Evolution of a Healer

Cyn had been thinking for a while and did not notice the Arachi that kept checking in on her since she was taking so long. It continued to let her be lost in thought, just awkwardly standing in front of the profession stone storage, for now. After closing the case, she opened her menu to see the notifications, and presumably new skills.

Profession Chosen: Creature Handler - A root profession focused on understanding non-humanoid creatures. Root professions are highly malleable, and are prone to specialized evolution through your decisions and actions.

Creature Handlers will gain +2 Vitality, +1 Will, +1 Agility and +1 free point when leveling up.

The first notification was exactly what she expected it to be. Cyn closed it and moved on.

Skill upgraded! Inspect (Common) -->

Inspect (Uncommon) - Focusing on a person, object, or idea may reveal more information. Has improved results when used on a non-humanoid creature.

That on the other hand was unexpected. She was sure she would have new skills, but her first one just being a direct upgrade to Inspect was a surprise. Cyn was eager to test whether the upgrade in quality meant she would get more information no matter what she used the skill on.

New skill gained! Friendly Aura (Common)(Passive) - Non-humanoid creatures are less likely to react to your presence with hostility.

Does not work on all creatures.

Effect will be canceled if the creature is provoked.

Back to normal, vague descriptions. Reading it over a few times she decided that this skill was ultimately moot. Even if creatures did not attack her immediately, they would still attack her party and that probably counted as being provoked. And without a comprehensive list of what creatures it did and did not work on, even alone Cyn was risking life and limb if she tried to depend on this skill. What did ‘less likely’ mean in this context, anyway? Shaking her head, she moved on to the final notification.

New skill gained! Harvesting (Common)(Passive) - You are able to more effectively harvest items created by non-humanoid creatures.

A second, likely useless, passive skill. This profession was definitely set up to be used in animal husbandry. Cyn still had hope though, since her initial skills from Mage were not much better. Suspecting she would need to interact with creatures in order to get experience, she closed her menu. Before she could turn around to leave, however, there was a sharp tap on her shoulder. Cyn just about jumped out of her own skin in surprise, and her heart rate was not helped when she turned around to discover herself uncomfortably close to the Arachi who was managing the storeroom.

It looked down at her intently, clawed hand returning to its side from tapping Cyn. “Chhhk… Need help?” Its chittering made her skin crawl.

“No, I am done. Thank you!” Cyn couldn’t exit the storeroom fast enough, leaving behind the confused Arachi as she rushed past and back out into the cobble street. She wasn’t sure exactly how long she had been in there, but it couldn’t have been too long, right? She should have some time to check out the animals she noticed when they arrived.

Thankfully it did not take long for her to find one of the animal pens, and she looked over the short stone wall to watch the animals inside. Cyn was calling them animals, since they were penned and seemingly mostly tame, but ‘creature’ really was a better descriptor. They were like dog-sized centipedes, with bumpy, colorful bodies and covered in what looked like dozens of small spines on their backs. The spines appeared as if they either collected, or perhaps grew, cotton-ball-like chunks of gray fur. Cyn saw pincers near their mouths, but based on the reactions, or lack thereof, from the gnomes and elves taking care of them when the centipedes snapped at them the pincers must not be that threatening. Ready to test out her upgraded still, Cyn used Inspect on the creature.

Gray Tufted Spikipede - Level 5

This spikipede has been carefully bred to grow more fur than other breeds of spikipedes.

Fur can be harvested to make cloth.

Spines secrete toxins.

Parts of this creature are edible.

Finally, some actual information. She wasn’t surprised that whatever creatures the gnomes were cultivating had been bred to be better at a specialized production. Humans had been doing the same thing for a long time. She could even guess that the extra fur this breed of spikipede grew would be a detriment in the wild, much like farmed sheep on earth. The fact they produced a toxin, though, was concerning. If it was secreted from the spines it would undoubtedly end up saturing the tufts of fur, since they appeared to grow from the ends of the spines.

Cyn watched the caretakers of the spikipedes a while longer, and deduced that either the toxin was too weak to be threatening, or the caretakers had an increased resistance to it. She watched both gnomes and elves harvest the tufts bare handed, and no one seemed concerned. Nor did she feel anyone was losing health. Feeling bold, and seeing an opportunity, she leaned over the short wall and carefully petted one of the spikipedes between the spines on its head.

Petting a strange creature probably shouldn’t make Cyn grin like a fool, but here she was, grinning. The creature twisted to look up at her with large, multifaceted eyes and clicked its pincers together, before slowly rising up on its rear legs. She rose with it, continuing to gently stroke the spikipede, in order to keep her face from coming too close. Even if she did not think it was hostile, keeping her face away from direct danger was still a good idea.

It seemed to like, or at least be enthralled by, being petted, and this allowed Cyn to study the spikipede up close. As fascinating as the creature was, she still intended to shape this profession into something suitable for combat. With that in mind, she focused on identifying the spikipedes strengths and weaknesses as if she intended to fight it. As docile as it was right now, it was higher level then the mimic had been, and would probably still overpower her if it came down to it. Its exoskeleton was predictably hard, but when Cyn touched its underside it was noticeably more malleable than its back. Not exactly a soft underbelly, but clearly the large number of legs prevented it from having the same kind of armor on both sides.

It also did not seem to like having its underside touched, snapping its pincers dangerously close to her arm, so she quickly moved her hand back to its head to calm it. As for strengths, those pincers were almost definitely dangerous if it wanted them to be. The spines too looked quite sharp, at least the ones not growing hair. Steeling herself, sure its toxin was only mild but needing to test for science, Cyn pricked a single finger on a spine.

The spines were indeed needle sharp, a drop of blood welling up from her finger. The effects of the toxin were immediate too. A light burning spread out from the puncture but faded before even reaching her wrist. She felt herself receive a notification, but ignored it for a minute to focus on her body to make sure that that was the only effect. The wound had closed within seconds, and when she felt no further effects after a minute Cyn determined she had been correct about the toxin. It was a very mild annoyance, and likely just an extra deterrent to anything that might try and take a bite out of the spikipede, rather than an actual defense mechanism.

Since Cyn had stopped petting it once she pricked herself, the spikipede had wandered off and left her to be able to check her notifications, finding she had leveled up already. Not that that was too surprising, the first level of Mage had come very quickly as well. Creature Handler was just more ambiguous about the experience she was gaining. She also noticed she had six free points waiting to be spent, having forgotten about them after the fight with the mimic. Thinking about where they would best be spent, Cyn looked over her stats.

Name: Cynthia Price

Race: [Human]

Class: [Mage] Level 2

Profession: [Creature Handler] Level 1

Health Points: 52/80

Mana Points: 160/170

Stamina Points: 69/80

Free Points: 6

Vitality: 8

Mind: 10

Will: 12

Strength: 4

Agility: 6

Luck: 5

Racial Skills: [Dimensional Translator][Inspect]

Class Skills: [Restoration][Mana Ball][Mage Regeneration][Freeform Mana Casting]

Profession Skills: [Friendly Aura][Harvesting]

Feats: N/A

She was tempted to split them all into vitality and agility, but decided that for now she would just hold onto the free points. Cyn wanted to spend them before they returned to the mines for sure, but would rather see how much she could gain by leveling her profession before determining what she needed to put free points into. Hearing a voice very close to her, she quickly closed her menu to see who was speaking.

It was one of the spikipede caretakers, and they were talking to her. Cyn had to apologize and have them repeat themselves, and this led to a discussion about the spikipedes. The caretaker had noticed her interest and seemed very willing to teach her about them, or at the least use her new profession for cheap labor. It would be another few hours before she left the spikipede pens, richer in both knowledge and Credits, and a level higher.

Her time spent among the caretakers also ended up answering her previous curiosities about the economy, without having to ask too many awkward questions. Dimension Credits were the standard currency, and rather than being anything physical she had a special location on her stats screen that displayed them now that she had received some for her work. Based on the name alone Cyn theorized that they would probably be used across all dimensions. They did not seem to have any kind of identifier of what dimension she received them in, so she was pretty sure they were not specific to the current one. Depending on the price of food, the party may be able to get some new clothes and supplies before leaving Cogtopia for good.

Ultimately the only reason she did not stay longer was a creeping feeling of hunger, and a growing need to bathe. The spikipedes were pretty dirty creatures, and Cyn had not been clean in the first place. She wanted to be clean before dragging herself to the communal kitchen and after saying goodbye to the people who had been teaching her she headed back to the party’s temporary home, hoping everyone else had already had their turn in the bath.

***

Unfortunately, she would have to wait even longer before taking a bath. Dana was occupying it when Cyn arrived back at the house. Fortunately, she would not have to wait to eat since Hex had brought back his more edible attempts at cooking. They had been labeled not good enough to sell at the kitchen, but rather than go to waste he had been allowed to bring his creations back to the party. Paying for the ingredients would have to come in the form of free labor over the next day or two, but the Rogue had already improved his profession enough to be confident that his future attempts would be profitable. These half baked, half burn creations could never be classified as good, but anything was better than the Survival Wafers.

Scott and Sam were out, having left to pick up their own profession choices around the same time Hex returned, an hour or so before she had come back, so the Rogue did not anticipate seeing them again for a while. He had also already had his time with the tub, leaving just Cyn once Dana had finished. The Archer had only returned minutes before Cyn did, and had only told Hex she was successful in finding Ander, and leveling up her own profession before she went straight for the bathroom.

While eating Cyn briefly detailed her own profession choice. Hex initially commented on it being an odd choice for a healer, but once she explained her reasoning and how she hoped to guide the profession to be useful to her, the Rogue relented that at least it would probably be interesting. He also confirmed her suspicion that cooking was the root to most alchemy professions, something he was pleasantly surprised to learn from the kitchen.

At this point Dana leaving the bathroom interrupted their conversation, and, after confirming with the Archer that she should not have to wait for hot water, Cyn finally took her turn getting clean and tackling her hair situation.

It took Cyn twice as long to deal with her hair then it had to clean both herself and her clothes. The red curls had turned into a knotted mess, and after taking the time to slowly work a brush through it she was finally able to weave it all into a single braid reaching the middle of her back. It was the only style she could come up with that stood a chance of holding up long term, short of just chopping it all off. It was nowhere near as well braided as Dana wore her hair, but it would have to do. She had rarely braided her hair before, generally opting to just have it loosely gathered in a clip, but her current circumstances forced Cyn to consider how long it might be between opportunities to brush and care for it properly.

Leaving the bathroom, she was surprised to find everyone was there. Scott and Sam had apparently returned quickly instead of taking a lot of time to train like Hex and Cyn had. With everyone now here, they had a chance to discuss what Dana had found out from Ander along with their profession choices.

Getting the most serious points out of the way, the Archer pulled out a crude looking map of the mines. She was able to pinpoint the chamber they had entered the dungeon into, and fresh charcoal markings seemed to indicate the collapsed passages they found along with other things. Of the two tunnels the party had not explored yet, Ander had indicated the one that was not infested would lead them to a portion of the mines that had collapsed into a large sinkhole. He wasn’t sure what they would find there now, as the collapse had happened only shortly before the Illuminant’s arrived, but he thought it unlikely that the original passage to the surface in that area was still intact.

As for the final tunnel, it should lead to the vertical lift shaft. The problem was that the lift had been broken deeper into the mine when the miners had left it behind to flee the Illuminant’s, and he did not think trying to climb the shaft to the surface without it was feasible. He had also explained the original break to Dana, and it sounded like a fairly easy fix. As long as it had not been destroyed further, all they would have to do was find it and the party should be able to get themselves to the surface. The party as a whole found that encouraging. The only real hurdle should be fighting their way there.

Turning to their profession choices next, everyone was most surprised to hear that the Archer had chosen to take up smithing. Her reasoning was she was pretty sure it would allow her to create a gun, and Dana thought that would be a weapon she would be far more comfortable using instead of the bow. Cyn’s choice of profession was also decreed a little odd, but Scott at least shared her optimism that it would allow her to more easily spot weak points. The Guardian had become a Jeweler, inspired in part by the diadem Cyn wore and in part based on his experience in how powerful a good magic ring could be during a RPG campaign. Sam on the other hand decided to stick with what he was already good at, and officially made himself a Builder. Interestingly, he made it sound as if he actually got a boost from his previous experience in construction and it had allowed him to pick up the basic skills much faster, even if it was more akin to magic then construction on earth had been. Based on their experiences for the first day in Cogtopia, everyone expected to be returning to the mines within a few days.

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