(continued from part 1)
Episode 58, part 2:Adventuring with Draren Thiralas
:
"Michael?"ask him if he'd be interested accompanying us on an adventure.
I approve of encouraging him to better himself, on us or otherwise. If he's interested
I'd totally be down for having him come harass slaughterfish with us.
:
"Draren. Hello. I was going to do some skill training, and I thought I'd stop by to see if you wanted to join me.":
"Really?" he blurts out.
"I'd love to!"Companion gained: Draren Thiralas:
"I don't suppose you have any weapons or armor or anything?":
"Will a kitchen knife do?"You shrug.
:
"Sure, bring it along. "continue training
Grind crabs
When we go back to combat training, hunt for mudcrabs instead.
The two of you chat on your way to go find mighty mudcrabs to heroicly slay. It doesn't take long before you find one.
It takes even less time to dispatch it. Draren remains enthusiastic, but it's clear that his fighting skills are much worse than yours and his kitchen knife is worthless against mudcrab hide. He quickly resolves to stand back and play healer.
Block is now 7Shortblade is now 9Within minutes you find a second mudcrab, and dispatch it too. Then a scrib. Finding nothing else to fight, you attack it. It paralyzes you several times but it presents little difficulty.
Light armor is now 26Unfortunately, after that you find that there simply aren't any more mudcrabs around Seyda Neen, leading you to trek further into the jungle.
Which brings you within sight of a cliff racer. Fortunately it seems to have a difficult time smelling you through the rain, and you manage to dispatch a third mudcrab without getting close enough to attract any aerial attacks.
Shortblade is now 10Block is now 8That's about when you notice Draren pausing to scrape some mushrooms.
I'd like to find out what Draren does for a living. He's presumably just
some common laborer or peasant, but what exactly does that entail?
:
"Hey, Draren. Are you an alchemist?":
"No, nothing like that. I just collect herbs to sell to Arrille. Most months that brings in enough money to pay the rent. Some months, not so much. There's a lot of competition collecting ingredients in these parts, and I'm not much of a fighter or caster so I can't go very far into the jungle. I'd never come even this far if you weren't here with me. Thanks for the invitation, by the way. Life's been dull lately. You breaking into...not breaking into my house is the best thing that's happened to me in years.":
"It was actually Awesomicus who crashed through your roof, not me. Anyway, who taught you about herbs?":
"My mother, before she died. Along with a little restoration and mysticism. But I never got very good with either.":
"Why's that?":
"I never thought I'd need to." He looks uncomfortable.
"I suppose I can tell you. Our family was reasonably wealthy until my generation. We still have our ancestral tomb in the Grazelands, but we lost our house and most of our fortune in a bad business deal with the East Empire Company.":
"Really? You come from money? I did notice that you speak a bit differently than most dunmer I've met in Seyda Neen. You're not always calling me 'sera' all the time."He nods.
:
"That's mostly a lower class expression used when speaking to one's betters.":
"Really? I hadn't realized.":
"Yes. For example, you've met the caravaneer?":
"Darvame?":
"Yes. She calls her customers sera. But have you ever heard Arille call you that?":
"Now that you mention it, no. But he has a servant who calls him sera.":
"Yes, that's why. Arille's a patrician. Darvame's parents were peasants.":
"She seems nice enough.":
"Yes. Well mannered girl. I wish her well. But she grew up thinking other people were better than her, and she'll probably see herself that way all her life. It's not even about money. If she struck it rich tomorrow, she'd still think the same way. Whereas me, I went from well off to picking plants to pay for my shack in the slums, but I still don't feel the need to bow and scrape to everyone.":
"I guess that makes sense."The two of you venture northish, generally keeping to the road. At one point you pass a legionnaire patrolling the road, and Draren explains that while the mudcrabs mostly keep to the waterline, cliff racers generally avoid the roads because of the patrols.
:
"Cliff racers are that smart?":
"You'd be surprised.":
"Hey, Draren?":
"Yes?":
"What about Nix hounds? How smart are they?":
"Not nearly as smart as they are dangerous. Why?"The fight with the nix hound proves to be largely a stalemate. Draren is not a very good healer, and you're not very good at hitting things, but you've become surprisingly good at taking hits. This allows Draren to more or less keep pace with the damage, but by now your dagger is so worn that you can't penetrate the hound's hide very well. It's much like the fight with the rat on that fighter's guild quest. Your healer is keeping you alive, but you just can't hurt your opponent.
Light armor is now 28Block is now 9:
"I can't keep casting forever."For a moment you're unsure what to do. Run back to Seyda Neen and depend on Draren to keep you alive? Try to find that legionnaire you passed earlier? You really, really need to remember to get some panic potions for situations like this. Fortunately you remember you still have your magic viper blade. You pull off your pack and quickly rummage through it, the nix hound clawing into you all the while.
:
"What are you doing?!?!":
"Just keep me alive."After the weapon swap the hound is dead within several hits.
:
"Well done. I was worried we weren't going to make it.":
"Me too. My dagger's blunt from all those mudcrabs. I couldn't hurt it. If I hadn't had that other dagger we might have died.":
"Fortunately you did, and we didn't.":
"Yeah, but I'd rather keep it as our panic weapon than use it until it gets blunt too and then die out here. Let's head back to town."The trip back to Seyda Neen is uneventful, though Draren again stops to pick from some tree mushrooms. For a moment this annoys you, as you'd sort of hoped to be doing that yourself. But the guy is keeping you alive, and he obviously needs to be getting something out of the trip. He can just as easily practice restoration without you as you can practice destruction without him.
:
"Hey, Draren, I have a great idea. You can't come out this far alone to pick ingredients, and I can't fight monsters without someone to heal me. But together, we can do this. So how about I guard you while you pick flowers, you heal me while I fight monsters, and we split the profits?":
"Agreed."Unfortunately Draren is smart enough to realize that this means also splitting the materials you scavenged from the creatures you killed. Fortunately it turns out that he's a better haggler than you, and Arille gives him better prices than you'd be able to get on your own.
Also, unfortunately, your sortie turns out to be a losing proposition in terms of gold because of equipment repair costs. You're so bad at repairing things that it's cheaper to buy a new dagger than to repair the old one. Whilre you're at it you buy a couple to avoid having them break in combat. But that's not an option for armor, as it's even more expensive than repair hammers and Arille doesn't have full suits of light armor laying around.
Net change: -74 goldArmorer skill is now 8:
"Will you be checking out also, or staying for another night?"Oh, right. You rented a room last night.
:
"Draren, we're both out of magic and need to rest. Would it be ok if I stayed at your place?":
"Of course."You turn in your roomkey to Arrile and head to Draren's house to sleep. The rug on the floor is uncomfortable, but serviceable. You have no dreams.
Two days later
After some experimentation you take to carrying multiple daggers in your belt and simply swapping them out as they break. And rather than repair them, you simply sell damaged daggers to Ariile and watch as he repairs them then buy them back at a loss. It's inefficient, but it cheaper than repairing them yourself. You spend most of your gold as well as your half of the loot mostly on repair hammers to keep your armor more or less intact, but it's expensive and your armor is now in fairly bad shape. Still, while it's been an materially expensive few days, you feel you've learned a lot.
As for Draren, he seems happy both for your company as well as the economy of your arrangement. His healing has noticeably improved, but he still fails a lot. He apparently only knows a few circinate spells, and the spell he's been using on you is a low power custom restore health over time that takes 3-4 successful casts to heal you to full. It's suitable for keeping you standing through gradual damage, but you wouldn't want to depend on it in a dangerous situation, and his mana endurance is not very good. He'll need to skill up and probably learn some new spells if you're going to depend on him as a healer. And whether it's you or him casting, you're fairly convinced that sooner or later any reasonable rate of progress is going to depend on having a steady supply of restore magicka potions. It's not a problem yet. You're both improving your skills at a reasonable rate just from natural regeneration and the occasional nap. It's possible it might not even be a problem if you kept grinding skills like you've been doing for another week. But you suspect it will become a problem eventually.
Short blade skill is now 18
Light armor is now 33
Block is now 14
Destruction is now 18
Acrobatics is now 34
Athletics is now 24
Strength is now 28
Speed is now 36
Agility is now 37
Endurance is now 41
Intelligence is now 44
Level is now 9
Max Health is now 64
Max Magicka is now 73
Armor is in bad shape
Gold is now 52
Level 9
Health 64/64
Magicka 10/73
Armor rating: 6
28.3 Strength (20)
36.4 Speed (30)
37.2 Agility (30)
41.5 Endurance (30)
44.2 Intelligence (40)
41.2 Willpower (40)
45.2 Personality (40)
58.0 Luck (50)
Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
34 Acrobatics (0)
24 Athletics (5)
8 Armorer (0)
33 Light armor (0)
14 Block (0)
9 Unarmored (0)
7 Heavy Armor (0)
5 Medium Armor (0)
18 Shortblade
12 Hand to Hand
8 Spear
5 Blunt Weapon
5 Longblade
18 Destruction (0)
7 Alchemy (0)
5 Enchanting (0)
23 Speechcraft (10)
13 Mercantile (0)
* Iron dagger
* Chitin shield (damaged)
* Chitin left + right gauntlets (damaged)
* Chitin greaves (damaged)
* Chitin cuirass (damaged)
* Chitin left + right pauldrons (damaged)
* Chitin boots (damaged)
* Combat belt
* Iron dagger (no sheathe)
* Cruel Viperblade (no sheathe)
* Commoner's shirt
* Commoner's pants
* Interior coinpurse, containing:
* 52 gold
* lockpick
* 1 potion of water walking
Backpack (Worn)
Main compartment:
* Dwemer Puzzle Box
* small leather pouch
* Tennis shoes
* Yellow water-damaged notepad with 54 pages left
* 1 pen
* "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt (crunchy from having dried poorly)
* Denim pants (crunchy from having dried poorly)
* wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
* 2 lesser soulgems (empty)
* 29 Whickwheat
Small compartment
* 9 empty bottle
* 2 Ampoule Pod
* 1 Black Anther
* 7 bungler's bane
* 5 Chokeweed
* 3 Corkbulb
* 25 Heather
* 3 hypha facia
* 11 luminous russula
* 4 Racer Plume
* 8 saltrice
* 2 Stoneflower petals
* 5 spore pod
* 6 violet coprinus
Bearer of Azura's Mark
Bearer of 'scholarly acquaintance of Divayth Fyr' mark
Imperial Legion, Recruit
Fighter's Guild, Associate (1 quest completed)
Mage Guild, Associate
Registered Sadrith Mora business visa, with slave-handling endorsement
Fleabite (cost:1) (Damage fatigue 1-10 on touch)
Alit Hide [1]Resist Poison
Ash yam [1]Restore personality
Ampoule Pod [1]Restore speed
Black Anther [1]Resist poison
Black lichen [1]Drain Health
Bread [1]Restore Fatigue
Bungler's Bane [1]Drain agility
Chokeweed [1]Drain health
Coda Flower [1]Restore luck
Comberry [1]Drain health
Corkbulb Root [1]Restore luck
Crab Meat [1]Restore fatigue
Gravedust [1]Burden
Green Lichen [1]Night Eye
Heather [1]Poison
Hound Meat [1]Poison
Hypha facia [1]Drain speed
Kresh fiber [1]Cure common disease
Kwama cuttle [1]Restore health
Large kwama egg [1]Restore fatigue
Luminous russ. [1]Paralysis
Marshmerrow [1]Resist common disease
Muck [1]Poison
Racer plume [1]Levitate
Rat meat [1]Poison
Roobrush [1]Restore intelligence
Saltrice [1]Restore endurance
Scale [1]Swift swim
Scathecraw [1]Paralyze
Spore pod [1]Paralysis
Stoneflower petal [1]Fortify health
Sm. Kwama Egg [1]Restore Fatigue
Violet coprinus [1]Water Walking
Whickwheat [1]Cure paralysis
Willow Anther [1]Water Breathing
What do you do?