028

--TheirWorld--

Arrows flew passed her with whirls and zooms as Drakov loosed [Rapid Shot] on a handful of local Rat Weasels and Rabid Wolves. Impressed, Guin nodded as she stood back with her arms crossed, watching her experience bar grow bit by bit. She’d be level twenty by the time she managed to upgrade her class.

“Well, Noona, what do you think?” he asked, leaning on his bow. “Did I do well?”

Dassah nodded with enthusiasm, clapping for him. “I am very impressed Dongsaeng. You have found a useful class indeed!”

He pouted, “What about my skills?”

“Those are good too!” she laughed, and took out her knife to start skinning the tiny Rat Weasels and the larger Rabid Wolves. Being a skinner and leatherworker himself, Drakov proved himself to be an invaluable resource. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have gone back and get a tutorial on skinning each beast, but they were all at least slightly different from each other.

Finished skinning their latest kills, Guin checked her quest log. Not only had she hit level 11 in a short period of time, she had long completed the majority of the hunting quests that she had picked up. Though she contemplated taking a break to turn them in at the Hunters’ Guild, the all important skinning quest, was proving more difficult.

———————-

[Quest: Skins of All Sorts]

Moarbits (12/12)

Rat Weasels (6/6)

Cat Foxes (0/3)

Rabid Wolves (1/1)

Bluebears (0/1)

This quest is optional. It can be skipped. (Difficulty: C)>>

———————-

Guin frowned as she looked the quest over. “Where are the Cat Foxes and the Blubears?” she asked, skimming through, wondering if she had missed some instruction.

As Drakov finished looting his last wolf, he looked up. “They are mountain creatures, not forest creatures” he told her, checking his map. “My guess is they’d be further In the direction of the mountains. Cat Foxes aren’t bad individually, but they are assassin-type, pack aggression beasts. Their stealth ability is pretty annoying, and their crits are nasty. You can get yourself killed if you hunt them solo and accidentally pull more than one before your prepared enough. Blubears are worse. Much worse — but you have to hunt them intentionally. They live in caves at the foot of the mountains and you either fight them on their turf, or try to draw them out of their caves without dying.”

“So, you mean, the cakewalk this has been so far is about to end,” she noted, bitterly.

“Pretty much!” Drakov answered, a toothy grin across his face that made his eyes narrow like an anime character. “So when are the other two you invited logging on?”

“Stella will be on in an hour, and Bahena shortly after that. Or so I was told,” Dassah told him, double checking the messages that she had received not too long ago. “From there, each will probably take as long as you did in getting here. Should we wait for them?”

He shrugged. “How much do you need for your next level?”

“I’m about halfway.”

“Do you know what classes they are?”

“I think Stella said she was a Witch, and should be around the same level as you,” she said. “I assume Bahena is going to go into a martial class, but I honestly don’t know. I do know she only started a few days ago, and is about the same level as I am.”

“Noona, you are so slow,” he grumbled with a sour face.

“‘Slow and steady wins the race.’”

“There’s no race though…”

Chuckling, she put her skins in her bag, and directed him onward.

“At least the Witch will bring some AOE to the table,” he said. “Neither one of us has much in the way of that. At most I can hit three targets before reload.”

Guin nodded. “That’s about what I can take, too,” she agreed. She was able to take on individual Rat Weasels — even a solo Rabid Wolf, as long as she played it safe — by herself, but it was far more difficult than it should have been for a character of her level. The Tatterskin class was so far proving itself to be a challenge to get started, but Guin held out hope that the class would be worth the effort that she was putting in. “But,” she started, thinking about her coworkers. “I wouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch on either one of them. Neither of them are what we would call ‘gamers’.”

“That so?” Drakov chuckled. “Makes it more fun, doesn’t it!”

“‘Fun’, huh. I guess it will be that...”

“Granted, a real tank would probably be the most useful,” he said. “Or a healer. Sounds like everyone DPS focused, unless your garule friend is of the sturdier kind of warrior.”

Though the image of Ibraxis Soulkeeper popped up in her head, she quickly pushed it down. “I can heal,” she told him. “Sort of.”

“You can tank too,” he chided. “Sort of.”

Guin snorted at him, then pointed her her spear at a group of Rabid Wolves. “Can we take four at once?”

“Only if you don’t die.”

“Try not to appeal to my stubborn nature, dongsaeng.”

“Let’s make it a dare?” he winked.

Rolling her eyes, Guin smiled as she took her spear in hand and rushed the monsters.

For all the talk they did, it didn’t take long for her to hit level 12. Her stats were going up fairly quickly in her eyes. Not that it really seemed to matter. Her body and resilience scores, were rising naturally, with her playing tank, and the dumped her extra points into her other abilities.

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Points to Spend: 00

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My presence score is still abyssal, she lamented. Hey fate score was also mostly stagnated with the exception of the points she was pouring into it.

“What’s wrong?” Drakov asked.

“Oh. Nothing,” she said, then considered. “Hey, dongsaeng, what do your stats look like?”

“Uh,” he blinked. “Average, I guess.”

“Your highest and lowest scores?”

“Highest is Body at 90, lowest is my Resilience at 25,” he shrugged. “I just don’t get hit by things usually.”

“What’s your Fate score?”

He smirked. “40. Pretty good, huh? Honestly though, most of that was from character creation because I wanted the [Child of the Dragon] trait. Haven’t really put anything into it since then. Not really sure if it’s worth anything, according to the community.”

“I see,” she murmured. “That explains how he got a Servant class...” Not that she had any proof that there was a connection there.

“What is the name of your class anyway?”

“‘Tatterskin’,” she answered offhandedly as she looked at her stats again. Drakov was level 16; four levels above her, and yet her scores looked like they could easily overtake his.

Part of that, she knew, was how much time and effort she had put into the tutorial. Another part of it was that the [Gumiho] trait and Tatterskin class did have bonuses to offset the drawbacks. That didn’t stop it from being frustrating - but there was at least a little bit of a building thrill to see how far the class could taken. Given that it stopped being so very frustrating, of course.

Several of her skills had also leveled — many of them were close to level 10 now. It was a pity she wasn’t using her magic as much, but even she had to concede that she had too much on her plate to be effective in the long run. She’d have to choose a path an economize at some point. Sighing, she waved the screen away.

“Shouldn’t it be about time to hear from your friends?” Drakov asked.

“I expect something any minute,” Guin shrugged. “Stella is the ‘fashionably’ late kind, not the kind that says they’ll show up for breakfast and then show up for dinner kind. I’m not too worried.”

“Kill those mobs?” he pointed at a small group of Rabid wolves.

Guin nodded and engaged, and not thirty seconds after she and Drakov finished skinning the last of them, Stella’s cheery face and colorful hair appeared in front of her.

“What are you doing?” were the first words out of the young woman’s bright purple lips. “And what are you wearing? Are you wearing contacts? You never wear contacts! And the ears — is that a headband?”

“Hi, Stella,” Guin waved with a smile. “Are you still in the Imperial City?”

“No, no — in fact, that’s why I am a bit late in calling,” she started to explain. “Actually, I grabbed hold of Bahena earlier and we decided to get on a little early. We are already here in Miala De Ri. I went to invite you to the party to surprise you, but it says you’re already in one?”

Guin blinked. “Oh. Well then. Yeah; I’m with Drakov — Elric; my dongsaeng — now. We were waiting for you guys. Why don’t you guys disband and I’ll get you into our party so you can get to us. We aren’t far.”

“Alright!” Stella nodded, then turned and said something to someone off to the side. “Okay! We disbanded. You’ll want to invite ‘Lady Starshine’ and ‘BronzePaw’. See you guys soon!”

“Okay!”