When life gives you lemons
Bo yells: Wait up!
Ai looks back, giggles and yells: Nope!
Two children are running towards the south exit of Sybilla, dodging and bumping into passerby's. Occasionally a frustrated yell receives a giggle in reply. They are currently ascending the massive ramp that leads up to the gate, followed by the drawbridge leading out of Sybilla. As the ramp rises up to the height of buildings, it becomes possible to jump onto buildings. You're not supposed to randomly jump onto the roofs of buildings, but well...
Ai finds a nice spot to climb onto a building and pushes herself up onto the parapet and then pulls herself up to the roof. She checks back where Bo is and sees him already in position to climb up. She holds out her small hand and helps by pulling him up, all the while having a big smile on her face.
System focuses on the two children. It is time for Bo to get a class, but System is distracted.
{ what is this cute little thing? }
System is enchanted by the blonde haired, blue eyed, smiling girl that seems so full of energy, so full of life. He sees her plump cheeks and the gap between her front teeth and all he can think is:
{ adorable! }
Ai runs over the roof and jumps onto the next building and then to the next one over. Bo is following close behind, yelling at her to slow down. When she gets to the building opposite of the pet store, she sits down on the edge of the roof, gently swinging her legs back and forth, as if sitting there isn't dangerous at all. Bo carefully sits down next to her.
Ai closes her eyes and feels the sun on her skin and the wind brushing through her hair. She feels the warmth and enjoys the happy feelings she has inside. The wind makes her feel like she is flying through the sky. After getting lost for a moment, she opens her eyes again and sets them on the pet store. The store front has a large opening, that can be covered by a large wooden shutter, which is currently flipped up. She can see some of the cages in the store through the opening. She notices an earthenware pot placed on top of the window sill.
Ai: Target in sight.
Bo: Waiting for orders, captain.
Ai: Check for counter intelligence.
Bo: No enemies in sight, we don't appear to be compromised.
Ai: Very good, soldier, our objective is to take out the hostile earthenware pot!
Bo: Validating equipment.
Bo takes out a self-made slingshot. It is a gnarly piece of wood in a Y-shape. Bo had cut the branch off of a tree, that happened to be roughly the shape he needed. The elastic acquired by questionable means, hanging slanted at an angle, due to the split of the branches not being symmetric. The slingshot was a little hard to use, but Bo had simply practiced to the point where he could accurately hit large targets at 15 meters away. A little more if operating from a height, like now. It's not like they had much to play with at the orphanage.
Ai: Take aim!
Bo grabs a large marble sized rock from his pocket and pulls back the elastic on his slingshot.
Ai: Hold your aim!
When a new customer enters the store passing by the earthenware pot, Ai yells: "Fire!"
Bo releases the marble, it arcs over the street and it smashes into the pot. Blasting it to smithereens.
{ This one has potential! }
Mayhem ensues, the woman that just entered the store starts screaming uncontrollably. The birds in the store start cawing and flapping their wings. The other animals join in as well, creating a cacophony of animal noises. People walking by stop to see what is going on. Ai is giggling the whole time. When the shop keeper runs up to the front of the store with a red head and starts looking around confusedly at the gathering crowd, she can't hold it anymore. She falls onto her back and starts laughing out loud. Bo is still keeping an eye on the situation.
As the animals quiet down, the shop keeper's attention is drawn to the laughing coming from the roof. He sees Bo sitting there with a slingshot in his hand.
You damn brats! You think this is funny!?! Come down here this instant!
Captain Ai, our covert operation has been compromised. We have been detected. Still laying on her back Ai yells, "Tactical retreat!", while stretching her arms upward in emphasis. They get back up and run over the rooftops, returning to the ramp.
Ai: Mission accomplished!
Bo: The evil earthenware pot roams the pet store no more.
Ai: You have performed well private.
Bo: It is merely my duty to cleanse Sybilla of our enemies.
Ai: *hands Bo a wrapped candy* here are your earnings, we will return to base to strategize.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Bo: Yes captain!
They run down the ramp, once again dodging and bumping into people, seemingly unaffected by the occasional yell. They make a sharp turn at the end of the ramp, away from the pet shop and rush into a crowded market district with wooden stalls covered by cloth roofs draping over the wooden frames. It's questionable whether or not the shop keeper would pursue them, but he is sure to lose them in the crowd here if he does.
Bo and Ai stop at a stall that sells adventurer equipment at discount prices. Bo is looking at a short bow on display and Ai is looking at a silver enchanted bracelet, which is way too expensive to be sold at a shop like this. As Ai is examining the bracelet a woman walks right through her, causing her to fall to the ground.
Yet, instead of apologizing, the woman yells: watch out brats! without making a change in her gait.
{ You dare hurt my Ai! Now watch me nerf your skill tree into oblivion! }
Ai feels miserable, being blamed for just standing there and being shoved onto the stones.
She jumps back to her feet.
Ai: New target acquired!
Bo: Acknowledged!
The two follow the pompous madam, clothed in a white dress that looks expensive, but isn't actually high quality. The kind of clothes one wears when concerned with appearances. The woman is walking past stalls, glancing at the stalls, but not finding what she is looking for. Bo would be more than happy to launch a rock at the woman's temple, but Ai is still scheming how she wants to deal with this situation. The lady eventually stops at a vegetable stall and fills a paper bag with potatoes.
Madam: 20 copper per kilo!?!
Shopkeep: *sigh* I'm sorry milady, there is nothing I can do.
Madam: This is 10 times what they are supposed to cost!
Shopkeep: Milady, Westwoods is buying up large amounts of food at a high price, causing food prices to rise everywhere.
Meanwhile, Ai hands Bo some potatoes covered in fungus, taken from a trash bin next to the stall.
Ai: Apparently she likes potatoes... Let's help her out, she almost missed out on these wonderfully rich specimens.
Bo quickly sneaks two blue-green potatoes into the bag in place of two brown ones. He quickly jumps out of sight as the lady angrily grabs the bag for the shop keeper to weigh.
Shopkeep: 24 copper
Madam: I'm never coming here again!
Shopkeep: I'm afraid you'll find the same prices everywhere milady.
She pays the man, blindly grabs the bag and leaves.
The lady apparently knows the vendor at the next stall. After buying a bag of apples, they have an amiable conversation about the weather and what just happened at the vegetable stall. Meanwhile, once again Ai has Bo change the bag. While they are distracted, she fills a paper bag with lemons and places a few apples on top to camouflage them. This time, she has Bo sneakily swap the whole bag.
After verifying that the woman leaves with the bag of lemons, Ai feels like her revenge is complete.
System has been following Ai and Bo on their adventures the whole day. He should be assigning classes, but their little adventures are much more interesting. Then again, who is to tell the system what to do? That being said, as they walk back he realizes he still needs to assign Bo a class.
*DING* *DING* you have gained the class adventurer.
description: Let's put those sling shot skills to good use!
Bo throws his hands into the air and yells, I'm an adventurer!
Ai joins him with her hands in the air too: "Oh! Ooh!"
{ Ooh! }
Bo: We have to get back to the orphanage, I have to tell the everyone!
Given Bo's behavior and skill with the slingshot, System was hopeful in making Bo an adventurer. So far, many of the classes he assigned, offered disappointing results. System wanted to be a part of epic adventures, but many who received classes from him either progressed too slowly for his tastes or they didn't take the direction he wanted them to take. Hopefully Bo was different.
Like peasant, adventurer is a generalist class. Though, unlike the peasant class, adventurer offers no bonuses to activities outside of adventuring. Adventurer offers general combat skills as well as skills related to scouting and adventuring in general. In rare cases the class assigns magic or healing skills. Even though the class will offer only a few skills before hitting the XCAP, the skills are chosen from an immense pool of possible choices. Therefore, two people with the adventurer class will almost never have identical skill sets. As with most classes, the starting skills are always the same, "general basic weapons proficiency" and "night vision".
The class has a single tier of 25 levels and the next class gets bonus XP, provided the class is related (e.g. warrior, archer, mage). Experience is only gained through quests, missions and slaying monsters. The class is incredibly cheap for System to assign, but although not everyone is brave enough to hunt monsters, the class is easily leveled when they do. Then System has to assign yet another class, costing additional MMs.
----------------------------------------
id: 209,544,753
name: Bo
age: 15
HP: 60
MP: 3
classes: adventurer - level 0
VIT: 6 (5+1)
STR: 7 (6+1)
END: 6 (5+1)
DEX: 8 (7+1)
INT: 3 (2+1)
class: adventurer
stats +1 / +1 freely assignable stat point every 5 lvl
skill - general basic weapon skills: immediately understand and wield any weapon with basic proficiency
passive - night vision: improved vision in the dark