54. Second Timed Mission

Very well it turned out that the real question was not what to use, Punishment or Lightning, but the order in which to use it.

So I decided that for those NPCs that only showed anger, they would receive a quick death with Lightning (I only needed one for them to literally disappear). And those who seemed to have fun torturing the poor guy on the ground and the girl in front would receive the Punishment, which in fact I don't know since when now I also start to follow with a continuous damage attack like poisoning.

The downside of doing this was that the Lightning caused a small secondary attack in a small area where it hit that spread to the other NPCs, some being children due to its size. Honestly, I felt a little bad about it when I noticed it.

But then I realized that I've been too soft with all the NPCs so far, reviewing things until it's okay if one or the other ends up getting caught in their own attack since the main mission was to help the man on the ground and the woman defending him method was irrelevant.

But I still don't like the idea of being responsible for the deaths of children even in games, it's a characteristic of mine that I've had since I played GTA. Only in this case I decided not to care too much since it was a mission with a timer and it wasn't the only one.

As soon as the man on the ground got up and the main ones (I think they were at least) responsible for the situation either turned to dust or were slowly dying from the Punishment, the game considered the mission successful and of course opened a new subsequent mission haba, but as this one had no toner I decided not to go after it now.

Minimizing the map and returning to the game's "world map", I clicked on the second [!], which sent me to the northernmost point I've been to since I started playing, so much so that it took about 5 full seconds to focus on the area where the second mission takes place, which still had

[3:05

3:04

3:03....]

Ok, 3 minutes left (I also don't accept that it took me so long to "help" this last NPC, it was longer than to defeat the goblins), let's remind me what the mission says.

[Cry for Help: A potential believer cries out for help in the face of an immediate crisis.

Reward: 1 devotee, random skill, 500 divine power, 200 karma.

Penalty: -2500 divine power, -400 karma.

Timeout 5 minutes.]

Ok now where is the potential believer? Because until now I'm only seeing a dark fog, like the areas not explored in games in general. Shouldn't the NPC appear as soon as I clicked the icon like last time?

With time running out I decided to click randomly to see if anything happened, and after the 5th attempt the [!] icon appeared, a small portion of the fog disappeared and I could see this potential believer.

Some different things that were obvious right away. The first was that he wasn't even a figure that you couldn't tell the gender apart, and his life bar appeared at the same time, and it was low, and falling.

[HP: 10/30

HP: 9/20...]

He was losing 1 HP every 20 seconds it seemed.

Secondly, the surrounding environment was considerably different from the fields, woods and forests I had seen so far. It was still a forest but it was a forest dotted with ruins (as far as I could see in the available field) and a heavy blizzard.

This was an interesting change of scenery for me, as it served to show how much dedication the developers put into creating the world, after all, just as you would expect in the north in the real world, it snowed with the same force as you would expect in countries like Greenland or Iceland in winter (I don't know if I had already mentioned this but at that time according to the game's calendar it would be winter, yes, it was winter but there were still places where it was still harvest time like in Green Grassland Village), without needing to make any updates.

Just as one would expect from a blizzard it was difficult to see much of anything other than the "potential believer" and the area around him. As I said before, this NPC did not appear as a pixelated figure or character, but with a more formed image like that of one of the devotees, something that had never happened before.

But it didn't matter every time his HP dropped, he faltered in his walk and soon fell to the ground with only 6 HP.

It was obvious what the objective was in this case so I soon opened the Store to see what could help, remember when I said there were several items in it, it wasn't a joke.

As soon as I typed 'heat' in the search bar, a very large list of fires of different types appeared in front of me, from simple things like just a burning log to flaming beacons of the type that were in temples or walls. As expected from store items, each of them had the basic ability to recover the HP of NPCs that were in their area, as well as some secondary effects for each type of bonfire, obviously with very different Divine Power prices.

As the NPC was in a blizzard unless I placed a Beacon right next to him it is very likely that any other bonfire would be put out by the wind. Therefore, the most viable and economical option in this case would be to place the new one in a shelter and then put the fire in it, under the hypothesis that it would be possible to do this, but it wouldn't cost (much) to try.

Just like with bonfires, the list of shelters was immense, from shelters dug into the ground, to common canvas tents and even mini palaces made from several tents together. Thinking about the idea I had of including a fire pit in the shelter, I opted for a yurt-style tent with the perfect hole on top for the fire. And putting the prices of both together, the bonfire costing 300 PD, and the tent 1000 was well worth the edge I have at 1523 PD.

Moments later I turned my attention to the NPC who already had 3 HP, so I decided to avoid losing an NPC for the first time. I placed the tent right on top of it and centered the fire to be right in the center, which wasn't difficult since any other place I tried to place the fire the classic red square would appear indicating the impossibility of doing so.

As soon as I set the fire.

[Synergy triggered.

Fatigue recovery + energy recovery = full health recovery

Description: combining the fatigue recovery effect (yurt tent) with energy recovery (campfire) creates the health recovery effect, as long as the NPC remains inside the tent regardless of the condition, it will recover.]

Hmm, not only did it work, but it also made a new resource available that I had no idea existed. Could this synergy effect also be applied to my skills or to the NPCs themselves?.