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Did you know?
A meal made with different kinds of foods will give you a better final buff than if you just stack lots of the same kinds of things. Be sure to have a balanced breakfast before you take on that boss that's giving you trouble!
Thank you for your patience!
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The outskirts of Trevas were a patchwork of pastures, paths, and cropland divided by waist high stone walls and wooden fences. Unlike the village proper the smells here were distressingly accurate-whiffs of fertilizer, farm animals, and rotten produce drifted on the breeze. Thankfully not too strongly to acclimate to.
Scar picked out the first NPC that seemed like a relevant quest giver, a blonde farmer woman that was melodramatically weeping into her hands outside a tool shed. "Oh thank the high one, a warrior! Ever since the world crystals were lost each harvest has gotten worse than the last. And now the animals have been going mad and breaking into the fields just to trample everything into the mud! Please dear adventurer, won't you put the poor frenzied creatures down so we may at least have a harvest before the winter?"
New Quest: Hogwild
The farm animals of Trevas are going mad! Find the feral pigs rooting around in the fields, and put them down before they can do more damage.
Objective: Kill 5 Feral Pigs and return to quest giver.
Rewards: 10c, 1 wheat roll or 10c, 3 wheat bundles
Better than level grinding with rats she supposed. A quick stroll along the paths and walls found the first of her quarry quickly enough. Just in time to watch another player get charged by a very angry goat in the next field over, stumble and fall backwards over the dividing wall, and then get trampled to death by the pig with the faint lament of "I really hope no one saw that..."
Scarlet decided to just stay outside the field. One arrow immediately drew the ire of the pig, which ran straight for her. The wall fortunately proved an insurmountable obstacle for the portly porker, and Scarlet switched from shooting it with the bow to just stabbing it with the arrows outright. This ended up taking an annoyingly long time and it wasn't until the fourth slaughter pig that she realized why.
New Passive: Improvised Strike
Using weapons and items in combat in unintended ways incurs 10% less of an accuracy and damage penalty.
Unlocked by repeatedly using a weapon in nonstandard ways during combat.
Right, of course there was a penalty for using her arrows like knives, that's not what arrows are made for. That was unfortunate. Standing next to a wall shooting her bow straight down to kill an enemy right in front of her felt silly, but it seemed like the damage was still better despite that, so that's what she was stuck doing.
Quest Completed!
Five kills and she'd only acquired a single side of pork. At least she was picking up plenty of pig tails though. She wondered why they were so important for alchemy.
New Quest: Bleat It
There's more than just pigs running amok in the fields, the goats have been hopping fences and getting into the vegetable patches!
Objective: Kill 4 Feral Goats and return to quest giver.
Rewards: 12c, 1 wheat roll or 12c, 10 shriveled carrots
Scar already knew where to find at least one goat, and set back out to that first set of fields. The pig had already respawned, so she went around the wall to a spot where she had a clear shot at the mud-splattered goat without standing in the aggro radius of a different enemy. She drew back her bowstring and took her shot at the crazed farm animal. The goat turned, bleated more angrily than she thought was possible for anything that baa'd to sound, and charged straight at her through the stream of arrows she was doing her best to send at it. She held her ground, there was an entire fence between her and it, she was safe.
The goat jumped, bouncing right up off the ground onto the top of the wall, and then down into the road barely five feet in front of her. Scarlet had about two seconds to contemplate the results of her hubris before the goat's very uncomfortable looking horns were buried in her lower abdomen, so she dove out of the way of its charge without thinking.
Now she was on the ground where she couldn't fire her bow effectively but the goat could still very much reach her with its hooves. This was not, in fact, an improvement.
The goat was right on top of her, and her attempt to scramble backwards so she could stand up and get some distance on the creature quickly put her back against another wall. The goat was too close to shoot at, so she grabbed an arrow out of her quiver and desperately jabbed at it as it stamped and stomped at her until it backed up, and stomped its hoof in preparation for another charge.
Scarlet's health was already a lot lower than she would like and and she didn't want to see what the damage on getting hit full in the face by those horns looked like. "Pinpoint!" A flash of light flared on the front of the goat, glittering under its chin right where its neck met its chest. The goat charged her, she raised her arrow upwards and closed her eyes-fully expecting to be back at spawn when she opened them again.
+XP
+1 Cracked Goat Horn
Scar slowly opened her eyes again. The goat had clearly not killed her before she killed it, so she groaned and picked herself up off the ground.
She heard the sound of clapping, and turned to see two other players leaning on the field walls and applauding her. A hulking warrior with a large wooden tower shield named Bullwark and another guy with some kind of light fighter build named John DS.
John gave her a thumbs up, "Good show newbie! We've watched like three other players who weren't underleveled get themselves killed by these stupid critters."
Scar furrowed her brow, "Underleveled? I thought the outskirts were the starter area?"
John gestured aimlessly at the air, "Starter areas plural, really. The fields on the south side of town have the weakest monsters. Up close to the north edge of town some get up to level three or four."
Scarlet huffed, "Would have been nice to know that when I started."
"Ha you and us both. Turns out there's a little 'welcome to Trevas' booth near the start but it's not actually on the spawn platform so lotsa folks keep missing it. Supposed to be a patch that'll fix that this afternoon. Real time."
"That's going to be several days in here though isn't it?"
John shrugged, "What can ya do? Guess even hotfixes take time on a game like this." John turned and walked further down the road, away from the village and Scar. "You should go check the info thingie, and grab yourself the Check and Examine spells from the village archive while you're at it. You'll thank me later!" Bullwark gave Scar a nod before turning to follow John.
Scarlet sighed and rubbed the back of her head. "Well... I guess it can't hurt. I might as well check." John was already out of earshot though, so she started staggering her way back into the village to hopefully get a better idea of where she should be fighting things at the moment.
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When Scarlet got back to the village plaza, a small commotion had begun on the spawn platform. As she approached, a flash of fire burst up above the heads of the crowd, drawing appreciative murmurs.
While it did seem to be the current center of attention, there were only so many players to take up space so once she got closer she could see over the crowd. At the center of the marble platform a training dummy labeled "DPS Test Dummy" was being attacked by multiple players. Every time someone stepped up, a player in a black and white striped wizard robe conjured a ball of light over the dummy, and when the light shut off the player attacking would step back and the "referee" would read off the final damage dealt.
Scar fidgeted for a moment, before finally working up the courage to tap one of the onlookers on the shoulder. "Ah, sorry excuse me. Do you mind telling me what's going on here?"
The player turned his head, and stepped back a bit to talk while still watching the show, "Ah yeah, folks were getting a little antsy about PvP not being added yet. Someone came up with the idea to do DPS contests instead and this player named Scrumlord snagged the invincible test dummy out of the armory building so now we're doing it out here."
Scar nodded, and idly fingered the string of her bow on her back. She definitely didn't have enough of a build to try her hand at this just yet, but it did sound fun if it was still going on later.
The guy glanced back over at her, "Need anything else newbie? You look a bit lost."
"Oh, yes, I apologize. Could you point me to the... 'info booth' that has the map of the village?"
"Ah you missed it too huh? Yeah just head to the south end of the spawn plaza. There's a big old welcome sign on top of it, you can't miss it once you're actually looking the right direction. Good luck out there!"
Scarlet gave a quick bow and hurried around the edge of the crowd down to the arrival point. Sure enough, just south of the spawn plaza, obscured from the spawn point by a single misplaced pillar, was a makeshift stall underneath a sign three times the actual booth's size painted with the words WELCOEM TO TREVAS.
The NPC started rattling off their spiel as soon as Scarlet walked up, but it didn't take long for Scarlet to realize that it was mostly aimless jokes and beginner tips. There was a box of maps labeled "take one" so she did, then walked away to look it over without the NPC talking her ear off.
There were quite a few landmarks actually. Pastures and barns to the northwest of the village, a large granary in the east outskirts. A blacksmith, a marketplace with bakeries... Four spots in particular were highlighted as starting points, the armory and barracks, the mayor's office, the inns near the spawn plaza, and the village archive.
The armory and barracks were stated to hold various tools for players trying to figure out their builds. Training courses, an invincible dummy to track DPS, and free replacements for the tutorial gear if you managed to break or lose your first set before acquiring upgrades. The inns obviously provided spaces for resting to recover from bad fights, and she'd probably want to go there a bit later to recover from losing half her heath to that overtuned bag of wool. The town hall offered directions to quests and storylines, and the archive provided the option for buying the early levels of basic skills and abilities if unlocking them manually was too much of a hassle. Besides that, enemies didn't drop money directly so she was probably going to need to sell junk items at the market at some point to afford things.
First things first though, 'John' had said she'd want to grab Check and Examine from the archive. It sounded like at least one of those would be the skill for observing monster stats, and after her last fight it seemed like a good idea to pick up that capability.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
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The archive was mostly indistinguishable from the other larger village buildings except for the swinging wooden sign of a book and quill out in front of it. Inside, it was a large, open, and well lit space. Tables and chairs were scattered in clusters around the front half of the building, lit almost as well as outside by rows of windows. In the back, rows of wooden shelves held scrolls and books, each neatly arranged and labeled, though Scar couldn't read the labels from the entrance. In the middle, where the sitting area gave way to the shelves, a large desk with a trio of primly but simply dressed NPCs waited to assist people.
Scarlet looked around as she made her way to the desk. The whole place was immaculately clean, the light brown and white of the flooring and walls made the place seem even brighter than it really was, and it was delightfully calm and quiet thanks to only a few other players being scattered around the tables. They were mostly reading books she assumed were taken from the shelves, though one person in the corner was clearly asleep.
Scarlet tapped the top of the center desk, "Hello?"
The NPC in front of her smiled, "Hello! Welcome to the Trevas archive. Feel free to browse the books and ability scrolls in the back at your leisure, or if you need something specific we can retrieve it for you. Please be aware that ability scrolls can only be read, not used, until they have been purchased."
"Thank you ma'am. Where would I find scrolls for Examine and Check?"
"Ability Scroll: Examine and Ability Scroll: Check? Give me just a moment, I'll be right back." The NPC clerk gave a small curtsy and quickly walked to the back shelves. Scarlet fingered the string of her bow, waiting for the few seconds it took for the clerk to return. "Here you are! Please put the scrolls in the return tray to your left if you decide not to purchase them."
Scarlet nodded, then took the scrolls with her to a nearby seat to look them over. The price tags on them were both 50c, basically her current entire money supply to buy both but the fact she could afford them at all right now made them quite cheap. The interior of the scrolls was marked almost entirely in illegible shifting runes, but there was enough in proper English and clear diagrams to make out how they would work once she actually used the scrolls.
Spell: Check
Mentally focus on an enemy, and reveal their nature to you. Currently only reveals name, level, and threat category, but practice will allow this to reveal more. 3 second casting time, 5MP cost, Constant Effect.
Spell: Examine
Use magic to assist in analyzing an object, attempting to reveal its full stats-including those that normally require skills you don't possess to see. Increased power allows full scanning of more esoteric or obscured items. 30 second casting time, 5MP cost.
Scar's contemplation was interrupted by a movement in the corner of her eye. She turned just in time to see another player, carrying a stack of books so tall it obscured their nametag, trip over the leg of a toppled chair and careen straight towards the ground. An entire precarious tower of books tipped and fell towards the floor-and Scarlet.
Scarlet darted out of their chair, reaching forward to catch as much of the stack as could. Twisting around to try and knock the books falling towards her onto the table. Incredibly, this mostly worked. Books bounced off her arms and head and clattered across the table. More of them were caught in her arms, which she quickly deposited in a pile on top of the others.
The other player, a brown haired and vaguely asian looking woman just under Scar's own current height dressed in a leather vest and close fitting traveling clothes, picked herself up off the ground and began grabbing books off the floor, looking around frantically until Scarlet, the last few books under her own arm, reached a hand down to help "Indie" up.
Indie flushed and took Scarlet's hand, "I am so, so sorry. I hope you wer-!" Indie's foot caught on a book that had fallen between her legs and took her legs out from under her again. Three more books went up in the air and Scar snatched them from their falls.
New Combat Skill: Juggling lvl 1
Dealing not just with keeping multiple airborne items aloft at once, this also helps with catching and intercepting items in midair.
Use this for knife tricks, deflecting projectiles, and catching thrown objects.
Scar stared at the popup box while helping Indie back up again. "...Did I really just unlock a skill for that?"
"Ah... Sorry. I'm really really sorry. Thank you for helping I'm so so sorry." Indie bowed slightly, apologizing over and over again while she grabbed the last few books again.
Scar shook her head and closed out the info box. "It's fine, these things happen. It does seem that your Dexterity is a little low for that kind of balancing act however." Scar looked back at Indy and blinked, the other woman's eyes were glazed and mildly unfocused.
Indie realized that they'd locked eyes and averted her gaze, chuckling nervously. "Haha, sorry. I am. Under a debuff. My agility and dexterity are in the toilet right now." Scar gestured for Indie to take a seat. "Ah... Are you sure? I really, have not been helpful."
Scar crossed her arms. "All your stuff is already on the table. I would think it will go better for both of us if you don't try to ferry half a bookshelf in your arms again right now."
Indie looked down at the floor. "Ah... Yes. Sorry." She took a seat, then sorted through the books before pulling out one from the bottom of the pile on the table.
Scar looked at the cover 'History of the Northern Bariote Reach'. She looked up at Indie, eyebrow raised. "What are you doing with all these?"
Indie flushed again, "Ah, sorry. I'm trying to do research into the local areas."
"...What kind of research? You have half an archaeologist outfit here, are there really... Archaeological digs and whatever?"
Indie nodded, a wide grin splitting her face, "Yes! Incredible right? Well, kind of. I suppose in the real world it would be more like grave robbing but... There's a lot of hidden dungeons and treasure caches scattered around the map that you can only find by paying attention to the worldbuilding. They've got a whole history involving gods and spirits and warring city-states here!"
Scar blinked, and scooted her chair around to look at the book too. "And you can find dungeons and stuff with all this?"
"Yeah! Sometimes it just leads me to a point of interest that everyone already knows, but usually I find cool hidden temples and stuff. Sometimes they don't even have monsters! If I'm really lucky I find a pure exploration spot or an easter egg treasure cache."
"What about when there's no monsters but it's pure exploration?"
"Traps and puzzles and things."
Scar nodded, but the book just seemed like an old history book to her, except about in-game lore. "I guess that's how you got poisoned? Got hit by a trap?"
Indie blushed again and buried her head in the book to try and hide it. "I. Um. I messed up a puzzle and drank from a cursed fountain."
To her credit, Scar did try very hard not to laugh. "Do you... Know when it wears off?"
"I've gotta wait it out for another two game days. So I'm stuck back in town until then." Indie perked up. "Oh! If you're not doing anything..."
Scar scratched the back of her head... "Sorry, I promised someone else help with mob harvesting. And I probably need to find a place to rest up from these injuries."
Indie gasped, "Oh! I'm so sorry I didn't even realize. Here I'll-"
Another giggle escaped Scar's lips, "No it's fine I'm not going to take damage from something as silly as a book falling on me. Though. What actually happened doesn't feel much better."
Indie stopped rummaging in her inventory and nodded knowingly. "Ahhh it was one of the goats, right? I had one knock me off a roof into a ditch, those jerks hurt. Here, I would've been picking up books for like five minutes without you, please at least take these."
+5c
+5 Clay Phials
Item: Clay Phial
Filled with: Minor Restoration Salve [Crafted: Good]
A simple fired clay phial for holding alchemical concoctions. Concoctions of higher complexity than minor salves will be contaminated if placed in this container.
Concoction Consumable: Minor Restoration Salve [Crafted: Good]
Grants buff for 30 minutes:
+250% Rest Effect
+2 HP/s
Scar swirled the phials and listened to their contents slosh. It was kind of like holding a small brick with water inside it. "Do you think the devs know that this isn't what a salve is?"
Indie shrugged. "Probably? Maybe they just ran out of words. You should drink one before you go to sleep in the inn, that way you'll be absolutely sure to wake up fully rested!"
Scar smiled, and put the phials into her inventory. "Thank you Indie. Want be friends so we can find each other again later?"
Indie beamed at her, "Absolutely! Once you've gained a few levels maybe you can even help me on one of my expeditions!"
Friend Request to: Indie
Friend Request to Indie accepted!
Scarlet ended up spending another hour chatting with Indie before she finally settled on buying the two spells. "Good luck out there Scar!" And then she was back out into the street.
The sun had started to set, soft orange light tinting everything in the village. The sounds of hapless dummy torment still drifted from the Southern end of the village, but with fewer NPCs roaming the streets Trevas was still quieter than it was during the day. By the time Scar had made it to the inn, gray twilight had already begun shrouding everything; the darkening blue of the sky punctuated by thin trailing wisps of grey clouds in the dimming light.
Unlike the streets outside, the inn was bustling with activity when Scar stepped in. A couple of different parties grouped at different tables offered her a shouted hello over their meals as she stepped in, but besides that the chatter didn't even break flow with her entry. Song, conversation, laughing, the crackling of the fireplaces all rang throughout the common room.
Scarlet focused on other details as she crossed towards the bar. The whole space was fairly well kept, but actually rather plain. The floor was just the simple floorboards except for the stone tiling around the hearths. The walls were undecorated, not even paintings or curtains on them. The chairs and benches had no cushions but were at least sturdy. The tables looked like they'd been pulled from other rooms instead of built into the floor like you would expect in a tavern. She finally reached the bar. "Excuse me, may I purchase a room for one night?"
"Of course! That will be 3c. Will you want to purchase any food or drink to be brought up?"
Scarlet shook her head, "No please. Just show me there." Scarlet handed over the coins and followed the NPC up the stairs to the rooms. And once she was inside, Scarlet quickly closed the door and sighed as the muffled sounds of revelry filtered up from the ground floor below. What a day.
The bed was a simple wooden frame with a straw filled mattress and wool blankets, and the bedstand held a single lit candle and enough space to place a simple meal. She had another couple of her sandwiches, and another sample of water. She flicked the top off a phial, drained it fast enough to keep the cough syrupy taste off her tongue, then flopped into the bed.
She was sure that it would take her a while to sleep, for all that she'd done her stamina bar was still over half full. But it didn't take long at all before sleep overtook her.
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Open Topic: Goats
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>Baaaaaaaaa
>pasture enemies got your goat bro?
>I'm going to skin you two alive and make statues out of your corpses.
>whats so baad about a little harmless fun?
>PERISH
>SERIOUSLY THO
>I hate the goats why does a starter area enemy gotta have a knockback move.
>All I can say is "friccin skill issue". Sure they suck if you wander into that area before you have any levels or real gear but come on. It's barely a knockback move, it's a stagger.
>They put a knockback move on an enemy that can climb to chase you in the middle of an area full of walls and ditches.
>y'all are just salty that the monsters in this game don't get stuck on bushes.
>Oh no! actual pathfinding! How will we play our game now!
>I've watched like five newbies get obliterated by them. People get hit by the knockback and then panic.
>maybe it wouldnt be so bad if the goats didnt spam that charge move. you get hit by it once and fall over then suddenly youre stuck on the ground while it kicks you to death
>Yeah its not a great spot to be a dps or support class.
>Alright scrublets daddy Scrumlord's got some tips for all you kiddos and basement nerds that are getting annihilated by these barnyard bullies.
>arent you like a superbarbarian with ninety fricktillion health
>That doesn't mean I'm stupid so shut up and listen. When the goats stamp the ground and scream at you, they're getting ready to charge. Once they do that, they can't turn anymore until after they've charged you. Just step to the side each time and those suckers will waste their attack on trying to charge you over and over again, makes them even easier to kill than the hogs.
>yo thats actually really nice to know.
>Thanks dude!
>No more goat deaths!
>Their rein of terror comes to a close...
>Goats don't have reigns.