[SP-F1] Earning a Living - Dellis (COMPLETE)

[Dellis 0]

Not much time had passed since Kayaba had made its appearance in the central plaza of the town of beginnings, and Dellis was already growing restless.

"I should find something to do here. I am most assuredly not the front-line warrior type, and yet, i should at least do something useful. Can't really just wait here and hope someone else completes the game."

He said, more to himself than to anyone else, strolling through the plains surrounding the city.

"And, by the way, i know no-one here. No-one I can trust, no-one i can help, and it seems like i am not bound to find anyone soon, this place is deserted."

It was past midnight, judging from the sleepiness he felt.

*Strange. Sleepiness in an online game... seems lika Akihiko did a good job in emulating basic needs in his game.*

He looked up to the moon.

"Well" he said, kicking aside a small rock - "I might as well find something to do here. Let's see, if I want to support people, i might build weapons for them."

He squinted at the meagre starter sword and shield he had.

"Nah, building weapons for me is useless. I'd never really use them in a fight. Plus... if I did manage to build something exceptional... i might give it to someone worthy, and maybe befriend him."

He stopped suddendly on his tracks.

"Question is... how do I do that? I think I remember something I read in the beta testers guide... To create weapons, I need materials. Where would I find them here, though?"

He rapidly flipped through the guide.

Smithing Materials are normally randomly found after killing a monster, and yet there are some places in the various floors which contain rare materials. These are usually defended by monsters, who must be killed or bypassed before accessing the ore vein. One such place is right north of the Beginning Town, for Blacksmithing starters. It's called Mines of Zaerek. The trick here, is that the monsters there are diurnal. If you go there while it's night, there's a high chance they will be asleep. Of course, you need to not make much ruckus... or you will wake them all up.

"Mines of Zaerek, huh..."

He rapidly opened the map and set a course to the location.

"I guess i'll just go there. If I screw up, only thing's gonna happen is that i'll waste my only teleport cristal."

With those words, he walked off.

[Dellis 0]

Fifteen minutes, many pants, innumerable coughs, and some sparse "leave me here! I can't walk any more!" after, Dellis arrived to the Cave.

He squinted suspiciously at the entrance.

"So this is the cave right? I'd better move without making any noise." He said, treading lightly in the entrance.

Of course, this was all completely useless, since if the monsters didn't wake up with the sound of his footsteps, they probably did with his voice.

*Stupid habit of speaking to myself...* He thought, while noticing all the gleaming eyes in the dark.

He readied his sword and shield... without accounting for the fact there it was pitch dark in there.

One, two hits came raining down upon him, from no direction in particular, and he raised his wooden shield to block.

Quite surprisingly, at least for him, he managed to block them all. Probably more because the AI wasn't that smart here in the lower levels, but don't tell him, ssshhh...

"Those snarling faces... swords, pikes... those must be Cobolds. Not a lot of HP, but numerous. If i weren't ALONE ---" he stopped speaking for a moment, grunting for the effort of blocking another hit - "This would have been much easier!" He slashed back to one of the cobolds.

The cobold, almost as surprised of being hit from Dellis as Dellis was of having actually hit something, stumbled back and fell on his two comrades, right behind him, which were waiting for the hit.

And as they all fell to the ground, one after the other, they disappeared in a static flash.

"..."

"..."

"Did I actually kill them all in one shot? That went better than expec--- no, scratch that, that went FINE!! Must have been the fall damage... those things don't really have much HP, do they?" He said, looking at the notifications of BATTLE WON that popped around him.

He reached into his pocket, thinking.

"Now, now. I absolutely need something to see in this place. Isn't there... Ah, right, not the pockets, i should be checking the inventory. I was saying, didn't those cobolds drop anything?"

Two seconds later, he was sifting through his HUD inventory, tapping on an item, and then smiling.

"Aha! There you are. Torchlight - works only in the caves, disappears on exit.. You saved me, little torch. So, as they say... Let there be light!" He said, descending deeper into the now illuminated caves.

[Dellis 0]

Two hours later...

"grumble... umpf... uff... grr!"

A scared cave lizard ran into her refuge, as a grumbly, pitch black Dellis went around the corner, approaching the nest she had made between two forlorn barrels in the lower levels of the cave.

"Who programmed this place? Did Kayaba give the task to a stupid ape with drinking problems? Stupid place's all mazes and traps! The only - living - beings were those cobolds at the start! And I'm getting tired now! It's the third room full of coal i plunge into, and that thing's not good for building any swords! Aaah, this is frustrating! I'm almost of a mind to use my crystal to get back to---"

He interrupted his rambling abruptly.

Lured by the silence, the cave lizard went cautiously again near the top of the barrels to look at the strange human, which was looking strangely at the shiny things embedded in the wall.

"Well well..." Said Dellis, looking at the gemstones.

He started sifting through his backpack, before remembering that was useless, unless he opened his inventory too.

"Now, the proud adventurer Dellis has found the treasure!" He said, with a narrating tone. "Question is... did he remember to bring a pickaxe, since he was going MINING in a CAVE???? OF COURSE NOT!!" He said, bonking his head on the wall, and scaring the life out of the lizard which went into hiding again for a few seconds.

He paused for a second.

"This requires thinking..."

[Dellis 0]

Ten minutes later, he had devised a plan.

He couldn't get to the gems? Then the gems would need to come to him.

But how?

"Well, little lizard, I have all the time in the world to prepare my show." He said, to the little cave lizard nestling on his shoulder, all fear of humans gone.

This human, decided the lizard, was as mad as any lizard under the earth, so he was probably fine.

"Izzy, you don't know by any chance of any water sources near here, right?" Said Dellis, addressing his companion - not yet a full fledged pet, like in-game pets, but a companion nonetheless - with the name he decided to give it.

Izzy lazily lapped at his lunch, in his backpack.

"... useless lizard. I should have decided for the cooking skill... I could at least have made--" He stopped, grunting as he plunged his sword in the rooftop of the cave, dripping water droplets - "-- A good use of you. Cooked, in a PLATE!"

He screamed, sending Izzy further down into his backpack from the fear.

"Now... let's see if all these brains I have... are really worth for something. The mechanism's ready!"

He stepped back, admiring his work.

[Dellis 0]

"Ok then, when I plunge the sword deeper into the wall... this side should fall... and that side... so the water... and the gems..."

He went on rambling to himself, while observing a complicated lever system he had built out of a rope - he had brought that - his sword - and one of the much indignated Izzy's barrels as a counterweight.

"You ready Izzy?" He said, tapping lightly on his shoulder.

As an answer, the lizard just went hiding into his clothes, probably understanding at some level that this wasn't gonna end well.

"You traitorous lizard... You'll see how well this will work!" Said Dellis, activating the sword skill and plunging deeper into the wall.

Immediately, one wall went down, hit in the separation fissure between two rocks, and the barrel that was near it went into a black abyss, since moments before Dellis had discovered knocking the wall that beyond the wall there was in fact a big void room with a floor several metres beneath.

The barrel, filled to the top with coal, weighted a LOT, and brought down the ceiling, or, at least, widened the fissure from where water was flowing, and the water did the rest.

In mere seconds, the water had came rushing into the chamber, dislodging with his might several gemstones from the wall, and sending Dellis, said gemstones, and a quite scared little traitorous food stealing lizard rumbling through the corridors.

*This I hadn't anticipated.* Thought Dellis, amusingly.

*I'll kill you some day,* would have thought Izzy, if she could have had human thoughts.

"Bllrghl... We---blrrrrgh! Well, Izzy, it -blrrb- seems we'll find out -blb-! if you can use a teleport crystal even when you're subblllbmerged!"

Dellis got a hold of all the gemstones he could reach, of the tail of a certain sandwich eater lizard, upheld his teleport crystal, and said, quite clearly - and i'm sarcastic - "TEIN! BLBB! STARTER TO-BLLLLBBBB-OWN!"

Water, Stupid Adventurer, Gems and Lizard all disappeared in a flash, just as the cave's semi-boss monster - the anphibious piranha fish - snapped the place where a moment before there was Dellis's head.

[Dellis 0]

Days later, many people in Starter Town were speaking about the newbie who had managed to get a hold of the ores which even level four and five people couldn't get, since the semi-boss was too strong.

Coincidentally, the Caves of Zaerek were flooded, and inaccessible for the time being, and there had been a bit of a flood in the central plaza.

But those things couldn't possibily be related, right?

"Not a chance", said Dellis to the barman which was serving him a drink. "I mean, who could flood two places at the same time? You would have to be really, really, stupid, right?"

*You respond to the description,* Would have thought Izzy, still trying to dry up after days had passed since she had been soaked in the water flood.

"Well, at least i got these," said Dellis, opening the inventory and looking at the gemstones. "This seem like they can be used in sword, or armor forging. I guess i'm an accomplished blacksmith, am I not?" Said the very, very, lucky, very, very, stupid, very, very, intelligent, young man.

The same amount of days later, the lizard critter community was instead speaking of the smart lizard which got herself posing as the pet of someone who had cream croissants in his backpack.

[Dellis 0]

----COMPLETE----

Number of posts is slightly lower than other RPs, but i make up for it with the medium post lenght, which is higher than the average^^

...and with humour. don't forget humour. xD