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

>Might as well turn it in and grab number 5, the healing paste one. We will be making healing paste eventually anyway.

>Well, to be fair, Miriam might be able to teach us new recipes possibly. I will leave it up to others whether we talk to her, but she could be a possible ally...

>Either way, I say our next step should be chilling, maybe hanging out with Dave. Y'know, to restore our energy

> I think we should avoid Miriam just for the time being.

> Once we're chilled, we can get to work on planning and stuff.

> Maybe check in with that knight girl, see how she's doing. She likes us, at least a little bit, right?

>Fair enough, Miriam can wait, I suppose.

>Miranda should be somewhere in the castle...might as well pop-in and see how she is.

You decide to turn in the wolf fur quest today and just take on another one. Of course, that'll mean going back and forth to your house to get them, so that route around where Miriam is waiting should come in handy for it. First, though, you head to the room Miranda said she'd be waiting in. You don't have anything to turn in yet for the assignment, but you might as well check in with her anyway while you're here.

She's waiting there, as usual, with her eyes closed. Maybe she really is sleeping but is just a light sleeper? And also able to do it standing up? Either way, you tap lightly on the door and head inside. She opens her eyes but doesn't jolt or anything in response to the noise. "Oh, hiya. Got anything to turn in yet?"
"Err, no..I'm getting there, though," you say. "I have a recipe for at least one thing I think will work for this, and I'm starting to get together the ingredients to make some."
"Cool, cool." She nods.

"So, uh, I heard you went outta town recently for a couple of days?" she says.
"Yeah, to get materials for the stuff I need to make. Actually, I need to go the forest again pretty soon for more."
Miranda closes her eyes for a moment, thinking. "Hmn..."

She keeps her eyes closed for much longer than you expected, until finally you say, "What?"
"Well," she finally opens them, "if you're having trouble with monsters...the sword I wear isn't for show or anything, and, y'know, knights are supposed to protect the citizens and all that. But like, it's really hard to motivate myself to go do something like that. I mean, it seems like you survived one trip out there already anyway..."
"So do you want to help me or not?" you say, confused. It sounds like she's having an argument with herself.
"Eh." She shrugs. "If you can pay enough to get me motivated, I'll help you out."
"Well..h-how much is that?"
Your eyes widen at the response. Miranda wants five hundred Cole per day. FIVE. HUNDRED. That's quite a lot for your present budget. You wonder if such a price is worth it. You're pretty sure she's a much more experienced fighter than you and Dave are, even if she is really lazy. Maybe if some really nasty monster were blocking your path or something.

"Uh..I'm not sure I can afford that," you say.
"Yeah...sorry."

(New party member unlocked - Miranda)

After that, you head home to get the wolf fur and then come back to turn it in and take the request to make healing salve. Being careful to take the alternative route again, you head back home. Given how stressful making that bomb was, you decide to take a little bit of time off, maybe just the rest of this morning.

You spend some of the time hanging out with Dave, swapping inappropriate jokes. At some point you ask him if he's ever heard of Miriam.
"Hmm, yeah, I think I heard dad talking with some of the miners about her. She just showed up out of the blue last year sometime and started yelling about how bad their bombs were, like they didn't already know that. Apparently she's really weird, but her bombs are way better than the junk they were using before so they put up with it. Where'd you run into her?"
You tell him about your encounter earlier today.
"Haha, so you just left her standing there? Man, if I were her I'd be pretty mad."
"Well, I didn't really have much choice. She's really pushy, and I didn't want to actually do anything this morning..."
"Hm. You're kind of a pushover, you know that? First Mad Marie forces her whole job on you, now this..."

You feel a bit better afterward.

>

Date: 1/6
Time: About half

Status & Inventory:

1626 Cole

Character Status:

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Sarah Kennigan: Uninjured, Just Fine
Weapon: Basic Staff
Armor: Normal Clothes
Accessory: None
Skills:

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Ether Light: A self-defense technique from Master. Non-elemental magic attack, any 1 square.

Dave Barrett: Uninjured, Energetic
Weapon: Hatchets
Armor: Normal Clothes
Accessory: None
Skills:

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Hatchet Throw: Throw a hatchet in any of 8 directions. Does physical damage to whatever it hits first.

Fee: 0 Cole

Miranda (???): Uninjured, Fine
Weapon: Knight's Sword
Armor: Knight's Armor
Accessory: None
Skills:

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• Zero Motivation (passive): Eh. Miranda has less energy states than normal (Exhausted, Okay, Fine). It costs energy to perform regular move and attack actions in battle. Active skills require a large percentage of her maximum energy.
  
• Chill (passive): Whatever, it's fine. Miranda regains a small amount of energy anytime she isn't doing anything, regardless of if it's out of town or even in the middle of a battle.
  
• Spin Slash: Gotta respect the classics. Slashes everything in the 8 tiles surrounding Miranda for physical damage.
  
• Lazy Combo: Way too much effort. Performs six normal attacks in a row (which can have distinct targets), and then lacks the motivation to do anything at all for the next two turns (Chill is disabled during these turns).
  
• Slack Off (3/3): Miranda's favorite activity. Doesn't accomplish anything immediate, but restores a moderate amount of energy instead of spending it. Has a 2-turn cooldown and only works 3 times per battle.

Fee: 500 Cole

All other info

A/N:

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Miranda is both "higher level but more costly party member available near the beginning" and "player character whose mechanics are weird and different from others".

I'm going to leave the work of figuring out how to organize multiple skills in the spreadsheet to...somebody else, since I'm keeping that info available in the posts anyway. So, NOW who's the lazy one? (it's me)