[X] Start a new hobby.
-[X] Flower arrangement (kadō, Ikebana, flower arrangement, whatever you want to call it, we seem skilled at that and enjoy it, maybe try it with mountain flowers ? Hell, we could even profit from it by working with Yuuka)
To spoil something that may happen a few turns from now, think of flower arrangement as a potential evolution of her gardening hobby. As in, Rei reaches the requisite xp, and she gets a choice on how to specialize the hobby based on what she's done with it so far.
A little more ''exotic'' proposition but @dmclain2 surprised me with this last turn, well, turn of event and gave me the idea of giving Reimu an additional, and interesting, hobby. (And I dont know if Reimu ''swing that way'' but we seem to be building a connexion with Yuuka with our appreciation of flowers, weither it stays platonic or goes deeper, I will leave to our GM)
To spoil something that may happen a few turns from now, think of flower arrangement as a potential evolution of her gardening hobby. As in, Rei reaches the requisite xp, and she gets a choice on how to specialize the hobby based on what she's done with it so far.
[X] Meet up with Marisa
[X] Investigate the shrine with Marisa
I basically said I'd vote for this next, so.
The manga sequence was super interesting with great imagery. I really liked it! No idea what it could possibly be in reference to of course, but it was fun. :p
If you specifically want to do Ikebana, it's fine as a write-in, with the caveat that it will apply to gardening rather than anything specific. Alternatively, if you just want gardening xp, one of the gardening options may be a better choice.
The manga sequence was super interesting with great imagery. I really liked it! No idea what it could possibly be in reference to of course, but it was fun.
If you specifically want to do Ikebana, it's fine as a write-in, with the caveat that it will apply to gardening rather than anything specific. Alternatively, if you just want gardening xp, one of the gardening options may be a better choice.
Ok, it's fine then. I wanted to give Reimu a fun hobby tied to her gardening skill and I thought that Ikebana would be nice story-wise since she's good with it.
[X] Buy a fridge and microwave from Nitori's shop
[X] Buy a Hot-plate from Nitori's shop
We hopefully have enough of a budget to cover really basic appliances (and buying new groceries afterwards unless we don't mind letting Rei starve for a bit as if this was canon). With that though, it'll finally be time to start tackling some of those events.
-[X] Flower arrangement (kadō, Ikebana, flower arrangement, whatever you want to call it, we seem skilled at that and enjoy it, maybe try it with mountain flowers ? Hell, we could even profit from it by working with Yuuka)
"Oh, hey, a customer. Welcome to Kawa-" A blue-haired head pops up from behind a pile of junk. "Oh, it's you again. All purchases are final. That means no refunds."
"Isn't that a bit…" Rei raises an eyebrow.
"So you aren't here to complain about the Mk-20?" Nitori sets down a wrench and a weird-looking hammer and steps out from behind her shield of junk. "I mean, I knew it would work."
"I haven't actually had a chance to use it," she shrugs sheepishly, "I don't have anything to plug into it."
"Well, if you're looking for electronic appliances, then you came to the right place," the other girl says as though she hadn't been ready to defend a potentially malfunctioning solar generator.
"Right," The word drawls out slowly, with more than a hint of sarcasm, "well, whatever. I need kitchen stuff. A fridge and microwave… something not-propane based to heat water for tea."
"Then you need the All-Purpose Thermo-Cooler Mk-10." Nitori's eyes seem to light up with ¥ signs as she bustles toward an odd-looking thing stashed in the corner of her shop. "It slice, it dices, it jul- no, wait, that's the steam-powered slice-o-matic. The Thermo-Cooler will satisfy all your heating and cooling needs."
"It looks like a cabinet," Rei grins, a bit more familiar with how this would go the second time around.
"It does," the shopkeeper agrees and then flips open the left-side door, revealing rows of metal racks, "The thermal half of the Thermo-Cooler has twelve different cooking settings ranging from microwave to braise and my personal favorite, the convection function which can fry things without the need for any messy oil."
"That…" Sounded kind of useful. If nothing else, it would mean she could make fries or something.
"I can see by your expression how awed you are, but wait, there's more." Rei could practically see the zeroes getting tagged onto the price at her momentary slip. "The other half of the Thermo-Cooler can keep foods individually chilled to their perfect temperature."
With that said, she pops open the other side, revealing a dozen small drawers set into some black material. "Each drawer holds six hundred shaku… about three gallons and can be individually dialed into a specific temperature profile including frozen foods, fresh vegetables, and my personal favorite, ice cream."
"Wouldn't a regular fridge be more useful," Rei manages after a moment. Though if this thing could actually do what she said it could…
"A regular fridge is for someone with no imagination and no concern for efficiency." Nitori huffs pridefully, "Food should be kept at its optimal temperature for freshness and quality, not all jumbled into one because an engineer isn't smart enough to set things up properly."
"If you say so…" Despite her words, she's much more impressed with this sales pitch than the last one.
"I can see you're interested, so let's talk price." she continues before Rei can offer even the slightest word of protest. "This particular creation is the result of a year's worth of R&D, and I won't part with it for less than ¥50000."
"I'm a broke college kid," a gap year didn't necessarily mean she wasn't in college, at least in her mind... besides, that'd all get sorted out in the spring for sure. "I couldn't spend that much money even if I wanted to."
"Yet you came looking for ka- I mean my treasures anyway," A suspicious stare is tossed her way. "I bet you wanted to beat me in shogi and get the price dropped to a ruinous level again, didn't you?"
"Yep." Rei nods shamelessly. Playing chess and saving several hundred bucks was pretty much the definition of a win-win. For her, at least.
"Hmm…" That suspicious stare studies her for a moment before lighting up with something more calculated. "In that case, how much do you know about Go?"
"There's stones you place on a board, and you try to surround your opponent's…" Rei shrugs; she'd heard of it before, but it seemed kind of… simple compared to chess. "Why, you want to play for the fridge thing?"
"The Thermo-Cooler," Nitori stresses as though she'd just called a trowel a tiny shovel. "¥50000 if I win and ¥10000 if you win."
"Deal." It didn't matter if she didn't have that much money; it wasn't like she was going to lose.
Rei looks down at the Go board, stunned… no, flabbergasted. She'd been routed from almost the first piece played. Her careful arrangements flipped by traps that seemed incredibly obvious in retrospect. Her every probing attack rebuffed by an impregnable defense. It was embarrassing. Enough that she could only hang her head low in shame at the overwhelming defeat.
"Hah, pay up," Nitori grins smugly and holds out her hand. "And you thought I'd be an easy mark. As though I didn't have the pride of the ka- I mean my family on the line."
"I've got…" ¥27000, but she needed some of that for food, so… Rei pretended to fish through her wallet, careful not to show the other girl exactly how much was in it. "¥15000 on me."
"A swindler on top of all that, I should ban you from the store… or maybe…"
The air of magic surrounding the blue-haired, whatever she was, grows sharper, more intimidating. Suddenly, Nitori looks less like a harmless shopkeeper and more like some blood-stained predator. Rei flinches back, one leg twisting behind her so she could run away, only to pause as the magic building up bursts like a popped soap bubble.
As the magic around her vanishes upon an unseen breeze, Nitori slumps. A mumbled curse escapes her, and she sighs. "Well, I guess I can't go around threatening a customer, can I… even if you aren't a paying one."
"What was…" Rei's question trails off at the look in the other girl's eyes, and she decides it would be a thing to ask Marisa next time they meet up. "Right, well, I still kind of need a fridge and heating thing, so is there anything I can do to get the price a bit…"
"I don't need any help around the shop, and I doubt you know enough about engineering to help with the research, but…" The maybe-human shopkeeper pauses, blue eyes tracing the ceiling panels above before falling back down. "I've heard that a hu- that Yuuka has a new assistant. One wearing a red ribbon in their hair… that's you, isn't it?"
"That old pervert… yeah, that's me." She wasn't at all surprised by the incredulous, almost pitying look directed at her as she said that, but where else was she supposed to go to make some money and still have fun gardening?
"Well, I suppose she has to get… no, never mind, that one could…" Nitori mumbles to herself loud enough that Rei could catch a few of the words being said, though that just raised more questions for Marisa to answer. "Right, well. If Yuuka has taken you as an assistant, you must be good at growing things, right?"
"Yeah," Rei isn't quite sure she likes the flicker of… hunger in the other girl's eye when she agrees.
"Then we've got a deal." the shopkeeper nods as though concluding a satisfactory business arrangement despite not saying what the deal was.
"And that is?"
"I've got a plot of cucumbers that just refuse to grow, and store-bought ones are a pale imitation of home-grown ones." She explains with the exaggerated patience of a parent telling their child not to stick metal things into an outlet. "If Yuuka trusts you to grow things in her shop, then you can undoubtedly get mine growing. So, ¥15000 now and a promise to fix my cucumbers and the Thermo-Cooler is all yours."
Rei might have wondered exactly how that promise would be enforced for another shopkeeper, but for Nitori and that swirl of predatory magic, she had little doubt. "Works for me."
"Great," she smiles with something close to genuine delight, "Come by this evening. It'll give me time to solder on an induction coil so you can boil water on top of the Thermo-Cooler."
"Cool." Rei hands over three ¥5000 notes, wincing to herself at how quickly her cash was dwindling. "Next time, we can play actual chess, and I'll show you what a back-to-back state champ can do."
As the sun sinks into the water of the bay and turns the placid waters to crimson flames, Rei settles into her now usual spot on the back porch to watch. It was nice. Peaceful. Just like the day before it was. And the day before that. And the day before that. Thinking about it, it seemed amazing that a girl who hadn't been out of the state of Washington in over a decade had settled so easily into life halfway across the…
Her self-reflection cuts off as the Thermo-Cooler sitting next to her dings pleasantly. She pops open the door and inhales the fragrant scent of deluxe ramen. Wrapping a dirty t-shirt tightly around her hand, she reaches for the steaming bowl of noodles and sets it down on a wooden platter in front of her. She opens the other half of Nitori's creation and pulls out a frosty bottle of blueberry soda.
It was a nearly perfect evening, the only thing that would make it better was a bottle of sake and maybe a friend or two to share it with.
Nitori's Shop
Allure 1 [Failed] ???
Awareness 1 [Passed] wtf kind of equipment is this
Academics 3 or Go [Failed] ???
Aplomb 1 [Failed] ???
Unfortunately for Rei, Go is far enough away from chess that neither the expertise nor the xp transfer over. It's worth noting that so long as Rei has money, she won't starve, even if there's no food at the shrine.
Reminder: Rei has ¥12000 and 0 day of food left.
Rei has 2 actions available (or just 1, depending)
Exploration Options - Find a new place at random or look for a specific one
[] Explore the neighborhood around the shrine [1 of X discovered]
[] Explore Gensokyo [0 of X discovered]
[] Go hiking in the mountains around Gensokyo [0 of X discovered]
Social Options - Hang out with the friends you've made
[] Meet up with Marisa
[] Hang out with Nitori
[] Call Auntie
Hobby Options - Improve an existing hobby or learn a new one
[] Go to the arcade [Video Games] [¥500 - 1000]
[] Read manga [Reading]
[] Clean up the graveyard [Gardening]
[] Start a new hobby.
-[] write in which. Previously mentioned hobbies are art, exercise, sports, history, movies, camping, and music. Other hobbies can be written in
Shopping Options - Make the shrine and your existence there more pleasant
[] Buy home repair supplies [¥5000 - 10000]
[] Buy some electronic entertainment items [¥5000 - 10000]
[] Buy some furniture [> ¥10000]
Food Options - Feed yourself for a day or longer
[] Find a restaurant [¥1000 - 2000]
[] get dessert [¥500 - 1000]
Employment Options - Find a job so you can afford to buy stuff
[] Go work for Yuuka
[] See if the convenience store is hiring
Event Options - sometimes things take longer to complete [event options only occur if they have the most votes]
[] Visit Professor Okazaki about the scholarship to Kyoto U.
[] Investigate the shrine with Marisa.
[] Translate the strange language on Rei's miko outfit.
[] Work on Nitori's cucumber patch.
Write-in Options - The world is vast beyond belief and mysterious beyond words.
[] Instead of writing out a neverending list of things to do, I'll leave this here if voters want to do something else. Write-ins may well be incorporated into the turn options even if not chosen, so feel free to suggest whatever you want to see and do.
Aesthetics (1) - Rei's sense of beauty and her understanding of the interactions of colors and shapes.
Gardening (+1 aesthetics). Was it the simple elegance of a well-arranged bed of flowers or getting in the dirt that drew her to gardening? Rei never really cared to figure it out. [5 of ??? gained]
Athletics (0) - Rei's physical capabilities and her kinesthetic awareness.
Academics (1) - Rei's level of knowledge and understanding and her raw intellectual power.
Chess (+1 academics). Rei won her first regional tournament at fourteen and her first state tournament at sixteen. [1 of ??? gained]
Aplomb (0) - Rei's ability to control her emotions.
Allure (0) - Rei's charisma, likeability, and ease in conversations.
Awareness (2) - Rei's ability to notice when things aren't as they appear.
Reading (+1 awareness). If Rei had to pick a favorite genre, it would be a mystery. Murder mystery. [1 of ??? gained]
Video Games (+1 awareness). Back home, Rei has an aging gaming computer that she was constantly on the lookout for upgrades for (so long as it's within her budget).
[AN]
I have a question for you all. I've been trying to balance the amount of quest information you can see is somewhat similar to what Rei sees. But given the nature of the quest, certain things could potentially provide too much info (e.g., failed checks). On the other hand, insufficient information could make prioritizing what to do next difficult. So, with the preamble out of the way, do folks want more info, less info, or is it ok as is?
Ok, last ''day'' to prepare groceries before a big event like going to Uni or exploring the Shrine
(EDIT: or working on the cucumber patch)
(RE-EDIT: I changed from meeting Marisa to calling Auntie, maybe a good idea to tell her that our visit to Japan might be a liiiiiiiitle longer then expected)
If she was going to say, what I think she was going to say.... Rei should make sure to clean that thing, multiple times maybe even use fire, just in case.
If she was going to say, what I think she was going to say.... Rei should make sure to clean that thing, multiple times maybe even use fire, just in case.
Six hundred shaku is actually less than two and a half gallons. Well, considering that Nitori seems a little desperate to find good clients, I understand her.
