The healer studied Joe’s face some before nodding, “I… “
Garnedell interjected, “Apologies, great healer. My master is an eccentric from another plane. He… is foreign and doesn’t understand our plane.”
The healer relaxed significantly at that and bowed slightly at Joe, “Apologies. I did not know you were an eccentric.”
“Ah.. uh… don’t think anything of it.”
The healer nodded at that, “Then I can understand your confusion and request. I apologize we cannot support your desire.”
Joe frowned at that, “Could we discuss that a bit? If that’s OK? So I can understand healers' thoughts and beliefs in this? Oh… uh… I don’t know your name. May I know it?”
The healer grinned at that, nodding his head again, “I am Chulnan.”
“Nice to meet you, Chulnan. I’m Joe. This is Garnedell, Zilnek, and Kilniara.”
The healer looked at the other three and offered a quick nod at the introduction but seemed to dismiss them before turning back to Joe, “I would be willing to discuss such things. If you wish. It is rather simple.”
Joe nodded, “Then, please, if you are willing.”
“Hmm… there is nothing special. Healers are simply defenseless. We would not be able to escape the dungeon.”
“And… you cannot trust you team?”
The healer frowned, “Few people are worthy of trust.”
“But some are?”
Chunlan’s frown grew deeper, “I would not trust any, to be honest.”
“Not even your own family?”
The man snorted, “I haven’t found many worthy of trust.”
Joe found himself struck by the man’s statement, struggling to hold himself back but simultaneously depressed at hearing it. He couldn’t think of any response, his mind kind of shocked by his statement. Finally, he decided to go with a simple and completely inadequate commiseration.
“I’m sorry.”
The man snorted, “Why are you sorry? That is life.”
Joe’s grin grew, still bitterly sad, “Not my life. Nor that of my people.”
The man looked up at him in shock, then considered him carefully while his face remained flat, “As you say, eccentric.”
Joe stared back, then sighed, “Hopefully, with time, I can show you differently?”
The healer simply stared at Joe at that, and Joe dropped the conversation after that. The meal started and the conversation returned to good cheer, Joe staying far from any serious conversations and Chunlan seemed to honestly enjoy the breakfast. The meal ended in good cheer with Kilniara healed quickly before they all headed back out for another day.
Joe almost turned towards the temple, then stutter-stepped and turned back towards the group and joined them. This caused Garnedell to stare up at Joe with some surprise, than shock as he grinned himself in realization. Joe grinned back and then raised a finger to his lips and shushed softly. Garnedell seemed confused until the mana explosion of language translation erupted out and Garnedell then nodded in understanding, grinning. Joe nodded back as well, but found the event telling, realizing that the system or language expertise could even offer translations of sign language. That brought a whole new slew of thoughts which he quickly set aside for later thought and he turned to prepare for today.
Assign polyglot language expertise char: to Saga chaplain change main job skill. He flipped open his status to verify but then frowned and froze when a popup appeared in front of him.
Unable reassign that char: any more times today.
Wait…what?! That… Joe grew concerned and frowned. That’s… OK… I got a limit… I can work with that…. Maybe… three times? No… Hmm… yesterday I changed each… only once… ok. And today, I changed … uh… once in the morning to theorist, then back to polyglot… then to change job skill soo… three, but failed on the third… so only two changes? Haven’t changed the other char: at all yet, right? Soo…. need double experience… but… still gotta change job… OK… I can do this… change to change job, change it, then change it to double experience… that does it… so…
Assign gladiator light armor to Saga chaplain change main job skill. Uh… ok… change job … uh… main job to Loki monk. He sighed with some relief with the change even if nothing much changed. His main stats all dropped by about three to five points and his current job page showed empty, the stats zeroed out with the new job. He walked beside them and could only feel joy. Ha! This… is nice… ok… uh… assign saga chaplain change main job char: to theorist double learning.
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Joe relaxed with the change, glad it was back to normal, but now began considering what he had to do to best use these skills. So… gotta figure out… how to best use them and make changes. Good to know… Joe joined the others and walked quietly with them and when they reached the dungeon entrance, Gwenvair was already waiting and surprised Joe by running towards them to greet and accept Kilniara’s hug. Her run was rather… subdued and graceful, while Kilniara’s was graceful in a deadly and incredibly competent way, if with much more abandon. The two quickly fell into chatting with one another and Joe watched them while Zilnek actually snorted. Joe glanced over to see him roll his eyes and Joe hid his smirk. In any case, Garnedell seemed to take his cue from him, and both ignored his reaction before turning the conversation to other topics.
As he’d expected, the entrance was packed with a long line, and they all settled in for the wait, Gwenvair polite enough to wait with them. She’d learned to wear a bit more generic and less noticeable clothing allowing them to make it through the line without turning the whole thing into a farce as people retreated to let her through. While they waited in line two different conversational groups formed with the girls huddled together and the boys turned away slightly to offer the two girls privacy. Joe decided to join the boys, ignoring the girl’s chat as they seemed to prefer privacy. The wait actually went pretty quick, and soon they were down into the first floor with Joe weaving and leading the way through the goblins towards their corner. Joe had to kill five goblins to make it and Joe was a bit surprised, wondering at how many there were. It wasn’t any harder to deal with them, and they were soon in the corner.
They settled in, dropping the packs and snacks on top of the bags. They didn’t bring lunch much anymore, everyone seemingly quite happy with a lunch at one of the guilds after their day in the dungeons. Gwenvair seemed to have integrated quite well as well, helping settle things with Kilniara. Joe smiled to see the easy way the two interacted and Joe’s respect for Gwenvair shot up quite a bit. Really… seems nice… for a noble… but maybe I’ve been kind of tainted by really bad Hollywood writing, but… yeah. Joe allowed everyone to relax for a time before finally calling for the beginning of the day.
Joe took a moment to pull Garnedell aside, handing him one of the weapons rings, “You’ll need this to use your staff.”
Garnedell glanced at it and frowned before realization hit him and he grew a bit flustered, even panicking a bit, and Joe put a hand on his shoulder in concern.
“Hey. It’s ok. Relax.”
Garnedell closed his eyes, and struggled to fight against his panic and Joe began to grow concerned. Why wasn’t he like this yesterday… or did he just forget… or… What can…
Joe quickly pulled out his coin pouch and pulled out the coin needed to change jobs at the local temples, “Hey. Hey! Look… look here.”
Joe pressed the coin into his hand, “See? Relax… you can change back to adventurer at any time… here… you’ve got everything you need… there’s nothing you need to worry about, OK?”
Garnedell glanced down at the coin and back up at Joe, his panic receding slightly before he nodded, but the small terror in his eyes still hit Joe right in his heart.
“Look. Why are you worried? You can still use your staff, see? Put the ring on. Go ahead… put it on… good. Make sure to set it to staff, now pick it up. See? You still have your staff. And you can still fight just as well as before, well… almost. Here, block me. You can do it. Here you go…”
Joe grabbed his spear but swung it like a staff and Garnedell expertly parried it as he’d always had. Joe began to slowly increase his speed until Garnedell was going just about as fast as he’d always been, if just slightly slower. His hits were quite a bit weaker, so Joe pulled them, not wanting to worry him. After a bit, Garnedell calmed, and Joe smiled.
“You might have to work harder and longer to kill the goblins, but… the temple is just right over there,” Joe pointed to the exit, “And you can run pretty fast… I think you could make it to the safe zone and the temple is not that far away to get your job back.”
Garnedell calmed at that then frowned a bit, “I’m not sure I would want to run across that. Seems dumb.”
Joe grinned, “Very dumb.”
Garnedell chuckled then looked up at Joe, “Thank you. It kind of… freaked me out.”
Joe shrugged and smiled, “You’re lucky. Still too young to get stuck with the ‘slow talking’ thing. When they need to change…” Joe pointed towards the two Acokzau with a grin.
Garnedell’s eyes widened a bit and he hid his laughter poorly, “True.”
The glanced at one another for a bit before Garnedell nodded, relaxed, “Thank you, Joe.”
Joe nodded, “No problem. Maybe… you and Zilnek with me first to make sure you’re both OK.”
Garnedell nodded with relief, “I would… appreciate that.”
“Sweet,” Joe said and then quickly turned back to the others, finding them all watching on with some concern. Joe noticed and turned to look back at Garnedell, asking with a subtle nod and a heavy message laden look whether he could tell the others.
Garnedell considered, then nodded, “Yeah. It’s fine.”
Joe nodded back before clapping him on the shoulder, “Well, Garnedell freaked out a bit when he remembered he is now a level one commoner today, so… be nice to him.”
Zilnek’s and Kilniara’s eyebrows both shot up through the roof while Gwenvair’s face grew blank quickly. Joe wasn’t sure what that was about but decided confronting her in front of the others might not be for the best and decided to simply move on.
Joe grinned, “So… everyone ready? Time to kick some butt today.”
All four nodded, various shouts of excitement and readiness calling out and Joe turned, leading them into the depths of the first floor. Joe had the groups set up and the first rotation up and going quite quickly.
The girls went off to fight, and he began helping Garnedell get used to his new strength and speed. His strength was quite a bit worse, and he grunted under the strikes of the goblins, but his speed was still quite adequate, easily able to react to the goblins’ strikes. It only took two or three before Garnedell was able to easily take on the goblins, especially with the help of Zilnek. Zilnek had to take a bit more active effort in defending himself, but Joe found that a benefit, actually, and put more pressure on Zilnek to support himself without being overly reliant on Garnedell. Soon, Joe was supporting them much as he’d ever had, allowing them to fight easily and often so that they could really gain a lot of experience and it wasn’t long that he felt comfortable enough to send them off on their own when the two groups alternated. He did cautiously watch the first couple of battles, allowing the girls to rest an extra couple minutes, but found nothing to really be of concern. Only that Garnedell grew exhausted just that much faster.