After a quick stop by the actual starter tutorial which, I, completely missed near the start of town in my haste to explore, go figure, I came out twenty copper, ten experience, and one broadsword richer! So focused on seeing the rest of the game was I, that I missed out on the most obviously important location. Ironic.
Anyways, walking with Jasper hasn’t been all that terrible like I’d have expected it to be with the way she was talked about. She keeps up just fine, staying at my side with a lazy jaunt. Her agility is higher than mine by a pretty solid margin, so I know she’s been holding back at least a bit while leading me around. I get the feeling she just got straight up outskilled in our little spat though, heh.
Speaking of her agility, I feel it necessary to think over my little reading of her stat page, because good lord.
Jasper-Resiala Forest Lynx
Level 7
HP 190/190
MP 50/50
Stamina 125/125
Core stats
Vitality-21
Strength-24
Intelligence-0
Agility-32
Sub stats
Endurance-7
Luck-2.7
Mana-0
Dexterity-15.5
Unique stats
Grace-2.5
First things first, these stat totals definitely don’t line up. So, this is either the effects of efficacy, or their base stats are just that high. At level seven, I should theoretically have about fifty total stat points. At level seven, Jasper has like, uh let me count real quick… seventy seven in their core stats alone. And extra in luck and dexterity! I mean, they have like no magic, but come on that’s barely a downside with their one whole skill. So what, they’re just a pure physical bruiser? I mean I can’t complain, that's exactly what I was looking for. It’s just a little surprising to see that in the flesh.
However, there’s also “Grace”. Not quite sure what that does, since I couldn’t check the description of the stat for some reason. But, based on the name alone, I’d imagine it’s somewhat adjacent to dexterity and agility. Moving on, despite their utter lack of magic based stats, they do actually have a few skills.
Skills
Hunter’s Mark LVL 2-Strike an enemy with a powerful blow dealing 200% of the users base physical damage. Apply the debuff “Hunter’s Mark”, which increases damage received from the user and their party members by 20% for 15 seconds. Costs 10 MP.
Passives
Aftercut LVL 2-Attacks consecutively landed against enemies inflicted with “Hunter’s Mark” will apply “Aftercut” stacks, up to a maximum of five. One stack disappears per second, unless an additional stack was applied within the time limit. Each stack applies 7% of the damage of an attack that was landed while the stack is active.
Exp-74/907
Which, frankly? Aren’t half bad. An attack that just deals double damage is nothing too crazy to be fair, but it doesn’t specify any kind of usage condition. This is just something they can do at any time, so any attack can suddenly become a solid debuff that does extra damage, very nice. And Aftercut is literally just free damage. Nothing to be dissatisfied with! Just having this stat check by my side is enough to dismiss almost every concern.
Did I like, stumble into an advanced quest that I shouldn’t have been anywhere nearby? Like, something something, oh you’re heading out of town? Hey, why not get another monster in the interest of good health? Boom, then you start the questline that got me this figurative MONSTER. I mean, sure they’re supposedly going to be difficult to work with… but…
“So, how are you feeling?”
“Mmm.”
A lazy grumble was about the extent of what I’ve gotten so far. I was told by Matthew that they could actually speak, provided the link between tamer and monster was present, but that they probably wouldn’t. That was currently holding true. The grumble was also ever so slightly confused, but that also made sense, given she was probably seeing a sight that she hadn’t in quite some time.
We’d been making our way towards the main entrance of the town for some time now, and rounding the previous corner, the main gate finally came into view. Dozens of individuals came and went, carts, carriages, a whole lot of copy pasted default outfits, heh, nerds, and the like.
“Any opinion on this?”
“Mmm.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
That sounded like a sort of yes to me, so, good enough! Anyways, it’d probably be easier to walk by if I didn’t have to ferry the monster through, so… might as well test out one of my new skills.
[Recall].
Uh…
[Recall]!
Huh…
With a glacially slow turn of her head, Jasper gazed upwards at me, and blinked once, twice, and thrice.
Recall failed! Jasper is rebelling!
…Oh, so that’s what “Tame” means by monsters can rebel, huh?
…
It wasn’t like she went completely ballistic or anything, she still counted as a tamed monster she just didn’t… uh, listen.
What, did I not have enough gym badges or something?
Fortunately enough, getting them through the gate wasn’t too difficult, monsters accompanying their tamers were a very common sight. I’d kind of overestimated how difficult that was going to be. No, that wasn’t much of an issue at all you see! That wasn’t to say though, that there were no issues.
“Mmmmgh.’
With a lazy yawn, Jasper settled right on top of a particularly flat rock. There was no sunlight, but they seemed just as content to bathe in the moonlight instead. Speaking of that moonlight, it was actually quite bright. To the point that I didn’t even need an outside source of light to see! That was a consolation, to be certain. A consolation to what exactly, you may ask?
+1 exp!
This… fat cat… I mean. I knew they weren’t going to listen to me but… come on this is just ridiculous! They refuse to let me [Recall] them, so they’re soaking up experience on every kill that I get. While also contributing literally nothing of their own! I would’ve been fine if they weren’t listening to me, but they’re just… doing nothing! They follow along closely enough, sure…
But they’re just looking for the best spot to nap in a near vicinity! Well, maybe not nap, but just generally lounge. They get the occasional kill, sure… but that’s only because some poor sap tries to ambush her and ends up getting blasted in a single hit. A few players even tried to attack her, (and a few died) but I could usually ward them off before she tore them to shreds. I didn’t get anything from killing them, so there was really no need to be rude. (Notably though, no penalty for PKing…)
Well I mean, good to know I’m above the power curve, but… is it really my strength if they don’t listen to anything I have to say? Whatever, hopefully they’ll come around sometime soon.
In the meantime! I, have been hunting. It’s really not that difficult honestly, but it feels good to just run around in this game. I can feel the breeze on my skin and the moonlight illuminates the forest quite nicely. So this isn’t exactly a mechanically challenging experience, but it is refreshingly high quality. The only, well, grating part of it… being that Jasper is a loaf.
Regardless, these base area monsters don’t seem to be worth much. One experience per kill, meaning they’d only be worth two anyways. Given the experience to level up jumped by over fifty percent in one level, I don’t have high hopes for being able to actually farm this area purely for experience. So, lower exp gain right now isn’t exactly a huge issue…
Lot of wild shrublings around this place, which is a pretty good indicator of the baby difficulty. There’s also the occasional “Resiala Nature Sprite” which actually goes for magic attacks, but they’re not tracking or anything, so it’s easy to avoid them. They’re not invulnerable to physical damage either, so it’s not even difficult to take them out. They’re still only two experience a kill though, sooooo, I’ll probably be heading into the deeper forest soon. But I’ll have to see if I can’t somehow get my monster here to play along before then.
…Somehow.
Meh, if they really were only an active penalty the option to return them was always around. But I’d rather it not come to that. For now, I could try and build a bond with them, some way or another. I mean, surely the game wouldn’t introduce something like this secret questline or, whatever, without a way to clear it. That’d be stupid.
“Right Jasper?”
…Where was she?
“Jasper?”
I could still sense her on the fringes of my consciousness, a neat little unmentioned side effect of the taming system I supposed, but… great. Now they weren’t even following closely. What the hell were they doing, being halfway to the town already?