Outside The Farmer's Secret

Leaving the dungeon, I feel the pressure on my insides lessen significantly, like a fist clenched around my heart loosened it's grip, only to remain hovering around it ready to squeeze again.

"Feel free to take a break, it'll be ten minutes before we can go back in," I announce, taking a seat against the wall a little further away from the Anguished Core, "I'll Identify the accessory we got and pass it to whoever's best suited to it once I've had some water and a Benfa Fruit."

The rest of the team joins me on the floor, relighting our lantern and retrieving whatever snacks and beverages they have from their inventories. Rather tellingly of the current situation, Jade seats herself as far as she can from both myself and Windy while still being part of the circle, though neither Angelus or Jupiter especially care where they sit.

Throwing away the stem of the fruit and taking one last swig of water, I take out the bangle and waste a charge to the 20% failure chance before getting it on the second go.

 

 

"Hm. Decent," I comment aloud.

"What's it do?" The resident loot gremlin leans forward.

"Increases Max MP by 50," I reveal, Jupiter's face lighting up as if his stupidity is being vindicated by the proportionate increase in luck, "You can't use it, Jupiter. You need to be Level 9 and have 10 Willpower - since I believe you have the base Silva value of 5, you need to actually level it."

The Hedge Mage deflates, "I feel like RNGesus is mocking me from his throne of weighted dice. Yea, verily, fucketh this wizard in particular."

"Then build your character like a sensible person would," Angelus expresses no sympathy for his comrade in magic.

"Now that I have Spells that're kinda worth a damn, maybe I will," Jupiter agrees reluctantly, "The whole reason I did it was so I could actually do damage."

"That is a weakness of mages early on," I admit, "They're very dependant on gear and stats to keep up with martial classes in damage, but they also don't care as much about groups of enemies or targets with high physical resistance. Trade-offs."

"Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards, yeah, I know. Price of greatness is a shit early game," Jupiter grumbles, "Speaking of, I got a level off of that. 6k xp is pretty sweet."

"That'll put you at Level 7. Angelus, you have the other set of Vacantsoul still, don't you?" I look to the healer.

After checking, Angelus nods, "Yes. You want me to give it to him?"

Jupiter looks confused and anticipating, though Jade is sceptical, "You sure you wanna give him that on top of the spells you got him?"

Rather than answer her directly, I look to Angelus, "Do you think he's worth investing in further?"

The healer thinks it over, "At the very least, I see no issue loaning it to him for the duration of this excursion. I'll have a better chance of making an accurate judgment once we complete a few additional runs."

"I'll trust your judgment on the matter then," I say, looking to Windy and Jade but receiving no strong objections from either one, "Go ahead and hand it over then."

Excited with the new gear Angelus passes over, Jupiter equips the Vacantsoul Set immediately, "Sweet, matching outfits. And even more Imagination, fuck yeah, I am going to be throwing the meatiest fireballs this side of Level 10. Like, actually on fire soccer-ball sized meatballs. Not to sound ungrateful, but is it just the clothes?"

"Yep, just the clothes," Windy answers.

"Too bad, was hoping you'd have a staff tucked away somewhere," he shrugs, tugging at the fabric, "The fit is a little snug, though. Feels about a size too small."

Angelus nods, "Likewise. You'll just have to put up with it, I'm afraid."

Windy speaks up while the mages fuss over their equipment, "Do you think we're good enough to tackle Normal mode yet?"

I shake my head, "Once we smooth out our awareness of the fight and get at least an A rating, then we'll be ready. The Beak has a lot more health on Normal, so we'll need a good grasp of the fight's rhythm, which also means you need to learn get through the fight with as little damage taken as possible."

Shutting her eyes, the tank bows her head, "Mhm. Understood, boss. Any suggestions?"

"Besides the unavoidable damage from Desire, which is more of a me, Jupiter and Jade problem, you just need to get used to the Jealous Strikes, you're taking a lot more risks than necessary to try and avoid them," I inform her, "The first time you were understandably taken off guard, but the third set of Jealous Strikes was a little more questionable."

Windy coughs, "Yeah, I kinda zoned out a little and panicked. Sorry."

"You're still learning, but even though the method you settled on for the rest was still sloppy, it was still an improvement - Angelus can handle a little experimentation on your part if it saves him more stress in the long run," I look to the healer for support.

"So long as you don't get carried away, and actually improve, yes," Angelus agrees, "It's a new fight to us, so I'm exercising a fair degree of patience while we prog."

"And you didn't...y'know...die at all. Which is good," Jade points out lamely, before stuffing a slightly stale bread roll in her mouth to hide the awkwardness.

"The tank not dying is good," Jupiter nods sagely, "Keep not dying, please, for I am squishy like jell-o and will likely explode the moment that thing so much as looks at me funny. If it even can, I mean I saw some glass eyes and heads in there, so maybe it can just see everything around it and I made a bad metaphor?"

A pebble thrown by Jade bounces off the scatter-brained mage's skull, "Ow. Uncalled for."

"The audience appears not to appreciate the stand-up routine, the comedian is invited to leave the stage," Windy lowers her voice to mimic a PA operator.

"2 Stars, the only thing funny was the act's pretending to have a sense of humour worth sharing," Jade follows-up with a review, smirking.

"Harsh," Jupiter laughs, apparently possessed of thick skin, "I shall drink this potion of disgustingness in penance for my crimes."

Swigging from another mana potion, he coughs and splutters, "Guh, that is foul."

"Remember the flavour the next time you feel it necessary to make a joke in poor taste," I deadpan. The group groans at the pun.

"1 Star, might actually sue for noise pollution," Jade snarks, glaring at me.

---

 

 

 

 

Leaving the instance one last time, after pushing the limits of our focus and supplies, Jupiter collapses to the floor from Mana Exhaustion - the bane of Silva players across time. While other races also experience it, for Silva whose blood is functionally magical power in liquid form, it's no different from feeling severely anaemic after donating a pint or two of blood.

"Life as crystal elf wizard is suffer. Assist by feeding mana potion thanks," the Hedge Mage slurs, groaning.

"We ran out of them in the fight," Angelus bends down to move the Silva to a more comfortable sitting position, "You'll just have to work through it. When I heard the racial ability description from my Guide I didn't think it'd be this bad."

Jade sucks her sore string-pulling fingers, "You sure he didn't just drink too many potions?"

"That might be part of it," I gulp down some water, "He was really pushing it for that A rating at the end there."

The fact that we finally got the A on Normal Mode after ten tries rather speaks for itself. However, our resources are basically almost tapped out now, so this will be the last run we undertake. Besides the obviously much lower level and barely conscious Hedge Mage on the floor, the rest of us have just squeaked our way into Level 10, but the chance at being the first to the world announcement was dashed just before we stopped running Easy Mode and fuelled much of the decision to move to Normal, taken by Oep Shae from The Town of Forgiveness.

A shame, to be sure, but not entirely unexpected. The upper crust of ToF players are just those kinds of people - that we're keeping pace with them at all is fantastic.

"Windy, give Jupiter a hand up, would you? We should head back up to the barracks to rest rather than lying down on cold stone," I order, pulling out our third accessory - the second being an ear stud that increases Perception by +3 which went to Jade, "I'll check our new loot."

"Got it, boss," Windy acquiesces, despite her fatigue, scooping Jupiter off the ground and over her shoulder like a sack of rice.

"Thaaanks..." Jupiter mumbles, "You very nice person I appreciate."

"...Will you get like this if you run out of MP?" Angelus slowly and reluctantly pushes himself to his feet.

I shake my head, "Not from that alone. Mostly I'd just get sleepy and irritable, probably. I've never experienced it, but I'm told it's like being anaemic."

"Sounds pleasant," Jade mumbles, "Got a Quest a minute ago."

I nod, starting to walk after Windy, "Yeah, me as well. The First Step, right?"

"Yeah, thought you were being all dramatic about the class change, didn't think it was the actual name of the Quest," Jade yawns, "What's the deal with it?"

I crick my neck and rub the sore part, "We'll go over it when we're back and not dead on our feet."

"'k," Jade nods, too tired to argue.

I first take out the new accessory and Identify it, taking three goes to get it done, annoyingly, but that's the consequence of working with higher Tier items. The Monocle can't really handle Silver or higher, unfortunately. As it turns out, it's a +3 Charisma item, so after a moment's thought I decide to equip it for myself. Charisma increasing items are probably more valuable than any other stat because most people don't bother to level it, so they use it to compensate when they want to woo an NPC into giving up Quests and suchlike.

As the 'face' of our Guild, at the moment, due to my position and my frankly overkill Charisma relative to my level for my plans, there's nobody better to use it, for now. Once we get someone whose main stat is Charisma, I'll probably hand it over.

The First A Reward, however, is more interesting. I'd been anticipating a piece of equipment, but instead, it's a gift item.

 

 

Although I don't know who might be interested in this off the top of my head, sold to the right buyer this can net a tidy sum and - more importantly - affinity with the person who bought it. I could also consider auctioning it off at an Auction House if all I care about is money.

"Anything good?" Jade perks up when she sees the mid-sized painting in my hands.

I murmur in the positive, "Nothing immediately useful, but a valuable card to play should an appropriate opportunity arise. We'll need to do some research to get the full value."

"Mm. I've got a new bow," She waves her Antique Green Trellow Longbow, "So I'm happy either way."

"You doing alright with the longbow?" Angelus questions, "You were a bit slower than before."

Jade puts her bow in her inventory, "Part of it is just the added draw strength, really. Does way more damage than the shortbow, even taking the level and tier difference into account, though, so I'm ok with it."

"Mm. Hope I get something to replace this wand soon, I feel a little silly without something to go with it," Angelus complains half-heartedly.

"Statstick, boyo," Jade answers back.

"Yeah, yeah. I know," The healer rubs his face, "What's the new necklace, Silver?"

"+3 Charisma. Wearing it for lack of anyone else to give it to, since mine is already at 30," I explain.

"Why the fuck is your Charisma so high?" Jade quirks a brow, "Trying to compensate for something?"

"Bumped it to 25 early to make getting Quests and the like easier at the start and got five more as a reward from one," I shrug, feeling a little embarrassed, "Not planning on levelling it further, unless The First Step throws me a curveball."

We get a strange look from a group of Newborn headed to Farmer's Folly as we walk past the Reminiscence crystal, "Err..what were you doing back there?"

I brush them off and keep walking, "Nothing you can handle yet. Good luck in Farmer's Folly."

---

 

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