You have 16 Days Until Your Place of Business is Shut Down

For a royal capital, Syzygy is a pretty lousy town. Sure, there's a big, fancy castle, the town has a lot of modern conveniences and whatever, but it's frustratingly small, without very much to do besides one's job, and all the surrounding areas (even the roads to other towns) have been infested with monsters lately.

But today, for one unlucky person, circumstances have conspired to ensure they will have quite a bit to do, and probably not nearly enough time to do it.

(Enter [NAME] [GENDER] [RACE] of player character.)

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SpoilerThis is a bad idea. Oh well.

I will just be picking my favorite individual things to combine together for these "enter so-and-so" things.

Log of everything that's happened so far, to get you up to speed!

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Spoiler

Assignment 1: Year 1/Month 1
Make healing items. Judgement based on quantity and effectiveness.

Day 1: Sarah Kennigan is a half-mana and apprentice to the human alchemist Marie Anacosta. Today she discovers that her master's general laziness and irresponsibility has led to the king of Syzygy ordering their shop closed and their home turned over to the state! But there is a way to save the shop: If Sarah completes the requested assignment by the end of each month, she will be paid and get to keep the shop for the next month. The one delivering this news is a lazy knight by the name of Miranda.
Marie immediately abandons Sarah to her fate, leaving her a strange pocketwatch that only reports the time of day in quarters and a basic alchemy handbook. Sarah's wolf beastfolk best friend Dave "Scruffy" Barret is also around. After reading through some of the basis, Sarah decides to pay the town blacksmith, a bald fire mana named Hagel, a brief visit; he gives her another recipe book. Then she and Dave head out to try their hand at gathering ingredients out in the Nearby Forest and fighting monsters.
Day 2: After gathering a few more ingredients in the forest, Sarah returns to town. On reading more of the basic alchemy handbook, she heads out to learn of some more of the shops in town:
-The Tethel family, some cat beastfolk, have a grocery store usually manned by their twelve-year-old daughter Hazel, who practically weaponizes her childlike cuteness and seeming innocence to maximize profits. She coerces Sarah into buying another recipe book before leaving with the old "one time only cheap price" trick.
-The antique store is run by a very visibly old earth mana named Janus. He gives her a strange gem, calling it a "free sample".
-The drugstore is run by...um, that guy. He looks average and...we're not sure what his name is actually. He really likes sharing "facts" with people at random. He gives Sarah a package which turns out to contain yet another recipe book.
-It's not a shop, but the bureaucrat Stahl at the castle's front desk handles requests. He has an intimidating, stern demeanor, a blunt manner of speaking, and despises wasting time.
Sarah then tries alchemy for the first time, successfully creating a Supplement.
Day 3: Sarah tries to make a Bomb since there was a request for one. It doesn't come out too well, but at least the cauldron doesn't explode! Anyway, the bomb is turned in since the request didn't say anything about it needing to be a good bomb.
Day 4: Sarah goes over all the recipes she has so far and makes a mental note of how difficult they are so she won't have to go in blind later on.
Day 5:The day is spent making some more Supplements.
Day 6: On her way to the castle, Sarah is interrupted by the person who requested that bomb: A self-proclaimed scientist by the name of Miriam Kovich. Her boundless energy and aggressiveness scare the half-mana away for the moment, and she spends the rest of the day avoiding her while asking a couple of people if they've heard of her. Seeming to argue with herself the whole time, Miranda offers her services at fighting monsters at a rather steep price. Sarah relaxes with Dave for the rest of the morning, then makes another Supplement.
Day 7: Sarah and Dave head out to the forest once again, fighting some monsters to uncover a new section of it.
Day 8: Sarah gathers some more ingredients, and the party deals with their first ambush. Then they head back to town.
Day 9: Sarah makes her first Healing Paste, and immediately turns it in for a request. She takes the rest of the day off.
Day 10: Sarah uses alchemy to make some chocolate! This lasts halfway through the next day.
Day 11: After finishing with the chocolate, Sarah discovers that Dave is doing something that exhausts him, and being rather secretive about it, but hangs with him for a bit anyway. She then tracks down Miriam to apologize for hiding from her earlier. Miriam accepts the apology and explains what she's really doing in Syzygy: A small black dot in the sky has caught her interest, and the lands below it are owned by the king and well-protected by his knights. Sarah also meets a strange cat-beastfolk boy named Niko who claims to be a witch, after he follows her around for a bit. Sarah makes Polish Powder for the first time under Miriam's watchful eye, and the scientist in turn offers to come along on Sarah's next trip outside of town, as a sort of "free trial" to show what valuable help she's capable of giving in the future.
Day 12: Sarah makes another Healing Paste. Dave reveals that he's been in training to be a more efficient fighter, and that training was successful! They take the rest of the day off in preparation to head out to the forest the next morning.
Day 13: Sarah takes Dave and Miriam along to the forest, redeeming Miriam's offered free trial. They fight a small group of punis and then collect some more ingredients.

Name: Xindaris
Gender: Yes
Race

Name: Rosa

Gender: Female

Race: Half-Elf

Name: Haipa
Gender: Male
Race: Golem

name: hypatia
gender: female
race: grecian

Name: Sssssssarah
Gender: F
Race: A perfectly normal warm blooded hu-mon and not one of those sssssupposed hidden sssssnake person in dissssguissse

Gender: Yes

Race: Half-Elf

gender: female

Name: [S]arah
Gender: F

Your name is Sarah Kennigan; you turned sixteen last month. The next two years of your life don't look so great.

Sure, things are better than they were at the orphanage. This town has a terrible orphanage. But the bizarre woman who adopted you six years ago promised to make you her apprentice and teach you to do alchemy, but all you've done since then is chores. You're not allowed near the big cauldron in the living room which supposedly exists expressly for doing alchemy, and she never even touches the thing! You don't really have any idea where she gets all the Cole she sends you out to buy groceries and other random things for her with.

Her name is Marie Anacosta, but if she's in earshot it's 'Master'. Whatever dissatisfaction you have with the woman, you wouldn't dare cross her. She's this short, blonde-haired, unimpressive human woman who's looked twenty-something since the day you met her, and wears a cheerful expression and talks in a chipper, friendly way all the time, but you know just enough of the truth hiding behind all of that to not wish to learn any more. So it's two more years of calling this woman 'Master' until you are legally an adult, and can just get as far away from her as physically possible.

This you think of while going through your morning routine. Two more...less than two years, really. Maybe you'll sign up to be a royal knight or something. You catch a look at yourself in the mirror on the way out of the bathroom. You're half-Mana, which gives you an..unusual look. Your hair is the brown of dirt, hiding slightly pointy ears, and your skin is tinted partially green, which has caused many people concern about your health on first meeting you thanks to the unpleasant way it mixes with a normal human skin tone. Your eyes are yellow and glow slightly in the dark. You prefer practical clothes: Shorts and a shirt, so you wear that today; if your master sees you today she'll demand you put on a skirt and blouse again, of course, but chances are pretty high she'll be in her room or out all day today and not even spare you a passing glance.

You don't even know what your affinity is, so you can't even do any cool magic. When you ask full Manas what they think it might be, they just say to ask your parents, and, well...you've learned to just stop asking that question over the years. It's not like Master will help you, either.

At the point in your morning routine where you take a wistful glance at the cauldron sitting empty and unused in the living room-slash-storefront (your house is also supposedly an alchemy shop, but again, Master doesn't do anything) before looking for the paper listing what chores she wants of you today that you are interrupted by a few knocks on the door.

You pause, uncertain if you heard correctly or are hallucinating. There are a couple more knocks on the door. Hmm. Should you go and try to wake Master up, or just answer the door yourself?

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SpoilerNotes:
-Look, I technically included every suggestion! Technically.
-Mana already pretty much fill the role of "magical immortal pointy-ears" in this setting, so I interpreted elf into that.

answer the door yourself

(hey, that was a good take on the prototypical annoying "do you answer the door and advance the story or not" suggestion prompt. keep it up)

wake up the master

>If you wake up your "master", she will complain about your clothes. It's not worth the hassle, just answer it yourself.

>If you wake up your "master", she will complain about your clothes. It's not worth the hassle, just answer it yourself.

It's true, nearly anything that was already happening tends to become more rather than less of a hassle as soon as Master is involved. So you go and answer the door yourself.

On the other side is a human woman with short dark hair dressed in the uniform of the royal knights--specifically the civil uniform strongly resembling a noble's finery, rather than the armor the ones who actually go out of town wear.

Before you can say anything, she says "Is this the place of business of one Marie Anacosta." From her expression and tone of voice...you're not sure if she's bored, half asleep, or just done with the universe in general. For a second or two it's hard to even register that she was actually asking a question.

"Um..yes, but she's..." You don't actually know that she's even here right now, so to save trouble you try, "...not here right now. Uh..I'm her...apprentice," you settle on. It sounds better than 'adopted slave'; you don't love your life now but you don't really want to think about what could happen if Master ever heard you insinuated she was breaking the law or something.

"Well, whoever's in charge is supposed to get this," she says, handing you a rolled-up piece of paper. "I have to make sure it is received personally."
"I guess you could come in and wait for her to come back if you want," you say, starting to unroll the paper to read it out of curiosity. "Can I read it?" She shrugs in a way that strongly suggests she doesn't care.

The first few lines of the document are quite the attention-grabber:

By order of His Majesty the King
The owner of the shop at 112 Ralzburg Street is hereby ordered to close shop and submit all relevant real estate to the authority of the king in 30 days' time

You don't read past this point on account of being too busy yelling "WHAAAAAAT?!" at the top of your lungs.

The knight appears to have anticipated something like this, as her fingers are already firmly plugging her ears shut. Once your outburst is finished she says, "Sheesh, calm down will ya? Did you even read the whole thing?"
You unroll a bit more to find that the next several lines are in considerably smaller font, and appear to consist of pure, unadulterated legalese. It starts with the word "if" and carries on with something about unsatisfactory results, something something turned in to an appointed official of the state, herein yadda yadda deliverer of this document so on so forth three years' time.

Your attempt to parse this ensuing wall of text is interrupted by a very familiar yawn. You and the visitor to the shop both turn in the direction to find Master stepping out of her bedroom door, still wearing a long nightgown from probably having been asleep. "Hey, what's all the racket about?"

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SpoilerI was really on the lookout for any of a few possible third options. Interesting nobody tried one.

There will be an increasing amount of genuine choices to make once we get past this brief introduction section, which I'm going to try and make interesting with a few more character creation opportunities.

>Give your master the paper and plug your ears.

>Hey, it's not all bad! After all, perhaps if you plead with the king or that appointed official of the state, they will put you with a REAL master who actually knows how to run an alchemy shop. Who knows, maybe one day people will be calling you "Sarah, the Master Alchemist"!

>Give your master the paper and plug your ears.

You go to where Master is and hand over the paper, moving your hands toward your ears in case she has as loud a reaction as you did. She starts reading...

>Hey, it's not all bad! After all, perhaps if you plead with the king or that appointed official of the state, they will put you with a REAL master who actually knows how to run an alchemy shop. Who knows, maybe one day people will be calling you "Sarah, the Master Alchemist"!

It doesn't sound like a bad idea, except that there are no other alchemy shops in this town. You've checked, in the midst of efforts to sneak off and do alchemy on your own or such, and honestly it's difficult to prove alchemy is even real around here aside from various historical and anecdotal accounts of it being used in the past. It just seems like nobody uses it around here except for Master...except that, well, she doesn't.

"Oh, is that all?" says Master, offering you the paper back. "What're you doin' with your hands, silly?"
"What do you mean is that all? They're gonna kick us out!" You are too busy waving your arms around to take the paper back.
"No they're not. They just want some free labor." She halfway tosses it at you and you have to flail a bit to catch it.
"Uh..you'll get paid and.." interjects the knight. "Actually, you guys sort this stuff out and like...I'll be at the castle whenever someone wants to go over the details." She heads out the door before any objections can be raised.

"An-yway," says Marie, "did you even read the whole thing?"
"Mostly...?" You squint at the finer print again. "It's just a lot of complicated phrasing."
"Well, I think this is a perfectly good opportunity!" she says cheerily. "It doesn't look like they really expect too much, so I'm sure you can take care of it."
"Um, take care of..?" You think she expects you to have figured out something you haven't yet.
Marie puts her fists on her hips. "You do still wanna learn alchemy, right?"
"Yeah..."
"So this is a perfect time to do that! Lots of motivation," she grins. "You go get the details from the nice knight and I'll start setting things up here."
"Um, okay."
"And change your clothes first!" she adds, pointing up at you with a slight frown. "Your complexion looks horrible without bright colors to complement it. People are gonna think I let you get sick or something."

You've changed into something disgustingly frilly enough to please your guardian and stepped outside before you realize this is just another instance of her making you do what should be her work, for her. Oh well...you still might really get to learn alchemy this way! Trying to hold on to that positive thought, you start on your way to the castle. You've been near the building before, but never inside...

(Enter [CLASS] [GENDER] [NAME] for another character.)

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SpoilerHere "class" can be some sort of typical videogame class like fighter or mage, or any occupation you think a person in the city might have, like cook or whatever.

Street Cleaner, Male, Scruffy

>Woodsman, Male, Barrett

Apiarist, Nah, Tesco

Upper-middle
Yes please!
Dav

cabbage salesbeing

ma-LFDKADFFA989f-feemaaOIDUtiu#*()*())(@()RJIF0U89GIO[ERROR]

jorri

Class: Window-knocker (is paid to awaken people by knocking on their windows, very helpful for not missing meetings)

Name: Hildevert

Gender: Male

On your way there you hear someone conspicuously attempting to sneak up behind you. Without even turning around you say, "Hey Scruffy."
"Wh-hey!" The expected person moves up next to you. "No fair." It's Dave Barrett, your best friend and closest ally in pranks for years. You met in the orphanage, but he was adopted by a considerably more normal family. Dave is a beastfolk, canine, dark-haired and generally unkempt in appearance, which has earned him the teasing nickname "Scruffy" among a lot of adults. Actually, you're pretty sure Master was the first person to call him that.
"What's crazy Marie got you doin' now?" he asks.
"Well..." You explain the situation.

"Dude, seriously? She won't even work when her house is on the line?"
"I guess not. But I might actually get to learn alchemy this way, at least."
"I mean, since when did the king have the right to kick people outta their homes anyway?"
You shrug. "I dunno, he's the king. He could declare war on a patch of cabbages and they'd have to attack." This earns a small chuckle.
"You mind if I come with? I've never really had a good excuse to be in the castle before."
"Sure, whatever. Just don't get me in trouble."
"Me, get you in trouble?" he says, mock-incredulously. Getting in trouble has generally been a mutual decision between the two of you.

The castle's gigantic front doors are wide open, and lead straight into a big room with doors going off in all directions and people going in and out everywhere in the mess of semi-organized chaos that is government. There's a wide counter at the back of the room behind which a single dark-haired bespectacled man sits alternately yelling at the people in line in front of it to stay in line and responding to whoever's currently in front.

"So, where're we goin'?" says Dave. You don't see the knight from earlier in here, but probably someone who works here would know where to find her. You could try one of the other knights stationed here, or one of the nobles or parliament members maybe, or the guy at the desk--the line is long, but it is moving pretty fast.

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SpoilerBusy week and a half or so, writer's block, bluh.

Favorite aspects of most of the available suggestions went into this character.

>That line is technically the safest bet...Plus there are two of you. One of you can stay in line and the other can do a quick peek around to try and find another knight. Make sure to stay in sight of each other though, don't want to get separated.

> One of you talk to a knight. The other one make a run for it, and search for the king!

> If things go wrong, you can always pretend that you don't know each other.

> I'm sure you'll think on your feet. The number of times you two have been in trouble together? You'll have been in much more stressful situations than this.

>That line is technically the safest bet...Plus there are two of you. One of you can stay in line and the other can do a quick peek around to try and find another knight. Make sure to stay in sight of each other though, don't want to get separated.

> One of you talk to a knight. The other one make a run for it, and search for the king!
> If things go wrong, you can always pretend that you don't know each other.
> I'm sure you'll think on your feet. The number of times you two have been in trouble together? You'll have been in much more stressful situations than this.

"Hmm..hold a place in line for me," you say "If you get to the front before I get back, tell them we're here about the alchemy shop, I'm sure they'll figure it out."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Well, this paper says it's by the order of the king, right? So maybe I should go talk to him about it. I have a perfectly good excuse to wander the halls looking for the lady who gave me this thing anyway."
Dave quirks an eyebrow. "Do you even know what the king looks like?"
"Do you?"
He shrugs. "Fine, have fun." And then heads over to get in line.

You decide to try walking into the nearest hallway as if you know what you're doing; there's plenty of crowd to blend in with, and nobody really tries to stop you. But after a bit of walking, poking your head into rooms periodically to find empty rooms or people having boring meetings, you soon find yourself back in the entry room.
This castle is a bit of a maze. You check in on the line and Dave, about a third of the way through, gives you a thumbs-up. You try another hallway on the opposite end of the room, and about the fifth room you poke your head inside of this time contains the knight who showed up at your doorstep this morning. Her head's leaning forward so her hair hangs over her eyes, but you think she might be...asleep?

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SpoilerWell hi Derelict! Haven't seen you since the collapse.

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SpoilerHey Xin. Thought I might catch your attention. I've had an extended break from forums since EOFD was one update away from finishing, haha, but I thought I may as well check out this Eagle Time thing.

> Say hello, quietly. If she doesn't respond, she's probably asleep.

> Do knights have, like, an ID card or something that makes them a 'knight'? If so, why not borrow it for a little while?

> If there is no knightly ID you can take, just leave the room and keep searching.