[SD:SC] Blame The Alpha Testers - Chapter 2

Gem fixed the horizon with a glare. “So, let me get this straight.”

Gem turns to the others and gains a few inches of height to look down at them. “We just spent six months after the desert raid wandering around small farming communities. Which, fair enough. People need to eat. Except, when we exit that area, we don’t end up somewhere exciting. We end up in herding territory.”

Emrys shrugs, “Oh, don’t worry. Things aren’t as peaceful here as you seem to think. It will be fun.”

June, “I suspect that once we get to our first town, you’ll change your opinion.”

Gem, “I hope so!” And they turn back around and begin to walk further into the prairie they’ve found themselves in.

 Days later, they finally find signs of civilization again. Around them, what was once a patchwork of trees and grass has fully turned into a prairie. The grass is a little browner than not, but certainly not another desert. Or so Gem keeps telling themself.

Though to be fair, it really isn’t a desert, just a drier climate than the farmland they had spent months passing through. Gem still complains, though.

Samuel, “Well, of course it isn’t as nice a place as the bread basket. If it was, then it would be taken up by fields. They’re using it for herds of animals because the hardy prairie grass is what wants to grow around here, which only animals want to eat. Even the kin and folk who eat diets closer to their animal don’t like this stuff. A little tough on the mouth, I’ve heard.”

Gem gestures, “Well, if we’re reading the map right, the next town should be just ahead.”

Emrys nods, “Yep, just ahead and I can’t wait to see your reaction.”

Gem turns to June, “He’s been saying that and I’ve chosen not to look into it. Should I?”

June shrugs, “It isn’t a bad surprise. I’m not sure why he thinks you in particular will have a reaction to it? Then again, it might simply be some general reference I’m not getting.”

Gem sighs, “Well, let’s find out what he’s smirking about.”

Then the group arrives at the town. All around them are wooden buildings in a very specific style. Down the main street, they’re two-story buildings with a facade on the front, which works to hide the gable front roof. The facades are all of a high quality and feature ornamentation the group can tell aren’t matched on the other sides. 

Emrys smiles, “Well?”

Gem looks over at him with bored, half closed, eyes. “The buildings certainly give this place a very specific look to the town. Well, that and the fact the men all look like they just stepped out of an old timey western. And some women are wearing the same. Thankfully, the rest of the ladies who aren’t dressed up like cowboys are wearing more sensible clothes. But what about my immersion? Or, more importantly, why did this happen?”

June sighs, “Blame the alpha testers.”

Gem frowns, “Was there even a beta test? I don’t remember hearing anything about one.”

June shakes her head, “There weren’t open tests, no, but even SAI need to test our programs. We don’t magically spit out perfect, bug-free code. So there was internal testing by our own people and one of them liked westerns. And yeah, this happened.”

Gem scans the area, “This doesn’t look new.”

June, “The tests happened long ago in the game. Which is actually why we’re seeing it here. This all started elsewhere, but has spread across this entire region. About the only thing the devs managed to contain was any attempts at making guns and some of the more bigoted nonsense. Thus why the women aren’t in western getups. Because for some reason, people don’t like wearing long dresses and such when a monster could attack at any moment.”

Gem frowns, “How ‘western’ is it?”

Emrys laughs, “Well, they’re missing the cattle for the most part, sadly. Didn’t catch on for a very specific reason. There are a lot of sheep around. Though you’ll notice that whoever set this up was also a fan of puns. You just have to look closely at the cowboys riding horses.”

Gem glances to the side, “Wait.”

Emrys smiles, “Yes?”

Gem, “Are they?”

Emrys starts to giggle, “Are they what?”

Gem facepalms, “Are they mostly Cow boys?”

Emrys nods, “Yep! This region has the largest population of cowkin, or more properly, cattlekin.”

June sighs, “While assuming the person who set this up loved puns isn’t entirely wrong. It was also a bit of work by the team in charge of making sure we aren’t horrible people. See, the most common seen image of what a ‘cowboy’ is, isn’t exactly racially accurate. But we’d also get complaints if we did it properly as well. So this was the committee-decided middle ground. Most of the herds are driven by, sigh, Cow boys. Which isn’t even accurate because a cow is the name for female cattle. Just that ‘steer boys’ isn’t a recognized word and wouldn’t work as a pun.”

Gem, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Samuel frowns, “What? We haven’t done anything here. Why would there be something to ‘get over’?”

He turns to Emrys, “What have you planned?”

Emrys shrugs, “Eh, not so much planned as learned about ahead of time. By the point that we were five months into the breadbasket, I was able to figure out just about where we’d come out and when. Which is here and now. Which is when they split their herd and drive a good portion of them to a more central place to put up for auction. Basically, a perfect protection quest for us to get in on.”

Samuel, “Another caravan quest? We’ve done more than our share, if only because we tend to join up when going in the right direction.”

Emrys shakes his head, “Nah, a caravan quest is quicker and along a road. This will be trailblazing through the wilderness so the sheep have to feed and of course we’re limited by their speed. They aren’t exactly as fast as cattle.”

Gem, “That. That actually sounds fun. Driving sheep with cowboys? It might not be classic fantasy, but I needed a change from that, anyway.”

Emrys, “And it isn’t just cattlekin who have a large presence!”

Gem closes their eyes, “Let me guess, sheepkin?”

Emrys laughs again, “Close, but no cigar. SheepFolk. Though we’ll find them further in. This is the outskirts of The Range. Note how I verbally capitalized that. It is a proper name and defines this territory including a few fun terrain features.”

June, “He means rainbow mesas. As in, sandstone mesas, but the sandstone layers are tinted so they look like rainbows. Admittedly sandy brown rainbows, but rainbows nonetheless.”

Gem, “Oh, that sounds nice!”

June nods, “They were what I was planning on seeing while here. Though we should probably buy some stuff as we’ve grown since the raid.”

Emrys, “First we need a place to stay. They keep the adventurer lodgings to the left.”

The group looks and can’t see anything past the facades.

Samuel, “Shouldn’t we be able to see them? They tend to go up four or so stories.”

Emrys shrugs, “They’re heavily into aesthetics here and so there’s only one floor on the surface. Instead, they dig down, which is actually nice as the rooms stay cool that way.”

Excited by the idea of a cool room to rest in, the party makes their way over to the inn and books a party room. Though the “four bedroom and a common area” setup they were used to ended up costing a little more than normal. It was for a good reason, maintaining the formations that made sure the underground rooms remained safe in the sandy soil.

And while they settled in and rested, Gem took the time to check on their status.

{

Name: Gem Paroxysm

Species: ChaosKin (Chaos)

Level: 18

Stats

• Body: D

• Mana: S

• Stamina: D

Resistances

• Air: A-

Skills

• Greater Sense Mana lv2

• Mana Control lv8

• ☆ Wind Blade lv6

• Assay lv5

• Fishing lv5

Equipment

• AP: 213, GP: 3,442

• Backpack 1D

• Armored jacket 1D

• Armored cargo shorts 1D

• Ring of the Frog [3/3] 1D+

• Lazy Turtle Buckler [2/2 a day] 5D+

• Short Spear of the Piercing Winds 11B+

• Silverwhiskers family token

• Ritual Pamphlet for the spell “Sweet Air”

}

Gem sighed, they had converted a good 60 or so gold pieces into attuned pieces, which was pure profit. Though they also spent a chunk of the regular gold pieces on food and such. More than that, they ended up using the sleep scroll. Though to be fair, it was heavily under-leveled at that point, so having a use at all for it was nice.

Then there were the skills. Assay and Wind Blade went up a little, Mana Control improved a lot as that was their main focus, but Greater Sense Mana had only gained a single level before stagnating. June assured Gem that this was because they hadn’t had to sense anything tricky, but it was still annoying.

Gem shook their head and went out into the common area. “Huh, I’m the first?”

June sticks her head out of her room, “More like the last. The other two went out already and I’m planning on staying in tonight.”

Gem, “Rest well then, I’m going to look for a skill and maybe some gear.”

June, “Pick up some actual armor! Your jacket and shorts are still newb surplus.”

Gem shrugs, “I’m more of a ‘don’t get hit in the first place’, kind of fighter.”

June sighs, “Just consider it.”

Gem nods, “Sure, but no promises.” And they leave the apartment.

After a short climb, Gem finds themself back in the sun, though clearly dusk isn’t far. And a horse walks right in front of them. “Watch where you’re riding that thing!”

On the horse, a burly orc laughs, “Too bad your feet are so small or you wouldn’t just have been flat-footed by surprise!”

Gem rolls their eyes and ignores them. Clearly, the idiot was a player looking to cause trouble. Even if the locals got some of the jokes, they wouldn’t make jokes like that.

So with that troll in orc clothing behind them, Gem wanders aimlessly until they come across a semi-active shop. Which for how crowded the town was, might seem like a bad thing. Except this was a shop tucked away out of sight, and so the fact that so many people are going there, especially those who seemed to be local to the town? That’s a good enough reason for Gem to at least check things out.

And Gem is happy they did! Inside there is a bunch of leather armor. Specialty leather armor. For instance, cowboy boots, but there are two items that really grab Gem’s attention. Leather skirts and cowboy hats. The variety wasn’t the largest. Or rather, the variety among those Gem could make use of, wasn’t the largest.

This store did have some lower-level pieces of equipment, but not many. There are only three skirts and two hats. Each with a small card with a short description.

[

Rattlesnake leather battle skirt 15C

This skirt was crafted from numerous rattlesnakes, their hides going vertically to form the pleats. One snake to a pleat.

Provides poison resistance with bonuses against snakes in general and even more against rattlers.

15ap

]

[

Reinforced leather battle skirt 15C

A well-crafted skirt with metal thread woven into the design to provide enhanced defense

14ap

]

[

Leather battle skirt 15C+

A classic skirt which ended up a touch better made than expected. Claims have been made this was because of the addition of more pockets though no proof of this has been shown.

17ap

]

Gem raises an eyebrow at them being called battle skirts, they were clearly skorts, but whatever.

[

Leather cowboy hat 15C

A cowboy hat that stays on your head like magic. Because it is.

10ap

]

[

Leather cowboy hat for kin 15C

A cowboy hat that stays on your head if you have the ears for it. Magic that would have been used for that is focused on self-repair

16ap

]

And of course the hats end up being a bit of a false choice. Gem likes to keep their cat ears out and so of course they have to go with the “for kin” one. Along with the C+ battle skirt adds up to 33ap, which they are glad to handle over.

Satisfied, Gem heads over to the local skill shop. Though there isn’t much time left before closing and so after looking through the options, Gem makes a hasty decision and buys the “Air Platform” skill. One of the early options for pseudo-flight which can evolve into actual flight. They even managed to get it for a bit cheap at 120ap and 2000gp.

Then on the way back to the inn, Gem pops by the Adventurers Guild and returns the armored cargo shorts. They didn’t have to, but they wouldn’t sell for much so might as well donate them.

Snippets Of Chat - Chapter 1

That's Not A Sheep - Chapter 3