Boyd had been talking with the man at the bar for nearly as hour, mostly about nothing. The bartender had refused to give him more alcohol, or whatever the equivalent was here on Zenith, and instead, had given him some potion to slowly sober him up.
“So all I have to do is go to the Venian enclave and give them this box and then they will give me a separate box? and then I bring that back to you? and then I can sleep here as much as I want?”
“This is correct,” Glipgaulp said.
Glipglaup was a race Boyd hadn’t seen before. His skin was grey and slick, but otherwise he looked somewhat mammalian and human-like as well. He was missing a nose and ears, but instead had slits that Boyd assumed served some sort of similar purpose. He was shorter than Boyd, but also wider, and his body rippled with what Boyd assumed was dense musculature. He attempted to scan the creature but got no information.
“This is where I am supposed to ask what’s in the box, but it’s sort of like the airport thing ya know? Like… I know they are going to ask me if anyone else touched my baggage, so if I don’t know if anyone touched it I don’t have to lie. You feel me?”
“I have no idea what your babbling means,” Glipgaulp said.
“Figures. Either way, I’ll do it. Where are the Venians?”
Rockrot hits you for 5 damage. Rockrot cannot be cured without Essence of Earth.
Fucking Rockrot. He wouldn’t give up his time with Lara for the world, but it was frustrating to occasionally take a punch in the gut from whatever this disease was.
The Innkeeper pointed to a dot on the map he held in front of him and then passed it to Boyd. Upon receiving it, a map icon lit up in his display and he realized he could now overlap a map with the local terrain over his vision. This was extremely helpful.
SYSTEM: You have gained an area map.
SYSTEM: You have accepted the Quest, “Deliver a box to the Venian Enclave.” In the long tradition of bike messengers and drug mules you have agreed to carry a box containing God knows what to people who you do not know at all. Obviously the person who gave you the box could’ve done this themselves, but they hired you to do it at an exorbitant fee. That’s not suspicious right? Lots of times people hire others to do menial tasks at one hundred times the going rate with a totally legitimate premise. Oh, if you want to know what is it in the box, it’s called a yur, as in “You’re a fucking moron” or “You’re going to die.”
“So can I stay in the inn tonight?” Boyd asked.
“Did you deliver the box?”
“Uhh… no I haven’t even left yet,”
Glipgaulp went back to slicing what looked like bread into thick chunks of doughy goodness. “Then no. Go deliver the box.”
Boyd looked at Glipglaup with a derisive glare and started to walk out the door, before doubling back. “Can I at least have some food?” Glipglaup flipped him a couple of hunks of what looked like bread. He grunted impolitely and then shooed Boyd away with his arm. Boyd quickly devoured both pieces of bread. They were days old, but there wasn’t any sign of mold and they tasted better than most of the things he had eaten on Zenith. He spent a few minutes examining his map, spinning in circles while watching the Dot representing the Venian compound spin with him.
He decided he would stop by the Mayor’s house and then head out for the next Quest.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Uhh, hi. I’m Boyd. I heard you had a reward for me?”
The Mayor of CavesWall was a small stout man sitting at a large desk. He was filling out paperwork with a quill and an inkjar on his desk. He didn’t look up when Boyd entered his chamber. He had a long grey beard and looked like he’d seen a number of battles from the scars on his face. Boyd assumed he was a Dwarf, but he wasn’t comfortable saying it aloud though so he just tried to his best to avoid the topic.
"I don’t know you.” The Mayor said. He still hadn’t looked up.
"Uhh, yea, I’m aware. I don’t know you either. I was the one who killed all them Harpys and Rocs up the way on the Cliffs of Agony. I was told you might be appreciative. Like…monetarily.” Boyd had no idea what the reward would be but he figured gold would always come in handy and he didn’t feel like carrying around a bunch of extra stuff.
The Mayor looked up, “Ah, our Harpy killer. You have removed one of our town’s primary resources, as well as a useful food source in the Rocs. Were it up to me, I would have you drawn and quartered in the Town Square. You were foolhardy and thoughtless in your actions. There could have been a peace negotiated that would’ve benefitted all.” The Mayor went back to writing.
“Oh. Uhhh… No reward then?”
The Mayor spoke while he wrote, “Unfortunately, I am not a despot, and the town feels different. My finest skinners have gone to colony to remove as much of the dead Harpy’s useful materials as possible. They have made you these as a means of saying ‘thank you’ although I am still unsure what we are thanking you for.” The Mayor tossed a box towards Boyd. “See your way out.”
“Thanks dude,” Boyd said before walking out of the room.
Quest completed: SYSTEM: Quest Accepted – Accomplish Literally Anything with Regards to the Harpys. [Uncultured Swine Activated]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
He was sitting on a bench just outside the Mayor’s office. It was pretty clear from his prior conversation that he wasn’t receiving the highest quality reward from his Quest, but at least he was getting something and maybe his Uncultured Swine feature would help him out. He opened his box, assuming it would be a box full of Harpy feathers he would have to trade for something more useful like he had done with Merlot. Instead, he found the first thing he was truly excited about since entering Zenith.
They were beautiful. They reminded him of his dress boots which were made of Ostrich leather. His old boots had spots in the leather vamp where you could where the quills used to be. These boots had the quill spots but on the upper leather instead. The vamp was obviously made of some sort of rock hard material that would protect his feet, but was lumpy and irregular. Moreover, the toe felt like it was crafted out of titanium and would provide him a lot of support in addition to protecting him from standard ouchies. He’s been wearing the same pair of tennis shoes since he entered and they were rapidly degrading. These boots were a substantial upgrade. They had a distinctive smell, but Boyd found it tolerable. He strapped them on to find they perfectly. He was thrilled.
SYSTEM: You have acquired Harpyskin Rocboots of the Nomadic Domicile Repository [Unique]. These boots were crafted especially for Boyd Bridges of Oklahoma in response to his failed efforts to unite the Harpys. Crafted from an amalgamation of Rock Roc and Harpy skins, they are both extremely lightweight and extremely durable. Wearing these boots causes general disdain from polite society due to their stench and largely appalling appearance.
Adds +50 armour to attacks against your feet.
Adds 15 damage to all Kick attacks.
Grants Skill: Uncommon Chemistry (Stimulants), Mark III. Through a lifetime of experimentation, you have learned how to generate stimulants using commonly available items.
Grants Skill: Uncommon Chemistry (Depressants), Mark III. Through a lifetime of experimentation, you have learned how to generate depressants using commonly available items.
Your Charisma has a maximum value of 1 for the purposes of interactions with any NPC designated as Royalty or above.
“Fuck. Yes.” Boyd thought. He immediately started prying around his character sheet and found access to his ability to make stimulants and depressants.
SYSTEM: Welcome to the Crafting menu! You now have access to Mark III Uncommon Chemistry!
Boyd started examining all the crafting menu options. It appeared like for anything he wanted to make he would need some very specific items, in addition to an array of different things he could use to craft specific items. He didn’t have much of what he needed currently but many things were marked as “Available at Apothecary.” He wasn’t sure what that thing was, but he would have to stay on the lookout for it.
The good news is that he found he could easily make low level Stimulants and Depressants from commonly available herbs and shrubs. Some of this required distillation equipment that he was largely familiar with from making Moonshine, and some of it required more advanced equipment that he had a strange familiarity with despite never seeing the words before. The best news was that many local plants he could now identify with ease, and understand some of their properties. As he browsed the list of potential items, two of them came to mind with immediate potential purposes.
SYSTEM: Stimulant, Class 3: Pulverised Jett Crystals. Jett is a pitch black rock found in many of the cavernous areas on Zenith. When purified appropriately, it is a common reagent in Class 5 stimulants. The problem is, purifying it is extremely expensive. It’s much easier to just crush and snort it. Pulverised Jett comes with the large disadvantage of being horribly addictive, and delivering crushing hangovers.
Pulverised Jett provides: Time dilation – 50% for 15 seconds. After this 15 second period, Pulverised Jett causes: Jett Hangover – For every second you are affected by Pulverised Jett you will be subjected to soul-crushing levels of nausea and disorientation. Taking multiple doses of Pulverised Jett enhances Time Dilation effect, but doubles the duration of the Jett Hangover effect afterwards.
Warning: This substance is HIGHLY addictive.
The other compound of interest was a depressant.
SYSTEM: Depressant, Class 3: Mindfuck Cactus Distillate. Mindfuck Cactus is a bit of a rough translation. Lots of potent hallucinogens have been discovered, but few of them are as potent as MFCD as the kids like to call it. A more appropriate name might be Psycherape Plant or Egodeath Succulent. The Mindfuck Cactus grows across all arid regions of Zenith. Many of the native creatures of Zenith are immune to its effects, but non-Zenith based critters are usually left in a rather serious state of affairs. The Freudian version of the Ego is a common conception in the Universe. It’s the connection between your basal state and your higher, rationale mind. The Mindfuck Cactus literally removes this. You lose all sense of self for eight hours and proceed to alternately commit hard to pure Id and pure Superego. The result is someone that is functionally incapacitated, but it’s also SUPER fucking fun. MFCD is ten years of psychotherapy and ten years of Bonnaroo happening at the same time while your preferred sexual partner(s) perform your wildest fantasies with/on/towards/against/inside you en masse. As you can imagine, it’s both highly destructive and highly addictive.
Mindfuck Cactus Distillate provides: Utter Loss of Control debuff – 8 hours.
Upon the end of the Utter Loss of Control effect, consuming Mindfuck Cactus Distillate provides one of the following: 10% chance to permanently gain 10 Intelligence, 10% chance to permanently gain 10 Wisdom, 10% chance to permanently increase your personal Mana pool by 5%, 10% chance to permanently increase your Charisma score by 50%, 9% chance to permanently learn or upgrade a Skill, 1% chance to gain the Transient Omniscience Buff for 2 seconds sometime in the next 8 hours. 10% chance for an additional Utter Loss of Control effect for 8 hours, 10% chance to permanently lose 10 Intelligence, 10% chance to permanently lose 10 Wisdom, 10% chance to become permanently and irrevocably addicted to MFCD, 9% chance to devote your life to following a single musical entity around indefinitely without any reason or purpose (0% chance this band doesn’t suck), 1% chance to permanently go psychotically insane (does not affect currently psychotically insane).
Warning: This substance is HIGHLY addictive.
Boyd didn’t really know shit about shit, but he knew drugs. Drugs were useful. You could take them, you could trade them, you could hide them for a rainy day. They were something he understood. He liked coke and meth and liquor and weed and LSD and mushrooms and basically everything else, but over time, he learned that you had to like these things selectively. For instance, if you were having a bad day then smoking a joint might make it better. If you were having a really bad day then smoking a joint might make it worse. That was knowledge he could use.
He scrolled through the list until he found some things that looked a little less intimidating and found some assorted plants. He eventually crafted a few different items that loosely equated to cigarettes.
SYSTEM: Stimulant, Class 0: Rebxattttesthie Weed – A very mild stimulant. Can be drank after boiling or smoked as is. Non-addictive. Mildly increased movement speed and mental acuity. Also tasty.
They were mild stimulants that provided him a small boost in acuity and movement speed, and were largely non-addictive. They had a different name, but he decided to call these Reds after both his favorite cigarette and the plant that he derived them from. He rolled up a couple of extra Reds for the road. As soon as he could, he had a couple other things to brew up.