Shaping up the Camp [Crafting Quest/Closed]

[Hirosame]

Hiro found himself at the camp, once again, and judging by how things were turning out, things were looking on the up and up for the campsite. Hiro nodded just a bit, and looked all around. The place still had a lot of work to be done, of course, but that's why he an Midori would be here today. They were going to go about and help out the campsite a bit, or at least, Hiro was. He was going to go around, giving people sigils so they can go and do what they need to do, and not worry about not having enough Strength, Dexterity, or whatever else they needed, in order to fix the place up a bit more. Hiro thought that maybe they could do a shop-like construct, offering anything they could do to help out the place. However, Hiro was a little worried that there might not be a lot for an Alchemist to do, since there wasn't much known about Alchemy at the current time. He worried a bit that Midori would just feel like she was along for the ride, not really offering much in the way of services to the people around them. He'd probably reassure her in some way, and made sure to bring his most recent contraption with him.

The small, mana-powered music box player would probably get people coming over to them, seeing what they had to offer. Hiro also brought along a ton of music box songs for him to play, songs that a few people knew about, and might draw them over to see what could provide at their little stand. So, Hiro started to construct their place of business from some nearby planks and nails, using a hammer he had brought from his workshop. He brought along his hammer, saw, and a few other smaller things that he knew that he'd probably make good use of, in order to keep people who needed a Mechanic's touch on the move. Who knows? Maybe they could raise a ton of money for the Guild Bank. Of course, they probably wouldn't charge much of anything, if anything at all, so it wouldn't line their guild's bank to the brim, if it came down to it. Probably just some stuff for the guild to put forward to their guild building, or maybe Hiro could be selfish and use it all on that workshop, and officially make the Handy Wrench a building owned by Apocrypha.

He wouldn't dream of doing that, probably. Anyways, soon enough, the small shack was up and ready to receive customers. All that was left was for Midori to show up, and make their shop complete. Hiro placed the Mana-Charged Music Box on the counter, and placed this certain song in it. This one was pretty well known on Mabinogi, and would always be played somewhere in the game. It was a rather famous one, and Hiro himself adored it fondly. He let the music begin to play, and took a seat on the counter. The shack was built with a small half-doorway in the middle with stools for Hiro and Midori to sit at on either side. This would give them both room to maneuver, and have enough room for them to tinker with whatever they wanted to work on within the building. Hiro was impressed with himself, since he made this all in less than an hour. Sure, it would get a little hot and stuffy in there, but that's also why he left a few square-shaped holes in the back, to promote wind movement. It would be fine, of course, since they wouldn't be there all day, anyways. He sat down on the stool on the left side of the stand, and waited for Midori, and their first customer, to arrive.

[636 Words]

[Midori]

Okay, let's just activate Narrator's special passive ability of making some kind of ridiculous post in the span of several minutes since it's nearly 2 AM and even narrators have to sleep at some point. No post template for this post either. What did you expect from a non-serious post? Anyway, Touko had chosen to take some of the crafting requests along with Hiro since this particular mission was high in demand yet low in supply. Or at least, the crafting missions were marked with a measly 15%. It was shocking just how even that low percentage was higher than the current battle mission's progress. All that many Adventurers out in the field fighting golems and this was all they could muster? Frankly, she was wondering whether they could actually even capture the new city at all.

The purpose of their crafting mission was to open up a small joint shop combining Alchemy, Mechanic, and Sigilmaker skills together. Naturally, one could take a look around the camp to see that their idea wasn't exactly the best one. Blacksmiths and Tailors? Everyone needed to repair their armor and weapons. Pharmacist? Potions were used very often. Woodcrafter? Lots of demand. People needed to expand the camp fairly constantly in order to rebuild any fortifications that were broken by enemy golems. Chefs and Brewers? Food was important all the time, even if some of the most hardcore players chose to eat the system-made food in order to save money. Artisans? Well, they weren't actually doing crafting missions too often because their passive ability allowed them to deal more damage to golems. Scribes? Okay, maybe they were on the same level. Well, unless you wanted to throw books at the golems. Speaking of which:

Apr 12, 2014 6:01:24 GMT Scoria said:

Good thing this post doesn't use a post template. Otherwise that quote wouldn't have been doable. But in conclusion, no one had really invented complicated battle machinery just yet for Mechanics to be a popular choice for the camp. Likewise, the rumored magitech supposedly to be invented by Alchemists were still very limited for the time being and crafting advanced weaponry was easier said than done. Alchemy was at least favored by those who were battling golems much like their Artisan comrades, but there was still no demand for the class in terms of crafting. The use of the Sigilmaker subclass had been a good idea for Hiro, since many crafters would no doubt appreciate buffs to their stats in order to raise their crafting success rates. Maybe it would even become the saving grace for their shop. The dark-haired girl nevertheless had wandered the stalls all around the camp to acquire a number of mana fragments in reserve. Since they were planning to perform crafting for other people, it would have been a good idea to gather up as many backup materials as possible.

She had just come up to the stall when their first customer had just arrived to address Hiro. It was a girl dressed in some kind of magical girl cosplay, her face bright red from being seen like this in public.

"Give me a sigil! But don't make it hurt! Please put it on my palm... but don't hold my hand for too long or else I'm going to get my hubby to KS you! ... Um, but not really, so if you could please just give me a dex buff, I can pay you and return back and make that... maid dress for myself to wear while I craft his stuff..." Her voice gradually lowered in volume until the last few words were nothing but a faint whisper. Well, that was their first customer. This should be interesting.

[Hirosame]

What in God's name just walked up to their stall? It took all of Hiro's patience and determination to not break out in laughter as soon as the cosplaying girl finished what she was saying to him. He managed to keep his cool, somehow, and looked over to notice Midori had walked up. He nodded to her, and gave her a light smile, before turning back to the obviously abused girl. Her "hubby" wanted her to make a maid outfit? Yeah, okay. Someone's got some fetish problems that they needed to address. Hiro gave a light sigh, and held out his hand to take the girl's hand. She recoiled, of course, being the obvious virgin she is. Eventually though, she reluctantly held out her hand, which Hiro grabbed lightly before placing a Seal of Aquarius that improved Dexterity. He watched as the seal disappeared into her glove, which was poorly crafted, by the way, and went into her hand. He looked back up at the girl, and nodded a bit. She payed the toll to use their stall's services, and she walked away happily.

By this time, Hiro assumed that Midori was sitting, and only glanced over at her, before bursting into a hell of a laugh. He had to hold his stomach because he was laughing so hard, but eventually managed to calm himself down a bit, enough so that he could talk. "What even was that!?" He shouted, knowing that the girl was outside of hearing range by now. Hiro walked over to Midori, and held out his hand to take her's. He placed a Seal of Aquarius on her hand as well, boosting her Intelligence score. He figured that that's what Alchemists needed in order to make better materials. Just in case, he put another for Wisdom on the same hand. "God, I feel kinda sorry for the poor girl, having that guy or whatever have her craft a maid dress to put on later." He settled down, but the smile was still on his face, as he walked back to his side of the shop, and sat down. "I bet that her 'hubby' is probably getting a hard-on just thinking about it." He turned to the makeshift street, and put his legs up onto the counter. He was glad that Midori was also here, because she was probably one of the few people that he felt genuinely relaxed around. If it were anyone else, this probably wouldn't have been the case. Taking a moment to look around at the small shop he created, he mentally patted himself on the back at how good it was, but he wouldn't say it out loud.

Looking back out at the street, he saw that carriages and wheel-carts were moving to and fro, as if there wasn't a problem with any of it. The street was certainly crowded, but it looked like almost everyone had enough room. However, that changed, when the fire nation attacked a cart nearby broke down, and people started calling for some help. Hiro leaned forward to see what the commotion was about, only to see that a cart had a broken steering rod, and one of the wheels fell off. Hiro stood up, nodded to Midori, and started walking towards the wreckage. It was at that moment when another gentleman from the caravan started walking towards Midori's side of the shop. Hiro smiled a bit, but kept moving on. He went over to the wrecked caravan, and spoke to them, after placing a Dexterity Seal on his right and left hands. "Hey, so it looks like you guys need a hand. I'm a mechanic, so you need a hand with anything?" They accepted his offer, and he immediately started to mend the broken steering rod below the carriage. After that was done, he asked to see if they had any extra wheels. He'd get started putting the extra wheel on, but needed some extra manpower. He places Strength Seals on the hands of the caravan owners, and together they lifted the carriage. Hiro replaced the wheel, fastened it to the carriage, and they began on their merry way once again, with the gentlemen that headed to the shop leaving with them.

While Hiro was off being a mechanic, the man who went over to the stall to get something from an alchemist arrived at the shop. He was a hooded man, but you could clearly see his face. He looked over to Midori, and smiled, albeit creepily. He said to her, "Pardon me. You are an alchemist, yes?" He placed his hands together as if he were Mr. Burns from the Simpsons or something. "The caravan that I am with just lost a large number of Stabilized Mana Fragments, and we were hoping that you could conjure us up some more." It was certainly a rush order, but probably something Midori could handle. "I-I'll pay up front, and I'll pay extra, too! Please take up this offer."

[831 Words]

[Midori]

It was really an awkward situation for all parties involved. The girl's acting was a little over the top because as Hiro was affixing the sigil to her glove, she was turning away and staring in all directions as though scouring the area for her "hubby." Nevertheless, Hiro managed to place the sigil upon the glove and the girl paid and left without any trouble. "It seems like you always tend to attract the clingy girls." she said as she sat down on her side of their shop stall. There was a certain incident back during their Mabinogi days where there was another girl just like that in their guild. But that was private information that she was sure that Hiro either didn't want to make public or will make public in great detail during his next post in order to claim more AP. Privacy or AP? It was a tough decision.

Karmic retribution came for the girl as another socially awkward visitor had walked up to their stall. It was a robed alchemist who had a somewhat creepy posture and a cracked voice, somewhat lke what you would expect from someone who lived a shut-in life prior to the events of the Apocalypse. She personally had a few of these incidents back during their old days of forum roleplaying, but that should not be publicly described. Even though the events of this post would happen in 2018, it was still 2014 and thus the presence of these socially awkward people may still be here even if they never joined this RP forum. If they were on SAO, there was a decently good chance they could come here. But there was a low chance of them actually reading this post. Except for Blood. But Blood doesn't come here anymore anyway and this wasn't aimed at him. It was aimed at those guys who obviously were hitting on everyone remotely female in the chatbox back then. Even their trap friends. But let's get back to the post.

"Stabilized Mana Fragments..." she checked her notes on the Alchemy recipe. Basically it was a bigger Mana Fragment composed from two smaller fragments that have been stabilized enough that it wouldn't break on contact. "Sure. I'll take your request. How many do you need?" The Alchemist thought for a moment and then stated that ten would be enough for them to deliver to their customer for the moment. "Did the caravan happen to break these Mana Fragments by any chance? I'm pretty sure it's possible to fix them if they've already been stabilized before." The Alchemist quickly understood as he went over to some of his associates to flag down the caravan. In the meantime, Touko quickly got to work as she put on some gloves and began to fuse together the fragments she had previously collected. She needed to be careful, because rushing this job meant that there was a chance of them changing into the Unstable Core varieties, which would destructively react with other fragments. In the meantime, another customer had arrived for Hiro. Along with a fairly familiar face...

"This the shop? It is? Okay. Yo. YOOOOOOOO!"

"So I heard you put your fancy-schmancy sigil on my waifu's hand! No one touches my waifu Lucy! I'm Kaiyuu, the greatest warrior alive! Got it? HUHHHH?"

The man's shouting caused the entire valley to echo. Not shortly after that, he whispered to the red-haired Mechanic. "So hey man, I'm pretty impressed at what you did to my waifu. Now she's actually knitting stuff better than that poor excuse for needlework. Please don't tell her I said that. Anyway, can you be a bro and give me a strength sigil so I can fight some of those rockheads outside camp? I'll make it worth your while." he offered a bagful of gold and... 3 tacos.

[Hirosame]

So then Elvis' non-classy samurai brother appeared in the fray, carrying along with him a bag of self-loathing and self-doubt, otherwise known as his overwhelming ego. Hiro looked back over to the shop, where Elvis was casually complaining to both Hiro and Midori about "touching his woman" or whatever. He couldn't really care less about the fact that his supposed "waifu" was more blank than an unused piece of paper, and he's seen planks of wood with more curves than her. Not sure why they had a qualm, but it seemed that this guy was pretty much just complaining about someone putting a sigil on his girl's hand. Hiro gave this guy a raised eyebrow, before turning back to give the same look to Midori. It was at that moment that the man asked Hiro for a sigil on his own hand, for Strength. Hiro rolled his eyes, and nodded. "Sure. But, the price is a little different for you, bub." Hiro said, walking over to the guy. He grabbed the guy's head, and crashed his face into the dirt, activating Tiger Echo Fist as the fist made contact to the ground.

The imprint left in the ground where the guy had been laying now look reminiscent of his stupid hair. Letting the guy lay there, Hiro took his hand, and gave him the sigil for Strength. "Thank you for your business." Hiro stood back up, cleaned his hands a bit, and walked over to the shop. He opened the half-door, and sat down on his chair once again, putting his feet up. He paused for another moment, and walked over to Midori again, asking for her hand once again, placing a sigil on her hand for Intelligence. It was rather stupid of him, of course, to have put both Wisdom and Intelligence on her hand, as they probably countered one another. Certainly a mistake on his part. But, whatever. What was done was done. He sat back down, and watched the alchemist from earlier come back up to Midori. Hiro thought that he could just go ahead and relax, while Midori dealt with this customer some more. His caravan, that Hiro had fixed up, stopped and waited. He hoped that it wouldn't take too long for them to get moving again, because they would eventually block traffic, if they stayed there for too long.

The alchemist guy ran back to Midori, with a handful of the Mana Fragments that had been broken in the crash. He spread them all out onto the table, and waited for Midori to work her magic. He quivered a bit, having not really talked to girls much before. Especially in this world. He would nervously check behind him, just to make sure the carriage didn't go on without him. He was twitchy, for sure, but a bit more than he should have been, probably. The alchemist looked at Midori expectantly, waiting for her to finish the deed before too long.

[496 Words]

[Midori]

vs

"Ow!! Neep! NEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

So apparently fist won, but that was apparent even if you had only glanced upon this thread. Not that it wasn't obvious anyway. The legendary warrior Kaiyuu was rolling around on the floor shouting random profanities that no one had ever heard of. It would appear that the guy was attracting quite the amount of attention from his overly dramatic reactions. The girl in cosplay could only stand there in shock for a few moments before rushing to the aid of her companion. Meanwhile, the awkward man in the robe quietly scooted over to the other side of the stall, far enough away from the incident. "Uh..." Almost as though his train of thought got interrupted by the sudden violence, the robed man quickly spun around and headed back to his group for a little bit. "Pardon me, I've just, uh... got to check on the caravan. I need to go, uh, feed the horse. Be right back..." Really, the scene was getting awkward enough that the most awkward person on the scene had to give up. It was a tense moment as everyone anticipated how the tall pompadour man would react.

It was just then that the man immediately attempted to rise to his feet, but by doing so, his head collided with the girl's own head and caused the two of them to fall down in opposite directions. Really, it was hard to tell whether you should laugh or feel sorry for them. After about 10 seconds, he tried again. Kaiyuu got to his feet and took a ridiculous battle stance.

"Playtime's over! It's time to duel! YOGUO!!"

...

"Um, dear... That only works in the Shadow Realm."

The man suddenly dropped to his knees in exasperation.

"You know... let's just go fight golems. Thanks man." he gave a pathetic wave to the Sigilmaker for putting the rune upon his body as he slowly shuffled away. Even his hairstyle was sadly drooping.

In that meantime, Touko was still transmutating together a bunch of stabilized mana fragments. This process takes time, okay?

[Hirosame]

Hiro was a bit shaken after the whole thing. This guy was a complete imbecile. And his "waifu" was a bit of a numskull, as well. Hiro sighed, patting the dust and such off his hand. As he was cleaning his hand, a disgustingly over-priced smell aroused, and he sniffed his hand. He drew back forcefully, letting out a disgusted cry. This guy must have gotten the worst aftershave ever, or whatever the smell was. Hiro asked one of the nearby stall owners if they could spare some water, which he used to wash his hands of the Elvis cosplayer's disgusting smell. Regretfully, though, the guy was still rolling on the ground at this point, and actually managed to collide with his girlfriend. Hiro winced a bit, as everyone else in the audience had. "Sheesh. Head On, apply directly to your waifu." He said aloud, not really knowing or caring if anyone else heard. The guy eventually got up and started taunting Hiro with another fight. Hiro chuckled a bit to himself, but got into a fighting position.

Luckily enough for Elvis, his girlfriend talked him out of it by saying something completely unrelated about the Shadow Realm. Hiro had yet to be there, and figured that he might not get the chance to go and check it out. He didn't mind it, though. He'd probably only go if one of his friends decided to go in and check it out, too. Like Midori, or Oxford. Maybe even Fernweh, Kazuko, or Ruemia, if he could ever figure out why she had just given him the cold shoulder for so long. Hell, Renai would be a good person to head there with, as it seemed that he could keep his wits about him. All this aside, the "Legendary Warrior" walked away with his girlfriend, looking a bit depressed. Hiro noticed that he gave a small wave, which Hiro couldn't help but feel a bit awkward about. Then again, he did, after all, give the guy what he wanted. He even saved him some money. So, maybe once this is all over, he'd take his girl out to dinner or something with the cash he saved. Hiro smiled a bit, feeling a bit better about the situation, and waved back.

It was about that moment when he realized that everyone else in the general vicinity was staring over at their stall. He also noticed that Midori's customer seemed to want to get the hell out of here as soon as possible, and from in front of the stall. Hiro could feel the stares of the people focusing on him, which was justified, after all. He did just pile drive a guy into the dirt, and made him start cursing in a language most would imagine was fake. Not to mention that he and his girl had been cosplaying or something the entire time they were here. So, instead of standing there like a nitwit, Hiro changed his expression to match that of a hot-blooded advertiser. He would need to be convincing, if he were going to try this. So, why not add in a great amount of energy? That's what worked on advertisement commercials. People love the charismatic advertisers. Hiro could do it, too, probably. He cupped his hands and started to shout to the people.

"That's right, That's right, THAT'S RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! Step on up! Get your Sigils, Alchemical Supplies, and Machine Repairs here, at Apocrypha's very own "VAA!" Stop on by, and get your wagons fixed! Or, get your Mana Fragments reforged and improved! In the meantime, get your Sigils to craft better, or to fight harder and longer! Prices are negotiable! Stop on by, because we're only here for a limited time! Come on down, and get your Mana Fragments reconstructed, by world-class Alchemist, Midori! Hop on over, and get your Sigils made and your appliances fixed, by top-ranked Mechanic, Hirosame! Don't be shy, come on by!"

Good god, Hiro can be annoying sometimes. Even he realized that. So, instead of milking it any further, he went ahead and moved back to the stall, and sat down on his side. He looked over to Midori with an apologetic face. She was probably condemning him in her mind. Either that, or grateful, because this only meant more money for them. Which would eventually go into making their guild housing or whatever else they needed it for. Hiro wasn't going to run off with the money, and he was more than certain that Midori wouldn't do that, either. He relaxed in his seat, letting his body lean back a bit. It looked like Midori was hard enough at work, so he should probably just keep quiet while she did her stuff. He may or may not have customers flocking over to him at once, but people would eventually come on over. While he didn't look that professional, he still knew his stuff. Meanwhile, the music had stopped playing in his mana-powered generator, so he swapped out the song with this one, and let it play.

[843 Words]

[Midori]

Hiro having defeated the loud man brought the entire area to a somewhat awkward situation. For one, the defeated guy was actually oddly understanding of his loss and had decided to walk away while his reputation was already dragged into the dirt. But then again, this left the two Adventurers' shop with a new reputation. No matter what the circumstance had been, a number of people had been witness to the hot-blooded beatdown, causing some to whisper to each other as they looked toward the shop - Hiro in particular - with a somewhat intimidated atmosphere. Somewhat like city states being afraid when you have a large army on their borders, for example.

Hiro caught the change in atmosphere and decided to try to improve business a little by advertising in the old classic Billy Mays style. She had a couple of questions raised toward his statement though. What exactly was VAA in Apocrypha anyway? She remembered they had a friend chat room with a couple of weird names like Swordfish Missile Sniper or Taco Naco Laco Iaco... (something like that), but that description didn't ring a bell. Secondly, she rather doubted her Level 8 Alchemist ability was anything close to world class. Sure, she might have had a aptitude for doing this kind of thing from her experiences back in Mabinogi, but even that wasn't a big indicator of her ability either. As a construct alchemist, the only thing she really did was generating rain clouds and poisonous hydra summons.

"Hi, I'm back." The socially awkward robed Alchemist had returned, and by this time, Touko had finished much of the order for him. A number of broken Mana Fragments had been recombined together into stabilized forms, ready to be distributed back to his caravan. The Alchemist counted up the fragments and rubbed his hands together like an expert businessman. "Yes, yes. Excellent. I would like to leave you with a good amount of gold and a box of basic upgrade tools for your trouble." the man accessed his inventory and withdrew a sizable amount of gold, which materialized in the form of a sackful containing the respective amount. At that same amount, a horse came up from behind the robed man, a similarly-robed jockey pulling it along. The messenger handed the man a small wooden case, who then offered it up to the counter as he placed the crystals onto the load. "Yeah. I heard those tools can help you craft better stuff, but we're mostly all merchants so we don't need it. Till we meet another time."

As the man walked off in the distance with his caravan, business for the rest of the day would return to normal within a few minutes. Perhaps it was convenient that the Sarum Frontier Camp had a constant influx of new people over time.