Pollux

[from:] Mountains and Rivers HEAVY ARMOR T3E3, MITIGATION III You are immovable. Your only weakness is time. This ornately crafted suit of fine full plate is wrought from sections of earth drake scales. Each shaped plate is bound by carefully forged links of smelted mithril mined from exposed gorges carved open by waterfalls deep in the Rough Mountains near Taran Village. Modifying with Nametag. [to:] Mountains and Rivers HEAVY ARMOR T3E3, MITIGATION III A bell-shaped spread of yellow-green and dark-blue mithril plates.

Purchasing (1) Nametag [2500 Col].

When Yue Hua next dropped into the Knight Shift, she was brimming with what seemed like a nervous energy. The ordinarily stoic young woman was restless, very fidgety, she had the end of her feathered tail in her hand because it wouldn't stop thrashing like an excited dog's, and her stupor only lifted some when the blacksmith presented her with her new sword. Yue Hua took it off his hands, examining its detailing closely and testing the feel of its grip. "Yes," she replied distractedly. She admired how closely it fit her specifications. Not a Wulfrin original like she would have hoped, but

"Er..." Payment in materials but how much materials? Yue Hua weighed the simple and unassuming appearance of the shop against her confidence in her wallet. Then she strolled in without reaching a conclusion anyway, her ears perked at the sound of a hammer striking an anvil. A blacksmith working away at their daily crafts. Much better than the silence of her fellow tracker's shop. "Helloooo?" Soon as she was noticed, her steps halted, her tail carefully pointed away from the shop's weapon and armor displays. Yue Hua blinked. "Hi. I need heavy armor and a sword, both Tier 3. I have blu

Signing up!

No dice. She continued. Yue Hua trekked for what felt like hours, taking breaks along the way to drink water and rest her strained eyes. Down the mountain. Off the wider trail. Up another. Across a shaky wooden bridge atop a rushing river, which few players dared to cross because one misstep or one unlucky day with the bridge's structure would send one tumbling down the waterfall at the end of the rapids. The steep and forested incline beyond was one of her favorite gathering spots overall because it was almost entirely her domain. Today, it didn't seem as inclined to serve her. Yue

Though the man had by no means attempted to conceal his approach, Yue Hua almost jumped at the addition of his voice. She turned partway to glance at him and her brown eyes briefly met his as Giovanna laid the requested item in her open palm. "Oh," Yue Hua said, "Of course." He looked like a finely honed blade, Yue Hua thought, like if she knocked the back of her hand against him, she would immediately take Thorns damage. But that didn't deter her from turning back to Giovanna and asking if she had another compass to borrow. ...Why did she think Giovanna would have two dark magi

"Hehe. Thank you." The end of Yue Hua's tail flicked upward and she subconsciously brushed her hand through its feathers. "Your ears are lovely, too. I'd considered a similar effect in the past but I couldn't find the clothes to match. Not in my preferred style, at least." She thought the newly reintroduced Freyd similarly inclined to their hobby, even though he had wandered here not by his intention and his words implied some degree of separation from it. Appearances spoke for themselves, didn't they? So, while her gaze was narrowed in scrutiny, she wasn't interested in the 'how.' She th

Urbus was blanketed in a deeper autumnal chill. Warm drinks were offered at every market stall and residents on the road carried firewood on their backs. Yue Hua hiked up her white coat to cover her bare shoulders. She passed the only gate out of the city, distractedly waving to the guards, who nodded at her once then returned their steady gazes to the road and the rest of the people passing along it. Yue Hua rechecked her equipment. She had her old sword at her hip and a basket hanging from her arm. Inside it, she'd laid a folded cloth, a pair of gloves, and a foraging knife. She had als

If by any chance their third participant was just as eccentric in their choice of self-expression, they could, hilariously, convince the lost old man that he’d walked right into a furry cult ritual. Yue Hua arrived dressed in the full effects of her vanity potions, unlike in their trip to the desert where she had gone half without for her comfort, with her yellow-to-blue gradiented hair loosened to its full length and her hands painted, a pair of horns atop her head, and a long feathered tail, the end of which wrapped around the doorknob and swung it shut behind her. Eyes lined with kohl fell

"And I thought I'd graduated from that work _ months ago, Alchemist Evangeline," Yue Hua teased. But she went easily. Outside, she reviewed her task. She instinctively turned back towards the teleport plaza before she even finalized her plan. Floor 1 was the second to the last floor she liked to gather in, second only to the floors that had near to zero alchemy materials, because in line with its reputation as the 'safest' floor, its outer zones were frequented by droves of lower leveled and non combat focused players, what available gathering nodes likely already picked thr

Whichever Yue Hua chose, Evangeline was eager to be the one receiving knowledge this time around. Unfortunately, she was not so eager as to let her new peer dip her hands into her precious stock of ingredients. She ran a business on top of her passion for the craft, and each type of herb and root in her possession was measured and had its purpose charted by the gram. Little wiggle room there was for another person's experiments. Or: quest parameters, but they made sense. Cardinal ran a tight ship with its narrative. "Believe me, I understand," Yue Hua said with an easy shrug. Sh

Less and less players visited these tutorial NPCs the more time passed within the game. Yue Hua once imagined it quite the lonely existence, but Evangeline looked perfectly content crafting every day in the solitude of her little workshop. And she wasn't even alone, per se -- the random alchemy novices were a bonus. Potions of assorted colors, scents, and sizes lined the shelves behind the brewing table, and an open book daringly placed beside a pot containing a mysterious bubbling mixture listed down alchemy orders placed by other NPCs. Yue Hua was briefly put on hold as Evangeline lower

At this point, she had no affect on the affairs of the higher floors. She’d forgotten about the boss battle. Frankly, she was impressed that Freyd and Wulfrin were out on other business this late. Yue Hua would have rather spent the entire day relaxing. “Daily crafts for me,” she answered Xena. “I’d only finished half earlier. Recently, I have been experimenting on condensing multiple vanity effects into a single potion." She swung her arms behind her head, shutting one eye against a gust of wind. The other turned to her senior. “Well, if you need anything today, Wulfrin, the doors to my

thread summary. Scarlet Firefly + 585 exp | 300 + (408 * 1 * 0.7) + 200 col + unlocks: <<familiar>>; <<training your friend>> + 1 guild token Pollux + 285 exp | 408 * 1 * 0.7 + 200 col + 1 material + 1 guild token

Morningstar and Bistro? Yue Hua hummed. She was surprised -- and still not too familiar with either of the mentioned personalities. Not that it was a race, she was just internally scribbling over her miscasting of Firefly as the timid one of the guild. But as she did so, Yue Hua also nodded along confidently at Firefly's assessment, because in her opinion, not even the hardest of hearts could possibly resist a cat. After a short, comfortable lapse in their conversation, they passed the gates leading back into town and Firefly's voice took on the tone of a confession. Yue Hua's steps

She let the cat sniff her fingers before she started to pet it. It seemed curious about the unusual off-yellow color of them, flicking its tongue at the back of her hand. Then it nudged at her more insistently and Yue Hua gently rubbed its head. The cat's eyes squinted shut and it leaned upwards into her touch. "Baby. You're so sweet," she giggled, delighted. While Yue Hua was cooing at the new familiar, Firefly thought of a name. "I think it suits her, too." On the surface level, the cat was silvery-gray. Possibly, it also carried some amount of expectation, like all names did.

Her eyes glinted at the challenge. "Deal. And of course, I will be the one paying if you solve it instead. Where do you usually eat, Leader?" She did not know where a movie star's tastes in food leaned but today she felt confident in her wallet. Not so much in her problem-solving abilities. Yue Hua was, in her humble and unbiased opinion, a force to be reckoned with in a physical bout, calm, collected, and efficient; but stacking a race on top of this uncommon task shot an excited, jittery feeling through her nerves that made her want to bounce on the heels of her feet. Wrestling bac

If DoTs were her intention, Yue Hua didn't think Xena would have a problem with the crit. portion of it. And a poor Floor 5 quest boss stood no chance against the spectacular arts of two frontline level players. Really, with the sudden inclusion of Freyd and Xena, they had overdone it. Soon after Wulfrin's strike had brought Terra Firma crashing to the ground, Yue Hua busied herself with poking through the sands. Her loot goblin tendencies afforded her no rest. She unearthed a thinner scale that had fallen off the beast's armor and was partially buried in the quick scuffle, not to be

Objective fulfilled. New objective: pet the cat. Yue Hua stumbled out of the brush as soon as she heard Firefly's call. Along the way, she tugged a fruit from a vine and stuffed it in her inventory. "Good work," she praised, but even though, logically, she knew the system had named the tiny purring creature as Firefly's now, the woman still kept her voice pitched cautiously low, still concerned of scaring it off. It would have made more sense in reality. "On your first try, too. She seems to have taken a liking to you quite easily. Or, he...?" Yue Hua left it to Firefly to check

She liked beautiful things. Rarely did she ever find herself so uniquely drawn to one though. She held a tiny pocket of sea in a bottle. Yue Hua had no place for three [Evade] slots in her intended build but once she laid eyes on the trinket through the glass of the display case, then carefully took it out, she immediately felt reluctant to do the practical thing and part with it. "Should I buy this one too, kitty?" The cat that guarded the counter gave an answering chirp. "Right," Yue Hua said serenely. She pretended that the cat had convinced her to impulse buy with a frighten

She weighed her decision, but even without making a conclusive statement in her mind, her meandering stroll took her to the teleport plaza. The transfer required a visit to Evangeline in the Town of Beginnings. ...And a completely necessary shopping trip at the city's east wing. Yue Hua wrote up orders for the supplies that were running low in the pantry and sent notice to the guild's group chat, then liberated her wallet of three non-alchemy materials at the artisan shop with the cute cat in exchange for a small glass bottle that reminded her of the sea. She held the trinket above h

"Not yet." After giving her horse one last affectionate pat, Yue Hua followed a step behind Morningstar, her nacreous eyes tracing the movements of the shadows cast by Morningstar's glowstone on the cave walls. From the first cavern the ground sloped gently downwards, interrupted from place to place by overgrown roots. Small fissures. Then they came into a spacious cave where the cracks widened into a gap in the ceiling and rays of sunlight spilled inwards. Yue Hua detached herself from the circle of light cast by Morningstar's glowstone, surveying the area curiously. There was a mas

Trailing behind the two men, Yue Hua observed that they seemed close and looked remarkably similar. She internally designated Wulfrin as the younger brother because he was the shorter of the pair. Satisfied with her conclusion, Yue Hua turned to Xena, intending to fill their walk with light chatter. "You're quite far along in terms of levels yourself. How long have you been at it? I started a month or so prior, I think, and I intend to build into a healer role. My impression is that there is a scarcity of them." Few needed to know her exact circumstances. They soon reached the quest locat

Yue Hua shut one eye and tilted her head. "Hm. Dunno. Why not?" It was difficult to explain something that felt natural to her. Duels between players were not 'violent' despite the exchanging of blows because their terms were agreed upon by both parties prior and were, for her part, harmless tests of strength. Simple games. Anything with more on the line had felt too big for her at the start, and although she eventually grew accustomed to it as all players whose travels took them past the settlements did, she still preferred to conduct her business far back from the tipping point. "B