Project: TheirWorld - Chapter 019 - Part 2

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Child of the Gumiho

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TheirWorld

Well that’s nice… Guin thought to herself, though she still felt a little skeeved out. That was right. The [Haunted] trait was a grey trait; it worked both ways. In the community forums there was a huge discussion about what they called ‘Grey’ traits. The [Haunted] trait was one that quite a few people had seemed to have taken, but it wasn’t exactly popular - in part, because it seemed to have odd requirements of it’s own own to be anything more than a gimmick. In order to see what was haunting them, you needed to have a gained a reputation with the spirit and have the [Veil Sight] ability to see it, and the [Veil Walker] ability to speak with it - else, it was really little more than just a random buff or debuff that made people's lives more interesting. Perhaps because of the traits oddities, it was also one of the easiest traits to get rid of. One could very easily go to a temple and be exercised of it.

As for those who had grown a relationship with their spirit, they had a little more success at figuring the trait out. The compare and contrast of player’s spirits revealed that, more than likely, the spirit that was haunting you was not determined at character birth. Rather, the spirit somehow did not become a set type until it materialized for the player. Also, it seemed that the players had gone through several events and conversations, often during quest points, that seemed to push a spirit in one direction or another. In addition, it seemed that the final materialization of the spirit depended heavily on the quest it chose to solidify in. It was an interesting concept.

It had been floating around that in the case of all grey traits, there was a chance that you could push them one way or another. In the case of [Haunted], it seemed that there was at least one man who angered his spirit, and it never buffed him again - it only debuffed him. In the case of other traits, there was one story of a girl whose grey trait became a positive trait, and became a powerful, summonable weapon. The possibilities, as with everything else in TheirWorld, were intriguing. It also seemed that these grey traits were the only ones that had the chance to evolve like that.

Still. She hadn’t recalled hearing anything about the spirit being so active so early in the game.

But of course, the forums only had a limited number to testimonies. Even Guin herself had no intention of posting her stories online, and she assumed that for every one of those who did post, there were at least twenty other people who didn’t. It was also a possibly that the spirit was so active as a result of the spirit-based quests she was working on. Her entering the combat zone allowed it to be born using the information from the quests that had already been completed - the majority of which, aside from the basic tutorial quests, were spirit quests.

Since there was nothing she could do about it but play as smart as she could, she stood up and brushed herself off again. She checked her character window again after looking at the insane amount of stat points combat was giving her.

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< Body - 19 >

< Endurance - 13 >

< Resilience - 12 >

< Reflexes - 16 >

< Intellect - 16 >

< Spirit - 20 >

< Presence - 3 >

< Resolve - 7 >

< Perception - 5 >

< Fate - 18 >

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Most of her stats were now over ten. From her research, it sounded like more people graduated from the tutorial with fifteen or so points in six of the ten stats depending on how many points they had initially put into [Presence], [Resolve], [Perception] and [Fate], which were the four most difficult stats to increase. Hitting 20 in a couple of stats was expected, but it seemed like most people didn’t remain in the tutorial long enough to go beyond 30 points.

Looking at her own stats, and considering how fast they were increasing just from basic combat, she felt she could easily raise them quite a bit more. With the amound of progress she was making, she felt it reasonable to aim to have at least twenty points in the main six - and considering this quest line and the others that she had taken up, she imagined that achieving even higher stats was fully possible with the tutorial bonus. Not that it mattered, according to most people. While these stats might help a little at the start of the game, the effect was only temporary, as the bonus stats granted per level quickly made earning points tedious and insignificant.

At the rate she was earning them, however, she wondered if that was really true. After all, you gained only ten points per level, and at this point, she had gained at least twenty, if not more than thirty points. That was three levels worth of stats!

As she saw it, there was no reason to leave yet. She still had a lot to learn and gain from this tutorial zone. Casting [Spirit Armor] and [Fox Form], went about her hunting business, with Tik-Tak serving as a scout and lookout.

Fighting and clawing her way to the case, she was now almost freely morphing in and out of [Fox Form]. As things got easier and more fluid, her heart grew warmer. The buff that the spirit who haunted her had given her had quite an affect on her power and speed, and allowed her to decimate the population of Moarbits and Beedants in the area, and she fell a sense of pride and progress.

Along the way, her [Backstab] and [Trip] abilities got to level 2.

Her nose wrinkled a bit at the fact that there was nothing for [Backstab] to improve yet, but she knew that there were quite a few skills that had levels just for the purpose of earning a Rank Up - and [Backstab] was a well known and beloved assassination skill that had a well advertised ten Rank Tree.

Still in her fox form, she arrived at her destination. As she stood before the strange cave that was exposed by the uprooting of a fallen tree, she shivered.

As if called upon by her reaction, the voice pressed against her ear proudly said, “Good work, Child of the Gumiho.”

Shaking her head, she turned to Tik-Tak and said, “Stay here…”

The little fox gave her a worried look, but nodded anyway, and sat on his haunches, watching her go down into the cave.