If we were going to do the Daily then we were going to do it right and that meant cramming in some preparation work for it! I had a few upgrades I wanted to make to Nikola and an idea for something new to try out from my crafting trees.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself here though. You see, before I started this crafting binge, I had a good talk with Laura about it and she had some interesting things to say on the topic. Apparently there were two ways to craft things in ROL:E. Either you could find or purchase a recipe and make the thing based on that, or else you could sort of...figure it out on your own! The latter was a pretty time consuming process with a lot of trial and error involved, but I happened to know someone who was basically an expert on this topic! 

Not that I wanted to look up recipes, mind you. And even if I did, a lot of more complicated things, like drones, really did need a template to at least act as a base. But I had a decent idea of what I wanted to make and Laura was an excellent person to bounce ideas off of to figure out what would work and what wouldn’t.

So here I was, fiddling with monster parts and a whole lot of salvage, iron filings in a container on my right and copper pipe segments on my left. No, I wasn’t making pipe bombs. I was making Grenades!

Well, sort of. Technically they were Flash-Bangs, which was something that I could make with stealth crafting. But THESE Flash-Bangs had very little flash and, hopefully, a whole lot of bang.

That was the other half of finding recipes on your own. There was considerable wiggle room for what the game would allow and slightly different recipes could produce the same product with different properties. I secretly suspected that meant that you could find more effective variants on templates, too, but that was a thought to explore for another time.

Anyway! My Bang-Bang Grenades (Minus the Flash; Double the Bang) used a chemical fuse to detonate. Once the pin was pulled (really more of a large soda tab), two chemicals which were kept apart would mix and, after a few seconds, set off the primary explosion. Those chemicals were something that Laura provided on one side, and slime juice of all things on the other. I was not looking forward to finding the area with explosive slimes…

Once they mixed, they started eating into the iron filings that I was packing into these things. Then, once it ate enough iron, it would violently expand. Or, if you’d prefer, explode. It was pretty flashy actually, with the remains of the iron turning into a rusty sort of glitter that just got everywhere. True to the Flash-Bang description, it was damn loud too, though only flashy in the spectacle sense. Not the eye-searing light sense.

This one, we actually did test the numbers on. It was sadly less damage than I hoped, but with the secondary stun, it was still decent for a distraction. So Dimm and I both took a few for ourselves before handing the rest off to the expert in our group.

Speaking of, another one of my crafting tasks was a request from the lady herself. She wanted me to take a look at her flash pistol, which was a Tesla Gun variant similar to my own tesla pistol. Other than being less of a cheap piece of crap, the main difference was the barrel. Where my Tesla Pistol, and Rifle for that matter, had coiled rings to focus and if not direct then vaguely suggest a direction for its electric arcs, the flash pistol had an array which resembled an inside out umbrella, each arm with lightbulb filament on the end, and instead of fabric there was a single wire which spiraled out in a spiderweb pattern.

Functionally speaking, the Flash Pistol sacrificed raw power in exchange for making damn sure that you hit what you were aiming for...as long as they were no more than a couple meters away. It was still a tesla weapon. It was effective against metal armour and apparently had a blind debuff if you hit someone right with it, but it wasn’t nearly the...wait a second.

What time was it again?

Fuck!

I hastily gathered up my things and ran for the Tavern door. We all had split up and we were supposed to all meet at Daily Plaza, another place with an amazingly embarrassing fan name by the way, half an hour before the Daily started. I was...well, I wasn’t late yet, but I really, really didn’t want to be late at all, considering the somewhat shaky ground I felt I was still on with my friends.

Of course when would it happen but when I was in a hurry, I ran straight by Candy on my way out.

"Oh! Hey!" She managed to get in while I skid to a stop behind her. I turned around to see her facing me, an expression that was unsure whether to be happy or concerned with what she saw.

"Hi," I waved lamely. "Umm, sorry. Or no that’s not right. Umm…"

I took a deep breath to center myself. Then tried again.

"Hello Candy," I smiled. "I’d love to chat, but I’m just heading off to meet my friends who I talked to you about yesterday. I had a big talk with them and I think we made some good progress but now I’m running late and-"

"Tessa?" Okay. Definitely more of a smile now.

"Yes Candy?"

"Just message them to tell them you’re running late," she said. ‘You silly girl’ was only implied.

"Oh...right. I can do that…"

> Tessa: Lost track of time. I’m on my way over now!
> Danny: No problem. We’ll see you there!

I looked back to Candy, who greeted me with an "I told you so" grin. "Actually though, can I tag along? I’d kind of like to meet your IRL friends."

I nodded and smiled. "Of course you can...umm. We really do need to go now, though."

"Lead the way!"

And so I did. Sort of. In truth Candy knew her way around town better than I did, but I tried damn it! I tried.

Daily Plaza was a large, open, but very much not daylit place in Newb Town. It was surrounded by neon lights, with a big digital sign in the middle that displayed the info for the next daily tournament, as well as video feed from the current one, as I would later find out. It was also fairly full of people, all gathered into small groups. Almost no one was completely alone, but the largest group wasn’t much more than a dozen either. And there, among the scattered people, were Dimm and Leo.

"Hello!" I called out and waved as I approached them. Leo waved back, while Dimm looked curiously at Candy behind me.

"This," I stopped in front of them and gestured dramatically towards my friend. "Is Candy. She, ahh, helped me a lot in sorting through my feelings. These two, I pointed to first the sheep and then the lion. "Are Dimm and Leo, respectively. They’re my friends from out of game."

"Nice to meet you, Candy." Leo smiled and held out a hand, which Candy gently shook. She looked just a little bit in awe of the lioness. Leo had a fan!

Then her eyes turned to Dimm.

"So. You’re the one who sent this precious girl into a panic attack?"

Wait. What?

"I’m sorry?" Dimm Replied.

"You should be sorry!" Candy was picking up steam. She didn’t seem angry, exactly, but she had a lot of energy behind her. Passion, maybe? I don’t know, but the feels energy was there. "You should never, ever, ever try and crack a trans egg like you did! They could hurt themselves! Or go even deeper into denial!! Even if things go well it’s a super traumatic experience that other people should not force onto them."

Is...Is this what it feels like to see someone else be lectured?

Dimm looked like she wanted to respond, but she didn’t know what to say. Or maybe she just couldn’t muster up any response against Candy’s glare? Laura for her part just stood back, her lips pursed, waiting to see where this went I supposed.

Candy walked even closer to Dimm. I could barely hear what she said next, tones hushed and severe. "Even if you meant well, you could have seriously hurt her."

At that, Dimm seemed to settle on a response. She let her head hang. "You’re right. I’m sorry."

"It’s not me who you need to apologise to."

Dimm looked at me. "Tessa?"

What? Me? What!?

"I’m sorry for my part in what happened yesterday. I’m glad things worked out okay, but I shouldn’t have forced that sort of discussion on you before you were ready."

"A-Apology excepted?" I asked as much as stated.

"Well then!" Leo spoke up and I straight up jumped. This was so hard to keep track of! "I’m glad to see that Tessa has made such a good friend, Candy. Would you care to join us for the tournament?"

Candy looked around. "Nah. PVP is really not my thing. I think I will watch, though, and cheer you on!"

We all smiled at that. And chatted idle chat while we waited for the time to tic down.

To the start.