Master Of None

"How did you sparring partners fair?" Su asked Walker as he met them at the back entrance to the guild.Â

"They seem...tired. Not sure why.." He was avoiding eye contact knowing full well that it was his fault for sending the fire dolls after them. He may have started with good intentions but now the young party would be slightly traumatized.Â

"Right. Tired is the word." Clara still shook her head at Walker knowing exactly why he was avoiding eye contact. "How much longer until you all decide to leave for the deep sun hollow forest? Will you take any of the quests I lined up for you before you leave?' Clara had been sorting through many quests and slowly but surely passing them on to the other guild staff. The change in guild criteria for testing were slowly taking effect.Â

"We should be leaving in a day or so. We need to get all of our gear finished. I am sure Gil will be hard at work making some new arrows since he finally has arrow heads for his withering wood arrow shafts. Remey in theory is already done learning how to make high potions so i will ask her to make antidotes for poison and rot. That should set us up well for the deep sun hollow forest. Other than that just basic stuff." Walker rattled the list off he had been building in his head.Â

Looking much happier about the party's position hearing that they were preparing diligently she decided to share some of the projects she had been working on. "That's good. I expect you will take some quests on the way there too. Speaking of quests, I have been using the change to heroic quests I gained from your party upgrades. The guild is planning to change the way we approve testing a little. The more heroic quests done the better the chance of approval for a tier advancement test. This is just between us for now though. It is better if it happens naturally."Â

She usually would not share such things with a party but since they were the specific cause of the change she decided that it was only right to share what she was doing with what they had given her. "That sounds like a great decision. So many more people can be helped." Su was ecstatic to hear this. She was thinking of all the people they had just helped at the fire and could be helped in the future if such quests became a common quest for adventurers. This could change the way the kingdom youth thought in the future. They could be a more caring and kind kingdom.Â

"Yes, I think so too. If it all goes well then the guild will be rising in fame as well. This could spur a whole new generation to come." Clara was standing high on this and could only think about how she wanted to get back to making this change. The real challenge would be to figure out how to decide which quotes were heroic or not if she was not the one viewing them. It would be impossible for her to sort every single quest at every single guild location in the world.Â

"Well I wish you luck Clara. If you need help let us know. Not that we can give out quests or sort them." Walker laughed a little while looking in the direction  of the mansion.Â

"Yes yes, you go back and meet Gil. If my map says anything it shows he is back at the mansion now." Clara knew that was something Walker was worrying over and decided to reveal the spoiler."Â

"Perfect! Then we will see you the day we leave for the forest." The pair waved as they headed down the street.Â

"Well we will have our mansion furnished while we are away. Gale will have a teacher and an entire new village to explore. We have gotten some decent training in. And Gil should be finishing up his arrows. We only need to ask Remey for the antidote potions and we will be ready for our next adventure. We are a little early too." Walker was nearly bouncing while he recounted their current state.Â

"Have you looked in to the monsters that roam the deep sun hollow forest yet?" Su had not done any research yet but she knew that Walker would have definitely looked about for a few things in the library.

"So far i have only read about the basic monsters that live there. The goblins should be little problem as long as we avoid any caves we find. They are considered low level monsters and only pose problems in their dens. There are some plant based monsters  but I had only seen some names with no descriptions so I guess they are too rare to worry over too much. What I am most concerned over is the monstrous mushroom species. They can have a bunch of different effects when they release spores. Some can paralyze, others poison, and some just do nothing."Â

"So we should be prepared to deal with them the most, any ideal way to fight them?' Su couldn't say that she was able to do anything with his information. She had no way to stop something so small like spores which were like pollen or dust in  the air.Â

"Water magic or fight them in the rain. We could also use ranged attacks and just stay away from them when we defeat them. The thing is some of their bodies can be made in to valuable medicine or potions, so we will want to harvest them." Walker was still struggling with the idea and decided that he should try working with water magic. He wanted to use his new weapon but he would need to hold that for the purple slimes decaying the forest.Â

"So it sounds like you will be practicing a little when we get back." Su couldn't help but smile knowing that Walker would be a little upset that he couldn't keep swinging around his hammer. "It's funny that you always end up with magic even when you get other weapons. It's like you're fated."Â

"Oh, Ha ha. Make fun of the wannabe front line fighter that keeps falling for the temptation of magic." Walker and Su went on like this for the remainder of the walk to the mansion. Before they even entered the gate they saw that Gil's mother was hare at work upkeep the plants. The weeping willow tree had really come in to its own after her mastery skill was used. She had been hard at work making sure it was stable and there were even buds forming for it to flower for the first time naturally.Â

"Finally back from your little trip hey? Well get over to that forge and tell Gil he needs to come help me out. He owes me for leaving without telling me again." She smiled sneakily, this was the price Gil must usually pay for rushing off to hunt with his father without telling her.Â

With a smile Walker did exactly as he was asked. He went right to the forge finding Gil to be playing with the arrow heads already. "Walker, you're just in time! I need some of the elemental crystals so I can use a new skill. The arcane marksman is more than just a marksman. I can fire elemental arrows using my mana yes but they are practically weak good for nothing. The real power is adding those elemental arrows to physical arrows. It's a fusion! If I can use the elemental crystals as a base then I can fuse the energy in to an arrow. The best part? I would be making tins of crystal shards for our friend here to play with."Â

The excitement made Gil spit all of this out at once making it hard to Understand. Naturally Su turned right around deciding to let Walker handle the mess of words that was just thrown out. There was an excited smile on the wandering blacksmith's face too, it would seem that Gil had already explained this new skill to him and he was eager to get his hands on more of the elemental crystal shards so he could use them to create mana storage gems for future gear.Â

"So wait, this skill would take the elemental mana from a crystal. Then it would fuse it in to a regular arrow. Then you would use your skill to fuse the two in to a powerful arrow that did physical and elemental magic damage?" Walker wanted to clear up the mess Gil had just explained.

"Yes! That's it. So I need every element possible of crystals so I can make a ton of different arrows. I need earth crystals if we can buy them. I have no idea what the light or the dark elemental crystals would add but I want to try them. I figure who cares about adding poison or anything to my arrows since the elemental mana will be better'¦" Gil was rambling on more and more.Â

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