Alistair woke on a boat. He realized he had not gotten a rage increase notification, and that lack of notification was enough to cause him to be furious.
How dare that strumpet stab me when we should work towards the same goal. I’ll kill her. His rage had burst through a language barrier he didn’t realize existed.
Maybe Flor made it out alive. He didn’t believe that. It had not had an in-game death in the past several days. Hopefully, this was a soft reset and not a fresh start. He skipped through the cut scenes and supplementary material and manacles so that he could check his inventory. Zero coins. Zero health potions. Zero weapons. Zero armor. Alastair couldn’t tell if there were skills or not. He called on Etc and breathed a sigh of relief when the bunny bumped his nose.
“Hi, Etc. Just making sure I haven’t lost everything.”
Edith replied, “You still have your equipment. You have to equip it again.” Alastair checked, realized that Etc was correct, put her away, and continued checking through his interfaces. He still also had the Slow Chrono on him.
Flor walked up to him and paused. She looked down into his eyes and wrapped him in her strong arms. “I’m scared, Al. I don’t know how to get us out of here.”
After a moment, Alastair realized Flor shouldn’t be the target of his misdirected rage. He relaxed in her arms, then wrapped his around her. She nuzzled into his head.
“I think I can direct my rage. Maybe you can too,” he said.
“Let’s just get out of here…”
Alastair drew himself up to full height and realized he must seem like an overweight hobbit’s body… this game just doesn’t quit. {Nothing is wrong with being a hobbit.}
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“We lost some items but didn’t lose all our progress. You may think this is strange, but here’s my recommendation. After checking my interface, we still have our dispositions with NPCs. So, maybe Amets has a ceremony planned for us. Let’s get that, see if we can equip better weapons and armor, and then figure out how to increase our health. But, let’s limit it to today.”
“What do you mean by limiting it to today?”
“We’re going to try to defeat the mayor in a low-level run.”
Flor looked at him blankly. She had been doing that often recently wondering if he was thinking clearly. “Tell me about a low-level run?”
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Alastair wanted to be annoyed but took a breath and said, “We’ll plan to take on the mayor as we are, without serious equipment, and just about nothing supplemental. It’s a self-imposed extra challenge.”
Flor said, “You’re saying we don’t even call on Irving? We just go stealth and kill six guards in a procession and then the mayor and his wife and some other nobles and then release some kids? Call me silly if you think I’m skeptical.”
“Fine. It’s not a true low-level run. Maybe it’s minimalist or speed run, instead. We sacrifice power leveling to use the element of surprise.”
“What if Mal is there?”
“Then we deal with her too. Probably by avoiding her. Since she seems partial to PvP, however, I doubt she would anticipate we’d do a low-level run. Those types prefer to min-max.”
Flor took a few moments just stirring her slop around before saying, “So, we just plow through?”
“Select red runes all the way!”
“No other planning?”
“We have ten hours. So this is the rough sketch. Temple, forty coins, get Irving to set the ambush, we top off on available weapons, armor, and health potions, and then the Mayor dies.”
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Amets was a bit surprised when they showed up. “Not before the sun rises,” she exclaimed.
“You know the sun doesn’t rise this day. Give us our base jobs,” Alastair demanded.
“Fine, but I hope it hurts you. In your nethers,” said Amets.
Alastair focused his rage. It wasn’t toward Amets.
“Fine. Even though your day didn’t progress, I still have everything prepared. And there should be no pain, but I might try to make it hurt since it’s so early. Who shows up to a temple this early in the day?”
Your disposition with Cleric Amets has changed from Neutral+ to Neutral.
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Alastair, now fully vested as a Scribe 0, felt better equipped in his cloth tunic and headband. Even though they wore equipment yesterday, they had maximized the level of equipment for an individual without a job. He still didn’t understand the dynamics of combat and how this would help him compared to the simple toga he had worn since waking in this world, but again, it was time to focus that rage on something else.
Brawler 0 Flor knocked her Gloves together. She looked ready to pulverize, and Alastair was cautious that he didn’t want it to be him. She pounded the gloves together again, then smiled. “You ready, Nate Ford?”
Alastair started to say, “You…” but then stopped. This is not the time. She’s focused on something else, not thinking about appropriate diminutives. Focus your rage, Alastair!
“I’m ready to see you pound the mayor into the ground. What do you need”
Flor wiggled her fingers. “My anger will sustain me. I…”
Alastair waited.
“…I’m unsure what I can do after this, Al. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be here. I know you don’t either. But, once we’re done with this effort, this objective, I might need some time alone.”
Alastair felt his eyes grow wide. The shock pulsed through his body. “Wait!? What?!”
Flor looked about to cry. “If this works, or even if it doesn’t, and we wake in this rainy city one more day, Al, I need to figure things out for myself. At least for a day or two. It’s, you’ve been…I just.” She went silent, and a deep gloom fell upon him.
After a couple of moments, he caught his breath. “Yeah. I don’t understand, but yeah. We’ll wake up tomorrow after smashing this guy, and we’ll either be at home or I’ll be okay with you going on a solo adventure. Either way, it’s okay. We’ve had so much more time together than I anticipated.”
She nodded. “Let’s escape this slop bucket.”