Ronnel

A moment or two passed as Ronnel pulled the small bundle from his inventory. He held it out towards the woman. She blinked and took the package, unwrapping it then and there. Ronnel’s quest tracker ticked over as she pulled a small, gleaming golden object from the canvas wrap. The dark-haired man blinked as Hannah’s face lit up brilliantly.
 

“Oh, excellent, Lyle finished the band!” She rolled it back and forth between her fingers and turned her attention back to the delivery man. “Thank you ever so much for this. I’m working on a little project, and Lyle agreed to help me out by making this.” She held it up, and Ronnel saw that it was a small golden ring. Then her shoulders slumped slightly. “But there’s a problem. I used up the last of my gemstones for a customer the other day, and now I don’t have anything to work with. Oh, bother.” Ronnel just barely suppressed the chuckle that he felt well up as he figured out where this was going.

Thankfully, with the guard’s directions, it didn’t take Ronnel that much longer to reach a somewhat densely forested area. It was relatively small though, stretching out over the plot four roughly four or five houses. There was a small path leading in, twisting through the trees and out of sight. It seemed like this was the right place. He followed the curving path through the grove, until he reached a clearing inside. There was a small house nestled inside, and a young woman outside, leaning against one of the trees as she sketched something. Her head came up when she noticed Ronnel approaching her.

“Why hello there! Are you in need of something?” She gave him a pleasant smile as her head tilted to one side. Ronnel returned the smile and shook his head as his hands reached towards his inventory.

“Actually no, but from what I know, you need something that I have.” Her head tilted further as her brow furrowed.

Ronnel held out one arm, flagging down the guard. The NPC paused in his path, turning slightly as he recognized that he was being called for. “Ho there traveler, what ails you?” Ah, it seemed like the AI didn’t log interactions for the guards. That made sense though, it probably cut down on data usage. With an internal shrug the dark-haired man crossed the remaining distance to the guard.

“I’m looking for an artisan - Hannah.” There was a pause, and then the guard nodded. He turned and pointed back down the way Ronnel had come. The spear-user felt his eyebrow twitch.
 

“Hannah’s grove and workshop are down that way, about fifteen minutes of walk. You’ll pass by a couple side streets, but ignore those until you reach a big intersection. Then you’ll turn right and walk for another five minutes or so, and it will be on your left. You can’t miss it.” Ronnel gave the man a bow, then sighed and shook his head as he turned around and started back the way he’d come. 

So the first order of business would be to find out where the grove that she lived in was. Lyle hadn’t really given Ronnel any indications as to where that was, so it seemed like he was going to be hunting and searching. At least here in town there wasn’t going to be any threats that he had to avoid while he was on this search. Ronnel let out a soft groan - he really, really needed to figure out the layout of the Town he was spending so much of his time in right now - stumbling around looking for things was getting tiresome.  

At least, he was stumbling around looking until he happened to see an amusingly familiar face. The large, swarthy guard that had helped him find Zackariah’s shop when he was looking for it before was walking down the street ahead of him, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword as the man moved along his route.

Ronnel tossed the package back and forth between his hands as he left Lyle’s shop, It was light and easy to handle. He shrugged once, having already considered checking what it was, but he wasn’t anywhere near rude enough or curious enough to actually open someone else’s package, and Lyle hadn’t told him what it was. He twisted his arm slightly and pushed the small wrapped bundle into his inventory, securing it from being lost. 

“Right - Lyle said this woman lived in a grove. I guess we have a few in town.” Sounded kinda druidic but this game didn’t have any magic implemented for players that he knew. So this was just for an artisan thing of some ilk. But still - even as just an artisan, it supported Ronnel’s thought that this quest line was going to be introducing him to a variety of the professions that were available -first an alchemist, then a blacksmith, now this Hannah. 

It was official. She certainly wasn't his sister but she had nearly the same reactions to being teased - including a rapid, drastic subject change. Ronnel laughed and shook his head as he followed after her. And thinking of her as his sister definitely helped ease any tension from the girl having just about zero concept of personal space. He knew she didn't mean anything by it - it was likely just a part of her enthusiasm - so having a way of categorizing it helped. 

"Well, just one probably. Honestly, if I had a choice on what my companion would be… It'd be an owl, probably. I love the things." 

“I bet it’d be a Hoot!” Came her cheerful reply. Ronnel blinked and looked at the back of her head for a long moment. 

"I don't know whether to laugh or try to slap the back of your head for that." He deadpanned. "Besides I haven't even seen an owl on this floor, so I'll probably have to go to a different one to find them."

Ronnel blinked as the girl hung off his sleeve, tugging at it for his attention. In this moment she reminded him of his youngest sister, when she was whining and trying to get his focus for something or another. Automatically he reached up and ruffled her hair as he chuckled. 

"Haven't fought it yet. If it's a single target I don't think I'll have too much trouble with it though - unintentionally I've kinda become a combat focused guy, mostly because I can't figure out what I want to do." He laughed. "Honestly. I had more trouble with the boar pups, because they wouldn't drop the bleedin' tusks I needed. I feel like I set back the boar population by a generation or something with how many I killed." He gave a rueful smile. Since then he'd gotten a bit better equipped, so that wouldn't be quite as bad. 

" And Hannah was nice enough. Her drawing skills were quite good." 

Ronnel wandered through the festival, every so often pausing to look at all the people that were laughing, smiling and having fun. It was a relaxing atmosphere, full of cheer and life and he didn't even try to prevent the smile that spread across his lips as he watched NPC children running about, pelting each other with snowballs. He laughed and shook his head as one snowball went wide, hitting his leg. The kid that had thrown it froze in place and Ronnel laughed louder. 

"No worries, kiddo. Work on your aim, yeah?" The young boy gave a hesitant nod - then was hit by a snowball and raced off, trying to scoop up snow to return fire as he ran. Ronnel chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. Then the sound of cheers and jeers caught his attention, and he looked around. A ring toss? 

He hadn't seen or done a ring toss - or in this case a target throw - in years. The man ambled over in that direction, filtering into the line. He hummed under his breath as he read the instructions for the toss. The prizes seemed nice enough, and shouldn't be too difficult - but the real prizes were the top tier obviously, and not something he was likely to get. Ronnel blinked and pushed some hair back from his face as he reached the front of the line and took his discs. 

Ronnel hummed as he hefted his discs, testing their weight in his hands. He chuckled and separated one out, gaging the distance. He pulled his wrist back and flicked it out, watching the disc hurtle through the air and thunk against the target with a satisfying sound. It fell down and he rolled his shoulders. Feeling a bit more confident after the first hit, he tried to hit the third, only to watch as this time his disc missed, hurtling between the second and third targets. 

He laughed and shook his head. "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer I suppose." With a grin he went back to the second target, trying to hit it - only to miss when he let go of the disc too late, and it nearly hit his foot. The dark haired man blinked once, then twice, and rubbed his head with the last of the discs. "Well that wasn't supposed to happen, whoops." He shrugged. Thinking that he might as well go for broke, Ronnel took aim at the last target. 

It… Whiffed. Hard. The disc flew between targets, not hitting any, but coming close. Ronnel laughed ruefully and shook his head.

"Thanks for letting me try." He accepted the prize and wandered away, looking to see if he recognized anyone or if anything caught his eye. 

"That's fine, I don't mind." Sweet goodness she's this enthusiastic about everything, isn't she? She seemed ecstatic to find the materials that she did, and Ronnel laughed softly. 

"You've far better luck at that than I do, that's for sure. I basically stumbled across all the materials I needed when I was doing the lessons are free chain." He gave her a rueful smile. "Sat on one, actually." But she was right - if she was this adept at foraging and gathering, then a squirrel or a chipmunk would make a perfectly suited companion for her. And he knew there was some way to specialize them, either to cover one of your own shortcomings or to make a strength stronger. 

"I guess if I can ever settle on a trade I'll make it a note to visit your store for any materials I might need." He grinned. 

"Why do you call me that anyway?" Ronnel stood up slowly, stretching out his back as he gave his gear a final check over. Everything seemed to be in order, and unless they ran into something completely unexpected he would be able to cover for her. "Oh, right, you might laugh at this." He chuckled and opened up the description for his greaves, forwarding it over to her for her to read. 

"And I don't know what kind of build I'm going for myself, so you've already got more thought in on what you're doing and what kind of companion you want. I'm just kinda.. Going with the flow for right now." He shrugged slightly as he accepted the invite to her party. The dark- haired man popped the rest of the bread into his mouth and finished it off before holding out one hand to help Ceres up. 

"Shall we go then Miss Ceres?" 

@Ceres

It took the dark haired man a moment to process what she was saying, and he suppressed a wry chuckle. She was just so bloody enthusiastic about things that it was touching. "The familiar quest, huh? Mind if I tag along? I was thinking about doing that soon myself, but I don't mind helping you out if you'd like?"  

She swallowed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Sure! I’d love that! I want to get a cute little squirrel! We could probably find one on this floor~”

Ronnel spun the piece of bread that she'd given him around in his palm and nibbled off a bit of the bread as he listened/thought. Having a companion of his own sounded nice - and the familiar was someone, or rather, something, that he knew he could trust. So if he helped Ceres out he could get a glimpse at what went on during the quest so he wasn't caught off guard when he went to do it himself. 

“A squirrel, hmm? That’s…” He chuckled. Small and cute. He didn’t know if it was an intentional theme with the girl, but it did seem to come naturally to her. “Yeah, I think they’re easily found on this level. Alright well - go ahead and invite me when you’re ready, so you’re the party leader.” Ronnel chuckled softly as he sat back and took another bite of the bread.

Ronnel made his way through the city on the second floor slowly, taking his time. He hadn’t been here very often - most everything he had done had been on the first floor as he worked his way through the quests available so he could get familiar with the mechanics. So times like this, where he just made his way around and took in the sights, were few and far between. He ran one hand through his hair as he let out a slow breath. He would prefer at least walking and chatting with a friend - but the number of people that he knew could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare. Of those, only one was actually on his Friend List - and she couldn’t just come into a town. So on he went, walking the streets alone.

At least, that is what he thought, until he spotted bright red hair that was faintly familiar. It took him a moment as the girl ate, to actually place where he knew her from - then he snapped his fingers. Right - that was Ceres, the shop owner of “Best Kept Secret” - where he’d bought the spyglass that he was planning on using to search for a partner. The redhead seemed to be occupied though, happily munching away at a piece of bread as she sat at one of the tables at the cafe. Ronnel tilted his head to one side, then shrugged - no harm in it at least.

He ambled over in her direction, letting her finish her snack before he cleared his throat as he leaned against the rail at the edge of the cafe’s seating area. “Hoi there, Miss Ceres, fine day isn’t it?” He gave her a pleasant smile. “How are you doing today?”

Ronnel scratched the back of his head as he looked at the milling mob near the bulletin board. He'd been right - there were certainly enough players running about here to do this quest with. The downside to this discovery was that they were all constantly jumping about, grouping and regrouping as they tried to get with people they knew or whatever their discussions were about. 

"Well this is a fine mess, how am I supposed to - wait." Ronnel blinked as he noticed a faintly familiar mop of blonde hair. It took him a few moments to place where he'd seen the guy under it - then he snapped his fingers. The portal and the power of friendship and strong wills event up on the city on the seventeenth floor. Ronnel lifted up his hand and waved at the young blonde as he walked over towards them.

"Ho there Dracul, nice ta see ya again! You here for this wasp quest too? Ah, darn, looks like you've got a companion already. Hello, milady, name's Ronnel, pleasure to meet you." He gave the duo a small bow. "Looks like I'll have to snag someone else to join in. Not sure on this though, goodness they're all so busy over there." He was a bit bemused as he watched the people arguing close to the board. 

@Dracul, @Solei

Ronnel walked along the cobbled streets of the second floor's main town, looking around. This town was a bit of a change from the somewhat busy streets of the Town of Beginnings - more of a middle ages European settlement instead of the bustling main city. It was nice getting out and exploring the other floors more, and the spear-user was enjoying the change. The buildings here were shorter, squatter than what he was used to, and strangely the more open sky was relaxing to him. He was looking for something to do as he wandered the streets, maybe a small bounty quest or something. He paused as he overheard two other players huddled up, talking to each other.
"I'm telling you - that Queen wiped us out, it isn't a joke! We need to get a bigger team together before we try again, even if that potion thing would be useful for us. Come on, let's see if we can go get one more to work with us." They moved off before Ronnel could reach out to them, warping away with a teleport crystal. He frowned and rubbed the back of his head. 

"Well that sounds like it'd be something to take care of. Some Queen... Huh. Wonder what it was." He paused as his screen flashed with an optional quest appearing. "Slay wasps until the wasp queen appears - Oh come on, overgrown wasps?" Well, he hated the things with a passion outside, so being able to take some of that anger out on them sounded like a great idea. First though - he headed towards one of the local boards. If there was somewhere to pick up someone else who was trying to do this quest, the quest board might be just it. That, or a tavern.

"An unkillable tank?" Ronnel blinked and tilted his head to the side as the louder woman spoke. "Does he focus on out-regenerating the incoming damage, or does he just have obscene amounts of MIT?" That was somewhat the route that he was going, though he didn't know if he was going to be taking skills that generated Hate. More of an off-tank? "Or maybe a healer-tank or something then, for you? Steal away the Hate while you heal someone who was hurt or something. Hmm." But still - hearing the blonde talk about his hidden passion struck something in Ronnel. He'd never really had one of those, and in a way envied the other guy for his.

He relinked hands with the others as they circled the last of the portals. It seemed the boy and one of the girls were fairly familiar with each other, which who knows might have been helping with them closing these portals. That made as much sense as anything else that was going on right now. 

Objective: Closing Portals  

ID# 133680
BD Result: 8
Group Members: @Dracul @Arabelle, @Ariel - The Crowned Lion, Ronnel

Cumulative BD: 10+1+8 (19)

(Personal portals closed 2/3)

Ronnel frowned slightly at the fact that this portal didn't close as he relinked hands with the open pair. Maybe it was levity in the face of doom or something from the couple of jokes that had been cracked last time, but that couldn't have been it -so many other groups working, there was no way all of them had someone to make others laugh in it. He chewed on his lip.

"Maybe the portals have different levels of strength so how much they need to close changes or something? We are kinda just flying by the seat of our pants with the power of friendship here." He shrugged slightly before raising an eyebrow as the talk turned to magic. He hadn't really been interested in magic overall when he came to this game - he'd actually been hoping to play a ranged class like a bow or cross-bow user, and neither of those had been implemented either. 

"Do we need an old priest and a young priest here now or something?"

Objective: Close Portal
ID: 133629
BD: 3
Group Members: @Arabelle, @Ariel - The Crowned Lion, @Dracul, Ronnel
Cumulative BD: 9 + 5 + 3 (17)
(Personal portal Count 1/3)

"Seems as fine a target as any other." Ronnel didn't voice the relief he felt when the portal closed. Good. Whatever was determining if their will was 'strong enough' didn't care about buried fears. Or maybe accounted for facing them instead. He doubted it was anything so deep as that though - the system couldn't read minds. "I wonder who or what is directing this whole shebang. It's a change from how things normally go, isn't it." Ronnel looked down as he felt the texture beneath one foot change and jerked his foot back, having unintentionally stepped on some of the tar-like material oozing from the portal. 

" Oh that is foul. Let's get this closed up right quick." He looked to the others and held out his hands. There was a moment as he suppressed a chuckle - unintentionally, they'd gotten an even mix of guys and girls closing these up, unless one of the others pulled back to work on something else. 

Objective: Closing the Portal! 

Link ID : 133528

BD Result: 6 

Group Members: @Dracul, @Arabelle, @Ariel - The Crowned Lion, Ronnel

Cumulative BD: 6+6 (12)

Portals closed personally 1/3

Ronnel rubbed the back of his head after another person came in and left, dropping off their request in a hurry. It all felt a bit impersonal to him, but hey everyone has their own style. His attention was caught by Macradon coming back out from the rear part of the shop. The spear was in his hands, and after Ronnel sent him the requested mats for the trade, he handed it over. Ronnel let out a low whistle and gave the smith a grin. 

"Fantastic work, but it'll probably be a long while before I can afford to shop here again. Thank you so much!" He put the spear into his inventory, and with a bow to Macradon, headed out. 

Summary

Once he was inside the store, Ronnel spotted Lyle as he looked up and beamed at the spear user proudly. "No need to tell me lad, I can tell it from your face. You've what I asked for." Ronnel blinked once then nodded. He pulled the boar pup tusks from his inventory and laid them out on the counter.

"Excellent, good quality all. Right lad, here you are - your reward for hunting these down for me, I do appreciate it." The old man studied the tusks for a few moments longer before they vanished, undoubtedly swept into the stores material inventory. That done, he clapped his hands together sharply and gave Ronnel a wide smile. 

" Right - could you help an old man out one last time? I know a young artisan who I've a package for - could you take it to her?" Ronnel bit his tongue, but nodded. His quest tracker updated and cleared as he took the unmarked package and he breathed a sigh of relief - he could prepare himself some before diving right into the next part of this chain. 

A selection tab popped up in front of him, and Ronnel paused. Weapon or armor? He hesitated for a moment, before stabbing the option for 'armor' with one finger. 

Ronnel trudged into town on slow, tired feet. Doing this hunt had been an exercise on his patience. "I have definitely got to get my hands on gear that will actually help me hit my targets more often." He sighed and ran one hand through his hair, shoving his hair out of his eyes. He had been trying to be a bit spend-thrift, hoarding money as he could because he didn't know how long his savings would last him. 

But - doing quests and actually getting out and exploring was netting him a somewhat decent return. Enough of one that he could justify spending out to try getting himself better equipment. The dark-haired man was pulled from his thoughts when he realized that he was standing outside of Lyle's smithy. He coughed and shook his head, then pushed open the door. Once more the clanging bell rang out, cutting through any sounds in the shop.

Ronnel heaved a few deep breaths as he recovered from the sudden appearance and his attack. He let out a soft laugh and shook his head. "I feel like I'm singlehandedly devastating the boar population in this area." He rubbed one hand against his face - and froze when he saw another boar pup walking towards him. This one seemed to be fully aware of him though, as it let out an angry huff and squealed in rage at the man. 

" You guys are just coming outta the woodwork, aint'cha? Come on the cutlet!" Ronnel spun his spear in a circle, ending with the top of the blade resting against the soil between man and beast. There was a heartbeat of silence, and then with a high pitched cry, the boar pup charged at him. Ronnel waited, and waited - letting the monster get closer and closer. Finally he felt it was close enough - the boar was just starting a leap into the air aimed at him. 

Ronnel moved his arms, letting his hands snap into the motions of the <Heft> Sword Art. The blade blazed with energy as he swept it upwards, bisecting the jumping pup through the chest as Ronnel turned with the slash, twisting to give it more force. The boar burst into a flurry of red data that rolled over him as he let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. A soft chime rang out, and his head snapped to his inventory, quickly scrolling - and be laughed again. Three of three. 

{{{This would be the post where I realized that I don't have to do a second roll for the mobs to attack me back oh my lanta I feel dumb}}

Ronnel paused, plant in mid-twirl, as he heard a snuffling, snorting sound from right beside him. The man blinked once, then twice, and slowly turned his head to the direction he'd heard the sound. He felt his eyebrow twitch when he saw that sure enough, there was a boar pup rooting through the brush just beside him, apparently unconcerned with the player's presence. With exaggerated calm, Ronnel slowly placed the material into his inventory and then, with great calm. slid his spear out, letting it materialize as he equipped it. 

The boar paused, and let out a loud 'whuff' as it realized that something was amiss. The digital monster looked up at him slowly, ponderously, and for a long moment, man and monster stared at each other. "Hi there." Ronnel deadpanned. The boar snorted once and started to look away - then its head whipped back around as its Hate snapped onto Ronnel. The man didn't hesitate. He stabbed quickly, and was rewarded by his spear piercing deep through boar hide. The squeal of anger became one of pain before the pup shattered apart into a shower of red data. Ronnel closed his eyes - but heard nothing as he hoped to. No tusk. 

Ronnel let out a long breath as he pushed his hair from his face. Right - one foot in front of the other.  That was what he needed to do. He hadn't found a chest, sure, but then again he was just barely getting started - he knew that most people had some insane bonuses to their skills when they were hunting, and he had.. none. He let out a self-deprecating chuckle as he shook his head. "That's what I get for putting this off for so long. Fear's the mind-killer I suppose after all." He tightened his hand into a slow fist - he was doing now, and he wasn't going to stop any time soon. Right - he needed to do and not let himself stagnate.

"Hold up - I know I've seen that." Ronnel paused as he spotted something just off to one side. It was tickling at his mind as he stared at it, trying to figure out where he knew it from. Suddenly he snapped his fingers as he realized - he'd seen it hanging in the alchemist's shop. He moved through the trees and brush and plucked it from the ground, twirling it in his fingers as he studied it. Yes - this was one of the materials that he'd seen earlier. Excellent, this was definitely something he could use himself later on.

Ronnel felt his body sag in relief as he stared at that 'two' symbol on the stack on his inventory screen. A weak chuckle escaped his lips as he ran some numbers in his head. "Really.... I've got a fifty fifty shot of finding these tusks when I kill a boar." The spear-user just hoped that that meant that there was even odds that he'd be able to finish this quest the next time that he found one of the pups. But - first, though... "I'm out and about. Why not try my luck?" Ronnel rubbed his chest as he stored his spear away in his inventory. That done he began exploring around - he'd heard of people finding chests in stranger locations than out in the middle of the woods, so why not?

Over small hills and through the trees he searched. He pushed tree branches out of the way, grunting as one snapped back and hit him on the shoulder. Rubbing the slightly sore spot Ronnel kept looking, until he realized he'd covered a fair portion of the forest in his search. More than he had while he was just hunting boar pups. He gave a grunt and leaned against a tree as he pulled some debris out of his hair. "Well. Guess that's why not, for now. No dice, huh." He shrugged.