Quest to Become a Hero

Earning Benefits At A Great Cost
[X] Ask why you are here.

"Why am I here? You apparently know after all."

You say and let out a sigh, it's easy for you to notice in this form that the entity behind you pauses and you are left in a long period of silence. It seems like ages pass before it finally answers,

"It is simple really, child. Not something I can fully explain to you, but you came to this space as It tried to tear Us from your soul along with the mark left behind by your people's God of War. It... it does not approve of my existence, but it took a step back when confronted by Our True Form.

This... this is the consequence of your stupidity child."


With that sentence you look forward to find the multicolored flame sputtering and you understand it is close to being extinguished, one little push would be enough to erase it forever. Understanding that feels you with fear, after all it is the Heroic Spirit and your position as a Vessel that allowed you to gain so much in such little time. Driven by that instinctive terror you ask,

"Am I going to lose the Heroic Spirit?"

You hear a long sigh, the weight of time heavy in the monotonous sound, before the emotionless voice answers.

"No, I prevented your disqualification as a Vessel. However, it did not come without cost, child. After you leave here you will be unable to return to this space and gain your rewards for a month of your time, even then if you do not perform adequately in that time then We will remove your qualification Ourselves.

It's work is not without benefit though, child. Until we meet again, strive ever forward..."


With that you feel the presence begin to recede, leaving the dreamscape within you reside as one more line echoes in your mind.

"Remember in the future that the Divine do not enjoy the wandering eyes of Mortals."



Time passes slowly as you drift in that featureless dreamscape, your sight focused on the drunken light wandering around a barely flickering spark that had once been a brilliant little flame. As if sensing your attention it weakly scatters multicolored lights that slowly form the same familiar screen as before...

Vessel has obtained one Heroic Legacy Point for expanding their Scholarly Code. Vessel has obtained two Heroic Legacy Points for successfully inheriting the Legacy of a Transcendant Being. Vessel has obtained one Heroic Legacy Point for resisting a mental influence beyond their own ability to defend. Vessel has obtained one Heroic Legacy Point for their first minion reaching Level 2. Vessel has obtained six Heroic Legacy Points for witnessing the true form of a Divine Entity and receiving It's care.

Rather than explode into light when you finish reading like the previous times the screen simply reforms at an incredibly slow pace, the words forming at the same pace as ants would dig tunnels. You remember the options of course and begin contemplating which to open...

Which category do you open?
[] Skills
[] Abilities
[] Traits
[] Items
[] Underlings
[] Attempt to open one of the unreadable categories


Health: Moderately Injured

Status Effects: Wounded Hands (Excellent Medical Care | -6 to any rolls involving your hands, penalty will decrease by 1 for each day that passes, when it reaches 0 the injury will be fully healed.), Severe Headache (-5 to all rolls), Injured Soul (???), Peckish (-1 to all Rolls)

Heroic Legacy Points: 18

Level:
2
Experience: 162/200

Titles:

They Who Seek the Crown (Level One, 14/25) - A title earned by gaining the blessing of the God of War in a chance encounter with his will. It is a boon granted to those who seek to become like Lords, towering above the world with every action and word capable of bringing great waves of change. Currently it is weak and only grants you the power of Domination, but if you grow stronger and perform in a way that meshes with this Boon then perhaps its strength can grow.
Heroes can be Thieves Right? - In the name of Heroism you stole classified information from the Church of War without being caught. Now no innocent souls shall be ended with this dangerous knife, but ... yours might be if you mess up? Slightly increased chance of learning stealth and thievery related skills until discovered, lost if the Sealed Scroll is destroyed.

Ethical Scholar - A scholar's duty is that of facts, numbers, honesty, and boundaries. You have a devotion to the work of the written word that few would follow in the face of potential benefits. You seek simply to perform your work to the best of your ability and stand within the morals of your scholar code, even find yourself compelled to do so. Established personal Scholarly Code, sticking to it makes your work easier and better while going against it more difficult and with worse results.
  • Scholar Code I - No work is better than hasty work. {Provides +2 to scholarly rolls when you take your time, take -2 to scholarly rolls when you attempt to work with haste.}
  • Scholar Code II - Provide the facts to those that hire you, nothing more and nothing less. {Provides 2 bonus experience when followed, lose 2 experience when ignored.}
  • Scholar Code III - Judgement is the employer's job. {Provides 2 bonus experience when followed, lose 2 experience when ignored.}
  • Scholar Code IV - There is satisfaction in learning that which is known and that which is not. {Provides 2 bonus experience when learning new knowledge skills and advancing skill ranks.}

Guild Rank: Wood (10/10[!]) [Promotion Available]
Hidden Features: Unlocked Instructors in the Guild Store
G.P.: 190
Money: 1 Silver, 33 Copper
Current Booked Courses:
Stealth, Beginner (1 Day)

Skills:
Mathematics (Beginner, 15%) -
+4 to rolls requiring use of mathematics.
Local Administration (Beginner, 10%) - +4 to rolls involving administration of businesses and small land holdings.
Geography of Relgar Township Region (Beginner) - Capable of recalling information related to areas in the Relgar area that could be of use. Such as the size of a specific forest, important landmarks, etc.
Monster Knowledge (Relgar Township, Beginner, 45%) - You've memorized basic information provided on Vicious Rabbits, Giant Rats, Slimes, Monstrous Corn, Green-pelt Wolves, and Forest Bears.
Copying Writing (Adept) - You've experienced copying countless documents, books, and records to such an extent that it's almost an ingrained instinct in you. Time required to copy any form of writing is reduced and chance of wrongly copying something is greatly decreased.
Harvesting (Learning Beginner, 45%) - You are slowly obtaining experience in the act of harvesting plants and herbs. With some more work experience you are certain you'd be at least somewhat skilled in the act.
Evasion (Learning Beginner, 90%) - You are rapidly adjusting to utilizing your body to dodge incoming attacks, it still needs some work, but you're fairly certain you can at least slightly lower the chances of getting hit soon.
Haggling (Learning Beginner, 80%) - You have obtained a lot of insight into the act of haggling varying from the dos to the don'ts and you are certain with a bit more knowledge and actual practice you can put it to work helping you.
Identification (Learning Beginner, 10%) - After reading the book on Identification you have a vague idea of how the power works, but without a teacher to guide you in the absolute specifics you are unsure if you can learn to utilize this power.


Abilities:
Domination (Level One, 5/25) - Allows you to bind creatures/monsters that are one level below you (to a minimum of level 1) to your will permanently. Unless the creature in question has a particularly strong will then the power is bound to succeed. Does not work on humans. [Dominated Beings: 1/2]
+ Dominate Writing (Level One, 2/25) - You've obtained a new power derived from your blessing from the God of War. It grants you the ability to draw strength from the written word though... You are utterly uncertain what that actually means. [Dominated Writings: 0/1]

Traits:
Forbidden Scholar -
You are more likely to notice lore and knowledge regarding those topics considered forbidden to the general populace. Of course, your affinity for these subjects does not create that knowledge where none exists.

Possessions:
Iron Kite Shield [???]
Iron Hand-Axe [???]

Simple Iron Dagger [???]
Simple Wooden Club [Damage: 3, Blunt]
Scholar's Writing Instruments
Plain Scholar's Robes [???]

Canvas Backpack [4/10]
- Ten Foot Rope
- Bundle of Clean Rags [10/10]
- Archbishop Julian Vandamule's Sealed Scroll
- Wooden Storage Box [Can hold up to twenty herbs (varies based on size) | 0/20]
- Paper Package of Vicious Rabbit Meat [2 pounds, goes bad in a day]
-
-
-
-
-

Belt Pouch [3/4]
- Flask of Oil [3 Units of Oil Remaining]
- Container with Six Vials [0/6 Filled]
- Flint & Steel
-
Health: 8/8

Status Effects: None

Level: 2
Experience: 0/40

Attacks:
Bite -
[Damage: 3, Slashing]

Traits:
Sensitive Nose -
+5 to finding herbs
Natural Gatherer - +5 to harvesting herbs
Soul Linked - Can be given up to 2 Experience from their Master's kills.

Skills:
Evasion (Beginner) -
-4 to enemy attack rolls made against her.

Abilities:
Cannibalize (Level One, 0/10) - Capable of devouring their kin to quickly heal from injuries. Regains 1 Health per pound of Vicious Rabbit meat consumed.
Adhoc vote count started by adwarf on Jun 27, 2019 at 9:13 PM, finished with 31 posts and 16 votes.
 
[X] Abilities

I'm torn between this and Traits, but for the present, I'm curious what other Abilities we might have available to us now.
 
[X] Traits
This will have long term gains that probably will increase
The rest are all short term
 
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This... this is the consequence of your stupidity child."

"No, I prevented your disqualification as a Vessel. However, it did not come without cost, child. After you leave here you will be unable to return to this space and gain your rewards for a month of your time, even then if you do not perform adequately in that time then We will remove your qualification Ourselves.
I don't understand how we're supposed to respond to this admonishment and punishment when we had no control over what just happened. This event was just triggered by hidden factors/rolls and only indirectly related to player decisions (presumably) due to us picking up Forbidden Scholar a while back. It just seems capricious for us to almost lose our Heroic Spirit (a loss that would probably kill the Quest) due to something the Heroic Spirit itself provided in the first place. I mean, I know that some of our best gains so far were also triggered randomly, and I certainly didn't complain about our good fortune then, but in either case our agency as players feels irrelevant.

Anyway, for the vote, a reminder of the Legacy Categories we've looked at so far:
Basic Heroic Legacy Traits
[] Sturdy Physique [2] - You come to possess a body that is much more resilient than your original form allowing you to withstand roughly twice as much damage before your body gives out resulting in death.
[] Quick to Act [1] - You are fast to respond in dangerous situations, where others are still confused about changing events you have already begun to move in response to them.
[] Awakened Heroic Spirit's Vessel [5] - You find yourself able to change the power the Heroic Spirit grants into a more suitable form for use in the real world. You can use it to withstand blows that would slay others, empower strikes to lay low enemies far beyond your reach, and more. Yet to do so burns the very power meant to help you grow stronger, turning long term gains to short term ones.
[] Lucky I [6] - You are blessed with good luck and it tends to favor you above others to some extent.
[] Swift Growth I [10] - With enough power the Heroic Spirit can even help you grow, increasing the rate at which you earn experience by twenty-five percent permanently.

Profession Heroic Legacy Traits
[] A Sage's Eyes [15] - You are capable of reading things tens of times faster than the average person and your mind perfectly retains the information read after just a single reading.
[] Wise Words [5] - When you speak on subjects you know and within your realm of knowledge on them you are incomparably convincing for your words carry a sense to them unlike any others. Wisdom is the tool of the long lived and successful after all.

Recorded Traits
[] Aspire to Sagehood [4] - You've come to find yourself a seeker of all forms of knowledge and find it easy to learn those skills a scholar finds most useful. Perhaps with enough work you may achieve acknowledgement as a Sage, a master of countless fields of knowledge. Increased skill gains for scholar related skills.
[] Connection with Beyond [3] - You find yourself strangely connected to whatever realm belongs to those Gods, Deities, and Greater Beings. You are more likely to detect traces of the Divine or Transcendent.

Basic Heroic Legacy Abilities
[] Delay Death [5] - You refuse to leave when work is still undone, on the brink of death you may yet find the power to push onward until your goal is complete. However, a mere mortal cannot avoid death forever and it will inevitably claim you though perhaps you may forge yet a greater legend in that passing.
[] Vanquish Evil [10] - A Hero is most often those who battle the greatest evils in an Era, placing their weapon and life between common mortals and Evil Beings. Drawing upon power unknown your attacks can deal extreme damage to the Evils of the Era.
[] Heroic Charm [5] - A Hero's Legend helps them find companions, allies, and friends in the world at large who will aid them in furthering their quest. Some among heroes are capable of wielding the power their Legacy forms to shape peoples' opinions of them quickly.

May only choose one among the following, the rest will be locked.
[] Hero's Anger [3] -
You find yourself capable of drawing power from your anger, the greater it is the stronger you become (to an extent). However, beware losing yourself to the path of wrath.
[] Hero's Calm Mind [3] - You find yourself incomparable clear of mind and stable. From that clearness, from the stability power can be born though that which disturbs the mind will weaken you. However, beware loving yourself to the path of perceived logic.
[] Hero's Kindness [3] - You find yourself capable of drawing strength from acts of kindness and with every person you help you feel yourself growing more powerful. However, beware abusing that which you claim to uphold.
[] Hero's Desire [3] - You find yourself capable in drawing power from accomplishing whatever it is you desire. Such strength is great, but dangerous for one may lose themselves among self-satisfaction.

Profession Heroic Legacy Abilities
[] Speed Copy [2] - Given available materials you are able to copy documents of a smaller size (no novels or treatises) within ten minutes. Usable twice a day.
[] Speed Reading [4] - You can swiftly finish books that others take days to read in their entirety, but doing so is quite exhausting mentally. Halves reading time for a scroll, or similarly short article. Usable twice a day.

So we have yet to even see what Skills, Items, Underlings, or any of the mystery categories have available. However, we've been planning on getting Swift Growth for awhile, and we can finally afford it. And we'll see if new items have popped up.

[X] Traits
 
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[X] Traits

Yeah, a lot of this quest feels out of the players' control, and I'm not sure what we should be doing. Do we skip visiting the Healing Elf for the rest of the week? We didn't have a vote on whether to visit her today though.

I guess we could look for a book on self-improvement to see if there's a way to increase the MC's Will, but I'm not sure if that's even a thing. We also need to look up Elves and Monster Taming, and the MC should finally learn Evasion, Stealth, and how to use the hand-axe and shield for the Advancement Exam. Would any of that actually help the next time the MC runs into any influence from a Divine Entity though?

Also, are there no more awards of XP for discussion? I thought that I had figured some things out, and NaanContributor pointed out that the guard at the town hall was acting strange, but there haven't been any XP for discussion for the last few updates.
 
[X] Traits

[X] Traits

Yeah, a lot of this quest feels out of the players' control, and I'm not sure what we should be doing. Do we skip visiting the Healing Elf for the rest of the week? We didn't have a vote on whether to visit her today though.

I guess we could look for a book on self-improvement to see if there's a way to increase the MC's Will, but I'm not sure if that's even a thing. We also need to look up Elves and Monster Taming, and the MC should finally learn Evasion, Stealth, and how to use the hand-axe and shield for the Advancement Exam. Would any of that actually help the next time the MC runs into any influence from a Divine Entity though?

Also, are there no more awards of XP for discussion? I thought that I had figured some things out, and NaanContributor pointed out that the guard at the town hall was acting strange, but there haven't been any XP for discussion for the last few updates.


We voted to visit her. All of this seems fully within character assuming we failed some background roll.
 
We voted to visit her. All of this seems fully within character assuming we failed some background roll.
Huh, I just checked, and we did vote to visit her as part of turning down the Advancement exam.

I guess I'm just confused by how we're supposed to prevent the MC from being affected by all of the Divine Entities (and the Elf) that he somehow manages to encounter. The MC is blamed for letting himself be affected and told that he will lose the crown if he lets himself be dominated, but we don't know how to stop that from happening.

It looks like the healing tree did not heal the MC so I strongly suggest we spend the rest of the day in the library (after getting something to eat). We can research Elves and self-improvement in hopes of figuring out what to do.
 
Hrm. I didn't realize the heroic Spirit itself clashed with the Dawn Tree, that's...Telling.
...
Do not fear Death...We've taken some lessons and slowly ramping towards combat but I'm getting the impression we're really supposed to be...Yanno, running out and doing things about the local monster population, instead. Yes Scholars are needed but sitting around doing scholarly things isn't how we're supposed to go about this, it seems.
Basically, we need to level up. Quickly. And at this point I think that means going out and hunting monsters like the Vicious Rabbit we dominated. Maybe picking out something else to dominate.
 
Huh, I just checked, and we did vote to visit her as part of turning down the Advancement exam.

I guess I'm just confused by how we're supposed to prevent the MC from being affected by all of the Divine Entities (and the Elf) that he somehow manages to encounter. The MC is blamed for letting himself be affected and told that he will lose the crown if he lets himself be dominated, but we don't know how to stop that from happening.

It looks like the healing tree did not heal the MC so I strongly suggest we spend the rest of the day in the library (after getting something to eat). We can research Elves and self-improvement in hopes of figuring out what to do.

I'm leaning towards the interpretation that we have to start really treating guild solutions too things as suspect. We get access to cool stuff of course, but the guild seems to be a means of keeping "exceptional" people in line. We are particularly "exceptional" given our heroic spirit so we should be on edge.
 
Do not fear Death...We've taken some lessons and slowly ramping towards combat but I'm getting the impression we're really supposed to be...Yanno, running out and doing things about the local monster population, instead. Yes Scholars are needed but sitting around doing scholarly things isn't how we're supposed to go about this, it seems.
Basically, we need to level up. Quickly. And at this point I think that means going out and hunting monsters like the Vicious Rabbit we dominated. Maybe picking out something else to dominate.
The quest has mentioned multiple times that "ordinary" things (like farming) can become extraordinary if someone works on it enough so I don't think avoiding scholarly things is the answer.

While I do want to fight monsters at some point, the MC currently doesn't know how to use his hand-axe, dagger, and shield. If he gets injured, he'll have to visit the healing elf, which might cause this situation again.
 
Here's a question: if we lose our heroic spirit, do we lose traits we've bought from it? It seems tacked on quite loosely at the moment, I'm not sure it should be depended on.
 
I don't understand how we're supposed to respond to this admonishment and punishment when we had no control over what just happened. This event was just triggered by hidden factors/rolls and only indirectly related to player decisions (presumably) due to us picking up Forbidden Scholar a while back. It just seems capricious for us to almost lose our Heroic Spirit (a loss that would probably kill the Quest) due to something the Heroic Spirit itself provided in the first place. I mean, I know that some of our best gains so far were also triggered randomly, and I certainly didn't complain about our good fortune then, but in either case our agency as players feels irrelevant.

[X] Traits

Yeah, a lot of this quest feels out of the players' control, and I'm not sure what we should be doing. Do we skip visiting the Healing Elf for the rest of the week? We didn't have a vote on whether to visit her today though.

....

Also, are there no more awards of XP for discussion? I thought that I had figured some things out, and NaanContributor pointed out that the guard at the town hall was acting strange, but there haven't been any XP for discussion for the last few updates.

Huh, I just checked, and we did vote to visit her as part of turning down the Advancement exam.

I guess I'm just confused by how we're supposed to prevent the MC from being affected by all of the Divine Entities (and the Elf) that he somehow manages to encounter. The MC is blamed for letting himself be affected and told that he will lose the crown if he lets himself be dominated, but we don't know how to stop that from happen.

Considering the collective confusion/dislike(?) about the events I guess I should explain. I'm not attempting to take away player agency, or at least that is very not my goal. What you all want to do is up you, but you have been rather lucky for these events and have encountered them relatively early on when you haven't established the character as an Adventurer.

Your current encounter is a result of several things, many of which were options you chose yourselves, and really good luck. While the Arbitrator of the Heroic Spirit seems to be scolding you it's not something you've actively done, it's just an ancient existence that's witnessed and dealt with a countless number of people and events over its lifespan. To it's range of knowledge and experience? It is foolish, for a curious scribe raised in the country? A reasonable reaction.

When it comes to being berated for the mental control of the elf by the God of War, He is of a very strict character with exceptionally high standards so that's just how he acts. The conversation was more of a warning of what could happen than actually berating.

However, I'll explain what I meant by the 'result of' thing - You wouldn't have had this encounter if you had chosen to not accept the God of War's Blessing, had not taken the sealed scroll which caused something out there to notice you, had not purchased Forbidden Scholar which makes it so you notice these events more often, rolled incredibly well when Forbidden Scholar triggered in the medical ward, and a few other factors.

I am sorry if I have made you all feel like you're losing your ability to have an effect on the outcomes of this, or simply didn't have much to begin with.

To answer the discussion experience - You've not lost XP gains from discussion, a lot of the points and ideas you brought up were really good and I felt they contributed a lot, it's just been delayed until you exit the dreamscape. Though this does remind me you are owed four experience for earlier updates conversations/analysis that I forgot to include, will combine that with your other rewards when the MC wakes up.

---


Please do feel free to ask questions, I'll do my best to answer them though sometimes you may ask stuff I won't be able explain since the MC doesn't have that knowledge IC and I want to keep that element of discovery intact.
 
...I genuinely believed this entire setup was to announce that the level-up system has been changed to encourage spending HLP instead of hoarding them like we did last time.

I mean, there are only so many ways to interpret "you next chance to upgrade is not due for at least a month; go and do something useful so you'd avoid disqualification and have more points to upgrade with".
 
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We aren't being punished randomly, the message is clear, this happened because of how we acted around the elf. We got warned that elves can get in our head and instead of going somewhere else to fix up our hands we stayed, the elf got in our brain and apparently tried to attack the divine inside us, and that pissed off that entity because getting attacked directly by a mortal because the person you chose to bless screwed up is obnoxious. That's a logical consequence that stems from our actions so this is our fault, we're being challenged and warned, nothing actually that bad has happened yet because of our mistakes, lets be more careful in the future and we can get past this. Now we know to avoid elves and other mind attacks, maybe as we improve dominate we'll be able to actively fight back against this sort of control, we don't know how to do that yet but the library contains exceptional information and we're a scholar, let's do some freaking research.

-he'll have to visit the healing elf, which might cause this situation again.
Agreed. We need to find another healing option. Until we can develop a defense against mind attacks we need to stay away from elves period. It would be good to learn more about elves to find out if this is an ability they control or not, if it is we might be able to develop an understanding with her.

[X] Traits

E: I think I've got it. Just leveling up may be enough to give us a defense against mind attacks. We can only dominate things below our level after all. I think it's also logical to assume we'll find more active defenses as we use our dominate ability more though.
 
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We aren't being punished randomly, the message is clear, this happened because of how we acted around the elf. We got warned that elves can get in our head and instead of going somewhere else to fix up our hands we stayed, the elf got in our brain and apparently tried to attack the divine inside us, and that pissed off that entity because getting attacked directly by a mortal because the person you chose to bless screwed up is obnoxious. That's a logical consequence that stems from our actions so this is our fault, we're being challenged and warned, nothing actually that bad has happened yet because of our mistakes, lets be more careful in the future and we can get past this. Now we know to avoid elves and other mind attacks, maybe as we improve dominate we'll be able to actively fight back against this sort of control, we don't know how to do that yet but the library contains exceptional information and we're a scholar, let's do some freaking research.
Actually, it sounds like this happened because we rolled too well around the elf so the MC saw the healing tree, and the healing tree is the one who attacked the Heroic Spirit flame. I do agree that we need to start avoiding the elf.

Avoiding the elf won't stop something like this from happening again because something similar happened when the MC went by a statue (God of War blessing), was reading a scroll (forbidden scroll), and to a lesser extent, went to train Evasion (the instructor tried to intimidate the MC). There's no guarantee that the MC won't encounter an elf outside of the Guild either. We definitely need to start looking into ways to build mental(?) resistance.

On another note, I wonder why the healing tree doesn't approve of the God of War(?)/the Heroic Spirit(?). If it really does care about humans to the extent of sacrificing its own health, then maybe it thinks that the God of War/Heroic Spirit encourages people to risk themselves too much? Or maybe it's just that war results in death?
 
I think it was just surprised at us catching it with it's pants down, so to speak. It might want us to convert to the Dawn Tree in terms of religion though.
 
I think it was just surprised at us catching it with it's pants down, so to speak. It might want us to convert to the Dawn Tree in terms of religion though.
No, it definitely disapproves of whatever the Heroic Spirit is.
"It is simple really, child. Not something I can fully explain to you, but you came to this space as It tried to tear Us from your soul along with the mark left behind by your people's God of War. It... it does not approve of my existence, but it took a step back when confronted by Our True Form.
I just realized that the Heroic Spirit referred to the God of War as separate from itself. We know that the Three Saviors set up the System somehow, and so far, it seems like Heroic Spirits work within the system so maybe the Three Saviors contracted whatever the Heroic Spirit actually is in order to form the System?
 
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