Shield Hero, but hopefully Heroic
- Thread starter Sword of Mars
- Start date
[X] The last time you saw Father.
your right but any of the options has that potential.
though in order to keep to the sort of foreshadowing of the last chapter i will change my vote to
[X] The last time you saw Father.
[X] The last time you saw Father.
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Let me just use the tally real quick.
I'll post the story segment soon.
I'll post the story segment soon.
A Wistful Dream
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
[X] Saki wants to play.
"Wake up! Yuki~ wake up!" You groggily open your eyes, groaning as you get up. Saki always liked waking you up super early, "I'm up, I'm up.". You put on a simple black t-shirt, a brown coat, some slightly oversized pants and your boots. You knew what day it was, you've been excitedly waiting for it for a while after all. It was October 24th, Saki's birthday. You promised to do something really special for it after all and you'd like to think that you planned the day to perfection.
Saki herself was in what you think used to be a schoolboy blazer and simple blue pants that luckily fit her. Her hair however was a mess... "Saki come here, let me fix you up a bit before we go outside." Saki's not the type to be able to ignore that her hair was a mess of knots so every once in a while you brushed it for her. You didn't keep that up for yourself, you could barely touch yourself before becoming a shaking mess over feeling the scars over your body and at this point it was too difficult for Saki to take care of it and as time went on you stopped caring.
"Okay Yuki! Let me find the brush... Hm... Ah here it is!" Triumphantly coming with the brush was Saki, obediently handing it over. You cringe a bit on the inside but compliment her for it all the same "Very good job Saki, now please sit in front of me while I brush okay!" Saki was abandoned by her parents... Her obedient attitude came from fear that you would abandon her at the slightest provocation and you never felt such dislike for individuals since Aoi. You started methodologically, softly, using your only positive trait in your mind to detect the discomfort from your brushing that Saki wouldn't complain about and soon her shoulder length brown hair was tamed under the wrath of your brush. It was somewhat therapeutic and relaxing for yourself as well. Here it was just you and your daughter, no enemies, no threat of the winter, no food or clean water problems... Just the mundane task ahead of the two of you.
Getting up, you offered your hand to Saki who took it to help stand up. "Ahh... Yuki, I forgot my coat!" Off she went, coming back with a over sized green coat that was silently amusing to look at. There was other more fitting clothes for her around the house, but Saki was something of a tomboy that refused to wear 'girlygirl stuff' as she put it. You were the same, so you couldn't complain. You grabbed her hand and started walking out the door, leading to land of cracked asphalt, broken buildings and the destroyed remains of the dreams of Old Japan. Looking into the distance you could see remnants of skyscrapers and the rare determined one still standing proudly in the sky. You remember a picture of Old Tokyo your father once showed you, how pretty it was and you feel a sense of sadness. Saki tugged on your hand and you smiled.
"Today is your day Saki? What do you want to do?" You were determined to at least let Saki enjoy this day. "Hmmmm. I know! I want to play some hopscotch!" Dutifully you took out a piece of chalk from your pockets. Chalk was a useful substance in plentiful supply to easily mark places you've been before and it can be used to help entertain children with simple games. You drew out the traditional hopscotch game for several minutes, and constructed more advanced variations for her and after you were done surprisingly yourself to enjoy the simple game. You soon both got bored of the game however, and you embarrassed yourself in Hang Man before you suggested to do something else.
"Ahhh, what else to play, what else... Ah, Yuki can we play some of that uhhh... Basketball-like game?" Ah, she wanted to throw a basketball at some hoops. Specifically she wanted to make the trek to the nearby park to throw the basketball at the child sized basketball hoops. You didn't know anything about basketball but tossing a ball at a hoop was something easy to figure out. So you went inside, grabbed the orange ball (you were pretty sure from pictures you've seen that this was called a 'Basketball'). You clumsily dribbled it before embarrassing yourself in front of your daughter again by it hitting your shoe and rolling off a few meters.
Recollecting the ball, you brought Saki to what you think used to be a elementary school. You carefully positioned yourself and your daughter's path to avoid what you knew would be the remains of the school children. You always felt sick going here, sometimes you can forget the devastation of World War Three but in a place such as this? You felt sick. On the outside however, you smiled as you brought her far away from the bodies to the small park that you cleaned up before you ever even thought of bringing her here. You smiled more genuinely as she took the ball and started having fun throwing it around, even if she wasn't that successful of actually scoring. Sometimes you'd be dragged in to throw it in too.
Knowing that Saki will get bored, and that she wouldn't complain about it you called her over to go to your next destination. "Ah, Yuki where are we going?" You smiled, pretty excited "It's a surprise. You'll love it.". You haven't been excited about something in a long time. You had a really stupid grin on your face, as you led her deeper into Old Tokyo than you usually allowed. You walked at a brisk pace, you didn't want to be out here longer than you had to. Eventually you made it to --- Pi-za-ria. An authentic pizza restaurant, but more importantly somewhere with a genuine wood stove pizza oven. You've found a can of irradiated tomatoes, preserved in a MRE you've found a bunch of useful long term storage prepared items that included cheese and the materials to make the dough were easy enough to find and trade for with some useful electronics and batteries you found a few months ago. While you didn't have any meat or other items to put on the pizza you planned on making you still are going to be one of the few people in the world dining on such food.
You sat her in a booth, and you prepared the pizza. It took a while to make, and even longer to cook but when it was done you were able to simulate a slice of Pre-War life. She cautiously took a bite of the strange food item and found it (un)surprisingly delicious. You both gorged yourself on this pizza and you thought that just seeing her enjoy the pizza you made was worth the months of effort it took to gather all the materials. You wish you had the ability to make her some sort of cake for her birthday but this would have to do. Finally you were both ready to go back.
"Ahh... Yuki I wish we could do things like this forever.", Saki said this softly, "Yes, it'd be nice wouldn't it... Old Tokyo... I wish I could see how it was like back then." You felt that wave of melancholy again, but soldiered on. You couldn't let that end on a bad note, "But as long as I am with you I'd take this place over anything, I wouldn't trade you for anything kid. You got me for life." You said this confidently.
"But is that really true though?" Your eyes widened, as a large crack went through the air. You were wearing your uniform, and pooling around your chest was red. Crumpling to the floor, vomiting blood you crane your neck to look at Saki. Saki's visionless stare pierces your heart, the scars around what used to be her bright brown eyes bleeding and pooling underneath her. Saki continued, "Didn't you die? Didn't you leave me to Takami in your self pity?"
"That... That isn't true. I was dying... Ever since that fight I was crippled beyond repair. I couldn't take care of you anymore, I couldn't even take care of myself... Please... I didn't a-" you vomited blood onto the floor. You could feel your vision start to blur, using your famed strength you rolled over to look at Saki's desecrated face before returning to your original position. "Damn it! FUCK!" Your fury brought your fist down, and you pushed. Fucking get up. Fucking GET UP. Then, you stood.
On wobbly legs you stood tall against this apparition blood pooling out of your chest and mouth. You fucking walked. Stumbled. Then you lunged and you brought Saki into the biggest fucking hug you could ever do. "I fucking missed you so much. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I couldn't even save one girl... Then I got fucking picked off in this stupid war. Stupid Haruka you IDIOT YOU KILLED ME! Why couldn't you just listen..." You bled and sobbed all over her as you held your baby girl.
"...Yuki. It wasn't your fault. Please don't listen to your mind when it betrays you like this. Living with you... It was the best time of my life, I just wished it lasted longer." Saki's sightless eyes looked up at you, hugging you back "It wasn't your fault Yuki... It really wasn't please believe me!" Soon your vision went completely black, and you stopped being able to process what she was saying...
Then you woke up. You dried your tears, and you prayed. Please God, whoever will listen. Please look after my dear Saki, please let her find happiness without me.... Please, strike Takami down with the force of over a thousand suns if he so much as breathes wrong in her direction while he takes care of her. A thunderclap goes off in the distance, then the puttering of rain. You were pretty sure it had nothing to do with your prayer but it made you giggle slightly and lift your spirits even a tiny bit. You felt marginally less worthless after that dream, of better memories of your daughter and how happy she was just to be with you.
William was snoring on the ground, and you realized that he must have carried you into this inn room. You resolved to trust William as your... Friend. He seemed like such a nice man and he reminded you of Father in a positive way. You gently woke him up, and after a bit of a start he got up. "Wah! Hah... Where am I now? Ohhhh, I see the Inn. Ah Yukihime you're awake. What should we do today young Hero?"
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
[X] You're in good spirits today (for you). Let's go find a hobby!
[X] Go shopping? You're not really sure if you needed anything aside from new clothes. William would probably be too humble to accept anything without extreme effort.
Fixed some issues with perspective.
"Wake up! Yuki~ wake up!" You groggily open your eyes, groaning as you get up. Saki always liked waking you up super early, "I'm up, I'm up.". You put on a simple black t-shirt, a brown coat, some slightly oversized pants and your boots. You knew what day it was, you've been excitedly waiting for it for a while after all. It was October 24th, Saki's birthday. You promised to do something really special for it after all and you'd like to think that you planned the day to perfection.
Saki herself was in what you think used to be a schoolboy blazer and simple blue pants that luckily fit her. Her hair however was a mess... "Saki come here, let me fix you up a bit before we go outside." Saki's not the type to be able to ignore that her hair was a mess of knots so every once in a while you brushed it for her. You didn't keep that up for yourself, you could barely touch yourself before becoming a shaking mess over feeling the scars over your body and at this point it was too difficult for Saki to take care of it and as time went on you stopped caring.
"Okay Yuki! Let me find the brush... Hm... Ah here it is!" Triumphantly coming with the brush was Saki, obediently handing it over. You cringe a bit on the inside but compliment her for it all the same "Very good job Saki, now please sit in front of me while I brush okay!" Saki was abandoned by her parents... Her obedient attitude came from fear that you would abandon her at the slightest provocation and you never felt such dislike for individuals since Aoi. You started methodologically, softly, using your only positive trait in your mind to detect the discomfort from your brushing that Saki wouldn't complain about and soon her shoulder length brown hair was tamed under the wrath of your brush. It was somewhat therapeutic and relaxing for yourself as well. Here it was just you and your daughter, no enemies, no threat of the winter, no food or clean water problems... Just the mundane task ahead of the two of you.
Getting up, you offered your hand to Saki who took it to help stand up. "Ahh... Yuki, I forgot my coat!" Off she went, coming back with a over sized green coat that was silently amusing to look at. There was other more fitting clothes for her around the house, but Saki was something of a tomboy that refused to wear 'girlygirl stuff' as she put it. You were the same, so you couldn't complain. You grabbed her hand and started walking out the door, leading to land of cracked asphalt, broken buildings and the destroyed remains of the dreams of Old Japan. Looking into the distance you could see remnants of skyscrapers and the rare determined one still standing proudly in the sky. You remember a picture of Old Tokyo your father once showed you, how pretty it was and you feel a sense of sadness. Saki tugged on your hand and you smiled.
"Today is your day Saki? What do you want to do?" You were determined to at least let Saki enjoy this day. "Hmmmm. I know! I want to play some hopscotch!" Dutifully you took out a piece of chalk from your pockets. Chalk was a useful substance in plentiful supply to easily mark places you've been before and it can be used to help entertain children with simple games. You drew out the traditional hopscotch game for several minutes, and constructed more advanced variations for her and after you were done surprisingly yourself to enjoy the simple game. You soon both got bored of the game however, and you embarrassed yourself in Hang Man before you suggested to do something else.
"Ahhh, what else to play, what else... Ah, Yuki can we play some of that uhhh... Basketball-like game?" Ah, she wanted to throw a basketball at some hoops. Specifically she wanted to make the trek to the nearby park to throw the basketball at the child sized basketball hoops. You didn't know anything about basketball but tossing a ball at a hoop was something easy to figure out. So you went inside, grabbed the orange ball (you were pretty sure from pictures you've seen that this was called a 'Basketball'). You clumsily dribbled it before embarrassing yourself in front of your daughter again by it hitting your shoe and rolling off a few meters.
Recollecting the ball, you brought Saki to what you think used to be a elementary school. You carefully positioned yourself and your daughter's path to avoid what you knew would be the remains of the school children. You always felt sick going here, sometimes you can forget the devastation of World War Three but in a place such as this? You felt sick. On the outside however, you smiled as you brought her far away from the bodies to the small park that you cleaned up before you ever even thought of bringing her here. You smiled more genuinely as she took the ball and started having fun throwing it around, even if she wasn't that successful of actually scoring. Sometimes you'd be dragged in to throw it in too.
Knowing that Saki will get bored, and that she wouldn't complain about it you called her over to go to your next destination. "Ah, Yuki where are we going?" You smiled, pretty excited "It's a surprise. You'll love it.". You haven't been excited about something in a long time. You had a really stupid grin on your face, as you led her deeper into Old Tokyo than you usually allowed. You walked at a brisk pace, you didn't want to be out here longer than you had to. Eventually you made it to --- Pi-za-ria. An authentic pizza restaurant, but more importantly somewhere with a genuine wood stove pizza oven. You've found a can of irradiated tomatoes, preserved in a MRE you've found a bunch of useful long term storage prepared items that included cheese and the materials to make the dough were easy enough to find and trade for with some useful electronics and batteries you found a few months ago. While you didn't have any meat or other items to put on the pizza you planned on making you still are going to be one of the few people in the world dining on such food.
You sat her in a booth, and you prepared the pizza. It took a while to make, and even longer to cook but when it was done you were able to simulate a slice of Pre-War life. She cautiously took a bite of the strange food item and found it (un)surprisingly delicious. You both gorged yourself on this pizza and you thought that just seeing her enjoy the pizza you made was worth the months of effort it took to gather all the materials. You wish you had the ability to make her some sort of cake for her birthday but this would have to do. Finally you were both ready to go back.
"Ahh... Yuki I wish we could do things like this forever.", Saki said this softly, "Yes, it'd be nice wouldn't it... Old Tokyo... I wish I could see how it was like back then." You felt that wave of melancholy again, but soldiered on. You couldn't let that end on a bad note, "But as long as I am with you I'd take this place over anything, I wouldn't trade you for anything kid. You got me for life." You said this confidently.
"But is that really true though?" Your eyes widened, as a large crack went through the air. You were wearing your uniform, and pooling around your chest was red. Crumpling to the floor, vomiting blood you crane your neck to look at Saki. Saki's visionless stare pierces your heart, the scars around what used to be her bright brown eyes bleeding and pooling underneath her. Saki continued, "Didn't you die? Didn't you leave me to Takami in your self pity?"
"That... That isn't true. I was dying... Ever since that fight I was crippled beyond repair. I couldn't take care of you anymore, I couldn't even take care of myself... Please... I didn't a-" you vomited blood onto the floor. You could feel your vision start to blur, using your famed strength you rolled over to look at Saki's desecrated face before returning to your original position. "Damn it! FUCK!" Your fury brought your fist down, and you pushed. Fucking get up. Fucking GET UP. Then, you stood.
On wobbly legs you stood tall against this apparition blood pooling out of your chest and mouth. You fucking walked. Stumbled. Then you lunged and you brought Saki into the biggest fucking hug you could ever do. "I fucking missed you so much. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I couldn't even save one girl... Then I got fucking picked off in this stupid war. Stupid Haruka you IDIOT YOU KILLED ME! Why couldn't you just listen..." You bled and sobbed all over her as you held your baby girl.
"...Yuki. It wasn't your fault. Please don't listen to your mind when it betrays you like this. Living with you... It was the best time of my life, I just wished it lasted longer." Saki's sightless eyes looked up at you, hugging you back "It wasn't your fault Yuki... It really wasn't please believe me!" Soon your vision went completely black, and you stopped being able to process what she was saying...
Then you woke up. You dried your tears, and you prayed. Please God, whoever will listen. Please look after my dear Saki, please let her find happiness without me.... Please, strike Takami down with the force of over a thousand suns if he so much as breathes wrong in her direction while he takes care of her. A thunderclap goes off in the distance, then the puttering of rain. You were pretty sure it had nothing to do with your prayer but it made you giggle slightly and lift your spirits even a tiny bit. You felt marginally less worthless after that dream, of better memories of your daughter and how happy she was just to be with you.
William was snoring on the ground, and you realized that he must have carried you into this inn room. You resolved to trust William as your... Friend. He seemed like such a nice man and he reminded you of Father in a positive way. You gently woke him up, and after a bit of a start he got up. "Wah! Hah... Where am I now? Ohhhh, I see the Inn. Ah Yukihime you're awake. What should we do today young Hero?"
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
[X] You're in good spirits today (for you). Let's go find a hobby!
[X] Go shopping? You're not really sure if you needed anything aside from new clothes. William would probably be too humble to accept anything without extreme effort.
Fixed some issues with perspective.
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- Location
- California
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
- Location
- Hollister
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Entropy Judge
Recurring Bouts of Misanthropy
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Eh, let's hunt metaphorical ones, too!
Eh, let's hunt metaphorical ones, too!
Uh, is Sakura's headspace getting crowded/confused, or is this a PoV error?
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
I fixed most of those before your post after rereading it to make sure. You did however show me a extra one I missed.
Thanks I really don't want to break POV.
Holy shit, apparently I saw them and then just mentally blanked and ignored them before editing or I pressed cancel instead of save changes. Give me a few minutes and these will be gone hopefully.
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Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
Until proven otherwise, I will assume that this is not Saki misremembering and that they actually called this game "the basketball-like game". Because they knew it wasn't like baskketball was played in the days of old but still somewhat like it.
If we wanted to hunt metaphorical monsters, we should've picked up bountyhunting.
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Yeah. The way that Yukihime explained basketball in the past was that it was a teambased game that was played competitively. She's not aware of the actual name for the activity of just throwing the ball at the hoops. Considering that Yukihime probably learned about Basketball out of a half rotted sports magazine somewhere.
So for lack of a better name they just called it 'the basketball-like game' because they know they're not playing Basketball.
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Hero Business
Sword of Mars
Magical Girl Aficionado
- Location
- Canada
Right before this my fucking headset broke. Yeeted that shit at the wall soon after, ordering a new one. Fuck off with these unique charger bullshit, literal micotransactions in my electronics.
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Thus with a little skip in your step you went outside. Obviously you couldn't hunt monsters for the entire day without some basic equipment. You bought basic camping equipment, or rather you sent William in your stead to buy basic camping equipment as your aide-de-camp and someone not despised by a good third of the people here. You suddenly closed your eyes and thinned your smile a tiny bit, there's literal fucking Ninjas. You've been noticing people following you every once and a while, and at first you thought it was curious townsfolk or some thugs... But there wasn't mistaking it, you saw a cliche portrayal of a fucking Ninja just appear in your peripheral vision. You won't give any outward response to detecting them, you had no idea if you could handle beating a Ninja with your fists. But you had a feeling that people are going to know William is your aide now, which is bothersome. It shouldn't hinder the legal fiction that William controls your lending, but you suspect it'll be much more difficult to do business in this city.
Man, it's only been a day yet your enemies seem unending. But it's necessary for now to play the game. The more capital you rip out of this city with your teeth the more power you have over yourself. Soon enough William came back with the supplies, two small tents and a small amount of food. Consequently you are 10 silver lighter. Like that you were off. "Ah... William I was so excited about beating up some monsters face to realize I don't actually know where we're going!" You said this stoically, you were totally not embarrassed! "Oh! Yes, I should have told you, but most monsters keep clear of cities and roads. We should be nearing the outskirts of the city soon... Hmmm. I think I saw the signs of a monster group somewhere around a half an hour walk away from the outskirts... All told an hour or so of walking from our current position." Considering you barely passed Gus's place you think his estimate is a bit generous but at the same time you were making good pace, William really did walk most of the known world huh.
"Hey William... What's the deal with people here?" William is pretty staunchly your ally, so you can hopefully trust him with accurate information... "Hrm..." William cupped his graying goatee in thought for a few moments. "King Aultcray... He didn't used to be like this you know. He was a wise, good person. He ruled fairly in absence of the Queen, and given powers to govern even as a mere King-Consort. It started slowly, some bans of Demihuman business, some public speeches. Then he suddenly embraced the Church of the Three Heroes and basically called open season on Demihumans... Slavery which was basically outlawed here suddenly became a lucrative business, pirates and slavers became legitimate businessmen overnight. It was disgusting, I left around that point and only came back to see the legendary heroes." William spat on the ground clearly disgusted to be in Melromarc.
You were pretty fucking shocked you're not gonna lie. It didn't even occur to you the levels of barbarism that could be present, you didn't even know that Demihumans existed. Were you just passing by the oppressed with your eyes closed? Were you just ignoring it because to face it would make you inflame into unholy rage? Perhaps you were a bit self centered... But you could excuse yourself, you've only been here for a bit more than 24 hours... You were powerless now... But that won't always be the case won't it? Perhaps if you bide your time... Angrily flailing about won't solve anything, no... Even if you did free them with force, they'd die on the streets without a copper to their name. What you need is power, political, capital, and more pure strength... Perhaps you were too hasty in the past when you discarded some of Fathers teachings...
Enough of that for now, you could focus on that later when you aren't readying for combat. Suddenly you stop, narrowing your eyes at a shadow in the trees... It's a balloon with a stupid face on it. Your deadpan face at William made him feel a bit self conscious but he doesn't really understand why. You see, when you were summoned to fight you were expecting... Like, Oni or something. Suddenly it launches at you with the speed of a... Slow moving baseball toss? And you catch it and crush it. +1 Exp.
"Are you for real?" You sounded actually a bit frustrated. This wasn't satisfying at all. "Uh... Think of it this way? Each skin is around 5 Copper, seeing how you effortlessly... Slaughtered... That one, you can make quite a bit of money from this." William helpfully pointed out the goodside of this one sided massacre. You guess it's a bit unfair to expect much out of these basic monsters if the leveling system works like you think it does. You've been fighting your entire life after all. So then you went, doing the boring task of smashing monsters all day for money. Eventually you decided to make a bit of a game out of it, mimicking a baseball throw at William who got impressively good at hitting them. It made it a bit less dull. Eventually you slapped the shit out of one with your shield and the motherfucker absorbed it remains. Your shield turned into a wooden buckler with a balloon skin stretched across it. "The Balloon Shield... Can be used to store corpses... WELL FUCK, we wasted money on that big ass bag if I can just slap em in here." Curious you slapped your coins in it, it didn't change shape but the coins appeared in your 'currency tab'. Pushing like, fifty of the fuckers into the shield (it helpfully counted them) you decided that you didn't care if it was efficient money making you were fucking done.
Apparently, William became level 5, you were almost level 9. You wasted a good few hours here, seeing that you woke up sometime early in the morning you determine it's around... Three-ish? "Oi... William... You really only know this spot huh?" William sheepishly nodded. You gave out a long suffering sigh. Wondering if you should just head back, but you decided to explore a bit. Spotting an appropriately big ass tree, you started climbing. Once you got to a high enough height you looked around for weird ass shit... Giant ass bees, meh... Giant ass Spiderdemon, maybe later without William... Some evil looking dog things... More fucking balloons... Sentient Jello?
Aight you decided you were going to tussle with those evil dogs. Saki loved bees, so you don't think you could touch them without feeling sad. Then maybe you'll wrestle that big ass spider who knows... Carefully you descend the tree. Those dog things... "Yo William! What are the evil dog looking things called!" You yelled over the clearing, "Ah... Direwolves? Maybe Black Dogs? Did they have more than one head?" You felt a feeling of vertigo and almost tripped... More than one fucking head? "No... Aight, lets go slay some wolves"
More fucking walking. A plant tried eating you so you clobbered that shit with your boot, oh hey +5 exp. Now fuck off. You waved William over to hide behind some trees and you dived your ass into a bush. There was your prey, just walking about. Three 'Direwolves'. You weren't sure how you felt just beating up and looting some innocent ass animals, but on the other hand you didn't really give a shit. As soon as one got close enough to your bush you pounced on him bringing your index and middle finger stabbing right into it's eyesocket, quickly tearing said eye out. Wolf 1 and 2 finally discovered that their buddy was in trouble, Wolf 1 launching at you eating your shield to its dumb face. Wolf 2 tried turning around only to eat William's staff in the head. Wolf 3 looked like it was about to recover so you kicked it in the face. You turned just in time to catch Wolf 1 pouncing on you. You struggled with it a bit, before throwing it off of you.
William was just effortlessly beating the shit out of his wolf, having only one opponent and a reach weapon after all. You decided to use your theory of trying to use your shield as some sort of Tonfa. You failed, merely applying your elbow to the Wolf's neck instead of the shield... Considering the loud crack that went through the air, you'd consider Wolf 1 out for the count. Wolf 3 was similarly dispatched when you ended its suffering via applying your boot to its neck. William finally landed a decisive blow when the last wolf got distracted by the death of its comrades.
That was a bit more satisfying that leveling had nothing to do with. But it was sorta dimmed by the cruelty of it all, these guys were just minding their own business until you came along. But that's life ain't it? Ha~, you were pretty worried there for a second. You only rarely got into conflicts with animals, you didn't want to waste the valuable corpses but you didn't really know what to do with most of the wolf anyway so you brought the shield onto the corpse, and a new 'Direwolf Storage Shield' was made.
You shrugged your shoulders when you got back to your still unpitched tents and rations... You decided to go back into town. You thought that you and William would be able to keep duping the shopkeepers that didn't like you for longer, and you kinda felt like getting the best deal possible after your first monster slaying expedition. There has to be a more efficient way to do this too, maybe there's some sort of notice board or something. Or maybe you need to directly ask people for work? Maybe advertise that your open for monster slaying business? Something, because you just wasted an entire day even with the valuable combat experience you got out of it.
Eventually you and William made it back to town, from what you can tell it was sometime in the evening. Doing some looking around you finally found a decent place to sell your Balloon corpses. "You accept Balloon corpses right? Like, 20 a piece correct?" the Merchant nodded, "The corpses can be refined into an alchemical ingredient necessary for some potions and perfume. Specifically I use it for perfume, so I'll purchase any amount as it's cheaper to buy from locals than to import it" he said explaining his interest. "Ah I see... So would you mind buying them in bulk... Let's say fifty or so?", You pressed on, you didn't want to bother selling in small amounts. "That'd fix my supply issue actually. Not many people actually bother to collect them, and it's pretty expensive to hire people specifically to get them for me... Usually I'd give you ten silver coins for it, but the labor involved and to keep you interested in supplying me I'll give you twenty." Charlie's Perfume Emporium apparently needs them, and is interested in hiring your service to supply Balloon corpses in bulk for a relatively large amount for the labor involved.
After a few hours of searching, you finally found a tannery interested in buying your wolf corpses. The offer was 25 Silver for each body, considering you had two bodies after you used up the third to make your storage shield you got 50 Silver. Coming back to the Inn pretty tired you ate a meager meal of 25 copper pieces worth of medieval salad, and rerenting your room and one for William for the next few days costed 75 copper. In total today was a win, netting you 69 Silver Pieces. You collapsed onto the bed exhausted and experienced a dreamless night.
The next day you:
[X] Went looking for monsterslaying work. There has to be some streamlined system here that you're missing.
[X] Ran the numbers in your head, you think that if you hired a cheap adventurer you can run a profit sending them out to do Charlie's request. Perhaps it's possible to throw your status as a Heroic Weapon user to start a business taking all the shit jobs nobody wants?
[X] You really want to fight that Spider now. It looks like fun. Dangerous but fun.
[X] You need to start actually hunting monsters. Ah... You mean literal monsters William and not Metaphorical? Oh... I see.
Thus with a little skip in your step you went outside. Obviously you couldn't hunt monsters for the entire day without some basic equipment. You bought basic camping equipment, or rather you sent William in your stead to buy basic camping equipment as your aide-de-camp and someone not despised by a good third of the people here. You suddenly closed your eyes and thinned your smile a tiny bit, there's literal fucking Ninjas. You've been noticing people following you every once and a while, and at first you thought it was curious townsfolk or some thugs... But there wasn't mistaking it, you saw a cliche portrayal of a fucking Ninja just appear in your peripheral vision. You won't give any outward response to detecting them, you had no idea if you could handle beating a Ninja with your fists. But you had a feeling that people are going to know William is your aide now, which is bothersome. It shouldn't hinder the legal fiction that William controls your lending, but you suspect it'll be much more difficult to do business in this city.
Man, it's only been a day yet your enemies seem unending. But it's necessary for now to play the game. The more capital you rip out of this city with your teeth the more power you have over yourself. Soon enough William came back with the supplies, two small tents and a small amount of food. Consequently you are 10 silver lighter. Like that you were off. "Ah... William I was so excited about beating up some monsters face to realize I don't actually know where we're going!" You said this stoically, you were totally not embarrassed! "Oh! Yes, I should have told you, but most monsters keep clear of cities and roads. We should be nearing the outskirts of the city soon... Hmmm. I think I saw the signs of a monster group somewhere around a half an hour walk away from the outskirts... All told an hour or so of walking from our current position." Considering you barely passed Gus's place you think his estimate is a bit generous but at the same time you were making good pace, William really did walk most of the known world huh.
"Hey William... What's the deal with people here?" William is pretty staunchly your ally, so you can hopefully trust him with accurate information... "Hrm..." William cupped his graying goatee in thought for a few moments. "King Aultcray... He didn't used to be like this you know. He was a wise, good person. He ruled fairly in absence of the Queen, and given powers to govern even as a mere King-Consort. It started slowly, some bans of Demihuman business, some public speeches. Then he suddenly embraced the Church of the Three Heroes and basically called open season on Demihumans... Slavery which was basically outlawed here suddenly became a lucrative business, pirates and slavers became legitimate businessmen overnight. It was disgusting, I left around that point and only came back to see the legendary heroes." William spat on the ground clearly disgusted to be in Melromarc.
You were pretty fucking shocked you're not gonna lie. It didn't even occur to you the levels of barbarism that could be present, you didn't even know that Demihumans existed. Were you just passing by the oppressed with your eyes closed? Were you just ignoring it because to face it would make you inflame into unholy rage? Perhaps you were a bit self centered... But you could excuse yourself, you've only been here for a bit more than 24 hours... You were powerless now... But that won't always be the case won't it? Perhaps if you bide your time... Angrily flailing about won't solve anything, no... Even if you did free them with force, they'd die on the streets without a copper to their name. What you need is power, political, capital, and more pure strength... Perhaps you were too hasty in the past when you discarded some of Fathers teachings...
Enough of that for now, you could focus on that later when you aren't readying for combat. Suddenly you stop, narrowing your eyes at a shadow in the trees... It's a balloon with a stupid face on it. Your deadpan face at William made him feel a bit self conscious but he doesn't really understand why. You see, when you were summoned to fight you were expecting... Like, Oni or something. Suddenly it launches at you with the speed of a... Slow moving baseball toss? And you catch it and crush it. +1 Exp.
"Are you for real?" You sounded actually a bit frustrated. This wasn't satisfying at all. "Uh... Think of it this way? Each skin is around 5 Copper, seeing how you effortlessly... Slaughtered... That one, you can make quite a bit of money from this." William helpfully pointed out the goodside of this one sided massacre. You guess it's a bit unfair to expect much out of these basic monsters if the leveling system works like you think it does. You've been fighting your entire life after all. So then you went, doing the boring task of smashing monsters all day for money. Eventually you decided to make a bit of a game out of it, mimicking a baseball throw at William who got impressively good at hitting them. It made it a bit less dull. Eventually you slapped the shit out of one with your shield and the motherfucker absorbed it remains. Your shield turned into a wooden buckler with a balloon skin stretched across it. "The Balloon Shield... Can be used to store corpses... WELL FUCK, we wasted money on that big ass bag if I can just slap em in here." Curious you slapped your coins in it, it didn't change shape but the coins appeared in your 'currency tab'. Pushing like, fifty of the fuckers into the shield (it helpfully counted them) you decided that you didn't care if it was efficient money making you were fucking done.
Apparently, William became level 5, you were almost level 9. You wasted a good few hours here, seeing that you woke up sometime early in the morning you determine it's around... Three-ish? "Oi... William... You really only know this spot huh?" William sheepishly nodded. You gave out a long suffering sigh. Wondering if you should just head back, but you decided to explore a bit. Spotting an appropriately big ass tree, you started climbing. Once you got to a high enough height you looked around for weird ass shit... Giant ass bees, meh... Giant ass Spiderdemon, maybe later without William... Some evil looking dog things... More fucking balloons... Sentient Jello?
Aight you decided you were going to tussle with those evil dogs. Saki loved bees, so you don't think you could touch them without feeling sad. Then maybe you'll wrestle that big ass spider who knows... Carefully you descend the tree. Those dog things... "Yo William! What are the evil dog looking things called!" You yelled over the clearing, "Ah... Direwolves? Maybe Black Dogs? Did they have more than one head?" You felt a feeling of vertigo and almost tripped... More than one fucking head? "No... Aight, lets go slay some wolves"
More fucking walking. A plant tried eating you so you clobbered that shit with your boot, oh hey +5 exp. Now fuck off. You waved William over to hide behind some trees and you dived your ass into a bush. There was your prey, just walking about. Three 'Direwolves'. You weren't sure how you felt just beating up and looting some innocent ass animals, but on the other hand you didn't really give a shit. As soon as one got close enough to your bush you pounced on him bringing your index and middle finger stabbing right into it's eyesocket, quickly tearing said eye out. Wolf 1 and 2 finally discovered that their buddy was in trouble, Wolf 1 launching at you eating your shield to its dumb face. Wolf 2 tried turning around only to eat William's staff in the head. Wolf 3 looked like it was about to recover so you kicked it in the face. You turned just in time to catch Wolf 1 pouncing on you. You struggled with it a bit, before throwing it off of you.
William was just effortlessly beating the shit out of his wolf, having only one opponent and a reach weapon after all. You decided to use your theory of trying to use your shield as some sort of Tonfa. You failed, merely applying your elbow to the Wolf's neck instead of the shield... Considering the loud crack that went through the air, you'd consider Wolf 1 out for the count. Wolf 3 was similarly dispatched when you ended its suffering via applying your boot to its neck. William finally landed a decisive blow when the last wolf got distracted by the death of its comrades.
That was a bit more satisfying that leveling had nothing to do with. But it was sorta dimmed by the cruelty of it all, these guys were just minding their own business until you came along. But that's life ain't it? Ha~, you were pretty worried there for a second. You only rarely got into conflicts with animals, you didn't want to waste the valuable corpses but you didn't really know what to do with most of the wolf anyway so you brought the shield onto the corpse, and a new 'Direwolf Storage Shield' was made.
You shrugged your shoulders when you got back to your still unpitched tents and rations... You decided to go back into town. You thought that you and William would be able to keep duping the shopkeepers that didn't like you for longer, and you kinda felt like getting the best deal possible after your first monster slaying expedition. There has to be a more efficient way to do this too, maybe there's some sort of notice board or something. Or maybe you need to directly ask people for work? Maybe advertise that your open for monster slaying business? Something, because you just wasted an entire day even with the valuable combat experience you got out of it.
Eventually you and William made it back to town, from what you can tell it was sometime in the evening. Doing some looking around you finally found a decent place to sell your Balloon corpses. "You accept Balloon corpses right? Like, 20 a piece correct?" the Merchant nodded, "The corpses can be refined into an alchemical ingredient necessary for some potions and perfume. Specifically I use it for perfume, so I'll purchase any amount as it's cheaper to buy from locals than to import it" he said explaining his interest. "Ah I see... So would you mind buying them in bulk... Let's say fifty or so?", You pressed on, you didn't want to bother selling in small amounts. "That'd fix my supply issue actually. Not many people actually bother to collect them, and it's pretty expensive to hire people specifically to get them for me... Usually I'd give you ten silver coins for it, but the labor involved and to keep you interested in supplying me I'll give you twenty." Charlie's Perfume Emporium apparently needs them, and is interested in hiring your service to supply Balloon corpses in bulk for a relatively large amount for the labor involved.
After a few hours of searching, you finally found a tannery interested in buying your wolf corpses. The offer was 25 Silver for each body, considering you had two bodies after you used up the third to make your storage shield you got 50 Silver. Coming back to the Inn pretty tired you ate a meager meal of 25 copper pieces worth of medieval salad, and rerenting your room and one for William for the next few days costed 75 copper. In total today was a win, netting you 69 Silver Pieces. You collapsed onto the bed exhausted and experienced a dreamless night.
The next day you:
[X] Went looking for monsterslaying work. There has to be some streamlined system here that you're missing.
[X] Ran the numbers in your head, you think that if you hired a cheap adventurer you can run a profit sending them out to do Charlie's request. Perhaps it's possible to throw your status as a Heroic Weapon user to start a business taking all the shit jobs nobody wants?
[X] You really want to fight that Spider now. It looks like fun. Dangerous but fun.
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Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
[X] You really want to fight that Spider now. It looks like fun. Dangerous but fun.
And when is the last time we had fun for ourselves?
And when is the last time we had fun for ourselves?
NeonLights
Formerly Reliable_2IC
- Location
- In shambles
[X] Went looking for monsterslaying work. There has to be some streamlined system here that you're missing.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
nice
[X] You really want to fight that Spider now. It looks like fun. Dangerous but fun.