[PP-F1] Am I doing this right?

[Koga 0]

Koga chuckled a little bit at Lishuu's comment about them being in a fantasies setting. "Yeah, and don't forget about the golems, the zombies, skeletons, Phoenixes, elves, Titans, dragons, minotaurs and all the other nasty things trying to bite our heads off!" Yeah, fantasy settings...gotta love them.

Okay, to be completely honest, Koga loved fantasy settings and games. But, he was getting a little sick of dodging all the mobs trying to kill him. What happened to just really nice, unrealistic scenery? Well it was still there. It just probably wanted to kill him. Kinda like Australia.

Satisfied with the pace of Lishuu's progress, Koga turned his attention back to Recon, who was woefully short of any materials....they...might be here for a while. And, sweet baby Jesus, did this guy's bad dad jokes never end? Koga laughed awkwardly and half-heartedly at that last one. Was that some kind defense mechanism or something?

@Lishuu

[Lishuu 0]

Lish blinked in response. Is everyone trapped in this place this bleak?  Her eyes betrayed nothing of the sentiment dancing behind her eyes, and instead, she managed to force a bigger smile. "Oh, come now," she joked, laughingly. "Things aren't so bad. I mean, even if they're all trying to kill you, none of them have managed to do it yet. You must be quite strong." The compliment would hopefully stroke his ego a bit, if not bring him slightly into better humor. She didn't want the people around her to stay in this kind of mood. It was hard enough with the game being so difficult to grasp for her to keep her own good spirits. She would be damned if she let the darkness creep in.

"And you, too, mister... Roy," she coughed. While she didn't necessarily treasure their considerably short time together, it wasn't like she hated the other Player. If she did grow to hate him, it wouldn't be because of his terrible timing and overall flat sense of humor. "You're out here doing your best, right? Soon enough, there won't be a hotel room in this game you can't pay for." She busied herself with looking for more materials immediately thereafter, turning her face away from the others. Only then did she allow any of her vexation to show. It didn't have to be this negative! Why was everyone being so negative!

She frowned as she failed to spot anything at all. "Eheheh, looks like my luck's run dry," she chortled. "Ah well! Can't win 'em all, right?"

ID# 183310 Loot: 3 <fail: 2/5>

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

Recon looked to Koga and laughed at his comment back about every single thing wanting to kill them. “Yeah, I didn’t expect to buy a game based in the terrifying place called Australia. Then again it would be funny if I died to a damn bird.” He gave another chuckle after commenting that a bird could kill him. Recon really cared about if he died or not but dark jokes were kinda his thing. Still, though deep down he still feared dying those thoughts were still there along with the idea he won’t see his dad again. Recon stood up and dragged himself deeper into the field. Recon glanced over to Lishuu after she called for him. It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell them his last name but he didn’t want to give them his actual username.  “Obviously I’m doing my best here bud and I have you know that I’m fine with sleeping under a bridge.” Recon took a knee and began searching he found nothing. “Well Looks like my luck is kicking in now.”

ID# 183311 Loot:8  0/5 materials found.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

Koga was silent this time. His grip on his weapon tightened as he heard Lishuu's words. No, he wasn't strong. The world had proved that to him. Once when he and Yuki had almost died fighting that massive gorilla, and a second time when he lost the people he loved most in this world. He was anything but strong.

But they didn't need to know that.

So, Koga remained silent, and instead watched the two new (well, not new but whatever) players wander about, looking for materials. As they slowly drifted further off, Koga was almost tempted to call out to them and tell them to not stray any further. But they weren't children. And they weren't so far that Koga couldn't reach them in time if something happened.

No, that was the kind of thinking that had gotten Noct and Tala killed.

The swordsman stood and made his way over to the two players, knelt in the grass and stood nearby. This was admittedly a little awkward...but he also didn't know what else to do...

[Lishuu 0]

And just like that, Lish snapped back. She let her frustration vent and immediately felt better for it. It didn't even matter that the man named Roy seemed to have an awful personality, or that he found it necessary to trample on her attempt to console him. She took a deep breath and spun back around. Koga got quiet on her, but while she hadn't seen the turmoil in his expression, Lishuu was an expert at reading the room. She could tell without even asking that she'd struck a cord, somewhere.

Now wasn't the time to ask about it, though. She didn't know Koga all that well, and if he thought that it was better to keep quiet about whatever issue he had, then she had to trust his judgment. There was no room in a fledgling friendship for forcing your thoughts or views on others. If she wanted to show this man respect, his boundaries were the first thing she had to give it to.

Just like that, she saw another gleaming blue flower, right near Koga's feet. She hurried over and plucked it, then held it up for the man to examine. "See?" she asked him, smiling all the while. "Sometimes it's the little things, you know?"

The young woman dismissed the item to her inventory and glanced back to where Roy still seemed to be struggling. "What should we do?" she asked Koga. "He doesn't seem to be very good at finding them on his own."

ID# 183328 Loot: 12 <3/5 materials found>

Edited February 19, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

Recon sighed and planted his face into the field before rolling himself to face the sky. At this point, he was giving up hope at finding the herbs. He placed his arms under his head to support it “Don’t mind me I’m just relaxing over here and please don’t trip or step on me” He said in a monotone voice “You know I met a drug dealer before all of this and got some shoes from him.” Recon smiled before continuing his joke “I don’t exactly know what he laced them with but I was tripping all day.” Just like that, he started laughing at his own joke. Guess I should get back to looking.

 He then rolled over and pushed himself up and looked around before taking two steps in the direction Koga was. “Looks like a good spot.” Recon dropped down to his knees and began searching pushing the grass out of the way. Something glistening caught his attention That looks like the thing Koga was talking about. Reaching through the grass he pulled the glistening blue flower out of the ground. Recon stood up just as Lishuu was mentioning that he having trouble looking. “What do you mean having trouble?” He lifted the flower up to show the two he had found one.

ID# 183332 Loot: 19 1/5 materials found

Edited February 20, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

Koga recoiled slightly as Lishuu snapped. He hadn't expected that. The few interactions he'd had with her, she had seemed rather sweet. Not much of a temper. Perhaps the man had been wrong. And even that was then contradicted by her quickly plucking a flower, another material, and holding it up to Koga with a bright smile on her face. This woman confused Koga. "Yeah, the little things," he agreed, before turning towards Roy, as Lish wondered if they could do anything to help.

No sooner had she asked, did Recon crack another, admittedly chuckle-worthy, joke and pick up his first material. "Thank god for that," Koga said, "'cause sadly, Lish and I can't really help you find any of the materials. The system doesn't track stuff given to you by players, only materials that you find yourself. Cest la vie." And man did life suck when it came to RNG.

@Lishuu

Edited February 20, 2021 by Koga

[Lishuu 0]

At the very least, things seemed to get a bit easier when Roy found his first material. Maybe they were rallying? She attributed it to the fact that she was slowly becoming numb to his odd humor, and perhaps that was giving her a bit more focus on the task at hand. Initially, she was worried that the man might struggle for several hours and ultimately give in. Now, she had a bit more hope.

Every bit of hope mattered. She snatched up another material not far from where the last had been and smiled languidly. "Thank god indeed!" she exclaimed cheerily as she stood upright and tucked the material neatly away in her inventory, where it would wait for transportation to the Quest giver. "Though, this quest does seem a bit more difficult than the explanation would have us believe," she commented. "It didn't say anything about the drop rates or... well, I guess I'm quite chuffed about that, honestly."

She didn't let on any more than that about her absolute disdain for numbers and all things related to them. It wasn't important, and she didn't want to be made fun of over it. Roy didn't seem the type who would let something like that go.

"I've got one more to find," she told them eagerly.

ID# 183388 Loot: 14 <4/5 materials gathered>

Edited February 20, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

Recon let out a sigh of relief after he found the flower required for whatever the old man was trying to make. At this point, he forgot what the old man tasked the two with because his brain was on autopilot just to find those damn flowers. After showing the two that he had found the material Recon stowed it away in his inventory and began moving back out into the field. Once again he took a knee and began padding down the grass and pushing some of the foliage out of the way. While searching for the materials a memory came to mind something about math class and being unable to answer it. who is good at math? Koga or Lishuu? I’ll ask Lishuu first. Recon lifted his head up and turned to Lishuu “Hey so uh  I have a question for you care to answer for me?” Recon gave her no time to give a response to his question before speaking again. “So a wheelchair ramp rises 5 feet over a distance of 15 feet so what’s the slope of this ramp?” Recon then turned back to looking for the flower to give her some time to state her solution. Whilst continuing to push grass out of the way he spotted another glistening plant and he ripped the plant out of the ground stowing it away in his inventory.

ID#183393 Loot: 14 2/5 materials found.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

"Yeah, any quests that have even the slightest hint of RNG, I steer clear of," Koga said as both of the other players found another material, putting them all one step closer to being able to go back to the town and not be doing this. At least Lishuu was almost done, and even Roy was beginning to make decent headway. Maybe this torture would end sooner than he'd anticipated.

Then Roy did something. Koga wasn't sure what it was yet. But he had a feeling whatever it was was going to lead to a very annoying joke. 'Five over fifteen, or 0.333,' Koga answered in his head. He didn't say it out loud, it was probably bad form to answer a question that wasn't addressed to him. Also, why did he remember that? Koga couldn't remember the last time he'd cared about slope-intercept form, or graphs or anything like that. Not that he had ever cared, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd even had to do something like that.

@Lishuu

[Lishuu 0]

"I... what?" Lish blinked, flabbergasted. The last time she'd bombed a math test was in year ten, and she'd managed to scrape by in spite of that by sheer virtue of a calculator. Since she didn't have any means of graphing slope intercept form- or even really a memory of what that entailed, given she would never use it again- she only stared at the man with a vacant expression. "What does that have to do with picking flowers?" she asked skeptically.

She glanced toward the ground again where she had seen a material, then realized that she grabbed for it too hard and accidentally ruined the item. "Oh dammit all," she cursed as she fumbled her attempt and stood once more. "I can't be arsed to do random maths while I'm trying to focus on material gathering," she said, "I'm sorry Roy, I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you."

ID# 183528 Loot: 10 <Shoot! Barely missed it. I blame the math.>

4/5

Edited February 22, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

Recon shot his head up and turned back to Lishuu to see if she gave an answer “So what’s the answer bud?” Then he continued searching the foliage pushing the grass around before standing back up. Lishuu then asked what the question had to do with flowers “Well nothing actually just wanted to ask.” After speaking to her Recon took about five steps further into the field crouching down starting to look for the flowers once again.” He heard Lishuu go off on something either the question or something to do with the quest to him what seemed to be angry. “Have you ever tried multitasking? Quite easy to do!” Recon said sarcastically “Anyway’s that’s fine I never knew the answer either but I feel like it’s just on the tip of my tongue.” After speaking to her he went back to searching but noticing that he had just flattened the delicate flower. “Well shoot.”

ID#183533 Loot:5 2/5 material found.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

Koga couldn't help but roll his eyes at Roy. What was he even trying to do to the poor girl? "It's five over fifteen, in case you guys were wondering," Koga said. He wasn't really sure why. It had no relevance to anything they were doing at the moment, and it wasn't like such trivial mathematics would help them here. But...there it was.

"Maybe instead of dividing your focus though, you should pay attention to what you're trying to do," Koga said, crossing his arms. It wasn't clear to Koga whether or not Roy was intentionally tormenting Lishuu, or if it was just because he had an annoying personality that was incapable of understanding when to stop, but it was getting on everyone's nerves.

"Anyways, have you guys thought about your builds at all?" Koga asked, figuring they might as well talk about something constructive if they were going to be talking at all. And maybe, it would get Roy to be at least a little serious.

@Lishuu

[Lishuu 0]

"I've found it!" she cheered merrily as she plucked the last of the materials she needed from the ground. Dismissing it to her inventory, she rounded to give Roy a wry smirk. "Maybe if you stopped trying to multitask, you'd be done too, eh?" With a coy smirk, she turned to Koga, whereupon she actually smiled. "There! With that, I can head back ahead of you and get these turned in. That is, if you don't mind?"

Her back was turned to the other man now, so that he wouldn't see the desperation in her expression as she silently implored with the other man to give his blessing. "I think there's still another portion of this quest to do, if I recall correctly? I'm not exactly sure what he said, if I'm being honest." She had some hope that Koga would take mercy on her, but there was also the possibility that he wouldn't want to be left alone with Roy. She couldn't blame him for that, either.

ID# 183553 Loot: 14 <5/5 materials found>

Edited February 23, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

Recon continued to search through the grass after hearing the answer “five over fifteen eh? Never would’ve guessed.” then he heard Koga go on about not dividing his focus. “Believe it or not I can multitask decently compared to other people.” He said while digging through the field. While searching Koga brought up the topic of builds and Recon responded “To be honest with you man I never really thought that far as I know I have somewhat of a DPS build I think” He noticed a glistering flower sitting  just behind the grass that he pushed aside “Well looks like my terrible luck is turning around.” With that he carefully picked it up and stowed it away in his inventory 

Hearing Lishuu saying that she had found the last flower and her sly remark to Recon. “I’ll think about it but thanks for the totally useful information bud I’ll come to you for my math questions now.”

ID#183574 Loot: 18 3/5 materials found

Edited February 22, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

Part of Koga was shouting at Lishuu to not leave him with this dumpster fire of a human being, but the other part of him sympathized with her desire to get away as quickly possible. In the end, he caved to the desperate look that was plastered across her face. "Yeah, alright, I'll catch up with you later, I guess," he said, defeated. To be honest, after this hell ended, Koga might just go collapse on his couch at home instead. Maybe he could get Yuki to cook dinner for them all for once.

Turning to Recon, he said, "Well, you're only, what, level one? Two? I don't think you've really had the chance to invest enough skill points yet to really be considered a build yet." God knew that after almost forty levels, he was hardly getting his build together. "What weapon do you use?" Koga asked, deciding to be more focused than just build.

@Lishuu

[Lishuu 0]

Lish mouthed the words "thank you" to Koga and smiled apologetically before she turned to head back toward town. She looked to Roy with a kind wave, sucking in a breath and holding it for a heartbeat. "I think you'd be better off asking Koga, honestly," she told him, completely honestly. "He was the one who figured the answer out, not me." She struck off after that, managing to find the wherewithal not to make another horrid face because of the infuriating man. She didn't want to start developing wrinkles at a young age. Err... could she develop wrinkles during a full dive? Technology was so confusing now that the line between virtual reality and true reality were beginning to blur.

She headed through the gates to the town and made a beeline for the Alchemist who'd given them the chore. Once she arrived, the old man smiled. "Ah, there you are!" he greeted her warmly. "Thank you, I've been meaning to get these for myself, but I just haven't been able to break away from my work. Now, if you'd follow me right this way, I'm going to have you help me with one more little thing."

"Of course!" she said sweetly, following along behind him as he led the way to his workstation. 

"You're going to help me craft a potion!" he explained, and Lish gasped in surprise. "Not to worry, though- I'll show you once, first."

"Oh, whew," she laughed. "Alright!" She watched as Zackariah set about moving the materials together and each part of the process that went into crafting a potion. After he finished, the man gestured for her to take over. She gave a thumbs up. "Okay, I'll give it the old college try!" She went through all the motions, albeit with much less finesse than the Alchemist had, and once she was finished, the materials combined in the form of a crude potion that seemed like it would be palatable.

"You've done it!" The man smiled as he took the potion and congratulated her. "One last thing- will you take this package to Lyle Tealeaf, the Blacksmith for me? I seem to have thrown my back out..."

Lish suppressed laughter. "Oh my, you didn't need to help me so much!" she told him. "Of course, I'd be delighted to do it for you."

ID# 183613  Craft: 6 <uncommon potion crafted!>

Edited February 23, 2021 by Lishuu

[Recon 0]

“Hey you don’t need to stay here with me I got the situation under control for the most part. So uh shoo or whatever they say.” Recon turned and gave a go gesture with his hand. “Shouldn’t be too hard really” Recon lifted his head and looked at the vast fields “Anyways I don’t see much of a threat out there.” After telling Koga how there wasn’t much of a threat Recon went straight back to looking. 

“Then don’t ask about builds if you say what I have isn’t considered a ‘build’ cause I don't know what the fuck I'm doing” Recon snapped back at Koga “Didn’t I tell you to go already?” Recon was getting annoyed and Ignored his question about what weapon he used.  along with that Recon wasn't getting much sleep at all in the past couple of days.

The area he was at was already clear of the flowers he was looking for as far as he could tell there was no more to be found. “Onto the next area…” Recon stood back up and started backtracking checking if he had missed any. He had missed one so he knelt down before carefully picking up the flower. “One more to go then I can finally get sleep in.”
 

ID#183615 Loot: 11 4/5 materials found

Edited February 23, 2021 by Recon

[Koga 0]

Koga waved off Lishuu before turning back to Roy and watching him go about his business. That is until the man decided to snap, and Koga's brows furrowed in annoyance of his own. The swordsman had a feeling trying to actually talk to the guy would only end up with them both getting even more annoyed. "Alright. Fine, suit yourself man."

Shaking his head, Koga turned down the road back towards the Town of Beginnings. Well, at least he could go back to his forge now, he supposed. Or maybe he would stop by the tavern first and grab some food quickly before going back. Was it even worth it? Light was beginning to die down, it might just be better to close down the shop for the day, and head back to the Eleventh and get started on dinner. God knew Yuki ate like a tank and then some. Well, Koga had the whole walk back to decide.

@Recon

[Recon 0]

Recon turned around to see if Koga had left and he did seeing him walk off towards the Town of Beginnings. ‘Well this shouldn’t be too hard now just gotta find one more’ Recon thought to himself and stood back up and looked around and saw the outlines they had made in the grass had they really searched that whole area? 

Recon took a few steps over to where Lishuu was searching just to see if she had missed one. Looking around the spot she had just searched Recon spotted another glistening flower “Looked like she missed one” he mumbled to himself before taking a few steps over to the plant and picking it up. “Last one time to head back.” and that was it after placing the flower back into his inventory he headed back to the town following the road.

Off in the distance Recon saw Koga walking back and he yelled to catch his attention. “Hey, you forgot something man!”
 

ID#183626 Loot 11 5/5 materials found!

Edited February 23, 2021 by Recon