Part 3 Start

It’s been three weeks since the day that Emma and Lena moved in with us and joined our guild. Things have been a bit interesting, with some notable power developments. I’ve managed to reach level 119, which has given me access to another class levels, a bunch more statpoints and some interesting perks.

As previously decided, I’ve continued to invest in the Gamer class, and at level 4, it’s finally yielded a decently interesting perk (besides the stat increase). Getaway is far and away above the others, and an extremely useful skill. It’s kinda wild to think that all this time, I’ve technically been training without a safety net like this. At level 119, I’m also extremely close to my next class level, which I’m excited for.

I also reached 250 in Wisdom, which gave me a nice upgrade and an interesting synergy bonus with Intellect.

With my new Wisdom scaling, my current mana regeneration is roughly 7MP/second. It’s a nice upgrade but infinitely more interesting to me is the Freecasting skill. It’s listed as an active skill but testing revealed that it cost so little mana that I can keep it up easily and indefinitely with my mana regen.

Like the description says, it’s not really useful for anything more than drawing in the air and a torchlight, but it’s still kinda cool to see and use, if nothing else. It does allow for some confusing tricks: I can draw arcane runes in the air to confuse opponents, even though they actually don’t do anything.

A side effect of both my Wisdom and Intellect being so high is that I have near perfect memory at this point, which is a little weird. There are some things in my past that I’d rather forget, but thankfully it’s not too difficult to think about other things. Especially when there’s so much going on around the castle. After getting to Intellect, I’ve taken the time to raise my Endurance, which is paying off nicely in the HP department.

Ivy has similarly gotten a nice power boost, although mostly from stats and a new perk from the Artificial Spirit skill. Getting her Intellect to 250 resulted in only a small scaling increase of 16MP per Intellect point, but it’s still paid off in a really nice boost to her mana pool. We ended up raising her Endurance to 100 as well, and then focusing back on Intellect.

Ivy’s very close to getting to the point where she could heal one person continuously. Considering how low her Wisdom scaling is though, and how little it’s been moving up, I don’t think it’s worth pursuing that, especially when her biggest challenge is more trying to keep up with healing multiple people dealing with multiple enemies. One healer for seven different people is a bit of a tough job, and will get tougher if we recruit anybody else.

The other downside to her having low Wisdom scaling is that it’s taking longer and longer for her to recover her full mana bar from empty. Currently it’s at 20 minutes, and that time is set to double at a minimum when we get her Intellect to the next milestone. There do have to be some drawbacks to her build though, and the larger mana bar will ensure it’s a problem less of the time anyway.

Her other power boost came from the Artificial Spirit skill level 25 choice, the first one with the AP system cut out. I can appreciate the simplicity, even if it does lead to less perks. Ivy ended up going with Mana Strike, as it provides more versatility. She’s not looking to become a proper melee damage dealer, she just needs options to defend herself in close quarters if it ever comes to that for her.

On the power progression front for the other members of my guild: Mia reached level 90, Skylar reached level 91 and Paige reached level 79. Emma only managed to reach level 16 (still a decent improvement from her previous level 9), and Lena got to level 35. It seems like the two of them are nearing their natural potential, which they’re a bit disappointed about, but it’s only natural I suppose.

Emma still hasn’t chosen a proper fighting style, but I’ve noticed her leaning more towards frontline combat, so I think we can try to find something that suits her there. I still have the Silver Lynel Sword and Shield that I haven’t done anything with.

As for Olivia, she’s plateued at level 74. As I understand it, this isn’t due to her reaching any kind of a natural level ceiling, but because her power is mostly increased by absorbing magical monsters she kills. We’re planning another trip out to a natural barrier to that effect, so Olivia can try to kill something called an angelwitch. She says it’s a type of monster that occurs naturally when angels get corrupted by demonic magic, and become little more than mindless beasts.

Olivia also made us all get technomancer reinforced abyssal phones to be used in emergencies, which she made clear to us is something that should have happened a long time ago. Not that they can’t still be hacked into and spied on by dedicated enough technomancers, but with all the additional layers of protection Olivia has gotten us to use, including multiple layers of magical encryption they are more secure than our normal phones. Still using our normal phones provides a layer of misdirection too.

Lena’s birthday also happened, which was fun. It was on September 21st, and she’s now 26. We got to throw a little party for her in the castle, with all her favourite foods and at her request, her favourite alcoholic drinks too, which turned out to be tequila for doing shots, and red wine for sipping. I was a tad hesitant but Lena and Emma seemed none the worse for wear for it, so it went okay and nothing got out of hand.

Speaking of Lena, her and Mia have developed a pretty special friendship. Mia makes friends with everybody really, but Lena’s trickster side brought out the mischief in both of them. It’s something I first found out when I walked into the living room, only to have a bucket full of water dumped on my head out of nowhere, and the two of them cracking up.

It's as I'm walking through the doorway to the living room, levitating a small sheet of ice over my head for protection against Mia and Lena's pranks, that I spot the other two who have developed a close bond: Paige and Emma, sitting on the couch, watching a Bratz movie. They're sitting quite close together, and neither of them notice me as they're fixated on the movie. It's quite cute actually.

Emma puts her arm around Paige and the submissive earth mage squeaks slightly, adorably. I can't help but smile, I love seeing her like this. Then, before I can react, Mia and Lena seemingly appear out of nowhere, holding inflatable baseball bats. "Horny bonk!" Lena shouts, bonking her girlfriend on the head. "Horny bonk!" Mia agrees, bonking Paige.

The two of them look back, a little dazed. "What! I-I wasn't-" Paige starts, but the two of them are already laughing hysterically. Paige's face flushes and she looks down, fidgeting. "D'aww, it's okay baby, we're just messing around." Mia says, kissing Paige on the top of her head. "Hmph." The shy girl says, folding her arms and trying to look annoyed. But we can all see the small smile on her face.

For her part, Emma scolds her girlfriend with mock outrage. "Whatdya doing, ya nitwit? I'm having quality time with a cute girl who actually appreciates me!" She berates. Lena giggles uncontrollably. "Y'all haven't hooked up yet, so shut ya trap!" The water mage replies. Paige, on hearing Lena's words, hides her face behind her hands. Emma and Lena look at Paige, snickering light heartedly. They've both come to enjoy flustering her.

I speak up, unable to stop smiling at the scene. "I was just gonna check who's coming along to Olivia's monster hunt tomorrow." I say. "I'm coming!" Lena exclaims immediately. "I love hearing that." Emma jokes, and Lena shoots her a naughty grin. "Same though." Emma says, turning back to me. "N-no thanks." Paige manages to squeak out.

I nod in acknowledgement. "Skylar's staying home too. You're coming right?" I ask Mia. "Duh, wouldn't miss it for the world." She says, nodding emphatically. “Oh but I’m hanging out with Elsa tomorrow morning, y’all better do it in the afternoon!” Mia reminds me. I nod, thinking. "I think we can make that work? That's six people and we only have five seater cars, but if Ivy does that shrinking into my inventory trick, we can bring all six of us in one car." I say, thinking out loud.

Last week, I was experimenting a bit with my inventory and it turns out that Ivy can reduce her size enough to be able to fit in my inventory and be carried along with me. Because she's an artificial spirit, she's technically a sentient object, meaning I can store her in there. She's described it as like being asleep, saying it wasn't unpleasant at all. There are definitely a few uses for that trick, and it appears we've just found one of them.

"What'd she say she wants to find again?" Lena asks. "An angelwitch. Apparently they're like corrupted angels or something. She said she wants them for their holy and light abilities." I say, shrugging. Olivia was kinda light on the description, she said we'd know when we saw one. "Werk." Emma says, a word I've gotten used to her saying. "Slay." Lena says, nodding in agreement. I grin. "Sick, I'll let Olivia know." I reply.