a lone boar that was just... grazing, or... whatever it was boars did when they weren't goring people and ripping them in half. Was grazing a cow thing? She'd never actually seen a cow in person. But boars were like, uglier pigs, so it was probably fine.

Okay. Checklist for not dying. Potions? Check. She hadn't been sure what to bring, so Sumire had settled for just bringing all of her healing potions, she'd heard you were supposed to save the buffs for important stuff. Were boars important? She hoped not, but that was why she was just gonna fight one of them for now. Try to get a feel for how this all went. Hopefully uh, not die in the process. Ok. She had her armor on too. She wasn't sure how much it'd actually help, but better to wear it than not wear it, right? And her spear thingy. Grabbing it with both hands, the lengthy weapon too heavy to really control with one hand, she wondered for not the first time if she shouldn't have gone for something lighter - but then she'd have to be closer to all the stuff that could kill her, and that sounded... very not great.

Sword arts... ok, she didn't really know what any of those actually did. X2 was bigger than X1, so she assumed the X1 thing was bad. It was an AOE, whatever that meant, she'd try it later, but now now. Stun sounded cool, she was pretty sure that meant the bad guy stopped moving, but it cost a LOT of these 'energy' points. She didn't think you died if you ran out of energy, but if it meant no Sword Arts (Spear Arts?) that was probably super bad. So... the basic 'Heft' looked like her best bet. It looked like it did a lot of damage and was reasonably cheap. The boar couldn't do shit to her if it was dead, so the stun thing was probably useless anyways.

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"Hey! You! Over here! Were you born that ugly or did you fall out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down?!"

Feeling pretty satisfied with her scathing wit, the more than slightly nervous Sumire braced, her lance pointed at the pig-thing as it reacted to her provocations, recognizing her as an enemy. She assumed it was just mad she was right. A piercing squeal, and it charged her without any further notice, which took her a bit off guard - it hadn't looked nearly that large from 30 feet away and those horns were actually a lot more intimidating than she had assumed they would be. But the faster it closed in on her, the closer it was to getting a spear to the face, or wherever she hit it. If she hit it. Hoo boy. Was combat always this nerve wracking?

Using basic attack on the boar / getting attacked

Spoiler

155888: battle die 5, mob die 5

Her nerves proved to be too much for her, and the clumsy attack went wide as the raging boar continued hurtling towards her. Sabrina nearly panicked on the spot, but a mixture of adrenaline and sheer dumb luck led to her retaining barely enough presence of mind to step to the side as she tried to push the boar away, dealing no damage to it but rendering it momentarily unable to strike her in turn.

Stats

Spoiler
  • L4 Sumire: 80/80 HP, 7/8 EN, 6 DMG
  • L1 Boar: 10/10 HP, 3 DMG

 

Edited by Sumire
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Once the initial burst of surprise and fear wore off, a tidal wave of frustration washed over her at the realization of how much of a complete fucking disappointment that had been - she hadn't even remembered to use the skill, and neither of them had hurt each other in the least. Better than dying instantly, but Sabrina was in no mood to look at the bright side of the situation, instead targeting the stupid creature as the source of her fury. The damn spear was heavier than she'd thought, and longer. Which was kind of the idea, yes, but maybe something a little less unwieldy would have been less of a waste of everyone's time.

At least this time she remembered to use the Sword Art, which should totally be called a Spear Art - bring the spear low, then swing the sharp bits upwards, hopefully cutting the boar in half. Or... at least brutally vivisecting an innocent bush, as the boar avoided it, then tripped over her foot, sending them both careening in opposite directions with their prides far more damaged than their bodies. 

Attack rolls

Spoiler

155899: Battle 4, Mob 3, using Heft

Stats

Spoiler
  • L4 Sumire: 80/80 HP, 6/8 EN, 6 DMG
  • L1 Boar: 10/10 HP, 3 DMG

 

Edited by Sumire
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Oh that was IT! Her face twisted by a grimace as anger consumed her, Sabrina's grip on her spear tightened hard enough it was almost painful as she tried to right herself from the loss of balance a moment ago. At this point she was going to just straight up murder someone, specifically this dumb ass pig, and turn it into god damn bacon. It felt as though the damn thing was mocking her, casually avoiding everything she threw at it with contemptuous ease. Wasn't this supposed to be a freaking starting monster? She'd heard they weren't too hard to kill, but had already missed it a few times, and was down to uhhh... half her energy, ish.

History flowed like a river and time repeated as she swung and missed again, but this time the strike went wide, and the boar came hurtling in like a furry meteor. Or at least a furry pebble; it did some damage, but after a moment of panic she realized she still had nearly all her health. That was one bit of good news at least, the big pig didn't seem to hit that hard. So she just had to... hit it... really hard. She could do this. Even if it made her never want to fight another monster again.

Rolls

Spoiler

155902: 3 battle, 7 mob, using Heft

Stats

Spoiler
  • L4 Sumire: 77/80 HP, 5/8 EN, 6 DMG
  • L1 Boar: 10/10 HP, 3 DMG

 

Edited by Sumire
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Trying to keep her frustration in check, Sumire stepped backwards, trying to form a bit of space between her and the psychotic midget killing machine in front of her. It kept... getting in so close that she couldn't really swing at it right, and getting this dumb Heft skill to work right was apparently a lot harder than it looked. It was supposed to gut the bad guys, but like, diagonally, and getting the right angle was hard as hell. It kept just straight up missing, and then the boar was inside the range of her attacks, and she had to try to make some distance for another shot. This definitely didn't seem like top of the line professional gaming to her, but what did she know?

Going by how well that back and forth went... not much. Her spear went wide again, carving a brutal line through absolutely fucking nothing, and the boar whiffed its own attempt to rip her apart. Which admittedly, was less intimidating now that she knew they were fairly harmless, but for all she knew the next enemy would just kill her in one hit, so it sounded like a good idea to NOT get hit if she could at all avoid it.

Rolls

Spoiler

155905: battle 5, mob 2, using Heft

Stats

Spoiler
  • L4 Sumire: 77/80 HP, 4/8 EN, 6 DMG
  • L1 Boar: 10/10 HP, 3 DMG

 

Edited by Sumire
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Maybe she needed to be more... aggressive with this. Like, moving to it instead of letting it come to her each time? Reacting effectively made sense in theory, it would allow her to control the engagement, but this was a video game rather than real life, so maybe she was supposed to just be suicidally aggressive all the time. Would be a little easier without the whole 'death game' thing, granted. If you just respawned, losing some HP wasn't a big deal. Right now though, losing ANY damn HP seemed like a bad idea, and losing all of it was a super double bad idea.

"...Ah, what the hell." Her anger still burning bright, it didn't take much convincing or preparation alike for her to try to go on the offensive, charging the boar the moment she had finished making the decision. It was never really a question of whether it was wise or not, only if it would work. It was definitely harder to line up the strike than it had been standing still, but for whatever reason, this time the boar didn't avoid it, maybe too focused on hitting her, and the spear carved through the virtual body with a surprising amount of pushback that might have knocked the weapon from her hands if she hadn't been paying attention.

It certainly knocked a lot more out of the boar though - specifically, all of it, as the two halves split apart before breaking apart into a million tiny green... thingies that drifted upwards and disintegrated into nothing, leaving even less behind.

Rolls

Spoiler

155906: battle 8, mob 3 (Heft hits for 6x2=12 damage)

Stats

Spoiler
  • L4 Sumire: 77/80 HP, 3/8 EN, 6 DMG
  • L1 Boar: 0/10 HP, 3 DMG

Monster below loot minimum parameters so no LD rolls etc

Edited by Sumire
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