Hagrid, what happened last night? I barely took a sip before blacking out. That ‘Theromear’s Fire’ stuff has a serious kick to it.
I lasted in bed for what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only a couple of minutes. When I realized the sun was shining pretty bright, I rushed to put my armor on and ran out of my room. I checked the room number on my way out, and it was mine.
That's a relief at least.
When I got down and saw Theona behind the counter, I was greeted with a hearty laugh. She seemed to be opening up to me lately.
“Claff! You live! I had a great time last night, thank you! But maybe next time, let's get the cheaper stuff, yeah?”
“Believe me when I say I agree wholeheartedly. My head is killing me right now.”
She laughed and handed me a bottle.
“This is a little family secret. Take a swig, it'll help. Don't mention anything to my dad though. This stuff is like gold to him.”
I gratefully accepted. It really did help, but it wasn't exactly a cure. My head was still pounding along with my heartbeat.
“Thank you, really. I don't remember much of last night, but I know I had fun. You gotta tell me what happened when I get back tonight.”
“That I will. Have fun out there, and stay safe!”
With that, I headed for the guild hall to grab the Cat Ear quest.
Luke gave me a look. “Here I was thinking you'd bailed on me. Getting a later start today, are we? Oh I know that look. Let me guess, you got ballsy and started drinking with a dwarf?”
“Right on the nose. But hey, I lived. Anyways, let me get the cat ears real quick so I can go. I'm late enough as is, yeah?”
I tossed him my guild tag and he tossed it back 5 seconds later.
“Have fun.”
He waved me off and I set out at a light jog. Emphasis on light. Every step I took felt like a hammer blow to my skull. I pulled at my status and saw I apparently had a hangover status ailment that had a timer of 4 hours left on it.
At least it’ll be gone by lunch.
I made it to the herbal field and took a breather. Grifith saw me and started approaching, with a less than please look on his face.
“You're late,” he said. “I was beginning to think you weren't coming.”
“Yeah I know, I’m sorry. I was drinking with a friend who had a night off. I got a bit too carried away and ended up sleeping in this morning. I’ll try not to let it happen again.” I gave a sheepish apology.
“Fine. But I'll be pushing you extra hard on our light jog back. It appears I left you with too much energy last time. I need ro remedy that. Otherwise, how can I call myself a trainer?”
FML. His devilish grin gave me goosebumps.
“Fuck. Anyways, how’s the hunting been? Did you miss me too much?”
Grifith laughed and went back to gathering his own herbs while talking.
“No, nothing serious yet. Although I've noticed there have been more and more strays lately. I hope nothing serious comes of it, but I'll mention it to Luke when we get back.”
“Sounds reasonable. I picked up the Cat Ears quest again by the way. Luke suggested I keep doing it as long as we’re out here training. And it shouldn't affect the barriers too much.”
“Good. I was going to suggest to you today to pick them anyway. It’s still a bit of income. It also helps your physique to stay active throughout the day. It’ll make running a lot easier since you won’t be stiff from sitting on your ass all the time.”
“Hey!” I started to protest. “Me sitting on my ass is only to help me concentrate on keeping the barrier cage up.”
“That’s another thing,” he countered, “the physical activity while focusing on barrier maintenance should help improve your focus too. It’ll be a 3 birds with one stone kind of deal.”
I hate when he’s right.
I grumbled my protests, but still got to work on picking the Cat Ears. 3 minutes later Grifith let me know it was almost time to set up the cage.
The mental strain was starting to get better as I leveled my skill, but the hangover amplified the pain. It wasn’t much, but I could tell how much slower I was picking the herbs now as compared to before.
Putting all the Cat Ears into storage was starting to get expensive, in terms of mana. I only found one every few minutes, but that was still mana I should be putting towards the barriers. Instead of putting them in my storage individually, I started throwing them into a pile 5 feet from where the goblin cage was. This way I could save mana for the important part of the day by just throwing all the Cat Ears into storage at once. I had a pile of 20 Cat Ears by the time Grifith called me over for lunch.
He looked at the pile questioningly as I walked over to him. When I reached him, I lowered my hand and deposited all 20 I had gathered. “Doing it this way saves mana,” I explained. He looked approvingly at me and went to town on his meat and bread.
We finished the day off with more stray goblins than caged goblins. It might have to do with keeping the caged goblins alive for an increasing period of time, but the amount of strays was becoming concerning to Grifith regardless of the ratio.
When I cashed out with Luke that night, I only gave him 30 of the Cat Ears I collected.
“The bare minimum, huh?” He smirked at me.
“Yeah yeah, whatever gimme my money, counter boy.” We chuckled, then he got a serious look on his face.
“So Grifith tells me you've been seeing a lot more strays lately.” I nodded. “I see. I'll do a formal investigation and check the amount of monster kills being turned in in the last week and see if it’s just y'all or if it’s across the board. If this is just happening with the two of you, then it might be a coincidence, but if it's happening everywhere… Well, that’s a frightening thought.” He shook his head and started mumbling as he went back to get my reward.
After I left 5 silver richer, I went back to the inn. Apparently I had a tab to settle from the night before.
Thaggerd greeted me with his usual gusto and sent me to my table. This time he brought the food out himself.
“So, you had quite a few drinks last night. How’s your head feeling? Any better from this morning?” He teased.
“Yeah, I felt a lot better after lunch. The status ailment of “Hungover” only lasted about 5 hours after I left here. It made casting my barriers a bit difficult, but it helped train a different skill.”
“Only 4 hours, eh? You might just be part dwarf after all. Theona herself is still feeling a bit wobbly. I don’t know how you managed finishing that entire mug, but you sure as hell proved you can hold your liquor, if only the weak, 100 proof stuff.” He laughed and slapped my back.
Good thing I'm sitting, otherwise he would have just slapped my ass!
“But to settle the tab for last night, and for the room you’ll be having tonight, that’ll be 4 silver.”
WHAT!
“I thought it was only a single silver a mug! We only had one each!”
“Okay, maybe I was wrong about holding your liquor. Sure you had one each of Theromear’s Fire, but after all the rounds of rum you bought for the table, that added another two silver to your tab. It’s fine if you can’t pay now. You can pay in installments if you need. But pay you will.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“I’ll pay now, thanks. I hate owing a debt. But I truly don’t remember buying rounds. Never let me do that again, eh?”
Thaggerd slapped my back and said, “That i won’t just enjoy your own drinks for a while. Leave the money on the table when you're done. No need to rush.” He left after that. I turned to look at the plate of food then turned right back to say thanks, but he was nowhere to be found.
I’m starting to think he has a stealth skill.
I took my time finishing my food then left 4 silver and 50 copper on the table.
Always tip your servers, folks. Hagrid, that was most of what I made today. And just when i was back over 10 silver, too. Never again alcohol! Never again!
I saw Thalfro, the server from last night, and waved at him as I left to go upstairs. I go tto my room and changed back to more comfortable clothes. I’ll take the day off after a couple of more days and see about getting everything washed.
In the meantime, I had some skill levels to check out.
User: Claff:
Health 160/160
Stamina 130/160
Mana 195/200
Quests [2]
Kill Goblins 0/∞
Kill Slimes 0/∞
Party [0]
SKILLS
PASSIVE
Enhanced Body Lv 3 [80%]
Increased Mental Capacity Lv5 [36%]
Regeneration Lv5 [41%]
ACTIVE
Arcane Magic Lv4 [3%]
Barrier Magic Lv4 [92%]
Game-like Storage Lv4 [9%]
Storage
0 g 7 s 51 c
1. Bowie knife
2. 4 shirts (2 red, 1 blue, 1 brown)
3. 2 rations (2 sandwich)
4. 2 leather armor sets
5. 3 minor stamina potions
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
I did my usual ritual of concentration followed by a headache and a notification. It was probably just a bit of the leftover pain from the hangover, but this headache felt worse than the others, despite the pattern of it getting more mild as my mental skill grew.
Improved pattern for Mana Bolt has been learned.
As I thought. Another Mana Bolt improvement. I think I'll pass on barrier training tomorrow and focus on killing the goblin quickly. I want to get as much practice with this as I can. Hell, I might go buy a damn mana potion to get more training in. Except each potion is only a couple of bolts. I’m not at the point of needlessly wasting money yet. Soon though. It’ll be soon. Although with my regeneration, I won't even need it. I’m getting….. 80 mana an hour now. I’d be wasting an entire silver on what i can get with just 15 minutes of sitting and not casting spells.
I ultimately decided against the mana potions, but would gladly buy more stamina potions. After the training I went through on my way back today, I was glad I had bought them. Grifith was also happy to see it because it meant, “I don't have to hold back on training you any more. Tomorrow, we’ll really push your limits!” like i didn’t almost collapse from exhaustion already today. I might still be needing the stamina special every night when I get back.
I threw my fully loaded barrier up against the wall and went to sleep drained of all my mana. Tomorrow will be another day of goblin killing. I might look into finding a slime spawner soon. I need practice on aiming at smaller targets.
When I brought my slime idea up to Grifith the next morning, he laughed and said, “You'd be wasting money that way. Just aim at the goblin’s eyes.” I face palmed when I realize the wasted potential of the last couple days. They’re practically the same size targets.
So that’s what I did. I also let him know that I'd be practicing my Arcane magic today, which he seemed a little annoyed at.
I asked if that would be an issue, but he said, “No, it’s just I've been getting some GREAT levels the last couple of days. The range of my detection skill just passed the bounds of this field. I don’t want to see my progress slow. But I also see that you need to practice more skills than just the one, so go for it. You’ll be in charge of all the spawner kills, and I'll give you the heads up of strays coming at us. Like the one behind me in the trees right now.”
I tried to spot the Goblin before it could start its charge, but saw him just as he jumped from a high branch. I did my best to kill it before it hit the ground, but found my reflexes still had room to grow.
I shot my first mana bolt right above its head with how fast I was aiming to be. My second shot over compensated and went low. The third bolt however hit right between its nipples.
“I see you’ve gotten faster. The first goblin I saw you kill took you twice as long. But this one also took another shot to finish. You need to work on your aim. Also did you upgrade from yesterday? Those seemed a good bit more powerful.”
“I did upgrade. Let me check my status real quick.” I pulled it up. “Each shot also costs less now than it did before too. I’m down to 5 mana per shot. Half of what it originally took.”
“Impressive. But that doesn’t mean you can just waste your mana either.” He started his lecture, but I interrupted him.
“Well, it kind of does. I also have twice the mana than I did before. I’m working with about 4 times as many mana bolts than I had access to on a full pool mere days ago. Add that to my regeneration, and I'm a lot stronger.”
“Damn kid. I don’t think you realize how impressive that actually is. You need to look into the enchanters guild to see if you can fill any power banks for them. They pay good money for simple mana. If you were to fill a battery, you could add some serious coin to your savings.”
“That sounds like a great idea actually. I'll talk to Luke about that and see what sort of work I can get with that. But that’ll be in a couple days when I take a break. That reminds me, I want to take a day off in a few days. Did you have any days off planned soon? Cause it would be great if i could align mine with yours.”
“Yeah, I'll be taking a day off in 4 more days. This isn’t really hard work anymore for me, but it is good coin which is why I gather and hunt here so often.”
“Sweet. Then I'll plan for 4 days from now. I want to go shopping and see the city when I'm not so exhausted from a madman chasing me into town.” I laughed. Big mistake.
Grifith gave me his evil grin. “A madman, you say? I’ll have to keep an eye out while we go for our light jog this afternoon.”
Hagrid, what have I done?
We got back to picking herbs, and I had my pile grow a decent amount. Since I wasn't hungover today, I picked 40 Cat Ears before lunch. I got another 30 by the time Grifith called it a day. That was my queue to start stretching and get ready to run for my life.
I had made good progress on my body since I started my hellish training with my devilman trainer. I would likely level it when we got to Silface.
We passed the guards at a full sprint. I was too focused on not tripping over my feet to pay attention to anything else, but they were so used to our shenanigans that they didn't even stop us. One just laughed at me and tossed an apple in my way. I thankfully dodged, but let out a little yelp, which only encouraged their laughter.
I downed a stamina potion when I stopped in front of the guild. After the last drop left the bottle, the glass disappeared from my hand in a little display of this world's mechanics. It was odd that nobody seemed to question it, but if it’s been a constant your whole life, then who would really care.
I went through the motions the next two days. I gathered Cat ears, killed Goblins, and ran back like my life depended on it. I wasn’t 100% sure it didn’t, the way Grifith swung that dagger of his at me when I slowed down.
I was excited on my run back the third day though. I had completely stopped using barriers in the field and only used it at night with my loaded barrier. I was solely focused on getting my next Arcane Magic Spell, and it finally hit level 5 today. I was excited to get to my room and get the download to my brain. But first I went to the store and bought some more rations and stamina potions.
I downed my meal at the inn and tossed a silver coin to Theona in my rush upstairs. She started saying hello, but gave a yelp when the coin landed on the table.
I opened my door and jumped straight into bed, slamming it shut behind me. I pulled up my Status and drooled at the thought of what comes next. I hadn’t even noticed that Barrier Magic also leveled up from my nightly practice until now. That only doubled my excitement.
User: Claff:
Health 180/180
Stamina 140/180
Mana 199/220
Quests [2]
Kill Goblins 0/∞
Kill Slimes 0/∞
Party [0]
SKILLS
PASSIVE
Enhanced Body Lv 4 [62%]
Increased Mental Capacity Lv6 [10%]
Regeneration Lv6 [10%]
ACTIVE
Arcane Magic Lv5 [1%]
Barrier Magic Lv5 [13%]
Game-like Storage Lv4 [92%]
Storage
0 g 16 s 36 c
1. Bowie knife
2. 4 shirts (2 red, 2 blue)
3. 5 rations (5 sandwich)
4. 1 leather armor set
5. 5 minor stamina potions
6. 124 Cat Ears
7.
8.
9.
10.
I was excited for my arcane magic, but I wanted to leave the best for last, so I started with Barrier Magic first.
Improved Barrier Manipulation has been learned.
Huh, that’s odd. First I barely felt the headache, and then I didn't get a second skill?
Maybe it’s because I already technically had a second skill with the first version of barrier manipulation. The lack of headache made sense. My mental capacity skill is one of my highest level skills, so it makes sense that mental attacks wouldn’t be as effective. Not that this was an attack, it just made sense to me to think about it like one in this context.
But oh well. I’ll experiment with this some more when I see Grifith in a couple days. Tomorrow is my day off, so I won't be using this either way.
Now it’s time for the big reveal. What skill will I get?
Oi, I spoke too soon about that lack of headache, huh? Now let’s see. Oh, that sounds cool!