“Sir Verakith?” Was all Leo could ask. The man standing in front of him was at least a foot taller and had a bodybuilder’s physique. Something fairly easy to see when he opened the door shirtless. He had a layer of stubble on his face and messy black hair pulled back into a short ponytail.
“Yeah, that’s me. You better have a damn good reason for waking me up early.”
“Good afternoon, Sir Verakith!” The woman next to Leo stepped forward. “My sincerest apologies for disrupting your rest. My name is Rize, and I’ve come to request that you train me in the art of the sword.”
While she was talking, Leo took the opportunity to Appraise both of them.
[Warning! The difference in rank is too high! Some information is restricted.]
Name:
Okin Verakith
Title
Knight of Ashar
Class
-
Element
-
Total Rank
B
Name:
Rize Villot
Stats
Title
Nekomata
Fortitude: D-
Class
Endcaller
Reflex: D+
Element
Dark, Fire
Intellect: D-
Total Rank
D+
Intuition: D
Status
Health 100%, Mana 100%
Will: D+
Skills
Necromancy, Pyromancy, Poison Resistance, Ghost Flame, Mana Siphon
Luck: D-
Okay, Sir Verakith was definitely the real deal. “Same here.” Leo added. “I came here under recommendation because of your reputation.”
“Let me guess, you kids are Laborers, right? They’re the only ones who ask me for any training these days.” Sir Verakith said with a scowl.
“That’s not a problem, is it?” Rize asked. Her tails swayed back and forth behind her, something Leo noticed out of the corner of his eye.
“I guess it’s not.” He said with a sigh. “Come on in.” He turned and walked back further into his home, leaving Leo and Rize to follow. They looked between each other briefly before heading inside.
The place wasn’t the cleanest. Half empty bottles of varying kinds strewn about a home that, to give some credit, did speak to Sir Verakith having some wealth to his name. Leo spied a couple of bottles on a nearby counter that looked full and unopened. From a distance, they reminded him of whisky bottles.
“If you are Laborers, I’m guessing you’re coming to me to avoid getting yourself a Swordsmanship skill or something along those lines, but just in case, what are your classes?”
“Endcaller.” Rize answered almost immediately. “It is a class of mostly magic of the more destructive kind, but I have my own reasons for wanting to learn the sword.”
Leo, on the other hand, hesitated. “I’m a Mixer.” He said, watching tentatively for Sir Verakith’s reaction. It definitely got a curious gaze from Rize, but Leo couldn’t get anything from the knight’s gaze other than annoyed about being awake at this present moment. “I’d just like to do some questing, but I only have my Mixer skills. I feel like I only barely got through the tutorial.”
From what he learned after Appraising Sir Verakith, he wasn’t a Laborer, so Leo hoped that his intent translated well enough. It also made Leo wonder how much the knight knew about different classes.
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Sir Verakith looked between the two of them, gaze still unreadable before he sighed. “You’ve got to really make it worth my while to train two people who don’t even seem like they’ll use the training.” He said. “I’ll assume you wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t want to learn swordsmanship. But a mage and Mixer don’t exactly scream ‘career swordsman’.”
“I take it simply offering more credits than you’d normally take would suffice, would it?” Rize asked.
To which Sir Verakith shook his head. “Look around, I got more money than I know what to do with already.”
Leo resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This wasn’t exactly an unexpected development, though. He really couldn’t afford to pay more credits since he needed to buy materials for mixing, and the only thing he could really tell from looking around was that this guy really appreciated drinking. After a moment, he did get an idea. He looked around at all of the bottles in the room that he could see, and he pointed to one of the unopened ones he spied earlier. “Is that whiskey?” He asked.
With a nod and a raised eyebrow from Sir Verakith, Leo moved to grab the bottle, while bringing up the interface and swiping to purchase an E rank Vine-Covered Bone from the shop. He picked the bottle up, and Combined the whiskey inside with the Vine-Covered Bone and an Animated Bone in his Storage.
Aged Whiskey (Rank E)
Whiskey that has been aged 15 years, as if left in the cask it was made in.
The whiskey inside the bottle briefly flashed, prompting Sir Verakith to make his way over to Leo, only for Leo to hand him the bottle before he could say anything. “Try this.”
With a shrug, the knight pulled out the cork with a loud ‘pop’ just with his fingers before sniffing the whiskey inside and taking a swing. His eyes widened, and he pulled the bottle away to look back down at it. “I’ve been getting this from the same guys for 10 years. This is the smoothest it's ever gone down.”
“That’s because I’ve aged it about 15.” Leo said with a smile. “How about that? I do this to a bottle of your choice every training session, and I can age it even more if I have better materials.”
During his talk with Zumra, Leo found that his Combine ability can create entirely new items, but it can also shift the state of other materials that he mixed in. Mixing something with a Fire material to heat it, Mixing something with a Water material to cool or soak it. Dark could cause something to age or grow, but the effect was typically detrimental unless paired with something else. The Whiskey probably wouldn’t have been affected if he didn’t also add the Wood element to the mix.
“Well damn. That’s a pretty good offer.” Sir Verakith said, then turned to look at Rize. “What about you, Miss? Can you top that?”
Judging by her expression, it didn’t seem like she could. Like Leo, she probably came fully expecting to be able to pay with credits for the training. Leo’s mouth opened to speak before he fully realized processed the words, or before she could even answer. “Can’t I pay for both? Two bottles per session instead of just one?”
“I’ll take it. Looks like you’re in the clear for now. Rize, was it?”
Rize looked between Sir Verakith and Leo, this time her expression was hard to read. “I guess so. I am in your debt, I suppose…” She trailed off, which made Leo realize that he’d never actually introduced himself.
“I’m Leonell. Just call me Leo.” It seemed like they were going to be seeing each other frequently if they were going to train together.
“Well then, Leo. I’ll go ahead and give you two your first task.” Sir Verakith said, to Leo and Rize’s surprise as they both looked toward the knight. “Go complete a quest. Any kind will do, but come back and tell me about it.”
“Wait, why?” Leo asked. This wasn’t how this was supposed to work. He needed to get the training first, before he went on any quests.
“I am also curious as well.” Rize added. She seemed less surprised by the sudden addition.
Sir Verakith set his bottle of newly aged whiskey down and gestured to Leo. “If you could smell colors, there’d be green all over you. You said it yourself, you’re fresh out of the tutorial. I need to hear about how you react when you actually have some experience to figure out how best to train you. Besides, I’ve heard plenty from Laborers about the quests. Some of the regular people here have accidentally finished the lower ranked ones without being a part of the Labors at all.” With a shrug, he waved them off. “Anyway, no quest, no training. Come back when you’ve got something to tell me about.”
It didn’t seem like he was willing to take any arguments. With an exasperated sigh, Leo turned to leave Sir Verakith’s home, with Rize following behind him. Once he was outside, he opened his interface to the quest board. Something Zumra and Axilya showed him how to do earlier, but he never took the time to look at it in great detail.
“Are you alright?” Rize asked, standing by and watching the screen that popped up with interest.
Leo glanced her way and replied “Fine just-” and then he did a double take. “Wait, you can see this?”
“I can. That’s the way you see quests, isn’t it? Those are usually visible to others.” She said with a smile. “I believe it’s so groups of Laborers can more easily pick quests together. It has a rather interesting look, I will say. Mine takes the form of a scroll.”
With a shrug, Leo shifted over to let her have a look. Unlike most of the windows that popped up for him, this one didn’t immediately follow him to stay even with his face. He quickly filtered all of the available quests to ones that were in the area and E-rank. To his dismay, there weren’t any crafting quests, but he managed to find one that didn’t inherently involve any fighting.
Quest Title
Requisition - Oovina (Urgent)
Objective
Gather 6 Oovina and put them in the Labors’ shop
Reward
E-Rank Unrestricted Karma (2)
The quest also had a location, which showed a map of the area with a white marker for Leo’s location, and a green marker for the area of the quest in a forested area north of Normouth.
“Oh, Oovina are pretty rare.” Rize noted, at the confused expression on Leo’s face at the name listed in the quest. “They only bloom in the full moon, and then wilt about a day or so after.”
“I suppose that’s why this is urgent.” He worried about heading out so far away from the town and getting lost, but if he could look at that map after he accepted the quest, that became a non-issue for the most part.
“Since he didn’t specify, I imagine Sir Verakith wouldn’t care one way or the other if we did the same quest. Shall we gather the Oovina together? Based on the map, it will take a few hours to get there, and we’ll need to wait until night to gather the flowers. Even if the quest itself is E rank, there’s safety in numbers, no?”
At first, he wondered why she might want to do the quest together. If anything, she’d probably get it done faster if she did it herself, but then Leo remembered that he basically became her free ticket to training with Sir Verakith, so of course it made sense to make sure he didn’t go and get himself killed out in the woods. “That sounds great. I’ll go grab some stuff to get ready for the trip, but let's meet up at the north gate in a couple hours.”
With a nod and a wave, Rize started off, presumably toward the gate. Leo wondered if he could add her into a party. At the thought, a window from his interface popped up.
Send Rize Villot (D) a Party request?
Yes
No
He hit yes, and seconds later he got a response.
Rize Villot has joined your party!
With that out of the way, he went to change into a set of clothes for travel that he had in his storage. That entire exchange with Sir Verakith didn’t go at all like Leo thought it might, but after everything he did agree to train him. He even managed to find an E rank quest that wasn’t to kill something, and even got a party member to go along with him. The only issue he could see was that he didn’t know much about the local area’s wildlife or plants, but even that would be fine with Appraise and making sure he brought food. As long as they got to the location on top and picked enough flowers, everything would be fine. Surely nothing could go wrong.