VP | Ch. 12: Quests & Gardening

After Nara received Lilith’s gift, Diabla all but threw Hekat out of the door, slamming it shut hard behind him. After that, she wordlessly walked back to the couch, sat down, and groaned into her hands.

“Son of a demon,” she cursed, stomping her foot into the ground and rupturing the floorboards. "Thinks he can just waltz into my house and give things to my assistant."

After taking a long breath in, she turned to face Nara.

“What was the catch?” Diabla asked.

Nara stared at her in bewilderment. “The catch?”

“The price you paid for the power,” Diabla explained slowly. “I know Lillith well, and she doesn’t do gifts. She does exchanges. What did you exchange?”

Nara thought back to the notifications she received.

“Er, there was no catch, as far as I can tell. I got a skill, some stat increases, some experience. The only weird thing was the new quest…” Nara trailed off. She hadn’t gotten to read the quest description yet.

Diabla glared at her expectantly. Fire biting at Nara's ankles, she opened her Quests panel.

Quests

Active Quests

- The Ancestors Await You -

This is a multi-part questline

Description: The ancestors have awakened once more.

Requirements: 

   - Reach the Fledgling Stage

Completed Quests

Basic Foraging

Baby’s First Drain

Nara explained the quest to Diabla, who's grave expression only got graver.

“That’s it? Just a quest? No unusual blessings?”

Nara perused through the rest of her system. Nothing stuck out.

“Looks like it.”

Diabla narrowed her eyes and huffed.

“Well, good. You got off easy then. I would have intervened, but I’m still under Lilith’s… purview. She lets me live peacefully on Kin’dra, and in exchange, I have sworn not to get in the way of her affairs,” Diabla explained, in a bout of unusual transparency. It seemed she thought Nara was owed a bit of it after that whole ordeal. “Anyways, just ignore the quest. We’ve already lost a day of work. I will not sacrifice any more time to my idiot brother.”

Nara’s chest thrummed with excitement. Finally, the work she signed up to do. None of that vampire nonsense. Although she did have one last remaining question.

“It says the next part of the quest will open when I reach the Fledgling stage," Nara said, then paused, biting her lip. "Is there some way I can prevent that from happening?”

Diabla tensed. She gave a terse, simple answer.

“No.”

—

The two proceeded immediately to the gardens outside the house, where the soil was dry and crunchy underfoot. Diabla carried an assortment of supplies in a wicker basket, including a watering can, some fertilizer, a few packets of seeds, and dead insects in glass jars for the carnivorous species.

Nara had never been more excited to get muddy.

“Now, how does this system nonsense work again…” Diabla said aloud to herself, paging through her own panels. You could see it in someone’s eyes when they were accessing the system; their corneas went hazy and blue, and you could see the reflection of the notifications in their irises. “Ah, there we are.”

New Quest Acquired! Potion Maker Apprenticeship

This is a multi-part questline.

Checking Prerequisites..

Prerequisite Complete: Basic Foraging

You have become the apprentice of a Potion Maker. To begin your apprenticeship, you must first become adept at the precise art of gardening. Remember, killing plants is just as bad as killing people. Don't be a murderer.

Requirements:

• Successfully raise and harvest 3 crops from seedlings
• Water and care for all crops in the garden
• If a crop dies under your care, your progress will reset to 0

Nara studied the requirements. That seemed easy enough. She had never been a big gardener – it was hard to keep a garden while living in the back of a van – but she imagined it couldn’t be that difficult to raise a few seeds. All it took was water, sun, and some love. She could manage that.

“Before you start, though, you should get your skill points settled,” Diabla said reluctantly. Nara could tell she felt bad for the incident with her brother, because she was actually mentoring instead of yelling at / confusing her. “Open your Skills panel. From there, you can either rank up existing skills or unlock new ones. I’d suggest putting some points into anything gardening related for the sake of this exercise, or else you’ll most likely fail.”

Nara raised her eyebrows. “Fail at gardening?”

Diabla chuckled. “What a naïve little thing you are. Whatever, I’m not your mother. Choose as you’d like. It’s your imminent failure.”

Nara ignored her snide comments as the demoness floated back towards her house.

She opened her Skills panel.

---

-- SKILLS --

• Siphon Blood | R1

Bite into your opponent's neck and drain their life force, restoring your own health and satisfying your Thirst.

• Alchemy | R1

Create powerful potions and elixirs that enhance your physical and magical abilities.

• Shadow Step | R1

Become invisible for 10s. Must be under a shadow of some kind.

• Plant Identification | R1

Automatically identify all plants while holding them

• Fauna Identification | R1

Automatically identify all fauna within a 5m radius

• Potion Crafting | R1

Craft all Basic potions

• Bat Communication | R1

Communicate with bats

-- PURCHASEABLE SKILLS --

• Enthrall | R1 (COST: 1 SP)

After lowering their HP to 25% or lower, convert an opponent into a Thrall

• Gardening | R1 (COST: 1 SP)

Success of raising Basic seedlings increases by 45%

• Bat Form | R1 (COST: 1 SP)

Transform into a bat to travel quickly or evade enemy attacks

--

She could turn into a bat? The idea was equally as disturbing as it was thrilling. She had always dreamt of flying, but the closest she came was barreling off her skateboard several times on her way to school. And that sort of flying involved a lot of bruises, and very little air time. To actually have a pair of wings at her disposal would be a dream come true.

Not only that, but judging by the skill description, it might make her fast enough to actually evade the high-level monsters that lurked in the forest. If that was the case, she could forage for ingredients in the woods for her potions just like the other bats had been doing – and do it all without having to involve herself in combat. It sounded like a dream.

She immediately put one point into Bat Form.

New Skill Acquired! Bat Form

Skill points remaining: 1

Excitement rushed through her body. Still, she had to be careful about the next one. If Diabla was giving her advice, it’d be stupid not to follow it. Her garden wasn’t a typical garden; half the plants had fully formed canines, a quarter could recite simple poems like a botanical parrot. The process of raising a batch of seeds on Kin’dra was probably nothing like raising them back on Earth. She’d have to be smart.

New Skill Acquired! Gardening

Skill points remaining: 0

Alright. She clapped her hands together and smiled. Time to get to work.