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Those Blessed with Talent

Reader mode
Too bad about the exp debt but that could have gone so much worse than it did yeah.

So I'm assuming we're calling that quest complete now (maybe, probably unless that was there wrong type of fox or something). Should probably check up on Peach Blossom (assuming she lives) immediately after our pets, what with how much she got beat up on her first quest with us.

Hang in there Autumn + Mountain Peak
 
I can't even guess who's more likely to be dead - Autumn has the least stamina out of all of us, and we didn't get him a potion, and depending on the priorities of our savior, he might not get one at all.

Mountain Peak Blossom got hit dead-on with a ridiculous fire attack, but it was hardened at the time, which might've negated the weakness. On the other hand, melting and turning to ash.
 
Darkened said:
You lift your paws to shield your face and barrel straight through the firestorm, tendrils lashing out to either side, wrapping the fox's mouth and slamming it shut. It struggles against you, strength against strength and learns how weak it is. And then you're there before it. Stony claws lashing out, again and again. Cutting it, hurting it for everyone it's taken from you. Your fingers jam. The claws aren't quite growing right, but you keep slashing, keep cutting until your arms won't move any more. The fox struggles away, steel fur giving way to stone as it struggles to move. One more to end this. One more step.
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Seems like Little Bee wasn't in the mood for Friendship Bond. Actually, this will probably be the case whenever we use Rampaging Blood, so something to keep in mind.

But dammit, it had a nice Fire and Metal Element, and wasn't half bad physically either. I wonder what was its third element.
 
Autumn's skill is that he can dodge the next attack after he's put into critical condition. I'm pretty sure in this setting it's possible in theory to dodge bleeding out on the ground, but even with his agility gain, I don't think he's good enough to manage that.
 
Bah. Want to write omake in hopes of saving allies. Have not got the writing resources. Argh.
 
The smell of burning peaches.

Peach blossom's eyes narrowed. Stupid rival. Stupid cute rival pretending she was a love interest - getting into her head and making her do dumb things. She didn't want to be out here, with the long trudging and the ominous silence. She wanted to be back at the inn, dong her *job*, but that little bee had goaded her into it, and now she was trudging through who knows how many miles of woods and nothing was happening, which was *worrisome*, and her rival wouldn't give up even though it was obvious that she didn't want to be here either and dammit! No. She wasn't going to turn back. First of all because she wasn't going to lose to that little brat. Giving up wasn't what rivals *did*. It was what spoiled little princess helpless love interests did and dammit, she was *not* going to be the love interest - and even if she *was* it was gong to be as the one in charge. She was older and higher level and she was not goign to be weaker than someone who hadn't had their class for even a year. She had pride.

...and that was the other reason. She had pride, and she had the Adventurer's Guild, and that's about *all* she had, and the Adventurer's guild... what the noble families thought was *important*. This forest as dangerous, and this girl was all bound up in the Mu clan, and apparently she was A rank (A-, dammit!) which meant that she was even important, and if Peach Blossom just turned around and she didn't, and she managed to get her idiot self killed out here... that would suck. The Adventurer's Guild was her new family, and they were taking care of her old family, and family was *important*. Feet hurting and feeling scared kinda sucked, but they weren't important. Not like family. So she was stuck out here, scowling and hoping that her idiot rival would finally see sense and turn around and get her idiot self killed.

...

...

Wow, but this walk was long. Damn creepy woods.

/*********************/

Finally. They'd goten to the river. Now they could both turn around and go *back* to the inn and *not die*. Let's...

Dammit! Stupid adorable rival, getting her all wound up inside *again*. Fine. Time to look for the stupid fox.

...

Oh hell. Not that fox.

...and now it saw them.

Right. No time to think. It's hurting the girl. Gotta distract it. Gotta save her. Burn the MP for a leap attack. That's got to leave at least something of a mark. Slip between those tails... Perfect. Bet you can't match *those* skills, princess. Now she just had to leap away to disengage a bit, drawing it off of the girl. Fuck! Tree! Why hadn't she ever trained in the woods for this sort of stuff? Oh no! She'd fumbled her blade! Gotta grab it. Try to get back up and into the fight before... Fire! That's okay. Just slip around the thing and... Oh Gods her arm! her arm! That thing's seared near down to the bone! How was she supposed to fight - to be worth *anything* - without her arm?
 
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I think the biggest weakness in our plan was not knowing it had a fire element. Using our plant based companion as armor against fire is awful, I think we can skip out on the armor idea from now on unless we know there won't be anything Mountain Peak Blossom is weak to involved. Aside from that we didn't do all that bad- we were fighting something almost as high a level as our entire party, serious injuries were likely unavoidable. Now all we can do is hope everyone lived, we can fix lasting injuries in setting I'm sure.

Once we are done with this though I think working on healing affinity and related skills will have to be our top priority, that should hopefully include some buffs so we can avoid stuff like this happening again. The real problem is it costs so much exp, which we don't get a lot of and no how a debt on.

Also can regrowth be taught to others if we learn it? If so then it seems like something good to teach Peach Blossom if she had serious damage to her arm. It will take a while to get that exp, but it really does seem like a good long term goal if she was seriously hurt by this.

Edit: And was Autumn Shade level 4 before? I notice Little Bee and Mountain Peak Blossom had their levels increase, but I don't think Autumn Shade did. That seems like it could be a rather negative hint to who survived.
 
wayne82444 said:
I think the biggest weakness in our plan was not knowing it had a fire element. Using our plant based companion as armor against fire is awful, I think we can skip out on the armor idea from now on unless we know there won't be anything Mountain Peak Blossom is weak to involved. Aside from that we didn't do all that bad- we were fighting something almost as high a level as our entire party, serious injuries were likely unavoidable. Now all we can do is hope everyone lived, we can fix lasting injuries in setting I'm sure.
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Main issue with Armour Mountain Peak is that we don't have the strength to carry around big ass stone armour, so it roots us. Sort of. OTOH, If we hadn't done that we would both have died from the fire anyway, so....
Also can regrowth be taught to others if we learn it? If so then it seems like something good to teach Peach Blossom if she had serious damage to her arm. It will take a while to get that exp, but it really does seem like a good long term goal if she was seriously hurt by this.
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I want regrowth to offset Chimera's lasting long term damage. This is going to be important, I think. I think Peach Blossom should have access to better healers than someone teaching her such a skill (and she would need like 5 levels before she can pay the XP for it), but maybe not.
 
Using it as armor was a horrible idea all around. The blood loss factor wasn't as bad as I feared, but it was still 1/3rd of our HP, it immobilized us so we couldn't even try to dodge and it made Mountain Peak Blossom take a hit to something it was vulnerable to.
 
redaeth said:
Using it as armor was a horrible idea all around. The blood loss factor wasn't as bad as I feared, but it was still 1/3rd of our HP, it immobilized us so we couldn't even try to dodge and it made Mountain Peak Blossom take a hit to something it was vulnerable to.
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No, it took 1/5th of our HP (-10 when we had 49 total), and we have shit agility. Moutain Peak Blossom cannot move, either. We could have tried to dodge, but gambling on our agility instead of armour of stone is silly. We would have been hit either way.

The problem is it means we can't move, so there is no attack options either (and no manoeuvrability).

Also, pretty sure Moutain Peak is not vulnerable to fire while made of stone.
 
If we could've at one point killed Mountain Peak Blossom with a torch, I have a feeling that the blood feeding plus stone was helping its survival versus the fire breath. Stone doesn't seem particularly vulnerable to fire, and there wasn't much left of it even after it had grown. I have to imagine taking that hit would've been worse for both of us.
 
Honestly with an agility rating of 13 I doubt we could have really dodged anyway. Keep in mind Peach Blossom is 3 levels higher than us, has an agility rating of impressive, and still got a serious injury from the same attack. Using Mountain Peak Blossom as armor wasn't an outright bad idea, just a new one we didn't know the drawbacks to, and used against the wrong enemy. We had no idea it would have an attack that Mountain Peak Blossom was specifically weak to, which is what really made that part so awful. As for it taking 1/5 of our HP that isn't really to bad- we have health potions, and the fox did a little more than half that with an attack that was described as being lazy.
 
Arkeus said:
Ah, after redaeth trying to kill us (and instead hopefully not killing our party members) we now get Sirrocco trying to give Tragic Arm-loss to Peach Blossom ;__;
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The horrible arm scorching was entirely canon... and we don't know how bad it was.

I'm still worried about Autumn Shade, honestly. There was enough green left in Mountain Peak Blossom after the healign potion (and it's enough of a "grow back from horrible damage" type) that I'm pretty sure it's going to be okay. Our little kitty friend, I'm not so certain. I was just confused about who got how hurt when I started writing, and I *really* didn't want to have us be directly responsible for Peach Blossom's death. I may try putting together another omake or two on the subject. We'll see if I can dredge something up. Still would welcome support from others.
 
We're pretty tanked out on xp, but our pets (if they survive) have healthy chunks to their names. Might be a good idea to look into training them/getting them trained. Maybe a healing ability for Mountain Peak Blossom.
 
I think Autumn Shade needs a healing ability worse- Mountain Peak Blossom had Regrowth and Drain Blood for healing, as well as a lot of stamina to tank attacks. Autumn Shade on the other hand only has a bit of agility to dodge them, which as we saw this last update doesn't always work out well. Not that both couldn't benefit from a healing ability, just our cat probably needs one worse.
 
I was thinking one that targets others, primarily. Autumn Shade has the lowest stamina of the three of us, which means he's also got the least MP. He also doesn't have Healing Affinity.
 
That's Nourishing Blood, I think.
 
Pretty sure Nourishing Blood is Little Bees, but yeah, getting Mountain Peak Blossom a healing skill that targets others is good.
 
Oh... and we have a confirm that the tentacles can grapple effectively without being str-dependent. Stone claw doesn't seem to care much about strength either. That's nice.
 
A Question
  • Threadmarks
    • Event Skill Gained: Reckless Hero
    Event Skill Gained: Navigator    ​

    The wooden ceiling in front—above—you isn't the inn's. Is this the Mu clan's household? Something moves at your feet, and a ball of black fur jumps at you angrily, covering your face in soft licks.

    You try to say his name, to call out, but your mouth doesn't seem to move properly. You try to lift an arm to pet him, but your hands are a mass of bandages.

    "He hasn't left your side all week. Neither of them has." You don't think you've ever heard Winter Breeze that quiet, or that caring. It's not a reassuring sound.

    Soft green vines stretch out around you, hugging you close as happy flowers smother what parts of your face Autumn isn't hogging.

    "You were the most injured. Your vine was almost recovered by the time we got it back to the inn, and Autumn Shade's injuries could be treated with simple healing skills. The adventurer girl seems to be recovering as well, though it may take some time before..."

    There's something you have to say to Winter Breeze, but no matter how much you move your mouth, you can't seem to make anything more than a faint wheezing sound. Your lungs burn. She's saying something, but you can't quite make it what it is. Autumn looks worried.

    -----------

    It's dark and Autumn's snoring at your side the next time you open your eyes. You raise a hand, slowly, to pet the kitten, to make sure he's alive and wince at at a pain that feels like serrated needles being hammered through your bones.

    "You'll only hurt yourself if you try to move." the voice is light and airy and utterly inhuman. Whoever it is is standing past the head of your bed, somewhere you couldn't see without rolling over or sitting up and turning.

    "You shattered almost every bone in your right hand. It looks like you kept trying to cut it even after it was already turned to stone petrified it. You weren't hitting quite so strongly with the left, so the damage could be treated normally. You also swallowed a substantial amount of smoke from the beast's fire. Your lungs aren't expected to recover naturally, and your vocal cords are burned well past the range you could use them normally. On the other hand, transforming your hair, as much as your body couldn't afford to lose the energy elsewhere, did allow it to grow out nicely."

    You try to say something rude, but all you manage is an agonized rasp.

    "Those are the relatively easy injuries to treat."

    You try to stretch a leg out, to push yourself around, but the limb in question only twitches weakly. The voice continues.

    "It's a pretty interesting case though. Have you ever wondered how you acquire skills? There's no skill that lets you do so. You have no ability that allows you to see your own status, yet everyone learns eventually, even if they never get analyzed. Reading and writing creates an events skill, but speaking does not. You don't need a skill to digest food. It's something of a contradiction."

    You want to tell him to get to the point, but you can't even move enough for a rude gesture. Desperately you turn to Autumn, trying to nudge the cat.

    "They won't wake up until I allow it to be so. I suppose what I'm saying is that after base skills, studied skills, supplemental, event and personal skills there's still another hidden category. Perhaps you could call them fundamental skills or hidden skills, or simply innate potential below that of skills, I don't particularly care."

    You don't need the lecture. You need to move, to be told that it's all going to be okay and you're going to be talking and laughing and playing with Autumn again, lecturing Mountain Peak for sneaking sips of your blood even if you're always going to cave to him.

    "In this case, that fundamental potential is what pushed you past your limits. It's not like it's a power that came out of nowhere, just another mystery in the A ranked street rat. For whatever reason, you acquired skills you shouldn't have normally been able to acquire, you pushed yourself well beyond your limits, evolved faster than you built up the support to evolve yourself, and you're paying the price. You've spread yourself too thin, weakened the fundamentals of your body beyond their ability to recover with ordinary help."

    No, no. This isn't happening. It's not! Still, a part of you's happy to pay this price if it means that Autumn and Peak made it out okay.

    "Eventually, with basic treatment, you may be able to move again, to walk with a cane. Running is probably impossible, much less combat."

    No, the voice wants something. It's not some mysterious stranger here to taunt you for no reason. There's an out, there has to be.

    "It's nothing worth taking pride in, but the resources I can bring to bear, the resources this little clan of mine can pull aren't anything you could call ordinary or basic though. If I decide to do so, a complete recovery wouldn't be difficult, but that's honestly a bit boring. I mean, if you're going to fix something you should at least make it better then before. Strengthening your body so the next time you have no choice but to push past every sane limit, past the limits of even your massive potential, you'll be able to recover on your own, that could be fine. However..."

    There's a but there. You can hear the playful hesitation in the voice. What's the cost? As long as it doesn't hurt Autumn, doesn't hurt Blossom, you'll pay it.

    "However, we're talking about making you a real monster you know. Is that really what you want?"

    Yes, of course it is. What could you need more than the ability to take care of yourself, to protect your family.

    "Monsters fight. They're attacked. It's not that monsters happen to be those that triumph over impossible odds, but that impossible challenges come about because people are scared of monsters. You want to be stronger to protect the things precious to you? That's a joke. Being strong just creates more risk. If you want to protect, to have a nice life, a quiet peaceful fun life, then it's no trouble at all to set you up in a quiet little mansion somewhere, give you staff to push you around. You'll never lack for anything, never have a single responsibility you don't take for yourself. The Mu clan will hide you away, use your name to scare a few people into line, hold you up as a bluff every now and then, and no one will ever find you. You'll be free to take in strays and raise them happily, learn a craft or an art, to fill your days peacefully and happily with your family. That's probably the better path. It's the nicer path really."

    You want to shout no, to turn it down, but you can hear the kindness in this strange voice now. This isn't a hypocritical offer, not some trick to make you scared, no test. It's a way out, a way to get past your talent, to know that those close to you won't get hurt again because you're not strong enough to face the problems you make. It's tempting.

    "Actually, umm, hmm... phrasing it that way, I kinda want to go cripple myself now. I mean, all these 'go to this parade' 'help fight off an army' things are kind of troublesome. I never wanted to get strong! I mean, seriously, you desert the army, because you just want to go off on your own and see the world, run around for a while and have all kinds of fun little adventures that just happen to make you a tiny little bit stronger and then happen to come back in time to kill one little dragon and suddenly you're everyone's hero and... Err, can we just pretend I never got sidetracked here? This isn't meant to be about my trauma." the voice coughs.

    You really really want to react to that, to shout at him to get back on track.

    "Anyway, I'm offering you a choice. I'll heal your left arm enough so you can write, and you'll be able to write it out. I don't want an easy answer here, a yes or a no. I have no right to talk whatsoever about leaping into things, but I want to know your reasons. And then you need to choose. Do you want a quiet little country mansion, enough healing that you'll be able to talk a little if not shout? Or should I help turn you into a real monster, even though it's a path where someone close to you will die, where you won't be able to save everyone. Both decisions could be kind of fun you know. They'll give you a brush and some paper, so think about it and write."

    You wait for the voice to say anything else; but, silence is your only companion for the rest of the night.

    ---------

    Autumn crawling up your chest manages to wake you this time. It hurts, but you're still too happy he's fine to hold anything against the kitten. Looking out the only window you can see, it looks like it's early afternoon.

    You lift your unbandaged left hand, roll onto your side and awkwardly at the brush left just in reach. Then you think, long and hard. You're still not great at writing, and using the wrong hand makes it come out even worse, but you give the stranger an answer before sleep can claim you again.

    Well
    [ ] Peace Weakness Safety
    [ ] Strength Loss Adventure

    Why?
    [ ] Write-in
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Darkened, to be clear, he isn't talking about just healing us in the 'monster' option right, he is talking about flat out modifying our body?
     
    [X] Peace Weakness Safety

    [X] I don't wish or have need of your help. Even if I did the price you ask is too high. Becoming a monster for sake of being a monster is no life at all. I'll recover using my own power.



    Right, we need 121 XP to use Regrowth so we can recover(which is double our current acquired XP). Currently we have been gaining XP only by figthing, but is there any other way to gain XP?
     
    [X] Peace Weakness Safety
    [X] I can see my sheet, and recovery on my own is not only possible, but easy within reach. I do not want to owe anything to you or anyone else.
    He misunderstands our situation which is understandable considering there is a distinct possibility that we are the only bestial adept there has ever been
     
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    [X] Strength Loss Adventure
    [X] I've been weak all my life, weakness is not safety. Peace is not safety. Should trouble come looking for us my friends will do their best to protect me. And they will fall without my help. They will die. I will lose another friend. I will not lose another friend while I run away because I'm not strong enough. Never again. If the price I must pay is becoming a monster, so be it.
     
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