Before I work on making the goblin slaying quest, I should figure out what I can add as a quest reward with nearly 300 points. James decided. "61-3, can I pull up a list of every item I can use as a reward?"
[Affirmative. Say or think the words: 'Item Database' to see a list of items sorted by availability and price.]
"Got it, thank you!" Item database! James thought, making a new screen appear.
{Item Database:
-12 Berries (1 per unit): A dozen edible berries, provides little sustenance, and offers no stat boosts.
-Wood (1 per unit): one unit of wood, useful for crafting or building, or fueling fires.
-2 Arrows/Bolts (5 per unit): Ammunition for bows and crossbows. Due to an individual arrow/bolt costing half of a gold coin, they must be bought in pairs. For every 10 arrows/bolts purchased, an additional arrow/bolt is included for free. This bonus may be disabled as a quest reward at the Administrator’s discretion.
-Bundle of Healing Grass (5 per unit): Weeds that can be consumed to boost blood cell production, or applied directly to wounds to help them close. An important ingredient in Low Quality Health Potions.
-Eggs (5 per unit): An edible egg, can be cooked or eaten raw.
-Stone (5 per unit): One unit of stone, useful for crafting or building.
-Low Quality Mana Potion (50): A single Low Quality Mana Potion can immediately restore a small amount of Mana.
-Low Quality Health Potion (75): A single Low Quality Health Potion can speed the recovery of wounds and restore a small amount of blood lost.
-Bedroll (125): A canvas and leather bedroll used to aid in sleeping on rough terrain. Best when paired with other bedding items like pillows, blankets, or sleeping bags. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Harvesting Tool (optional or specific) (125): A woodcutting axe, a mining pickaxe, a harvesting sickle, a skinning knife, or a butcher knife. The perfect tool for the job, whether harvesting from plants, minerals, or monsters. This reward can be given as either a specific tool or the option to let the climber pick from the list provided. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Paper (125): A single sheet of paper with a mild resistance to tearing.
-Small Tent (125): One meter tall, two thirds of a meter wide, and two meters long, this tent fits one average sized adult, and offers protection from wind and rain. Will not hold up to harsh storms. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Wooden Bucket (125): A wooden bucket half a meter in diameter, and half a meter tall. Useful for storing large quantities of liquids, but unlike the waterskin, is cumbersome to carry, and will not protect the liquids from contamination, evaporation, or freezing when outside of a climber's inventory. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Firestarter (250): Two pieces of flint used for creating sparks when struck together. Will not break or shrink in size from use.
-Frying Pan (250): An iron frying pan, useful for cooking food over a fire. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Low Quality One Handed Iron Weapon (250): A single low quality weapon meant to be wielded with one hand, and made mostly of iron. The weapon can be any kind that is compatible with the buyer's class. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Low Quality Short Agility Potion (250): A small vial containing a potion that will provide a minor boost to the drinker's agility for a single minute.
-Low Quality Short Resilience Potion (250): A small vial containing a potion that will provide a minor boost to the drinker's resilience for a single minute.
-Low Quality Short Strength Potion (250): A small vial containing a potion that will provide a minor boost to the drinker's strength for a single minute.
-Map Paper (250): A large piece of more durable paper, useful for drawing maps. Can combine with a compass to unlock the Map Menu in your System HUD.
-Soap (250): A bar of soap, removes grime and smells from items or people. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 75% of the original mass remains.
-Thin Blanket (250): A one meter by two meter sized blanket made of thin but durable cloth. Offers little warmth, but is better than nothing. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Thin Pillow (250): A standard sized pillow somewhat lacking in stuffing. Is still better than resting your head on a rock or log. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Toilet Paper (250): A roll of standard toilet paper. Provides 335 squares. Cleans and repairs itself when the center roll is left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as 90% of the center roll remains.
-Waterskin (250): A container used primarily to hold drinkable liquids, and protect them from being spilled or effected by the temperature of the environment. Comes with straps to be worn over a shoulder or attached to a belt. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains.
-Wooden Bowl, Fork, and Spoon (250): Cutlery important for eating food beyond cooked meat and fresh fruit. Invaluable for any soup lover. Cleans and repairs itself when left in your inventory for at least twelve hours, so long as more than 90% of the material remains. Lack of splinters, guaranteed!}
James read the list, stopping once he reached items beyond the 297 Tower Points he had. This is amazing, I never thought I'd be able to add items related to shops that hadn't been fully built yet, let alone items from shops that haven't even been added to the village! It’s also nice to have confirmation that nearly any non-consumable or non-resource type item will have the ability to self repair. I can also add resources from the floor as a reward, which could be useful if any important resources are hard to get.
The question now is, what's the best item to choose? I added a quest for gold and a health potion, so I should also spend another 60 points to create an "explore floor one" quest with a mana potion as a reward. Doing that would move me just below the 250 points I’d need for the more expensive items, but being able to use a spell in a critical moment when you’d otherwise be out of mana is too useful to pass up. Besides, most of the items in that price range can be obtained through other means, or improvised with what they already have available. I can still reward an item costing 125 tower points, and I'll still have... 102 tower points, after the cost of creating another new quest. I'll only be able to create quests that reward resources or potions after that, but I think I already have an idea for that as well…
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Before that, I need to pick a 125 cost item. The bedroll and small tent are out, as those can be gained by purchasing the basic travel kit. A single sheet of paper is also out, especially since it comes without anything to write with. That leaves either a wooden bucket or a harvesting tool. This wouldn't even be a question, with the obvious benefits of everyone having a tool to harvest wood for the shop quests and keeping fires going. They barely had enough to cook food and build a single outhouse when they focused on using their weapons to break off branches or picking them off of the ground.
But the people have made incredible use of the buckets the bathhouse quest provided, using them for both drinking and cleaning water, and while both of those issues will eventually be resolved once everyone has bought a travel kit and has a waterskin, and the bathhouse is built and people have money to use it... I don't think they'll have any motivation to finish the bathhouse quest when it means losing access to the buckets they have now. A free way to access drinking or bathing water without needing to go to the river, or finding other sources of water on later floors, is too useful to pass up. The description also says it doesn't provide protection 'when outside of a climber's inventory', meaning that unlike the buckets generated for the bathhouse quest, they'll be able to store their buckets in their inventory to carry them around while moving, so even after everyone has bought a waterskin, the bucket will still be useful in helping them carry more water than the waterskin would have on its own.
The harvesting tool might be a better choice later once the bathhouse has been built, but for now, I'm going with the bucket.
"61-3, I want to make a quest for killing goblins that gives a wooden bucket as a reward, could you please create a quest with the lowest amount of goblins required for that reward?" James asked.
[Affirmative. Quest created, please review the following quest.]
{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 287 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have added “1 Wooden Bucket” to the Reward(s). -125 Tower Points. 162 Tower Points remaining.}
{Kill Goblins!
(Input Quest Type)
(Input Quest Recipient(s))
Description: Kill 13 Goblins and receive a Wooden Bucket as a reward.
Goblins Killed: 0/13
Reward(s): 1 Wooden Bucket}
Same quest type and recipients as the last two quests. James thought as he thanked 61-3, and watched as the respective fields changed with that thought alone. I was hoping that would work. It doesn't save much time, but learning how to shave away time wasted going through menus is bound to come in handy later down the line. Confirm Quest. James sent the quest out with another thought.
[The quest: “Kill Goblins!” has been finalized and is being sent to the proper recipients. You are welcome, Administrator James.]
There, hopefully that'll help motivate everyone to fight goblins today, so that the broadcast can show everyone what people will be facing in the future... Damn it, I should have included a line about that in the description, if I told them their actions would be used to help people outside the tower learn about what happens inside, they would likely be eager to help! James sighed. That's what I get for rushing things... Speaking of rushing. James turned to the climber menu, which was still displaying a random climber from earlier that was walking towards the outhouse, their observer panning over the village to show that people had finished waking up and were preparing to set out for a morning refill of the buckets, before James's latest quest had been received. I should get to work on the other quests before people begin leaving the village.
"61-3, could you also create another leave the village quest just like the other two but with a low quality mana potion as the reward?"
[Affirmative. Quest created, please review the following quest.]
{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 152 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have added “1 Low Quality Mana Potion” to the Reward(s). -50 Tower Points. 102 Tower Points remaining.}
{Explore Floor 1! Extended Extended
Quest Type: Optional Single-Participant
Recipient(s): All Climbers on Floor 1
Description: You must go outside the village to gather food and resources, and to find a way to the next floor. Spend six consecutive hours outside of the village walls to be further rewarded for your efforts.
Time Outside the Village: 00:00/06:00 (starts once outside of the village, resets if the village is entered before completion)
Reward(s): Low Quality Mana Potion
Confirm Quest?}
Oh wow, 61-3 filled in all the previous fields it didn't fill in before this time, I guess since the quest is so similar to the previous one it just filled it all in automatically. Confirm Quest. James sent the quest away with a thought as he thanked 61-3 once more. Now for my final plan, I'm sure people would appreciate getting some breakfast.
"61-3, is it possible to create a quest asking everyone to refill nine of the ten bathhouse buckets, and rewarding them with, say, 50 points in berries as a reward?" I'd offer them eggs, but without a frying pan I doubt many would appreciate eating them raw, or perhaps that's my own bias showing. Regardless, berries are cheaper with 60 of them being the price of a single egg.
[Negative, the difficulty of such a quest would only allow 10 tower points to be spent towards the reward. Should I create the quest with these parameters?]
"Please do, thank you." That might be for the best, actually. I wanted to give them enough to last a full day or more, to give a buffer before they’d have to worry about food, but 120 berries should work well enough for a single meal, and I can always reward more food as a reward later if it looks like people are at risk of starving.
[Affirmative. Quest created, please review the following quest.]
{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 92 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have added “120 Berries” to the Reward(s). -10 Tower Points. 82 Tower Points remaining.}
{Refill Buckets
(Input Quest Type)
(Input Quest Recipient(s))
Description: Refill 9 bathhouse buckets and return them to the village to receive 120 berries as a reward.
Buckets Refilled: 0/9
Reward(s): 120 Berries}
Quest type, optional multi-participant, recipients, everyone on floor 1. Confirm Quest. James thought, feeling proud of himself. Alright, I still have 82 Tower Points remaining before the day ends. Maybe I can add another quest rewarding some wood for being outside of the village for two- James's thoughts were interrupted by shouting from the climber menu.
"Goddamn it! Leave me alone! I'm trying to take a shit!" The climber James had unknowingly still been watching yelled, their observer thankfully keeping its view towards the outhouse door from below the climber's chin, looking up so that the bottom of his face was at the top of the screen instead of the rest of his body being below, and James watched an arm frantically wave away at the quest prompt that had appeared in front of the man. "You've already woken me up twice, popping up in the middle of the night and at the crack of dawn. I'll get to you when I get to you!" The man continued yelling at what James assumed was the quest prompt itself, and James felt his earlier pride quickly being replaced by embarrassment.
Maybe I should hold off on creating more quests for now. Five in a single morning is enough. He decided, quickly pulling up a list of climbers on the climber menu and changing which observer he was looking through. Sorry for invading your privacy. James thought towards the man. Hopefully an accident like that doesn't happen again. Maybe I can talk to 61-3 about adjusting privacy settings, if any exist.