Aetuornos Beta 3b-1

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3b-1: Intellect & Wisdom / Alchemist's Approach

Remus finally made it back to his place around an hour and a half after Marcus quit barraging him with texts, feeling a little tired but accomplished, with some fast food in his stomach. He still really wanted to play tonight to take the edge off, and it seemed like a good idea to check on his friend, too. So once he changed out of his work clothes, he went to have a look at the pods.

"Huh..." He paused leaning over Marcus's seemingly-sleeping form, wondering just how aware he was of his real-world surroundings just now. Definitely, if Remus poked him, he'd 'wake up' immediately...and probably be very annoyed. But could he hear footsteps or people talking nearby? Maybe not. What had actually given Remus pause, at least a little bit, was how long Marcus's hair was. He could've sworn he made some comment about getting a haircut back on Monday..but maybe it had just been that he planned to; knowing Marcus, it was very believable that he simply forgot.

Regardless, he'd probably been in the game for over an hour, so 'Scylla' was no doubt off having her own adventures with someone else by now. Aranthra would have to scrounge around for party members of her own...but that was just fine with Remus. Figuring out tactics for working together with a wide variety of party member types was bound to be one of the big challenges of the game, and he was looking forward to it. With no further ado, he lay down in his pod and went back into the fantasy world.

Aranthra didn't find someone in the inn when she came downstairs, so she went outside to wander around Greenleaf for a bit. After a while, she turned a corner to find Jesse sitting on the stairs in front of a miscellaneous building (an NPC's house or something), staring pensively out into the distance.

"Hey. Jesse?" She sat up and turned to face the mage.
"Oh, hey there. You're on pretty late, eh?"
"Work got away from me. Scylla's already off having her own adventures."
"Mmh. Same thing for me. Wasn't too certain I wanted to play, but...couldn't think of much else to do with myself just now. But then...I didn't see anyone else in town, and was just about ready to give up. I suppose I may just have poor luck this week—the other day I only found one person, too."

"You check if any nobles are on yet?"

She shook her head. "Haven't been off in that direction, to be honest. Thought it'd be better to at least have someone else with me first."

"Well, then...c'mon." Aranthra gestured like she was casting a spell to get the sheep-girl up onto her feet. "We can look for someone to give us a quest, then. Right?"
"..Sure."

While they walked, the mage said, "It hasn't escaped me that something, well..seems to be bothering you a bit? I may not really be able to help, of course, but I'd be happy to listen. As an anonymous stranger on the internet and all."

"Heh. Well. Let's just say I've gone through a bit of a 'life change' recently." Jesse was quiet after this for a minute or two of the walk. It didn't feel awkward, so Ara let the silence be until she seemingly continued: "Say, what is it young folk do these days, anyway? Other than video games?"
"Heh, you're asking me? I'm a nerd; games, reading, and watching stuff are what I do. Not just electronic, either—like, board games, or DND, you know? I guess if you want the opinion of someone a little more 'normal', they'd say you go to a bar and watch sports on the big, loud TVs. Find a bunch of temporary friends to hang out and get drunk with. Or maybe go to the club to dance, or something.

"...Was that any help?"
"It's good to hear your opinion, at least," Jesse said, getting a small smile that at least seemed genuine. "I'll have to think about it. Once my own job's a little less busy, anyway."
"Hah, yeah."

---

Don't screw this up.

Annabel focused herself with this exact instruction time and time again. It was like her own personal magical incantation, and it seemed to work when coffee and energy drinks only made her body jittery and her magic erratic.

Chris is a friend from high school. And, despite all probabilities, he is now well connected. Do a good job on this, and he might just point one of his super-wealthy clients at you..!

She took a deep breath, focusing on the bracelet floating lightly in the space between her hands, carefully tuning and adjusting the magic she was pushing into it. Chris hadn't specified, but she thought he might appreciate a reasonably attractive form. Plus, maybe, a small mental nudge to help with his social anxiety issues. Nothing pushing the envelope toward "forbidden mental magic", of course, but..some help feeling confident if he wanted it? That seemed reasonable enough.

She worked with the enchantment for three entire hours straight, weaving her magic carefully around until it became the object's magic, driving out all traces of wild magic and any other slight imperfections she detected as she went. More talented and practiced mages, or people who specialized in enchantments, could practically snap their fingers to get a result like what she was going for, especially with a high-quality physical component like the accessory she'd used most of Chris's first half of the payment to buy for him. But what mattered in the end, after all, was the result. Someone more practiced would also be more careless, surely, and let some side effect slip in or wind up with an enchantment that faded on the order of years instead of centuries. Annabel was determined not to make those kinds of mistakes—not to get careless or sloppy in any way whatsoever.

When it was done, she let the bracelet float gently back down into her right hand and carefully set it down on the end table next to her, her hands shaking as she let out a long sigh. "Ffffhh...okay. No need to overdo it. I can make some final adjustments tomorrow morning before I ship it out, and still be on schedule."

A couple of deep breaths later, she let out a sigh of relief. "Managed to not to burn myself out, either. But after that, my body's tired and my mind's still wide awake. Guess it's a good thing I only need the latter to play, riiight?" She turned her head to the left to address this question to the cat sleeping on the armrest of the big, comfy chair she was sitting on, who in turn paid its human's human noises no mind. It objected to her getting up with a quiet meow, but she ran a hand down from the top of its head to its back as consolation. "Thaat's right, little kitty—tonight I get to find out what it's like in your shoes! Ehh, if only a little tiny bit, anyway. Heheh."

She was stable enough to walk, so she made her way to her office, where she'd shoved a bunch of things already in piles into an even bigger pile that threatened to topple onto her desk chair, all to make room for the pod. Actually, she'd already stowed a few more things into the pod itself since then, which she quickly dug out; then she swept her hand back and forth through its inside to make sure she hadn't missed something. "I oughta look up miniaturization spells...surely there's something like that for people to more easily pack their furniture and stuff for moving, right? Or does that run the risk of creating black holes or something...?"

After lying down and hitting start, she found herself falling. "Heh...Chris would hate this," she mumbled to herself, surveying the blank surroundings. "Aah..mmnh." She felt a gentle pressure across her body as the simulated transformation began to take effect. Her body grew a bit slimmer and shorter, her hair shortening and brightening from brown to blond. Then her bust expanded at least a cup size, maybe two, which came with a...kinda nice feeling that made her let out a quiet "Aa~ah" for a second until this part of the change subsided.

Finally—at least as far as bodily alterations went—her ears began to stretch themselves up and out past her hair, and a tail slowly, steadily pushed itself out from her lower back. "Mmhh—" This felt pretty nice too, in its own weird way; the growing fur was quite sensitive, and it gave her an urge to...purr. "Mrr~rrrrh.." No one was really watching at the moment anyway, so she let it out, despite how silly she felt. It had been her own decision to look like a catgirl in this game, after all, and these were only the natural consequences.

Once her body had finished changing, her clothes followed suit, turning into a short red skirt with a rather tall belt on it, a dark cape, gloves, and tall boots—and finally, as she landed into her 'personal property', her hair tying up into some ribbons while a hat settled down atop her head. She found herself in a mid-sized, very well-kept bedroom with a big queen-sized bed, standing in front of a full-size mirror.

"Well...I kinda look more like a witch than in real life," she mumbled to herself, picking at the skirt a little, watching her ears and tail twitch around. While her head-hair was now blond, all of the feline fur was a pure, snowy white, in a direct contrast to her pet back in the real world. After a moment, she turned around to go to...her office to pick up a notebook and a few other essentials. After that, it was off to the outdoor workshop where she'd find a pile of premade items—and eventually set her 'avatar' to work on making more from the materials she gathered/auto-farmed from now on.

As nobles went, her 'home' ingame was relatively modest, but she just about mentally salivated at the idea of having this much space to use all for herself and her business. Someday, Annabel thought to herself while she went out toward the workshop, taking out her notebook and a pencil to 'bookmark' a few recipes she found particularly useful so she could swiftly craft them mid-adventure if needed. Until then, enjoy the fantasy...

"...Hmn?"

The catgirl paused with her pencil in the air, her ears twitching and turning toward the direction of some footsteps. Sure enough, there were a couple of people walking her way. She put the book and pencil away to turn her attention toward the visitors/potential party members, waving. "Hello thee~ere!"

"Looks like she heard us comin'," the tall one with the horns said.
"Hey!" the other one, a very cute, short white-haired girl called, waving back. Going by her hat and the staff she was holding..definitely some sort of mage class. The other one seemed built enough to be a warrior or something, though there was no telling which kind without a little more info.

They both ran up (although the cute mage ran out of breath pretty quickly) to greet her. "Good morning...afternoon? Evening? I guess it's a matter of perspective," the tall one said while her companion caught her breath.

"Let's say 'day', and leave it at that," Annabel said with a bright grin. "Bell, resident alchemist, at your service." Everyone used the first half of her name in real life; she thought the second half fit this catgirl look much better. "Something I can do for you two?"

"Perhaps we could help you out instead?" the mage girl suggested. "That is—we're adventurers..relatively new to the area, looking for a noble to take a job from."

"Ah, I see. Well—you're in luck, in that case!" she said with a grin. "It just so happens I was on my way to prepare some things for a little journey. If you don't mind walking while we talk?" she gestured in the direction of the shack she'd been heading towards, and started that way. It was really something else to have other people coming to her for a job! Maybe most people would think that seeing such a situation as fantastical was silly, but it made her happy, so who cared?

"No issues with that," the tall one said. "I'm Jesse, a fighter. And Ara's a mage."
"Aranthra, please," the other one objected. "Pleasure to meet you, miss Bell."
"Awwh, Ara's way cuter, though. Heheh—likewise." She made her way into the workshop, beginning to pick out items. "If you can't tell, I'm an alchemist by trade. I can heal, I can hurt, I can buff and defend—all depending on what I'm kitted out with! At least, as long as my supplies last. But what I really want to do, is craft the most powerful potion in the world, which nobody of our generation has seen: The Eternity Draught." She was half reading off of a script the game had given her, and half improvising to make it sound more interesting. "It's said that tasting one drop of this potion could give one the power of a god, if only for a brief few instants. Although...I'm really not interested in drinking it myself, mind—I only wish to prove it can be done. Maybe offer it to some great hero in a time of need, and put him and the world in my debt forevermore afterward."

"How d'you know its effect if you've never seen it?" Jesse reasonably asked.

"Legends about that potion abound in academic circles, although it's only rumors," Bell answered. "But—in a recent ruin expedition, some adventurers found a largely-intact copy of a recipe purported to have been used by alchemists in the past to make that very potion. I can fill in the details quite easily, with my level of expertise—but the real issue is the ingredients. Many of them are incredibly rare and tricky to obtain, and some don't even exist in this world at all anymore—I'll have to make those myself from yet other rare ingredients."

"I'm going to assume procuring the ingredients is where the help of others comes in," Ara said. "Everything's a part of some big monster, or at least in someplace likely to be guarded by one."
"Youu got it! And, besides paying you for the help, maaayyybe I'll put your names in the footnotes of my research paper on the subject once I'm all done," Bell joked. "Anyway—going by you two's talents, I'm emphasizing healing, but I've still got a decent variety of other stuff in case things go south. Any objections?" The truth was she had room in her special "alchemist item" inventory even after taking everything premade that was related to healing, and there was no reason to let the rest of the space stay uselessly empty.

"Seems sound to me," Aranthra said.

"Sure," Jesse added.

"Very well, very well. And—I think the three of us make a solid enough party myself, but I'll hear you if you'd like to go looking for someone else anyway?"

Aranthra made a very adorable 'thinking' expression with an index finger on her cheek for a moment, then nodded. "If you've got healing covered, Jesse can be a decent enough tank. Right?"
"Sure," the sheep-girl nodded.

"Then—I think we could kill normal monsters no problem, a not-too-strong boss with some effort. I do, however, need to stop by a religious site to meditate and reorganize my spells. If that's all right?"
"No problem~," Bell said, making her way over in front of Ara with a bright grin. Since she'd shrunk some in the process of becoming a catgirl, she was really only slightly taller than the mage, which just made her want to reach her hand across and pat her on the head even more—but she resisted. "I've got a relatively easy ingredient in mind for today—so I actually know just where to look for it already—and we can stop by a place like that along the way. It's off to the north." Along with a load of other information about 'how to be an alchemist', her mind had been filled in with some basic geographical information...there was a monastery roughly in the northwesterly direction, not too much of a detour from their intended destination. If they found a genuine healer there after all, then, well...Bell still had enough attack and support items packed to make a meaningful contribution anyway. And she could always make more with the ingredients she'd grabbed plus whatever they found on the way!

As they made their way out of town in a triangle formation with Jess at the front, the catgirl thought on how she'd been acting toward the two of them. "By the way—er, I hope you don't find my way of talking too obnoxious. I swear I'm less pompous in real life..but really wanna play up the 'expert scholar' bit, ya know?"
"Oh, no problem, I get it," Ara said.

"You thought you were acting obnoxiously?" Jesse asked. "You seem friendly enough to me."

"Well, sure, but uh—ohh, I should just stay in character, huh?"
"Do what you want," the mage said. "The whole point is to have fun, right?"
"H-heheh, yeah. Ooh! Is that what I think it is over there?"

She was pointing at—and had just noticed—a small group of what appeared to be big wildcats made entirely out of ice, stalking around a short ways off. It was like they were very detailed ice sculptures, except that they were very clearly in motion. "Ice tigers! What're they doing way down here off the mountains?" Her 'ingame mind' had some lore info about various kinds of monsters, particularly ones that could drop important or especially useful ingredients for her alchemy.

"Interesting monster type.." Jesse commented. "Doesn't seem like they've noticed us. We could probably just slip by."
"But their cores!" Bell started excitedly, gesturing both her arms outward—then calmed herself down a bit. "That is, uh, I can make some really powerful ice bombs with the cores of monsters like those. Which might in turn come in super useful! And in such a warm climate, the ice tigers won't be as strong as they normally are..plus there's only four of them!"

The sheep-girl turned to the mage. "What do you think, Aranthra?"
"Hmm. They're a little too close to town for comfort, and any proper heroes ought to chase monsters away from civilization just on principle. And we need to shake out our tactics anyway."

"All right, it's settled, then!" Bell said excitedly, feeling her tail whip around especially fast behind her. "Now, I've got a couple of fire bombs, but not very many. And heavy impact damage should just shatter 'em good, too."

"Don't worry about the fire bombs—stick with something you've got a lot of," Aranthra said, quickly taking charge of their overall strategy. "I have a fireball spell. It does explode on impact, however, so, we'll need to go for a bait-and-run strategy." She addressed this to Jesse, who nodded, starting off in the direction of the beasts.
"On it."

Jesse ran out toward the monsters, and the two of them followed a little more slowly to keep some distance. Once she was close enough, she leapt into the air, yelling with a loud "Rraah!" to get their attention, and landed fist-first into the nearest ice tiger, sending it rolling sideways three or four times before it stopped and began trying to get back onto its feet. The frigid beasts had already noticed her running up—she wasn't particularly stealthy, after all—so the three that hadn't just been punched away moved to surround her.

Jesse backed up slowly to keep them from getting behind her while allowing them to gather into a group, listening to the sound of Aranthra already chanting her fireball spell. It seemed the two of them had worked together before, as the fighter seemed to know what the end of that spell sounded like—and used that to cue her diving away to one side, giving the mage a clear view to shoot an exploding fireball into the group, knocking them all backwards. A few chunks of ice broke off of them onto the ground, and a spray of water melted rapidly off of them as they were knocked a bit backwards.

The fourth ice tiger had recovered during this time, and took the opportunity to run at Jesse while she rolled from her dive and recovered to her feet. Seeing an opportunity to be helpful, Bell took out one of her regular, impact-type bombs, and tossed it right into the monster's front as it pounced at the sheep-girl, landing a solid, center-mass hit. The bomb exploded on impact, shattering some more ice off of the beast and sending it flying back, but the explosion was small enough that Jesse didn't get caught in it.

The three monsters hit by Aranthra's fireball got up, two of them starting toward their most recent source of pain. The other one drew its head back like a snake getting ready to bite, then thrust it forward. A roughly cone-shaped icicle around the size of a fist came out at speed, its sharp point forward, aimed straight at the mage. “Yeek!” Ara quickly dove aside to dodge it, landing awkwardly on her front and dropping her staff in the process.

“Uh, sorry—didn't know they could do that!” Bell said, quickly throwing another impact-bomb at one of the two headed their way. Jesse went and intercepted the other one, punching it square in the muzzle; it recoiled, shedding more ice, and twisted itself to pounce at her, which she smoothly ducked to one side of. The impact bomb hit its mark, knocking the other ice tiger back. All of this gave the mage time to reach out and get her staff, then use it to help pick herself back up onto her feet.

By now, the ice tiger that hadn't been caught in the fireball earlier had recovered, and it was headed Bell's way. The one that had spat an icicle at Ara was also running at her. Thinking quickly through her options, the alchemist decided to use one of her less-abundant items, tossing what looked like a small, light-blue rag onto the ground in front of herself and the mage. It landed, and a curtain in a similar color, only glowing and translucent, sprouted up from the spot. It was about four yards wide and two yards tall; it fluttered as though it was hanging from an invisible bunch of hooks just above it, but when the monsters tried to run through it to get to them, they simply bashed their muzzles into it as though it was a brick wall.

“Ara—the curtain's one-way!” she said quickly, pulling out another impact-bomb and tossing it out at the one she'd hit a moment ago, just as it was getting ready to pounce at Jesse. The sheep-girl had turned around to watch the one that had pounced past her, waiting for it to try again and then ducking, grabbing it by the haunches, and judo-throwing it along with its own momentum over at the curtain, which it slammed into and bounced off, landing with its back on the ground. It seemed she'd been listening.

“..Ow.” The fighter shook her hands like she'd just handled something straight out of the oven. “Very cold.”

Aranthra had also been listening, and was already channeling another fireball spell. The three currently-upright monsters were starting to move to either side to go around the wall, so Jesse ran in from her side (Bell's left) and kicked the nearest one under the muzzle, sending it tumbling back into one she'd just thrown. Bell threw an impact bomb to the right, into the path of the other two; it landed in front of them, not quite close enough to hit, but they recoiled briefly from the noise and obvious danger.

All of this work paid off as the mage now threw out a second fireball, and this time all four ice tigers were in its area of effect. The one that had just been prone was hit directly, and it fell apart and melted from the explosion. Two of the other three also fell apart from the explosion and heat, leaving just the one that hadn't been hit by the first fireball—now on the right side of the curtain, and looking very damaged all the same, with several cracks visible throughout its body. Jesse quickly ran up, jumped, and punched down into its center mass, finishing it off and shattering it along those fractures. With that, the three of them had taken down their first set of monsters.

Aranthra exhaled as if from exertion, putting away her staff. Bell went up to the curtain, placing her hand 'on it' and closing into a fist, which resulted in it shrinking back into its original, small-item form. “Well,” the mage said, “That went pretty well overall. Putting up that barrier right away might've been a good idea, though.”
“Well, it uh—each of these only has so much 'health', and I've only got three,” Bell said, putting it back into her inventory. “I just didn't see any better options right then.”
The mage nodded. “Four monsters was just a little too much for Jesse to keep the attention of. You're just not an aggro-drawing type like Scylla.”
The sheep-girl nodded, apparently knowing who that was. “We could really use a second close-up fighter, if anything. Keep the attention away from you two.”

“Hmm..” Aranthra got an adorable 'thinking' look yet again, and again the catgirl resisted patting her on the head. “As we continue on our way, you should probably gives us a quick run-down of any non-obvious effects your other items have, such as the curtain being one-way. Just so we won't be surprised if you need to pull one out.”

“Can do~,” Bell said cheerfully.

“And—I assume you have a lot of those small-AOE impact bombs?”
Bell nodded. “They're practically my 'basic attack', you could say.”
“If you have enough to spare, throwing out two or three at a time, or tossing them rapid-fire, could be a good move. Or using one to stun an enemy and set up for one of your 'better' bombs.”
“Good idea...oh, right—are you hurt at all?” she asked Jesse, remembering her role as 'healer'.

“Hmmh.” The fighter took a moment to look at her hands. “Don't seem to be. The cold from handling that one ice tiger was enough to sting, but my hands don't look or feel hurt now.”

“Yyyyeah, I should've mentioned they're cold enough to 'burn' bare skin.”

“By the way, lest we forget..” Aranthra gestured at the melting fragments left of their recent opponents, and the small piles of items they'd left behind. “There's loot to distribute. I guess you'll want the cores, if they left any?”

“Right! I can whip up some bombs right here on the field that'll help us a whole lot with our real target,” Bell said. “I don't think I have any use for most of the rest of what they can drop. Oh, but if you find any frigid furs, those can help make some great heat-resistant armor later on.”

Jesse had actually gone over to sort through the loot instead of just continuing to point at and talk about it. “Looks like mostly fangs and claws made of ice. This a core?” she held up a bright blue sphere.

“Yes!” Bell hurried over to get it.

“We got a second one, too.”

“Perfect~!”