SP: F1- <<Blade of Dreams>> Quest (Complete)

[Nathaniel 0]

Walking into the nearest town, Nathaniel easily identified the local inn, and walked into it to go sit at the bar.

 

"What'll it be, sweetheart?" Nathaniel looked up to see a pretty young barmaid NPC cleaning the counter.

 

"Whatever you're serving for dinner, and a room for the night."

 

A trade menu popped up in front of Nathaniel, saying, "Meal x1- Cost: 5 Col. Room x 1- Cost: 10 Col". Nathaniel selected both and accepted them.

 

A notification popped up in the corner of his display saying, "Lost- 15 Col".

"Alright then," the barmaid said, setting the cleaning rag down, and bustling towards the kitchen, "I'll have your food in a moment, and your key as well."

[Nathaniel 0]

Nathaniel sat there, eyes no longer puffy from crying, but he was still covered in wounds, and when the barmaid returned with his food and his key, he stiffly reached out to put the key in his inventory.

 

"Lemme know if you need anything, sugar." The barmaid said, winking at Nathaniel.

 

Nathaniel found it both sad and telling that the only girls that flirted with him were NPCs in a video game.

 

Looking down at his plate of baked chicken and mashed potatoes, he stiffly picked up a leg, and began eating. He realized when he bit into it, that he hadn't had good food in a while, and this was pretty good food for the money. Until they started clearing more floors, this would probably be his standby place to eat when he wanted something tasty.

 

Before he'd even stopped and thought about it, he'd eaten all of his food. He felt full and warm for the first time in about a week. He rose stiffly from his seat, and started up the steps of he quiet inn.

 

"If you need anything in the middle of the night, let me know!" the barmaid said, calling after Nathaniel in a somewhat sultry tone. Nathaniel ignored her, continuing to trudge up the stairs.

 

He used his key to open the door to his room, shut it behind him, unequip his gear, and collapse on his bed.

 

About a second later, he was asleep.

[Nathaniel 0]

When he woke up the next morning, healed from his meal and the night of rest, Nathaniel threw on his gear, walked downstairs, and sat at the bar.

 

"Hello, there." A familiar voice and face greeted him, "You here for the steak and eggs breakfast? It's really good." The barmaid assured him.

 

Looking at her cursor more closely, Nathaniel found that her name was, "Alyssa".

 

Accepting the menu's offer of a meal for 5 Col, he replied, "That sounds wonderful, Alyssa."

 

Smiling at him, possibly because he'd bothered to use her name, she replied, "Well I'll be right back with your food then, handsome." And bustled quickly back into the kitchen.

[Nathaniel 0]

About a minute later, she popped back out of the kitchen with a plate of steak and eggs. The smell was positively mouthwatering.

 

"Here you are." Alyssa said cheerfully, setting the food down in front of Nathaniel.

 

"Thanks very much, Alyssa." Nathaniel said, before digging in.

 

Alyssa went back to setting up the bar for the day while Nathaniel ate. Again, it was gone before he realized it.

 

"Good food, eh?" Alyssa said, winking at him, "I'm the best cook in town."

 

Smiling softly, Nathaniel replied, "I know it. This is gonna be my new standby place to eat when I'm out this way."

 

Alyssa smiled broadly at the compliment, and said, "Well, the next time you come this way, you'd BETTER stop in and say hello. Wouldn't want to miss YOU." She said, winking again.

 

"Don't worry, I will." Nathaniel said, making a note of where he was on his map.

 

"Have a good day, Alyssa." He said, turning and walking out of the inn.

 

"You too!" she called after him.

[Nathaniel 0]

Nathaniel was surprised by how...quiet...the mine was. There were no mobs milling around the front entrance at all, and he didn't know where their patrol patterns took them, so he had no idea what to expect.

 

Then he remembered something- Hadn't Sai mentioned mine carts? Or treasure chests? Maybe he could search around while this front area was empty, and see what he could find.

 

Loot: 9

 

After a short bit of searching, Nathaniel found a chest, clearly meant for keeping either money or the ore that the mine produced. Opening it, he realized he triggered a trap, firing some small darts out at his face. He realized what was happening as the mechanism went off, and managed to only get ONE of the darts lodged in his face (Nathaniel took 1 damage).

 

After the trap had gone off, and Nathaniel had plucked the dart from his face, he looked in and found a piece of the Duskmetal Ore, and 20 Col. (LOOT!)

[Nathaniel 0]

"All right..." Nathaniel muttered quietly to himself, "I need another 2 hunks of Ore, and I can be on my merry way...Time to kill some dead things!" He said, unsheathing his blade and smiling. He crept down the tunnel, deeper in, and deeper in...and...deeper in...

 

"Why is there NOTHING in here?" He whispered to himself. He didn't understand...last time he'd fought 3 skeletons by this point in the mine, and he didn't hear or see them behind him...

 

He heard a creaking noise a little further ahead, and so he slowly crept up that way, to see a skeleton standing idle in the passage, not moving. Nathaniel had grow suspicious of this, but couldn't see anything that LOOKED suspicious.

 

"Well," he thought, "I've got enough HP to deal with a couple skellies, even if it's an ambush..."

[Nathaniel 0]

Shaking his head, deciding that he'd best just attack and deal with whatever happened as it came, Nathaniel sprang from around the corner, breaking into a Sprint, and was on top of the skeleton before it knew he was there.

 

Battle: 2 (Nathaniel misses)

 

Nathaniel simply misjudged his speed when timing his downstroke, and slipped past the skeleton as he tried to kill it, alerting the now surprised skeleton to his presence, and probably upsetting it a little.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 9 (Skeleton hits for 2 damage)

 

The Skeleton WAS upset, it turned out. So much so that it drove its pick into the back of Nathaniel's shoulder, yanking him towards the skeleton, which grabbed his left arm as Nathaniel grunted in pain, attempting to keep Nathaniel from retaliating. Nathaniel still had his sword arm free, however...

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 2 (Nathaniel misses)

 

Nathaniel swung his blade up at the skeleton's head, which knocked it around enough to get it to let go, and allow Nathaniel to twist himself free of the pick, but he hadn't done any significant damage to it.

 

"I f***ing hate you guys, y'know that? You're all a bunch of obnoxious pricks." Nathaniel griped at the mob.

 

It chittered at him, squaring up to swing again.

 

"Jerk." Nathaniel replied, preparing to dodge.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 9 (hits Nathaniel for 2 damage)

 

The skeleton saw which way Nathaniel was going to dodge, and swung its pick in the reverse direction, catching him in the armpit with the tip of the pick, wounding him badly again.

 

Nathaniel used his off hand to swat the pick away by the haft, "For f***'s sake, you stupid friggin' mobs..." He grumbled as he prepared to spring close into the skeleton's guard.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 6 (Nathaniel hits for 2 damage, killing the skeleton)

 

Leaping into the skeleton's guard, Nathaniel cleaved through its brittle ribs and up into the base of its spine and skull, killing it while it chattered its last.

 

Loot: 13

 

Opening the loot menu, a single Duskmetal Ore item was in the skeleton's inventory, which Nathaniel took.

 

Standing up straight, and brushing himself off, his wounds twinged at him, while he heard more chattering down the tunnel...but not from MORE skeletons...it sounded like one BIGGER skeleton, the way everything creaked and popped.

 

Bracing himself for the worst, and hoping to god it wasn't some kind of mini-boss, he darted around the corner, preparing to swing at whatever was there.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 8 (Nathaniel hits for 2 damage)

 

As he rounded the corner, partly running up the side of the tunnel, Nathaniel yelled and swung, cutting through a few ribs on a much LARGER skeleton. One that was twice the size of the others he had been fighting. It was as Nathaniel sprinted past it, he realized this was a much larger room, with random mine carts strewn about, knocked over.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 4 (misses Nathaniel)

 

At that point, the skeleton swung out at Nathaniel with a large sword, about as tall as Nathaniel was. He dodged it, but had to step closer to the skeleton to do so, and it kicked out at him as he stepped in. He was knocked back about 15 feet by the force of the undead giant's kick, though it didn't cause any lasting harm.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 2 (Nathaniel misses)

 

Nathaniel braced himself, and sprung towards the giant, whirling his blade around, trying to build a little momentum and find a good place to strike, but the giant was quicker than he thought, and it knocked him aside as it brought its blade up to strike, batting Nathaniel away with the flat.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 4 (Misses Nathaniel)

 

As Nathaniel came up rolling, supported partly by his hand, the skeleton attempted to simply drop its oversized blade on Nathaniel, but he dodged to the side, and then sprung onto the blade, running up it to strike at the monster while his sword glowed gold in preparation for the sword skill he was about to use.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 8 (Nathaniel hits for 2 damage)

 

The giant went to punch Nathaniel off its blade as he ran up it, and to avoid being hit, he switched his angle of attack to step further up the blade and chop its hand off at the forearm. Nathaniel then vaulted over the giant's right shoulder, and rolled to his feet, near the wall behind him, and a mine cart off to his right.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 3 (Misses Nathaniel)

 

The skeleton turned around to backswing into Nathaniel with a full body turn, but only splintered the mine cart, a panel from which stuck on its blade, which it then tried to shake off before remembering Nathaniel was there. It tried to stab at him with its broken off arm, but Nathaniel sidestepped it rather easily, and began running up it towards the giant's head again.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 6 (Nathaniel hits for 2 damage, killing the monster)

 

Nathaniel darted up the arm of the giant, slicing off the arm he traveled up as he stepped onto its shoulder, and slicing through the spinal column just below where the skull met it, severing the monster's head, and causing it to burst into the customary blast of colored light.

 

Loot: 2

 

"Oh, c'mon. That was a good fight, is there really nothing for me?" Nathaniel griped as he looked through the loot menu and found nothing in the monster's inventory.

 

Then another monster rounded the corner into the final chamber of the mine, where Nathaniel was. It was a skeleton just like the others he'd seen, but it had no pick, instead it had two, massive, jagged claws at the end of its arms, and its cursor identified it as, "Dry Bones".

 

Nathaniel sighed, "You'd BETTER have some loot..." before they lunged at each other.

[Nathaniel 0]

Mob: 10 (hits Nathaniel for 4 damage)

 

It was a lot faster than Nathaniel anticipated, and more animal in its attack pattern. It didn't time its swings, it just savaged him with its enormous claws, which didn't knock Nathaniel around, they just cut deep and hurt him really badly, cutting off his attack in an effort to defend against the onslaught of vicious, scything swings.

[Nathaniel 0]

Battle: 2 (Nathaniel misses)

 

Attempting to stop its swings, Nathaniel knocked its claw into its other claw, and kicked it in the sternum, throwing it back and allowing him to regain his composure, but not getting a chance to swing on it for a killing stroke. It stood up and hissed at him, brandishing its claws again. HOW it hissed at him, Nathaniel didn't know, but he stopped thinking about the hiss the moment the claws started scything towards him again.