Short summary of the last chapter:
Spoiler :
Voice finished auto reading the book in his inventory. He gained two new skills that let him fuse all of his alchemy skills into one Group Skill. He viciously beat a would-be rapist, that turned into a demon. And cooked a decent stew.
Also I was told that people were confused at the book he read to get the skills in the last chapter. He checked out two books from the library, one was the portal like one, and the other was a book to distill potions.
After moving around so much with his armor, and making and distributing food, he had gained a nice bit of movement in it. He deemed that he had learned a sufficient amount to take on one wolf by itself, with the help of his tamed animals. (Bro your ‘tamed animals’ could probably take it by themselves)
He went out to the city streets to continue walking in his armor. The sight was quite funny. A large iron suit occasionally stumbling across the road, followed by three cute little bunny rabbits.
He would occasionally see guardsmen looking in his direction. He was used to the common people gawking, but guards usually don’t pay attention to you unless you actively seek their help, or are committing a crime.
He went over to one of the gawking guards that was patrolling the road. The guard acted like he didn’t notice Voice when Voice was getting close.
“Hello there sir.” Voice said in an amicable way. “Do you know why I’ve been getting stares from all of the guards tonight? If I’m doing something wrong I’d like to fix it.” Voice was trying to sound slightly like a nobleman, he figured it would put the guard off and give Voice the advantage in this verbal sparring.
The guard began to talk while slightly fidgeting. “Well, you see, you have all of this iron armor on, but it’s obvious you don’t know how to use it very well. We just thought it was a bit funny, since you could easily get training down at the training hall.”
WHAT!? I can’t believe I wasted an entire half day! Why didn’t someone tell me sooner? Damn that Evan! He should have told me!
Voice was outwardly calm. “So where do I get this training?”
The guard took on a slightly more proper look, as if he had been asked that question by a newbie.
“Go to the temple of Mar. It is the third building past that.”
Voice thanked him and went that way. He decided to pop in to the chapel since he was headed that way. The doors to the chapel were closed, but not locked. Voice saw a priest standing at the altar. It was the same priest that he had first met when he donated his potions. The priest seemed to notice him as well, and came walking towards him.
When he got close enough Voice asked, “I am going to be leaving town soon, is there anything I can do to assist the church?” Voice wanted some more piety, and maybe to get some free priest spells.
The priest smiled, “Can you make any more of those potions? We ran out two days after you donated them. There are many injured in the city, since the monster subjugation has just happened.”
“Monster subjugation?” Voice asked with a bit of curiosity in his voice.
“Yes, well once a month the more powerful guardsmen and volunteers from the city go out into the forest to kill monsters. If they didn’t the monsters would grow to be too high a level.”
That made sense.
So I guess my potion was useful after all.
Voice had an idea to get him even more love from Mar.
“Well I can’t make any more potions since the townsfolk cleared out all of the green healing herbs and common weeds.”
The priest looked a little disappointed at this, but Voice continued.
“I can however offer to plant some of my last green healing herbs, and common weed if you have a chapel garden.”
The priest’s face lit up at those words. He quickly ushered Voice through the small doorway to the left. Outside was a small walled off area. It had several different vegetables growing there.
I guess they grow their own food.
Voice went to work extracting the seeds from the leaves of the healing herb. He managed to get a total of twenty seeds from all of his leaves. The common weed was much easier to get the seeds out of, and there were much more seeds. He put all of the seeds but five each in his inventory. He got a notice:
You have combined seeds into one inventory spot. You will need to sort them out to plant them.
He decided to get a seed pouch at the earliest time he could. He planted the ten total seeds, not forgetting to use planting intuition. He picked out the best spot for each of the ten seeds. He didn’t know how long it took the plants to grow, but he thought it would help bring the plants to the city sooner.
You have brought back Common Weed and Green Healing Herb from extinction in Rand.
You have gained 10 fame for bringing back the over harvested species.
You gained 15 piety for donating some of your last reserves of two plants not found in Rand.
For gaining 25 piety under Mar you have been granted a boon.
Many Blessings of Mar (minor)
For continued good faith towards the goddess Mar you have been granted her blessing.
At this time you can cast low level priest spells. Mar rewards your faith with a token of her power. You have gained the bonus Healer’s Aura.
If you continue to show good faith you rewards will increase.
Voice smiled at all of the bonuses he just gained. He thought:
Show Healer’s Aura.
Healer’s Aura
Only those that have learned the way of the healer to an adept level, or those blessed by Mar, receive this aura.
This aura is automatically equipped. You cannot remove this aura, unless you permanently banish it. You cannot receive this aura the same way you received it the first time.
This aura decreases all healing spell costs by 25%. It also increases all healing done by the user by 10%
This aura does not stack if you receive it from leveling and Mar’s blessing.
The priest mistook Voices smile for one that of happiness from helping others. He knew Voice hadn’t purchased any spells from the temple of Mar so he offered,
“Would you like to purchase some healing spells? I know you can cast novice, and apprentice level spells thanks to Mar’s divine guidance.”
Voice showed the priest what he thought was the proper amount of gratitude by shaking his hand and pulling the man into a hug.
The priest didn’t realize he had just hit upon Voice’s ambition.
“Yes, I would like that very much.”
The priest smiled, “Good, normally we sell these things for quite the price, but since you are the Blessed of Mar, and you have helped our temple so much I will offer you a 50% discount on them.”
After a moment’s thought he added, “And I think Mar would accept me giving you one novice tome for free.”
Voice was as happy as when he first got into his pod.
This game is going perfectly for me!
He got an ominous felling after saying that.
The priest led him to a bookcase behind the organ.
“These are your choices.”
He pointed out three books.
“The first one heals a small amount instantly, obviously it’s good if you are in need of immediate attention. The second heals twice as much as the first, but it takes five seconds to feel its full effects. The amount of mana is slightly less though. The last one gives a minor buff to healing rate.”
Good. Voice was glad that buffs were considered healing spells. In some games they either grouped with debuffs or a separate magic branch all together.
Voice thought it over for a few seconds. The healing rate wouldn’t really matter if he could just heal instantly. The main point to consider was if there was a Cooldown timer for healing spells. He asked the priest.
“I see you really were not helping to gain the love of Mar. You truly are just a generous soul.” When Voice gave him a confused look he explained. “I’ve heard you research everything completely before committing yourself to a task, so there is no way you wouldn’t have known had you just done this for the reward.”
Voice inwardly cursed himself.
I should have thought about that, so that if the rewards were not high enough I could refuse!
Voice admired the amount of deceit the priest was capable of.
“To answer your question: no. The only limit to the speed of your casting, for most healing spells, is the mana total and regen you have, and the incantation if it has one. The only spells that have incantations are the Master level spells though.”
Voice smiled and thanked the priest. “I would like the instant healing book please.”
The priest handed the book to Voice in a very solemn way. Voice waited because it seemed as if the man was going to do some sort of ritual or blessing.
“May Mar, in all her glory, bless the wielder of the knowledge this book contains. Blessed be the people, by the most holy Mar. Amen.”
The last part sounded like a prayer you would have to repeat at church, so Voice did.
“Blessed be the people, by the most holy Mar. Amen.”
The priest looked respectfully at Voice. “Thank you, not many people really pray to Mar anymore. Not since the Church of Davros started openly killing Mar’s believers.” The priest looked as if he were about to ask something, then thought better of it.
I smell a quest!
Voice tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. “Please tell me how I can help.”
The priest replied in a solemn tone, “I don’t think you can. At least not right now. Davros has promised to stop all attacks on Mar. The other Elder Gods demanded for Davros to. Davros attached a condition though. In 20 days from now he will send a champion to the Ether Realm. Mar must do the same. If she doesn’t, or her champion loses the duel to the death, Davros will continue his killings.”
The priest looked frantic at this point. “He declared the God’s Chosen Ritual! The other Elder Gods couldn’t deny him! So now unless she can find someone worth giving her full blessings to, all of her children are doomed!”
“Why can’t she just choose someone at the last minute?”
“She can’t give her blessing to someone that didn’t earn it! If she did they could be too easily tempted by Davros!” The priest was basically fuming at this point, so Voice decided to back off.
“So everything will be ok if I just become Mar’s chosen one and win the duel right?”
The priest looked confused until the meaning of Voice’s words dawned on him.
You have accepted this quest.
Success: Defeating Davros’ Chosen One in a duel to the death in 20 days.
Difficulty: Difficult
Failure: Not defeating Davros’ Chosen One in a duel to the death in 20 days.
Reward: Undying devotion of the Church of Mar, as well as an audience with Mar.
Failure leads to decrease intimacy with Mar and all of her followers, as well as her followers’ eventual death.
I mean I didn’t really want to generate a quest, but DAMN that’s some reward!
(BTW Quest levels are: Basic, Easy, Difficult, Very Difficult, And Colossal)
“Thank you, thank you so much!” The priest cried tears of joy once Voice agreed to rid the world of Davros’ influence.
He looked at the clock, it was 2 a.m.
Well shit, I guess planting the seeds took longer than I thought I doubt anyone would want to train people this late.
Voice decided to go back to Susan’s. He was thinking on the way there. He made several plans to get into Mar’s good graces, but most of them would take long periods of time. He could always make a super potion and donate it to her, but he felt he would eventually feel diminishing returns.
On the way back the first history book was finished being auto read.
It was titled a brief history of Solun.
A Brief History of SolunSolun was created by the Elder Gods, a group of nine individuals that craved to quench their thirst for adventure. The Elder Gods originally warred with those from other realms, killing countless humans. Oddly the only invaders of other realms were humans. Eventually the gods had an idea. They could create a peaceful world where the invading humans might find fun. After creating the world the gods argued over command of it. They all shared in creating the races and the land, so they all had equal rights to the world. Eventually they agreed that they would introduce themselves to the peoples of the world and have them decide who they would worship. The people of Solun each chose a deity to worship, thus came the nine religions.
Eh? That wasn’t a history of the world. That just talked about the gods? WTF man? Getting my hopes up for actual information!
Voice was understandably upset that the history of Solun was only about the gods. The only important thing he learned is that the gods played a major role in this world. Upsetting one or many of them was probably a death sentence.
And I became the Blessed of Mar, so now Davros is probably out to kill me. GREAT!
He made it to Susan’s and went to sleep.
The next day planned to go to the training area. He made sure to pick up a few lily pads when he woke up, and harvest the necessary ingredients from them before tossing the rest of the stuff in Susan’s vats.
He refused to use anymore of his common weed, so he would just have to eat the lily pad. He gathered ten of the pads. After tossing the refuse into Susan’s vats he decided to make the pads into a vegetable stew to give him a better stamina regen. He used Elizabeth’s kitchen instead of gathering wood.
It only took three minutes to properly cook the stew. He slowed the process down to make sure he noted everything about the cooking process. After adding the salt, which he measured to the ounce using a tool Elizabeth offered, he measured out the exact amounts of pounds of each ingredient. He added the cabbage first so that its flavor could drown out the flavor of the lily pad. After that he added in some carrots and radishes. He added the lily pads, two of them, last.
Elizabeth was turned around looking through a large white rectangular box. She sniffed the air, “So why aren’t you using any meat this time?”
Voice awkwardly admitted, “Well I ran out and don’t have a lot of money. I only have five silver left.”
Elizabeth turned around with two big handfuls of what looked like beef cuts. “If I give you these can Evan and I have some of your stew?”
Voice hurriedly agreed. Meat would add a lot to this meal. He fried the meat and added it to the stew.
He gave the Troy and Rabs two carrots and one radish each. He let Heather eat the leftover stew from yesterday.
He added a couple of extra carrots this time to thicken the stew. What he got in the end was:
Fried Meat in Thick Vegetable stew
Quality: Mundane
Thick vegetable stew and fried meat made by an amateur, were combined to make this.
One serving restores 30 stamina per second, and restores 100 fatigue. You also gain 5 strength and 50 max stamina for the next hour.
You can add other foods to it.
Interestingly his alchemy and cooking both went up. He was expecting a new skill out of this, maybe alchemic cooking, but nothing happened. He felt let down that such a good opportunity had passed him by.
It didn’t seem like the quality had any direct correlation to taste, so Voice was ok with it being such low quality. No doubt that having much higher quality food would grant a large bonus to taste though.
The stew was enough to feed five people, so he would just have to give Elizabeth and her husband some and he could still have three servings left.
After serving the food to the couple he left for the training hall. He made the trip in only twenty minutes more than normal. He was getting pretty accustomed to the armor at this point.
He got to the training hall with three bowls of the stew. He went into the training hall. Once he entered he got a notice:
You can get training from any npc in the training hall. They may ask you to do a favor first, and you cannot ask for training from another npc inside the same training hall until you finish it.
There were several npcs there. Some were dodging attacks, some were doing the attacking. Most were attacking practice dummies.
Voice went up to the man in the heaviest looking armor. He figured that if you were a master at something you would want to show off. Many people were watching him work.
Something to the left of the man caught his eye. He noticed a man wearing only normal villager clothes. He could see that this man was avidly paying attention to the man in the large armor while the man in the armor taught others. The villager man didn’t watch with intrigue, amazement or curiosity though. He watched as if he were looking for mistakes.
Now, who would watch a master for mistakes, and not in amazement?
Voice made the only logical conclusion.
He went up to the villager, “Please teach me the proper way to wear heavy armor.”
He had said it quietly, but the entire training center stopped at that exact moment. There was a collective silence. The villager man looked amusedly at Voice.
“And what makes you think I know about heavy armor?” The man started standing up while asking this. He stood up as an old man might, his right hand on his right knee for support.
Voice was confident in his appraisal of the man’s skills.
“You were the only one watching the hulk over there for flaws.
The villager smiled. He shrugged as if saying ‘what can you do about it?’
“Fine but you must help me first. I don’t promise to know anything about armor of any type, but I’ll help you to the best of my abilities.” The man put his hands behind his back as he examined Voice. Voice thought he saw the man’s right arm move. The entire training hall resumed their previous practices amid shouts from the instructors.
“What I want you to do is feed me. If my satiety drops below 90 before you can get me food you lose. Ready? GO.”
The man started running in place. Not jogging, running. Voice gave him the one of his special stamina regenerating Irish stews.
At first the man was confused to see food suddenly appear before him. Then he had a strange glint in his eye.
“Okay.” He said after taking the bowl. He started talking amid large mouthfuls of stew. “I’ll agree to help you, but you must dodge his attack at least once.” He motioned for a man to come over. “His name is Steve.”
Steve gave a once over to the man in front of him. This newbie was wearing decent iron armor, but it looked to weigh two or three times the needed amount.
“When you can dodge one attack from him completely I will train you.” The villager finished off the stew and, after quickly rinsing the bowl out with water from his canteen, returned the bowl.
Steve was wearing only light leather armor. He had two swords attached to his waist. He was very muscular, but not overly so. His head was shaved, and he had a scar on his left eyebrow down to his chin. He came over and started an underhanded attack. He quickly took out his right sword and cut at Voice in a right hip to left shoulder line. At the same time he took out his second sword and cut a horizontal strike. Voice backed away, and would have dodged both had he been faster. The swords only managed to knick him.
Steve was impressed. Just knowing how to dodge in that overweight armor was quite impressive.
Steve thought, I’m going to enjoy this for once.
“Well boy, looks like the old man here was right in choosing me to be your partner. I won’t be holding back.”
With that he started some of the most intricate and devastating attacks he could, obviously toned down in power as to not kill the poor boy.
Some of the attacks he almost dodged, but most hit him squarely. Steve could see that it wasn’t just luck that let the boy almost dodge occasionally, but most of the time he looked like any other heavy armor goon.
After it was clear the boy could go on no longer Steve said, “So where did you learn such clumsy dodging skills? Your master would be ashamed to know you came here to better yourself.”
Voice replied between gasping for air, “I didn’t… have… a teacher. I just… started… working… on it… yest…yesterday.”
Steve gaped in astonishment. The villager rubbed his chin thoughtfully while asking, “So exactly how did you train to such a degree in one day?”
Voice had caught his breath by now and seated himself while he answered.
“I had a blacksmith make some armor that is heavier than usual so I could get used to the weight. I walked around for a while, and did some cooking.”
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“Why cooking?” The old man gave him a bit of a disbelieving look.
Voice stated with a bit of pride, “I figured that if I wanted to get used to heavy armor I should do everything in it.”
The villager looking man approved of this logic. If you wish to master something you must fully work towards it with everything you have.
This young man truly knows how to train.
The old villager man said, “Fine, you will train for next four hours with Steve. After that you are to kill an enemy, any enemy is fine, as long as you don’t break any laws.”
Voice knew that he might be given a task, but wasn’t fighting an actual battle too much to ask?
Is he wanting to kill me off or something!?
Voice decided to accept it, and just say yes. Worst case scenario he would abandon the quest and go to another training area to receive training.
“Alright, just let me eat some of my stew and I’ll be ready.” Voice gorged himself on his food to recover a bit. His health hadn’t declined a lot, but it was still lower than he liked. After eating the food he started the session immediately.
At first he tried dodging the attacks. Since he couldn’t manage to dodge even one, and the old man never said he couldn’t use weapons, he took out his staff and tried to guide Steve’s attacks away from him. Even with his staff and instinct ability he was hard pressed to only get grazed.
The results of the day’s work was: several bruises on his chest, arms and knuckles, a large welt on the back of his right knee, and his right knuckles were bleeding from being repeatedly struck while trying to guide Steve’s attacks away from himself.
He had done a lot better at first, since he had the stamina regen increase and strength bonus. After those wore out he was so outmatched you might even call it funny.
Steve never seemed to tire, he had not even broken a sweat. Whenever Voice would falter Steve would strike. Whenever Voice would block, Steve would attack from another angle.
The entire training hall had stopped to watch the spectacle by the end. Some people were impressed that the newbie lasted the entire four hours, not many people did. Most were in laughing fits over the depressing gap in power between the two combatants.
When Voice left it was still early afternoon. He ate another bowl of his stew. He was out now and decided to make something else to eat.
Maybe a nice salad this time? Well then again I won’t get the fifty percent bonus to taste if I don’t use my pot or pan. Stew it is I guess.
He told Heather to attack Troy while he was cooking, but if he got low on health to stop. He had Rabs run laps until he collapsed.
No sense in letting them wasted anymore time.
He went back to Elizabeth’s house to make a vegetable stew. He had an epiphany when he took out his vegetables.
AH! I know I’ll use Elizabeth’s love of cooking against her!
He went in Evan’s house without knocking. He didn’t even consider it rude since he was ‘blood brothers’ with Evan, and Elizabeth’s life savior.
He found Elizabeth in the front room, reading a book.
“So, Elizabeth how would you like to learn a new recipe for free? All I want is a small portion for a friend.”
Susan looked up from her book and smiled at Voice. She was a little unsure as to why he seemed to insist on wearing iron armor in the kitchen, but she would forgive him if the recipe was good. “Sure, let’s go to the kitchen. It’s about time for lunch anyway.”
He told her the ingredients he needed.
“Luckily I have all of these.”
Yeah, Voice thought, It’s lucky I intentionally picked food I thought you’d have.
He went to work. She had provided him with a loaf of bread, a large wedge of cheese, and some oil.
What he made surprised her.
He took the bread and sliced it into pieces of about an inch thick apiece. He also cut the cheese into thin slices. He then poured the oil on his special pan, and started to slowly cook the bread slices. After two slices of bread were toasty looking he put a cheese slice on one, and put the other slice of bread on top of it. The bread was a brownish color to start with, but turned a slightly more yellowish color.
He presented the final product to her.
So it’s just a basic meal? You could get this for a few copper. Although I’ve never thought to actually cook the bread and cheese like that.
She tried it while Voice made another batch. It was surprisingly delicious. She didn’t realize you could make something taste so good with such simple ingredients.
“What do you call this?”
“It’s called a grilled cheese sandwich.”
You have invented sliced bread.
You have gained 15 fame.
You have invented sliced cheese.
You have gained 15 fame.
You have invented the sandwich.
You have gained 15 fame.
You have invented the grilled cheese sandwich.
You have gained 15 fame.
After he made the next sandwich Elizabeth went to eat it, only to have her hand slapped away.
“You have to wait till I’m done. I still need to make the salad.”
He made another five grilled cheese sandwiches, then started working on the salad. He cut the cabbage up after tearing off the leaves. He then finely cut the carrots and radishes. He ran over to Susan’s and invited her over.
When they were all seated Voice handed out the food. Susan and Evan were as surprised at the grilled cheese sandwiches as Elizabeth was. He gave each of them one, and gave each of them some salad.
The lunch was a huge success. Everyone really enjoyed it. Voice’s cooking skill was now level four.
Wow I guess good food levels this skill up fast.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Quality: Mundane
The inventor of sliced bread and sliced cheese made a wonderful new recipe.
One serving restores 50 fatigue and grants a plus one percent of happiness for the next five minutes.
Cabbage, Carrot, Radish, and Lily Pad Salad
Quality: Low
A salad made by a low level cook.
One serving restores 5 stamina per second, and restores 40 fatigue.
You can add other vegetables to it.
After everyone was done eating Voice went to message EDI.
He looked at his friends list to see if EDI was online. She was. He sent her a quick message.
‘Hey going to go monster hunting again. Wanna come? Same formation as last time.’
He got an instant reply.
‘I’ve been trying to contact you for the last four days. Where were you?’
‘I was in another realm gaining knowledge. Then I went training. What did you need me for?’ He sent a party invite along with this message.
She accepted. He said open map, and a map popped up. He was a green dot, he knew this since he had three light green dots surrounding him. She was a blue dot, the thing was she was inside the mountain to the north.
Through the party channels he got the message,
“I tried exploring the lowest level dungeon. SD (ShortDwarf) and LB (LastingBeauty) already cleared it, but the boss respawns in about a day irl.”
“What kind of dungeon?”
“It was supposed to be an easy one, but when I got to the boss he was harder than what SD and LB said he was. I think he leveled up since then. The boss guards were also stronger, but most of the dungeon was weaker. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe after dying the boss and his guards went on a killing spree?”
“See that’s the thing, right after SD and LB finished the dungeon the boss got weaker, and the other monsters got stronger. NPCs went to keep it clear, after a while the enemies got weaker and the boss got stronger.”
Voice thought about it for a bit.
“It’s probably decided by the dungeon boss. Like if the enemy killed the boss too quickly then the boss spam kills his subordinates, since they just come back at a lower level everything is ok. If the party got through to the boss to quickly maybe he lets his people kill him a few times. Maybe the dungeon has a total level or something.”
You are the first player to have solved the dungeon conundrum. This problem has been theorized by many people for long periods of time. The total exp of each dungeon remains the same for that dungeon, but may be distributed by the boss. For solving this problem you have gained ten intelligence.
Eh? Oh nice!
As Voice read the pop up he had a flare of happiness. Although the stat increases were happening semi-frequently a ten point boost was pretty cool.
When he got close enough he told his animals to go find the entrance. Unsurprisingly Rabs found it first. He ran back to Voice and told him the location. Voice called the other two back.
He had just told EDI his idea on the dungeons when he arrived at the entrance.
EDI said, “So do you need to know the way to the dungeon? I made it back to the first floor, but all the monsters and traps have regenerated since I’ve been here too long. So I can’t leave.”
“No need I just got to the dungeon.” Voice tried to sound as cool and calm as possible.
“Wah? Already? Wow that’s service right there. You should deliver pizzas or something.”
Voice gave a polite laugh. “Well which room are you in? And have you decided to join my guild yet?”
EDI was confused by the second question for a second. “The third door on the left, and I don’t think I’d fit in a guild. Sorry.”
“Oh, that’s alright just thought I’d ask. Anyway the door looks solid how do I open it?”
Voice had carefully made his way down the hallway. Obviously he let all three of his rabbits go first so they were in the ‘least’ amount of danger.
After making sure they were safe he followed. The hallway was a straight stone hallway, with three doors on each side. At the end of the hallway was a large door that said “Enter Level One” in large red letters. He came to the third door on the left. It was a giant flat stone door with minor cracks due to its extreme age. It also had a blood red picture of a skull painted in the center.
Nope, not creepy at all.
EDI told him, “Try to pull the door!”
Dafuq? Crazy ass bitch. It’s a flat stone door I can’t pull it!
He tried anyway. There was no way to pull the door. Except for he minute cracks it was a solid surface. The only thing on the floor was a tiny hole along the bottom of the door, but he was damned if he would put his fingers under a giant stone door to pull it.
As he was trying to think of a way to pull the door he felt a small disturbance in the air around its middle. He tried to grasp it, only to fail.
He decided that was what he was meant to pull. He tried several times before finally getting a feel for it.
As he grasped the wind like handle, he pulled towards himself. The stone door moved about a quarter of an inch, then fell into a slot the ground. It was as if it was just a quarter of an inch away from the slot it had been meant to be inside.
He was very glad he didn’t try to put his fingers under it to pull. EDI half jumped at, half hugged Voice when the door was low enough.
“Thank you SO much! It wouldn’t let me log out in that room or I would die.”
Voice didn’t really care that she could have died. He thought it’d be fun to explore a dungeon, though.
EDI noticed his armor while she was hugging him. “So, uh… did you get this new armor? It looks nice…”
Voice smiled. “I’m training to be able to wield actual heavy armor. I want to be ready, so I increased the weight on this one by a lot.” After that he volunteered to join her in clearing the dungeon.
“Really? Thanks! That will save me a lot of time.” She said ecstatically. She was really happy that he said he’d come with her. It was pretty fun when they went exterminating monsters, so this should be even more fun.
Since EDI knew the dungeon she led the way. “So do you want to go straight for the boss or clear the whole thing?”
She wanted Voice to enjoy the dungeon clearing so that he might join her more often than the average of once every five days.
Voice thought about it for a moment. “Well since I’m only level six, I say we get some exp before going to the boss.”
EDI choked back a laugh. “You’re only level six? What have you been doing this whole time?”
“Hmph. If you don’t want my help just say it.”
EDI quickly apologized. “Sorry, I’m sorry ok? I just didn’t think any of the players were still below level twenty. DefiledHealer posted his character sheet online a few irl hours ago. SD and LB did the same. They are all over level 35 at this point. Apparently DH has started magic training. He blurred out his class though.”
“What level are you?” Voice was curious. If she would just be a burden he’d probably ditch to go train.
“Twenty-five.” Seeing that Voice was questioning how she had trouble with the dungeon she continued. “The dungeon has five levels. The first one is meant for level one to five. The second one is meant for six to ten, and so on. I thought I could beat the boss since I have the equivalent level for it. The boss was over level thirty. He almost killed me! I had to run out of the room just to make it out alive.”
“I brought some food if you want to eat.” As he said this EDI was eagerly nodding. She had not eaten since she started the dungeon and was suffering from starvation.
When she saw the grilled cheese and salad she asked, “Did you make this?”
Voice replied yes.
EDI replied between stuffing her face with food, “This is amazing! You... mmm… you should become a cook or something.”
“Well let’s go explore!” Voice was enthusiastic about the upcoming dungeon.
I bet I’ll be able to level up to at least 20 if I defeat the boss!
“Why does the game only give you hp when you level?” Voice wondered why it didn’t give other stats. Basically all other games game multiple bonus upon level up.
“What do you mean?”
“Well whenever I level up I only gain 10 hp.”
EDI gave Voice a WTF look. “You haven’t been getting the skill points? You should talk to a GM about that. That is potentially very disadvantageous.”
Voice hated the word disadvantage. He didn’t know that he had been losing stat points this entire time.
After a second with a blank expression EDI said “Um, now I know you probably have, but I still need to ask. Have you actually gone to the distribute stat points screen?”
Voice had not.
“Of course I have. I just haven’t been getting any this entire time.” Voice secretly checked the distribute stats screen. He had forty stat points to distribute. That meant he probably had gotten about five per level.
Now that I think about it didn’t Bee say that I got five bonus points for being human? I really need to pay attention to the boring stuff. Oh well.
“Ok, I’ll ask the GM about it, thanks EDI.”
He decided not to spend his points right now since it might make it a tad difficult to adjust to stats he didn’t train to get. He decided he would make a training regimen to do after the dungeon.
EDI headed back to the first door on the side she was in. She opened the door and was attacked by two small bears. Voice let out his roar of paralysis. The bears looked at Voice in horror.
EDI and Heather used that moment to attack. Heather went straight for one of the bears’ stomachs. EDI went for an eye.
She must really enjoy cutting out people’s eyes.
Heather viciously tore at the stomach. The bear actually started bleeding after just one bite. EDI had taken the other bear’s eye out by the time the roar wore off.
Voice took his staff and approached the bear missing the eye.
“Troy! Rabs! Help kill the other bear! EDI and I will take this one!”
The bear looked angrily at Voice. He attacked by swiping his large right paw at Voice’s chest. The armor did its job by negating the hit. He swiped with his other paw. The paw was swinging down to Voice’s left side, he deftly pushed the paw further to the left with the tip of his staff until it was clear it would miss him.
The bear looked confused and angry that he had not been able to damage the intruder.
The bear prepared to swipe again, only to have its other eye stabbed out by EDI.
While Voice was distracting the bear EDI had crept up behind it and moved to its right, uninjured, eye. When it swiped at Voice she expected to see him go flying, but was pleasantly surprised to see he calmly block the attack.
The moment the attack finished she took the chance and threw herself at the bear, Sai point towards it eye. She hit.
The bear was completely blinded, and enraged. It randomly swiped trying to protect itself. After a few swipes Voice struck it in the stomach three times in quick succession. It doubled of in pain, and EDI jumped onto its back. She repeatedly attacked the base of its skull. She had learned that trick from Voice.
The bear went crazy for a second, then fell over dead.
Voice looked over to the other bear ready to help. Only to notice Heather happily munching on the exposed stomach of her prey.
When Voice and EDI had started attacking their bear, Troy Roared at his. The bear was caught off guard by another sudden roar. In that instant Rabs ran in and tackled the side of its head. The bear was disoriented for a moment, and Heather took another chunk out of the protective layer of fat on its stomach.
They repeated this tactic several times until Heather could eat in peace. Troy and Rabs looked away, too embarrassed and disgusted at the thought of a fellow rabbit eating meat.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard.” Voice was confident they could take this dungeon.
EDI was not so happy. “Those were only level one enemies. They were the weakest in the entire dungeon.”
Voice lost his confidence. “Oh, well crap. At least I know the armor’s working.” He tried to smile, but the thought of the battles becoming overwhelming was quickly eating away at any hopes he had at actually beating this dungeon.
EDI went to the door across the hall and opened it.
Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassAnimal TamerHealth160Mana290Stamina290Level6Current TitleBunny LoverHealth Regen/Sec1.6Mana Regen/Sec2.0Stamina Regen/Sec4.1Strength21Agility10Wisdom20Intelligence29Endurance41Dexterity25Luck10Vitality29Charisma11Compassion35Leadership36Logic12Piety25Fame460
Skills WindowIdentify Novice Level 9 Exp 21.11%Skill Fusion Novice Level 3 Exp 00.00%Identify Skill Novice Level 6 Exp 14.28%First Aid Novice Level 1 Exp 90.00%Deception Novice Level 3 Exp 82.50%Critical Strike Novice Level 6 Exp 75.00%Automated Novice Level 6 Exp 25.00%Auto Aid Novice Level 1 Exp 90.00%Alchemical Aid Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%Speed Reading Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%Auto Read Novice Level 19 Exp 57.89%Identify Compatible Skills Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%Skill Dissembler Novice Level 1 Exp 00.00%Cooking Novice Level 4 Exp 10.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Novice Level 8 Exp 57.23%
Affinities WindowNature10