Those Blessed with Talent

[X] Great Southern Phoenix

[X] Buy Comprehend 1
[X] Buy Friendship Bond
[X] Autumn Shade buys Tracker 1

 

This isn't a vote option?

Or did Little Bee dismiss it out of hand because she isn't a scout? .... I'm gonna vote for it as it will most likely force Thoughtless to show himself a bit.

[X] Buy Analyze 2
[X] Buy Comprehend 1
[X] Autumn Shade buys Tracker 1

[X] Great Southern Phoenix

 

the job involving the level 150ish S+ raid boss is both included and excluded for reasons.

On the other hand the event skill you'd get for taming it is so OP.

 

No risk, no reward type thing? Eh... I'm still going to vote for it. It's the exactly the kind of thing you'd expect a kid with spirits whispering in her ear to do.

 

[X] Fox Hunt

We can't use Tiger Claw and Swipes at the same time. Rampaging Blood is a great lever for our stamina, but it's a huge commitment to use and I'd rather wait until we can pull off Rampage + Claws + Analyse. If DCSS has taught me anything, it's that you shouldn't use Berserk to improve your chances in a risky fight, you should use it to remove all doubt that you'll win.

Since I doubt "fly into a rage" is the kind of skill that would suffer from being learned in combat, I'm deferring my stats vote until something comes up. I could be swayed towards Friendship Bond, Comprehension + Analyse, or Presence Concealment for the fox hunt, for instance.

 

[X] Buy Analyze 2
[X] Buy Comprehend 1
[] Spooky Mansion
Mansion seems like the risky but survi- fuck it
lets rock
[X] Great Southern Phoenix

 

[X] Great Northern Phoenix
[X] Buy Analyze 2
[X] Buy Comprehend 1

 

While I doubt we'll actually manage to bond to the Great Northern Phoenix I imagine it is one of the few ways we'll be able to bump our rank A- to rank A or A+. It'd probably also have kinda far reaching consequences given a level 3 kid managing to get a Raid boss as a minion.

... I wonder if the Phoenix has eggs\chicks. It'd explain why its ranging farther then normal. Needs more food then for just itself.

 

Hiding \ Seeking

It is one of your rare free days, those you get for doing especially well in lessons for one reason or another. Today you had managed to recite a difficult passage of a well known piece of classical literature without faltering. Winter told you earlier that week that the 'Green Room' was the best exposition on the practices of the Emperor's Court and no member of the Great Houses should go without knowing it. You had spent the following nights puzzling out the words to make sure you knew it well as Winter rarely gave hints like that on her expectations on what she wanted you to know first hand.

Still unwilling to spend the small amount of silver you have been hording you instead have been spending the day with Autumn, first letting him bat around a long feather stolen from one of the pillows, then chasing one another down the long hallways of the manor. Finally, after being scolded by one of the servants for bumping into things once too many times you and Autumn Shade have been playing hide and seek.

It had been... frustrating. Autumn could seek you out easily enough, and you could find him easily enough as well. Apparently you both had ways of telling where the other was, or at least the general direction and the rest was just guess work. Your bond had strengthened from the experience you shared.

However you think you now have a way to prevent Autumn from finding you. While Autumn isn't stupid, he isn't exactly smart either. You peer out of the decorative armor you climbed into and stifle a giggle as he passes you the third time in obvious confusion, his whiskers twitching as he audibly sniffs the various nooks and crannies around the small room you had found. You are pretty sure you aren't allowed in here, as many of the displays look important and well kept, but right now staying hidden from your kitten is more important. You have pride! You will win this game at least once.

Autumn apparently gives up after the fourth jaunt around the room and sits and yawns, then begins knead the carpet in front of the small fire, obviously preparing to take a nap. Jubilant in your victory you clamber out of the armor causing Winter looks at you with a comically surprised look on his face. You scoop him up and cuddle him for a bit as he begins to purr. Now that you've won the game you were playing you start to grow slightly worried about your presence here. The room is richly appointed, and not a single thing seems to be out of place. The huge desk, the shelves of well thumbed through books and map on the wall marking important holdings of the Clan across the empire makes it clear that whomever uses this room does so for business involving the entire clan.

So you look over the armor with a critical eye to make sure everything is in place, noticing several pieces are askew, making the entire display seem messy and lopsided. It takes several moments to straighten the armor back to acceptable appearance to your discerning eye before you take one last look around. Satisfied you peek out of the door, and seeing the hallway clear you move out, and back to your room. You are a bit tired. Moments after you leave you bump into a man you haven't seen before. You squeak an apology and hurry on by.

 

Has Autumn Shade gained any exp in the timeskip?

For quests...
- Spooky Mansion: No idea. Doesn't particularly seem like something we'd be good at. Very little clue what the rewards might be. Kinda spooky, and not particularly pursuant to our interests. Buying shadow affinity might help.
- Herb gathering: May get us an event skill - and an event skill based on noticing rare herbs as you pass through the wilderness (which could then feed into herbalism for healing ourselves and our allies) would not be a terrible thing. Might involve interactions with woodland beasts - a potential source of exp. Still, I'm not sold. For one thing, it's not something we're likely to be particularly awesome at.
- Great Northern Phoenix: Let's not make ourselves look ridiculous. Our employer already has the "idiot" slot filled for this party. We don't need two.
- Fox Hunt: Comprehend is almost guaranteed to help, here, as is our remarkably high luck. Cat's Eye, Friendship Bond, and/or Analyze 2 might also be helpful here.

[x] Fox Hunt
[x] learn Comprehend
[x] learn Friendship Bond
[x] Our effective affinity for spears has increased by 16. Can we upgrade our weapon yet? Having a better weapon would help if we happen to run into something dangerous.
[x] If our affinity is enough for some armor (and we can convince someone to lend us some) that would also be quite handy.

 

[X] Fox Hunt
-[X] Buy Comprehend 1
-[X] Buy Friendship Bond

Fox hunt seems to be the mission that best plays to our skills, and seems to have the best chance of helping us learn useful skills (survival skills, tracking, trapping, and first aid if we accidentally hurt the fox while catching it).

While the Phoenix mission would be good for our class, with the potential for OP skills, it seems like a bad end waiting to happen. I mean seriously, why would we want to get anywhere near a raid boss with a level 3 character? Even if we are only acting as a scout that idea seems really bad.

The Herb gathering mission could be good for us, and could easily come with the previously mentioned herbalism and survival skills, but we don't seem like we would be particularly good at it.

The Spooky mansion could be ghosts, could be bandits using the place as a headquarters faking it being ghost, could be dozens of other things. No idea what we are getting into there. Could possibly lead to cleaning skills, repair skills, and investigative skills, as well as others depending on what it is.

For the skill picks I'm putting them as subvotes, since if a different mission wins different skills would likely be useful on it. Comprehend is outright good for anything involving animals, it will help us be safer around them. Friendship Bond I picked over Analyze because with it we can help random animals in the forest and have them help us track down a white fox to complete the mission. More long term I don't think being able to temporarily gain animal followers is a bad thing. If we get 2 more XP before the mission is over I will definitely vote for Analyze 2 though, that would help us in getting the bonus I expect.

 

[x] Fox Hunt
[x] learn Spear Proficiency 1
[x] Our effective affinity for spears has increased by 16. Can we upgrade our weapon yet? Having a better weapon would help if we happen to run into something dangerous.
[x] If our affinity is enough for some armor (and we can convince someone to lend us some) that would also be quite handy.

 

All these people voting sensibly. For shame

(I'm sure if we go for the Phoenix most of the heavy lifting will be Thoughtless. )

 

I'm thinking the Phoenix has a chance of showing up no matter what we pick, so we should try to play to our strengths and minimize the odds of failure.

[X] Fox Hunt

Dunno what to spend exp on, though.

 

[X] Fox Hunt

 

[X] Great Northern Phoenix

Its phoenix. 'Nough said.

 

For spears, you unlocked the skill but have to throw XP at it if you want to get the benefits.

10+ affinity would let you use a real weapon though.

 

I see a rather interesting chance with Fox Hunt here.

If we manage to bond the 'fox' that we give to the Princess, then we literally have a pair of eyes and ears inside the palace...

[X] The Fox Hunt!

[X] Comprehend 1

 

I'm really not at all sure that's worth throwing away one of our very few Monstrous Bloodline slots.

 

You mean, getting to know what the princess is planning, maybe manipulating her to meet us, or maybe even possibly influencing their decisions isn't work one of our slots, even though we're primary a Charisma type.

Ehhh. I don't agree.

 

Oops, I suck at maps, should be the Southern Pheonix.

 

Given that the only info we currently get from our pets is a general idea of where they are it might not be. In the future we might get skills that let us get more info, but it wouldn't surprise me if anything useful either has a max range or is a long way off still.

 

We're 7 XP short of comprehend + friendship bond.

 

Fox Or Phoenix, the idiot would probably do a lot of the heavy lifting in the Phoenix mission and it would give us an amazing benefits. The Fox huntshould ggive us a chance to explore the forest and maybe meet the royal family plus the mission would be a lot easier to complete ...

Eh let's go with the high reward mission
[X] Great Southern Phoenix

 

[X] The Fox Hunt!
[X] Comprehend 1
[X] Autumn Shade buys Tracker 1

 

Darkend, you said earlier we can raise stats by working hard. Is it also possible to gain certain skills like Spear Proficiency through focused training as an event skill? Or by doing something special like training constantly for a year and a day?

 

This is a question of opportunity. How often do you think we're going to get the chance to insert something into the palace?

 

We have 48 XP. Comprehend is 20 XP, Friendship Bond is also 20XP. Not sure where 7 short comes from, 2 short I could see being misread, just not sure about 7.

I did say it might not be, not it definitely wouldn't be. I was trying to give possible drawbacks to your idea, not outright reject it. There is also the possibility that the fox we catch might not end up being the one given to the princess, it's not like we can tell the Mu clan we plan to use it to spy on her after all. Either way I don't plan on worrying about it yet since Fox Hunt might not win.

 

Sorry, I didn't notice the update from 33 -> 48.

 

Other reason to not bond the fox - beast slots are *precious*. They are our bonded companions. They are an extra body in battle, and they give us new, useful skills, which we should be working for synergy... and once we've bonded an animal, we're pretty much stuck with that animal or another of basically the same species. I'm guessing that "White fox" is maybe a C rank, and probably doesn't have an elemental nature. Not worth it.

Other other reason... it's not in our nature ICly, and I don't *want* it to be in our nature. Our bondmates are our magical special animal friends and (in a very real way) the thing that makes us awesome. Pickign one that was less awesome than it could be, and then abandoning it to someone else just for some sort of vague political maybe-advantage? That sounds like a *terrible* idea.

Going back to earlier thoughts... grappling isn't as good an idea as I'd thought at first. Grappling is an excellent build for Bestial Adepts in general, but it requires at least some raw strength, and our raw strength is specifically bad. Getting up to even "viable" on grappling is probably going to require a fair amount of skill support (studied, possibly event, and supplemental if we can get the right animal friend) and a magic item or two - and the resources we spend to get that are resources that we could be spending elsewhere, starting from a point that we're not terrible at. Honestly, at this point, we're probably best off sticking with the spear, and ignoring our claws until/unless we pick up some other skills with good synergies.