[New Quest: A Pound of Cure
Find a way to help Fableton]
Tapper was left to his devices for a long moment before he gave up trying to think of a way to help the injured customer. This amount of vague initiative was above the robot, so with a cloud of guilt still hanging Tapper resigned himself to finishing up his chores. After all, the boxes of mealworms were still waiting outside and no one had hunted any combo critters or bulk-purchased any ed-pro bars lately, so his customers needed their protein. Back in the tent, he bent down to the box of mealworms but froze as soon as they came into focus, distracted by a flood of new information he couldn't process.
The information was hazy and all over the place like a half-formed thought. But when Tapper gave the grubs a closer inspection, they were suddenly highlighted with a wireframe vector the same sharp shade of green as the pop ups and the messy noise of thoughts coalesced into specific information. Dead Man's Fingers: Take them raw and wriggling, squeeze them dry and toss the husk for a paste that gives a numbing effect. Taking too much internally can paralyze!
This wasn't a pop up message he had to read, this was something that Tapper just suddenly and intrinsically knew. But if it wasn't a system message and he hadn't downloaded any information by conventional means, where did it come from? Looking in the main bug breeding and feeding box gave a similar flurry of random information until Tapper focused and inspected just the adult beetles, highlighting them with the same green wireframe vector and dimming everything else in his vision until several different uses for the various body parts started scrolling through his mind. Darkling Crawlers: Gently dry the entire body and grind to powder for a mild healing reagent. However, most of it will pass right through.
Excitement! This was exactly what Tapper needed, although this mysterious well of knowledge also informed him that just powdered darkling beetle wouldn't be enough. He quickly picked out every single dead beetle in the bottom of the breeding box and tossed them into a nearby plastic bag, hauled the mealworms to the kitchen for cooking later, and then got to exploring. He inspected everything edible in the warehouse for possible potion ingredients, but in retrospect he should have started in the greenhouse. Most of the various stems and roots could be distilled down into different toxins, but with perseverance the robot eventually hit paydirt. Cat's Tongue Nettle: Be careful with the needles as you dry the leaves and then brew for a viscous bitter tea. Use it as a base for potions and the other reagents will better stick to your bones, improving their lasting power!
The bubbling sense of excitement gave Tapper's hands a tremor as he considered how many leaves he would need. Wiessa wasn't around to ask permission, so he carefully but quickly plucked off a fistful of leaves from different branches, shoved them into the plastic bag, and hurried back to the kitchen. No one gave the robot a second glance as he set out pots and cooking sheets, set the gas stove to preheat with his lighter thumb, and got to work dehydrating the beetles and nettle leaves. Set aside the dried leaves, find a mortar and pestle for the beetles, realize there isn't one and resort to using his fists to pulverize the beetles in a bowl, and then finally prepare the water.
Tapper did feel a pang of guilt when he pulled out an unopened plastic bottle of water from under the counter, but he had to make sure this worked. Bring the water to a simmer, seep the leaves until the water thickens into a sickly green, and then mix in the powdered beetles. The potion took on a light brown color matched by an awful smell, but there was still something missing. Tapper didn't know how he knew, but the qualities of everything he had used were lacking and as a result they weren't meshing together — this wasn't a potion, it was just weed tea with powdered bugs mixed in. What was it the pop up had said about making up for inconsistencies?
He was leaning over the simmering pot in deep contemplation when Tapper realized that the tingling sensation had gradually condensed and focused in the fingers nearest to the pot. What's more, there was a heat Tapper could feel that had nothing to do with the lit stove because it was coming from his own motherboard and radiating outwards. The robot held one hand over the pot and willed the hidden knowledge of potion brewing to show him what it needed to do. The heat and tingles, now one and the same, withdrew until it formed a line from Tapper's CPU to his outstretched hand and kept building and building until some undefined limit broke and something started to spill out. It wasn't oil, there wasn't any physical sign of anything happening besides a very mild visual distortion around his hand and the pot, but something was absolutely pouring out of his metal body like a faucet. Within seconds the simmering brew went from light brown to a bright red-brown strangely akin to the color of rich clay and two new pop ups came to the forefront.
[New discovery found: Minor regeneration potion! +1 XP
This basic potion will heal 1HP per round for 1d6 rounds (modified by brewer's Int score and recipient's Con score) when taken orally, or can be used as a salve to greatly speed the healing of a single non-critical injury. Not strong enough to regrow lost body parts.]
[Successfully crafted: Minor regeneration potion! +1 XP]
Those served as all the confirmation Tapper needed that he was finished, and another extension of will shut off the energy's outpouring. The tingling sensation diffused to his entire body once again, but at a diminished level that drained his overall performance. Although Tapper couldn't possibly feel tired, the robot somehow got a sense that he had just greatly exerted himself. A quick internal diagnosis didn't reveal any issues, so on a hunch Tapper asked for his character sheet and noticed two changes.
[XP: 4/25]
[MP: 4/6]
The increase in XP made sense, but the line for MP did not exist on his character sheet before now. Tapper sifted the potion back into the empty water bottle, set it aside, and then turned back to the character sheet to ask for clarification on what MP was.
[Mana
Every hero utilizes the mana contained within their soul to commit feats beyond their limits, be it a fighter internalizing their mana to strengthen their bodies or wizards reaching outward to manipulate the magical weave in the aether. As a rule of thumb, every spell you cast requires 1 MP to attempt plus any bonuses you apply, and if your mana falls to 0 then you lose the usage of that spell for the rest of the day. Even if the check was otherwise successful! MP resets to full after a rest, and many classes can partially regain their mana during a breather.]
[Magic
The mysterious ethereal force which connects all things, magic is what lit the first spark of life and powers the furnace of the soul. Magic permeates everything and everyone touches it, but only a very few people have either the natural ability or the studious dedication to actually grab hold and manipulate magic. Those that do can manage extraordinary feats surpassing the limits of their mere mortal shells, but beware the hubris! Every single attempt to control magic carries a small chance of it catastrophically backfiring, and long-time exposure to wild magic can have mutagenic effects. Even the most careful and patient old wizard will have a few missing fingers and some secrets to hide under their robe. To quote renowned sorcerer Agmitis the Acuminous, "Quit casting Spark to light candles before your eyes catch fire! Why do you think I still carry a flint?"]
Tapper quietly read, reread, and pondered the strange message. These pop ups were not nearly as straightforward as the previous ones had been, and the simple bartender had not made any progress in making sense of who Agmitis was by the time the potion had cooled to an acceptable temperature. There was still a queue of pop ups waiting to be read, but thankfully they stayed a vague green pulse just out of view as Tapper took care of his more pressing task.
Aazran was still in the clinic, laid back on a reclining chair and gently snoring through the thick cloth wrapped around his reptilian snout. Wiessa was also there, standing next to the operating stage and wrapping up the rest of the medical cloths. Even though she was wearing the same dirt-dusted clothes from the greenhouse, the tall woman had at least cleaned her skin and now Tapper could see dashes of green biofluorescent skin shine in the light. They were faded compared to Miss Phanya's markings, but Wiessa was definitely at least part numan. "Hm? I didn't order a drink."
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"Pardon me, doctor, but I have procured this medicine for Mister Aazran. May I apply it to him?" the robot said, holding out the bottle. Wiessa glanced from the robot to the unconscious raptor and she just shrugged.
"Don't ask me, I'm no doctor. I just know how to set a wound," Wiessa responded. With a swish of her long coat that kicked up a small dust cloud, the numan turned heel and returned to her greenhouse without another word.
Tapper understood the lack of refusal as tacit permission and got to work. Following the subconscious instructions of how to apply salves, he gently unwrapped the cloth around Aazran's snout, saturated it with the potion, and reapplied the bandage to the fracture. He tried to massage the salve into the skin, but Aazran started to immediately stir and groan in pain so Tapper backed off. Hopefully this wouldn't happen so often that he would have to learn about the physical fragility of each organic species, but the bartender felt properly accomplished for once. It wasn't enough to satisfy the needs of his latest quest, but it was a start.
Tapper got right to work brewing a second regeneration potion with the leftover ingredients, and in his haste he forgot to monitor his MP. During the process there was an internal pop of some sort that shot pain through his CPU; a humanoid would compare to a splitting headache, and when the brewing process finished an alert was waiting for Tapper:
[Potion Brewing has fizzled!]
Checking his character sheet also confirmed that his MP had fallen all the way to 0. If he could have spared the processing power to wonder why this second batch took so much more mana he might have realized it was because he had used over half the ingredients the first time and that meant using even more mana to make up for it, but Tapper lacked both the will and the capacity for such ponderings. Right now he yearned for nothing more than rest, even if the robot didn't technically know what it would take for him to actually go to sleep.
As misfortune would have it, Tapper's brief pause to ponder what it meant to lose consciousness was interrupted when the first shipment of miners arrived home for dinner. The bar brawl had thrown off Tapper's routine and he had been so distracted experimenting with potion brewing that he never started preparing for the evening rush. Between the delay and the headache it took every ounce of the robot's bartending skills to keep up with demand, and by the time the last customer had received their food Tapper couldn't muster the energy to even consider the cleanup process.
Best he could hope for was to retract his leg spindle for stability, hunker under the counter, and activate a deep diagnosis program that involved a partial shutdown of his systems. Maybe if nothing else it would find that he was actually tired because his internal nuclear microgenerator was leaking, and the last thought Tapper had before he shut down was that if he was leaking then he probably should've moved outside of the marketplace.
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The first thought to cross Tapper's mind when he regained consciousness was curiosity, since it felt like nothing had happened, yet he knew from his internal clock that almost exactly four hours had passed. That must be what it's like to lose consciousness, then — absolutely nothing. It was now well into the dead of night and only a few insomniac customers milled about, trying to numb themselves with the drinks they had helped themselves to in Tapper's absence. Hopefully that was fine after Miss Uxral's speech on not stopping thieves, but the robot couldn't wait to worry about that.
An organic being would also likely chastise themselves for not realizing how concepts such as mana and sleep worked earlier, but Tapper only felt a faint hint of excitement. Even if it was more confusing than anything, it still felt good to learn new things about himself! Especially when the information was presented to Tapper without him having to dig and fumble around his limited understanding. Maybe there were other things this character sheet really wanted to show him? As if reading the desire, a new message popped up in his view:
[Spell Components
Everyone knows that the power of a magician lies in the spells they create from the components they collect. Every single component you find is the pure essence of a concept given form, etched into your mind with such finality that you can now summon, manipulate, and embody that concept in ways no other mortal can. But the true power comes from how those components get combined, creating new and wondrous spells that no one else can predict. What sort of power would the spell Flower Wheelbarrow have on the world? No one knew until Agmitis the Acuminous used that spell to carry an entire company of soldiers safely through the Fey Wilds!
And remember, never reveal these components to other people. Otherwise they shall hunt you down and forcefully extract the secrets from your brain!]
[Casting spells
The most basic and safest way to cast a spell is to just use a single word, which will allow you to pick up and manipulate a handful of that concept without harming yourself. So, if you cast Fire you can reach into a lit scone and scoop out a handful of fire, allowing you to apply it elsewhere or even throw it as an attack. The second simplest way is to cast one word to bring it into existence from the aether, again only as a handful and this requires a bit more mana, but since you don't need the subject to already exist you can cast Fire on a cold log to get that campfire going with ease. Likewise, casting Dance on a person will compel them to cut a rug!
The real fun comes from combining words, because the end result is only limited by your imagination. Create Light can do just what it says on the tin, but it can also act as a distracting flashbang, a damaging laser, a highlight for easy tracking, anything the magician can bend to their will! This is when spells start to cost exponentially more mana, but it's also when you are no longer limited to what you can hold in your hand. Spheres! Lasers! Cones! Multiple targets! The sky's the limit when you start combining spell components.]
Unlike the pop ups that Tapper intentionally brought up of his own will, these ones automatically dismissed themselves as soon as he finished reading them regardless of his desire to go over them a second or third time. This rapidfire information was too much for him to absorb and eroded any excitement he was feeling from the helpful system, so when a third pop up appeared all that remained was a sense of dread. This final message was about spell shaping and it was by far the worst, filling Tapper's vision top to bottom with mathematical formulas regarding volume and surface area and exponential scaling and everything else a bartender had no use knowing.
The math was so overwhelming that Tapper could swear the diagrams had detached from the pop up and floated about his head, and although the robot didn't have the context to call them visual hallucinations it would not have made them any less terrifying if he did. Tapper had to completely shut off his visual receptors and fidget with his plastic bag before the white noise could drown out the terror, and when he felt safe enough to reactivate his vision the terrifying math had been replaced with a final, utterly barebones pop up.
[Spells Known:
Spray
Suck
Track]
Compared to the deluge of information the system was subjecting to Tapper, this was equally baffling for its lack of context. Hopefully the program wasn't responding to him being overwhelmed, and when he asked it for a slightly more thorough explanation no new words appeared in his vision. Instead Tapper could just barely feel a new sensation of a thousand eyes focusing very hard on different parts of his body: the unused spray nozzle on his back spindle, the often used vacuum strapped to his other spindle, and the caterpillar tracks he moved around on. Unfortunately, the thought of connecting the concepts to his physical body never crossed Tapper's mind and the feeling was largely ignored until the metaphorical onlookers gave up trying to draw his attention.
What instead gave the robot's eyebrows a happy wiggle was the realization that these must be executable programs, because when he focused on the first one it opened up and engulfed nearly all of his processing power. Now, social robots like Tapper do not have read/write permissions for their own programs, so when he pushed his full focus into a spell and was accidentally exposed to the endless celestial depths that goes into shaping a concept for spellcraft, it didn't phase him.
The bartender didn't realize he was looking at the crossing of ley lines and celestial bodies, he couldn't read the instructions dictating how every language known and unknown would play on the same spell shape, and anything else that would've fried his circuits thankfully washed right over and past his perception. Instead, Tapper looked around the knowledge of infinities for a moment before backing out, perfectly content to believe that he just had a few new executables he could run.
There may have been a sliver of the robot's mind that knew this wasn't how computers worked, but any doubts were put out of his mind for good when the first few customers started to shuffle into the warehouse. Tapper had spent the entire night reading messages and studying spells, so with the gray hints of pre-dawn light warming the windows the bartender happily got to work on his duties to serve the people. His duties were much more important than any new programs, after all.