Leo made his way back to Zumra’s store, both to leave the elf with another set of potions before he left, and to let Zumra know about where he was going.
“I’m glad that you’ve managed to convince Sir Verakith, given the circumstances. Mixing whisky into an aged form of itself isn’t something I’ve considered, though I have done it with wine before. Perhaps it may be something worth looking into on a large scale.”
“I feel like if the alcohol industry here is anything like the one where I’m from, I’d piss off a lot of people very quickly if I tried to turn it into a business.” Leo said. He thought back to long conversations overheard from one of his uncles about whisky aging and brewing with his friends, and similar conversations with his aunt, a wine mom by every metric. “Making a one off sale to rich people to get an absurd amount of credits every now and again sounds good, though.”
“Ah, right. Speaking of credits, you won’t be able to make purchases from the Labor’s shop once you leave Normouth, so I advise you to buy what you think you might need now,”
“Good to know.” Leo had been buying the materials he needed right when he went to make them, causing him to accumulate a couple hundred credits, which he’d been hanging on to so he could buy more materials. After making a few more potions and giving some of them to Zumra, Leo brought up the shop and bought one material from every element he could find, save for Aether.
From what he understood from browsing the shop, prices went up by rank, with E rank things ranging from 10 to about 100 credits depending on the item. Materials swung toward the lower end, from 5 to 10 credits, with the exception of Aether. The lowest amount he could find for the Aether element was 50. With E rank healing potions being 25, he found holding onto two of them a better use of his credits. Besides, he still had the C rank Aether material from when he fought Oorden if he really needed to use it. He also bought a lantern, a sleeping bag, a tent, and a lot of core camping equipment that he remembered from a camping trip he took when he was very young.
With that, he bid Zumra farewell, jokingly telling him to send Axilya toward the woods if he didn’t hear back from him by the next day. After that, he made his way to the North gate, seemingly ahead of Rize. While he waited, just outside the city, standing and watching people and carts begin to follow a wide dirt road, heading off toward who knows where.
Would be nice to have a car. He thought, thinking back to his last memory before he was swept up into the Labors, which was driving home. On a whim, he decided to open the shop and search, and he was not disappointed. There were a variety of vehicles. From smaller bikes, to cars that looked like they came from the 1920s or some steampunk video game, all the way up to airships. The lowest of these, however, were B rank, with prices averaging in the hundreds of thousands of credits, and the highest getting well into the millions.
That definitely gave him something to look forward to for the time being, but he wasn’t coming close to anywhere near that amount of money any time soon. Scrolling through hundreds of different models of things, likely from different worlds across space got Leo wondering about the shop. It didn’t have a front page, like the pages from other games that the screen mimicked. Instead he had to search for something by name or start applying filters for anything to show up at all. Maybe because the shop was only meant to sell items that he actually needed, and it discouraged randomly spending and saving credits for things he actually needed. He’d keep it in the back of his mind, and maybe ask Zumra about it later.
While he continued to scroll through a list of vehicles he couldn’t afford, he heard the sound of footsteps coming his way, and glanced over to see Rize approaching. She’d also changed into clothes for traveling, including a thick coat with some kind of padded cloth. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting for very long.”
“Not at all.” Leo replied. “Let’s hit the road, if we’ve got everything.”
One of Rize’s ears flicked, and she gave Leo a warm smile. “Off we go, then.”
Following the map provided by the quest had them go off road quickly, hiking through a forest that became thicker the closer they got to their destination. Assuming no issues with the travel, they planned their trip to get there with more than enough time to spare, reaching the general area as the sun fully set, and giving them plenty of time to find the flowers they were looking for when the moons were high in the sky, and they bloomed.
The entire time, Leo kept an eye out in the woods, looking for the wildlife. Just from very brief explanations from Axilya and Zumra, he knew there were things out there he’d never see on Earth. Oddly, he didn’t see much of anything other than birds with interesting patterns and colorations that watched them from the tall branches of tree, and the occasional lizard or small rodent that would scamper away if they got even remotely close.
“Something wrong?” Rize asked, seemingly picking up on his excessively wandering eyes.
“Where are all the animals?” He asked. He knew that most things tended to avoid human- and he supposed cat-person contact if they could, but this gave off the vibe of a city park rather than pure, untamed wilderness. “Everything I’m seeing is pretty small.”
“It is strange, now that you mention it.” She too, began to look around in the same manner as Leo. “I’ve found a bit of peace in this walk, but it is strange that we haven’t come across anything larger than a mouse on the ground.”
“We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled.” Leo said. Once again, one of Rize’s ears twitched at the saying, but she said nothing, and kept moving along. They traveled deeper into the forest, taking enough breaks to rest Leo’s legs and feet to make him really look forward to raising his Fortitude. Along the way, as the sun set on the horizon, another notification pinged for him.
You’ve sold 10 items made with Combine! Achievement Reward: D rank Mental Karma.
Looks like those potions he left with Zumra and put on the shop were still selling. That’d be the last one he’d see for a while, though. He’d have to sell 50 for the next one, and it’d take him at least a week to even make that many. He was starting to see why it’d taken Zumra 10 years to get to C Rank from only selling.
Rize brought Leo out of his own thoughts by holding a hand out to stop him from moving forward. “Do you smell that?” She asked, quietly.
“What?” Leo replied, only for the smell to hit him a moment later. A scent of iron that immediately sent his nerves on edge. “Blood?” He asked. Rize nodded in response. Crouching, she began to creep forward through the brush, and gestured for him to follow along. He crouched down as well and moved behind her, briefly contemplating bringing out his sword and shield, just in case they ran into something that needed it. He decided not to, as Rize didn’t have anything in her hands just yet.
The bushes creaked and cracked uncomfortably loud as they shifted through. Rize came to a stop and looked ahead, observing the situation while Leo moved to take his own gander at what they’d walked into. The clouds of the overcast sky above split briefly, making a heinous spotlight onto the scene before them. The sight of a bloody battle was the most generous way he could describe it, bloody claw marks spread out against a clearing, marking the ground and nearby trees, kicked up dirt, rock, and the general sense of frantic movement pervaded the space. In the middle, Leo could see the fresh corpse of a creature he’d never seen before. A bulky, brown thing as big as a fully grown ox, covered in some sort of natural armor plating, though most of it bore the same claw marks as the area surrounding it.
Though the sight was gruesome, Leo didn’t feel like they were in any danger here, so after looking around for any signs of movement and finding none, he stepped out into the clearing and took a couple of steps over to the creature. He’d finally found one of those odd, otherworldly creatures he’d been hoping to encounter, and it had been brutalized.
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In a flash, one of the armor pieces disappeared, exposing the rough gray skin below.
Auto Loot Activated
Items Obtained:
Stone-Plated Pangler Plating (D-rank, Earth)
As he glanced down at the screen, he heard the sound of Rize emerging from the brush behind him. “Any idea what did this?” He asked. He wasn’t even an expert on predators from earth. The claw marks reminded him of some big cat’s, but he couldn’t imagine anything this brutal.
“I’m not sure. These don’t match the markings of any beast I’m familiar with.” Rize answered, coming to stand beside him. Her ears were about midway instead of all the way up, and her twin tails swayed back and forth. “They would have had to be at least the same rank as this pangler here to even get through its hide. Though it looks like they were nipping at its legs and tore off its tail. I’m not seeing any other bodies, so they would have had to be nimble as well.”
“Should we keep going?” Leo asked, more than a little off put at the prospect of running into whatever did this. He then took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of blood and the creeping stench of decay. “Stupid question, sorry.”
“It’s fine to keep your safety in mind.” Rize replied, and began to shift around the clearing to start moving past the scene. “We’re just about where we need to be, we can look around to see if it’s too dangerous to stay, but night is about to fall, so if we are going to turn back, we need to decide quickly.”
Nodding, Leo followed after her. He glanced back to take one last look at this scene of carnage before they moved on past it. The last rays of sunlight quickly faded at their departure, giving way to twilight and eventually night. Leo quickly pulled out his hooded lantern, filling it with oil and having Rize light it with a snap of her fingers, and the two of them fanned out and searched the surrounding area, as they had finally entered the general area indicated by the map. The lantern made Leo imminently visible from a short distance, so as long as he had time to call out, Rize would be able to find him if anything happened. She could see well enough in the dark without the lantern’s light, so they split up in order to cover the most ground.
The oovina were likely in their own clearing, and wouldn’t be quite visible until the moons started to shine their light down and cause the flowers to bloom. Leo made his way through, listening past the sound of nocturnal birds and insects to make sure he wasn’t being followed. By what, he didn’t know, but the sight earlier had him paranoid that the unknown predator might be stalking him. His suspicions were nearly proven right when he heard the snap and cracking of movement against branches and grass not far away from him. Desperate to not be spotted, he quickly closed the hood on his lantern to suppress its light, waiting a few seconds to make sure the sounds didn’t suddenly increase or start rushing toward him, before he crept toward the sound itself. Following Rize’s posture from before, he got low and peeked through a line of bushes into a small clearing, finding a sight that made his eyes widen in surprise.
Name:
Leonell Bolden
Stats
Title
-
Fortitude: E- (0/10)
Class
Mixer
Reflex: E (0/10)
Element
-
Intellect: E (0/10)
Total Rank
E
Intuition: D- (0/10)
Status
Health 100%, Mana 100%
Will: E- (0/10)
Skills
Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage
Luck: D (0/10)
Skill: Combine
Mix different raw materials into a new item. You choose the shape of the form. Final form is affected by rank and element of materials.
Store Combine results into a mental guidebook that grows based on Intellect rank.
Skill: Auto-Loot (Mixer)
Automatically separates mixable materials from slain creatures. If the [Storage] skill is active, automatically places loot into storage space.
Skill: Appraise (Mixer)
Look at a creature or material and gain information on them. Information includes: Rank, Element, Class, Statuses, Titles. May have difficulty appraising creatures of higher rank, or creatures hidden by another skill or effect. Skill affect boosted by Intuition Rank.
Skill: Storage (Mixer)
Creates an inter-dimensional storage space that only you can access. Storage increases with Total Rank
Storage
Animated Bone (E-Rank, Dark)
D-Rank Mental Karma 2x
Large Shell (E-Rank, Water)
Basic Short Sword,
Drowned Heart (C-Rank, Water)
Basic Shield
Scorched bone (E-Rank, Fire)
Sigil of the Drowned
Petrified Bone (E-Rank, Earth)
Stone-Plated Pangler Plating (D-rank, Earth)
Deepgold Coin (E-Rank, Metal)
Soul Husk (C-Rank, Aether)
Windblown Feather (E-Rank, Air)
Luminous Mote (E-Rank, Light)