[SP-F1] Making A New Friend <<Feeding Your Enemy>>

[Itzal 0]

Spoiler

General
Level: 82
HP: 1,640.  1,670 with Acrobatics.
Energy: 164
DMG: 17 (base 1 damage + 9 dmg (Velnia) +5 sword skill +1 Athletics +1 Ferocity)
Stealth Rating:  +4
SP Available:  13
Total SP:  478

+8 LD

Looting Setup
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Slot 1:  +3 ACC
Slot 2:  +3 LD
Slot 3:  +3 EVA
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Skills: 
Rank 5 one handed straight sword (+5 DMG) <50 sp>
Rank 5 light armor (+25 MIT) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Search and Detect  (+5 LD) <50 sp>
Gatherer (turns each material found into the ammount of 4) <10 sp>
Picking (+3 LD when opening chests) <15 sp>
Rank 3 Familiar (Rank 3 Fighter: +9 dmg) <18 sp>
Rank 5 Charge (+5 dmg first attack) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Battle Healing (+5% total health per combat post) <50 sp>
Rank 5 Hiding (+5 Stealth Rating) <50 sp>
Rank 2 Exceed Mod Limit (+2 Mods allowed)  <5 sp>

Mods:
Reveal +2 LD when searching for dungeons and labyrinths. You may search for a sub-dungeon once every 15 posts (instead of 20). Reduces the personal post cooldown when searching for a labyrinth to 3 posts (instead of 5). <9 sp>
Detect (Grants +2 Stealth Detection. Grants +1 LD when searching for sub-dungeons and labyrinths ) <9>
Dismantling (+2 LD for picking chests)  <8 sp>
Tracking: Allows the player to track another player or monster down by entering their name if the name is known to the player. This negates the targets hiding bonuses and when hunting monsters, guarantees a hit regardless of BD roll, though still requires to roll for a critical. Tracking takes a post action. <12>
Athletics: +1 dmg +10 * tier HP.  <9>
Spring & Acrobatics +1 Evasion while wearing light armor <15>
Untraceable: Players cannot Track Itzal <9>

Extra/locked Skills: 
Meditation:  Increase meditation recovery to 5*Tier energy if uninterrupted.  And 3*Tier energy if interrupted.  Has a 3 turn cooldown. <0 sp>
Survival <3 sp>
Disguise:  +1 EVA for a full round.  3 Turn Cooldown.
Expert Martial Arts (+3 unarmed damage) <23 sp>

Resting on one of the higher rooftops of the Town of Beginnings, Itzal crouched comfortably, his eyes scanning the vast radius of the town region he was currently inside of. Normally when he was at this position, it was just to scout out the area for anything out of the ordinary, or locate new places of interests. Today however, he was here for a totally different reason: Itzal. Needed a new familiar. His hand flexed at the thought of Velnia dying, but for the most part he was over it. He'd been through a lot and now he needed a new companion. He was ready for it this time. And this time, he was going to try something new: He was going to look for a familiar inside the settlement, rather than find one outside of it. Knowing his task, he stood up and jumped off the side of the building, grabbing the rope that hung there so that he slid down rather than fall. When he reached the bottom he headed inside and approached the gypsy who gave the quest. "Well hello dearie~ Would you be interested in obtaining yourself a familiar?" Itzal didn't verbally answer her, simply accepting the quest and tuning out her lessons. The quest may have changed since he last took it, but after some investigations he discovered the process was basically the same. He took the food and walked outside, ready to go out on his hunt.

 

 

 

 

 

[Itzal 0]

Stopping outside the building he took a deep breath and exhaled before dashing for an alleyway. If he was going to find a familiar to join him, he wanted it to be one that was just as good at hiding as he was, and just as agile. Of course that narrowed it down a great deal. Monkeys were the most agile but they weren't really good at hiding. Snakes were hard to hear, but they couldn't jump from building to building. The more he went down the list the more creatures he ended up eliminating. Any mob could become a familiar of course, but most mobs just didn't fit the criteria. There was an option however: Fowl. Winged creatures were extremely agile, and some of them could be quiet when they needed to be. With that narrowed down he needed to come up with what other preferences he'd have for his familiar. If possible black, to fit his theme and to better hide in the shadows. In fantasy terms that narrowed it down a lot, but if it's personality was too wild and crazy, it would automatically be nullified. The more he thought about it, the more he became sure he wanted to find either a crow or raven. Something simple and straightforward.

[Itzal 0]

Now then, to begin his search for this new familiar. He wasn't going to run, not yet at least. First he had to locate one, and if he started running around the entire city then they'd just fly off rather than watch cautiously. He did his best to stick to the alleyways of course. If he had to cross a street he'd just activate the hiding skill and melt into the crowd. It wasn't very hard honestly. Most of the players here weren't high levels, or if they were they didn't bother using their searching skill. Made it so easy to go unnoticed and just go about his business. Pushing past the crowd into another alley, he spotted two players bullying another. This time the more traditional bullying. Since killing was impossible, higher level players could use their big bodies and strength stats against smaller and lower leveled players. Here, the poor guy was getting pushed around by players a fourth of his height taller. Judging by the the force being applied, he'd have to estimate that there was a ten, maybe fifteen level difference between them. Itzal picked up his pace a little more.

[Itzal 0]

He expected to get sidetracked every now and then. After all, he 'was' a vigilante. The two bigger players from what he was hearing were pulling a 'give me your lunch money' move. They were probably acting like the bullies who beat them up in real life now that they could feel that power. Deprived players who'd never known what it was like to be liked or strong suddenly in the perfect position to get that power and lord it over others? Just another recipe for disaster. He walked up silently behind them while they shoved the player to the ground and kicked them once or twice. Before they could do more however, Itzal shot his hand past the muscular guy's head, grasped his face with a tight grip, and pulled back, causing him to spin twice through the air before crashing to the ground. Before he hit the ground, Itzal threw his left hand into the throat of the muscle dude's 'henchman' causing him to get knocked into the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of him despite the no damage rules of the town. Itzal didn't do much else after that, but for added effect he did draw his sword and point it at the henchman guy.

[Itzal 0]

He didn't say anything, as the sword said it all. The player scrambled to escape, which Itzal let him do, and he ran away screaming. The muscular guy called out for him to come back and that he was a chicken. He swung a punch at Itzal who caught the fist with ease before he twisted the arm in a manner which forced the player to turn around. He then forced him to his knees and pressed his foot against his back while still holding onto his arm. Normally this would be a very painful experience, but all this man would feel right now was worry and humiliation. Itzal held him here for a moment before he shoved the man into the wall with his foot. The player quickly got up again, growled at Itzal but wisely left as well. Before the player on the ground could do or say anything, Itzal took his hand and hoisted him up. Then he began to walk away. Now that this was over with he really wanted to get back to finding his familiar. Besides, he was just going to say thank you, or scream and run away. He didn't care. All he did was remind the two bullies that there was always a bigger fish, and that those with strength should protect the weak, not knock them around.

[Itzal 0]

When it came to levels, they affected a great deal of things. They gave you a hell of a lot of power over the weaker players. While it was true that this power and influence was greater outside of safe zones than inside, it wasn't really that big a difference. If you were higher a level, you could easily drag another player, regardless of their size, from their homes outside the gates. From there you could do whatever you wanted. Of course, now that Itzal began his daily rounds on the town of beginnings (the exact time of these rounds alternating each day, with an occasional repeat to discourage pkers taking advantage of a pattern), the players were losing their fear of abduction and starting to try living a normal life. Most players here who didn't want to go outside the safety of the walls would just pick up a profession and focus on either making enough col to live a happy life, or just make things that other players would enjoy. A great example were the restaurants out there, or the clothing shops.

[Itzal 0]

Itzal examined his sword real quick before sheathing it again. He noticed that weapons could lose their durability over a long period of time, so he checked the blade on occasion to ensure that it didn't go breaking down on him when he didn't expect it. Or worse when he really needed it. Player killers were starting do die down a bit too, save for Laughing Coffin. He'd been waiting for the right moment to give everyone their location, and until recently he wasn't sure it was a good idea. Now however, it was more crucial than ever to take them out as soon as he could. Once he double checked with everyone to ensure that no one was going to side with the LC, or double cross the frontliners, he'd call up a meeting for them all. It was going to take some time however, and he'd need Zandra's help to set it up. No one would come if it was Are asking, but Zandra might get a few heads to turn their way. And when the meeting started, he needed to make it clear that they had to move quickly and efficiently.

[Itzal 0]

Of course, that was going to happen another day. Today, and tonight by extension, Itzal needed to focus on getting his familiar and training it. Once he did so, if he had enough time, he needed to go ahead and complete the quest which resulted in the +1 evasion consumable. Though there was also the option of purchasing food from another player. He might need to collect a few more materials for everyone if he was really going to do this though. It would probably be for the best of course, since he had a high searching ability. Maybe he could take on a monster or two as well, snag some materials from them. Regardless, he was going to be needing consumables when the frontliners faced the next floor boss. Let's see, what would he need? Overhealth for certain. If there was a way to temporarily increase his energy before a fight, he'd need that. Damage increase as well as increased accuracy and evasion. Mitigation potion. Toxic venom if possible. He didn't know if searching for anything would help but he could get an LD buff. He'd need protein as another damage buff too. Antioxidants and probiotics. And then of course the debuffs he could make himself.

[Itzal 0]

When the boss fight starts, he'd need to make sure he had the right consumables on him. He had the dimensional backpack, so he'd have a total of six slots available to him. Teleport crystal was a given, so that was one. Depending on how the floor boss meeting went and what information they gathered, he'd need one debuff against it's accuracy, and one against either it's evasion stats or one to increase the potential damage of DoTs. Of course he could craft every debuff and hand some of them to players who actually had room left in their battle ready inventory. That way everyone was covered. So assuming he had to carry two, that left three slots open. He'd probably need to have a consumable for recovering his energy in case things dragged on for too long, or (more likely), there was some special ability of the boss like the last time. He'd then need to get himself healing items, preferably mass heal so that everyone was covered. And that made it six consumables.

[Itzal 0]

Of course he still needed to craft all the items he possibly could. Once the debuffs had been crafted, he needed to try and see how many healing songs he could craft so that he could distribute them to the players. He wondered if everyone had thought ahead and stocked up on materials recently. He wasn't prepared as he hoped to be, so he went ahead and purchased a full two days worth of materials. And even if he failed a few, the likelyhood that he'd salvage them for another day was pretty high. He WAS at rank ten as a performer after all, it only made sense. It's been so long since he's crafted anything though. Part of him wondered if he'd even have the skill to play a song properly like he did in the past or not. The other knew that this was false for two reasons. If you messed up, the system helped you out most of the time. And secondly, he had a reason to play his songs again. A smile reached his lips as he thought about Zandra. He'd be fighting beside her again, but this time. The two were closer than either of them had ever thought possible.

[Itzal 0]

Post Countdown: 4

He felt a bit more warm as he thought about Zandra and all the time they'd spent together. We've really become very close haven't we? I mean, we're getting married, so that was the sign in it of itself. And now that the next boss was coming up, he wasn't just going to let Zandra fight that monster on her own. He wanted her to have someone she could trust by her side. And if he was going to fight, he was going to do it by hers and no one else's. Together they were going to bulldoze their way through the floor bosses, aiming for the top and finally getting out of this damn place! Being with Zandra had helped his confidence in himself as well. He may have the lowest, or one of the lowest overall damage in the frontline dps group, but that didn't mean he couldn't be of use. This time around, he was going to try being the leader of his group. He was going to do his very best to strategize. If he needed to prioritize on stunning the boss over attacking, he'd adjust without hesitation. If he needed to tank the boss a bit, he'd switch with another player. Whatever he needed to do, he'd be there to do it.

[Itzal 0]

Post Countdown: 3

When you think about it, there's much more to floor bosses now than just rush in and attack. Players were being forced to think about their actions and strategize. The Leviathan was heavy proof of that. Do I attack or hold back and recover my energy? If I attack now the boss won't be vulnerable and I'll have wasted my energy. Do I attack the boss or hold off the minions? Do I have my supporter focus on healing or buffing players? It was going to be vital for them to find the patterns in the boss, and more vital for the leader to come up with a solid plan as to how to proceed under that new plan. If they did so then they had a very good chance of becoming more versatile and adaptive in these floor bosses. It was something he wanted to bring up in the floor boss if it became clear that no one was taking this seriously. Their groups weren't going to be big enough for there to be an advisor and leader, so whoever was leading their group needed to be able to direct players quickly while also strategizing on the fly. Itzal was good at that, but the trust would be hard to formulate.

[Itzal 0]

Post Countdown: 2

That's one of the reasons Itzal needed Zandra. Or one of the non personal reasons at least. The frontliners knew her. They knew nothing about Are, other than that he was a rogue vigilante who took down pkers in his free time who only recently chose to aid the front lines. If they knew it was Itzal, well. That would probably help with some people while making it much much harder with others. Regardless however, he knew he was perfect for the strategy position. His high health and high evasion helped him play as an evasive tank when he needed to. His sword art let him switch between solo strike, to AoE strike, to Stun strike seamlessly. His high searching skill let him spot any small details he needed in the boss to find weaknesses or sense surprise attacks coming up. He didn't have the SP he needed for the extra damage from hiding just yet, but he was close. And when he got that he would officially have every conceivable skill and mod that could increase his damage.

[Itzal 0]

Posting Countdown: 1

In Itzal's mind, he was ready to lead players. Trust and faith would build up as he worked with them, but when it came to calculating and strategizing, he had no doubt that he was qualified. Especially with his experience in boss fights. His train of thought broke however when he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes. He stopped moving and turned to look up at the roof he just passed. Sitting on the edge of the roof was a single raven staring down at him. There was also an NPC standing on a balcony who saw him stop and turn. She very clearly thought he was staring at her, and looked rather nervous at him. After all, he was a cloaked and armed stranger whose face was completely concealed by both a hood and shadowy mist. He looked like a mythical murderer of legends. But that's not why he turned. He wasn't looking at her at all. Making slow movements, he reached into a pouch of his, and pulled out the food he received from the Gypsy, and held it out for the raven to see.

Rolling for Familiar

LD: +8      To Hit: 7+

[Itzal 0]

Itzal held it out for the raven to see, hoping that this would work. Both of them were relatively still, neither making a move at all. At first Itzal believed the raven was simply calculating the risks, and determining whether it was safe or not. In fact, it stared at him and the food for more than a full three minutes with no change. Eventually it just flew off as if bored. Ah, I get it. It wasn't a potential familiar then. He had focused on the first raven he saw, meaning that he wasn't focused enough on it's potential, just on whether or not it was the kind of animal he wanted as a familiar. But that clearly wasn't going to work. It would appear that not every monster or animal had the ability to become a familiar, nor met the proper requirements. At first he thought all that mattered was that it was small enough and wasn't a humanoid. But evidently he was wrong.

ID# 154546 LD: 1

[Itzal 0]

Disappointed, he thought about what else he could possibly do. It was possible that familiars just didn't exist in the town, but he had a hunch they did. He thought carefully about what it could be. Maybe it was a spawning issue? He knew players usually had to traverse the entire floor before they found a proper familiar. So maybe they didn't spawn nearby the player? If that were the case, all he'd need to do is wander away for a bit and then come straight back. Maybe he could gather some materials while he was at it. It would certainly help anyways. With that in mind he turned to leave and heard the woman gasp. He totally forgot about her. He stopped and looked over at her. She was still staring at him warily. Well, she was an NPC but still. He reached into his pocket, grabbed a single col and flicked it up to her. She struggled to catch it, but in the end she managed to get a hold of them. She then looked at them with a mixture of wariness and confusion. Itzal didn't do anything else after that though, and simply leaped up onto the wall, starting to scale onto the roof.

[Itzal 0]

Once onto the roof he quickly and rather easily began to maneuver himself towards the town gates. Running from one roof to it's edge, and then leaping to the next. Though most of the roofs were connected as this town was basically a mass amount of buildings smushed into one area, so parkour was easy here. He wondered if the game devs saw this coming and built this place with that very concept in mind. After all, it was the starting point for basically everyone. Even sneaking into the town was easy enough for beginners to get used to. Of course he did notice that the guards got smarter the more times players got caught, which meant that the game progressively forced the player to get better over time. Interesting. Itzal finally reached the gate and immediately scanned the area for materials. He spotted a few particular crystals he could use for his craft against the town wall and picked them out. That's two down, he thought to himself before he continued looking for additional materials.

ID# 154565  CD: 5  LD: 7+8=15  +2 MAT

2 MAT total

[Itzal 0]

Two materials on his first check. Not bad, but he could do better than that. Continuing to look around, he decided to let his mind wander. This lead him to think about what he was going to do with his skills once he had hit the level cap... The strange and illogical choice of eighty eight being the level cap. He could still get skill points, but the real issue was the fact that he would be limited to eleven skills and that was it. Once he maxed out his mod skill, he'd be able to activate up to eight mods at a time. This meant he could purchase and collect as many mods as he could once his skills were decided on. Before Velnia perished he also noted that the familiar skill was an extra skill, which was good. But... He also noticed that the martial arts skill was no longer an extra skill either. He wished this also meant that his weapon skill no longer required it, but that couldn't be helped he thought as he picked up another three materials for his collection. The frontliners would need it..

ID# 154566  CD: 8  LD: 11+8=19  +3 MAT

5 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

So then. Eventually he was going to have to focus on combat skills and drop the less needed skills. Specifically, he was going to have to drop the picking skill, and the gatherer skill. He could make up for these by grinding monsters of course, but still. It felt like he was planning to give up a part of himself. Scouting was the main and primary build he had chosen since the beginning. He'd be giving up the resource gathering half of it, only leaving the search skill. At least he could still help players search for dungeons and labyrinths, so he would technically still be a scout. But more importantly: What should he replace the gatherer and picking skill with? There were two options he believed would work. He picked up another three materials as he thought this through. These skills, in his mind, should be the quick change skill... And in addition to that, the deep pocket skill.

ID# 154567  CD: 6  LD: 13+8=21  +3 MAT

8 MAT Total

[Itzal 0]

The reason he'd need these two, is it would give him a greater ability to adjust his tactics in a boss fight. He could easily and quickly switch between evasion and mitigation tactics, switch from DoT affects to raw damage, and even to paralysis focus. All within an instant. Even further, with the deep pockets skill he could store countless healing consumables, as well as more than one debuff consumable just in case the boss could nullify it's affects, or if there were multiple bosses like the elven counsel. It would also allow him to store those extra equipment types. One moment he could land a hit with his paralysis weapon, then the next he could strike with his DoT focused weapon. Then switch to raw damage just before activating the mod surprise attack. That was where his tactics and strategies would be vital to have. He used his searching skill real quick, this time looking for a chest somewhere. He smiled as he saw a very small crack in the wall which lead to a secret room with a chest inside.

ID# 154568  LD: 20  -  Chest Found

8 MAT Total