HC:Pacifist | Ch. 23 - Storytelling

After two more rescues, in which Roth earned the gratitude of dozens of foxes and the eternal hatred of dozens of players, he got the notification he had been hoping for.

You are now friends with all foxes.

You have gained a new title: [Friend of Foxes].

Title: Friend of Foxes (common)

Title description: Your strong personality and shrewdness have earned the respect of the foxes.

Title effects:

- +2 Charisma;

- It's easier to learn Foxian.

Conditions to unlock [Friend of Foxes]

- Achieve 100 reputation with foxes without ever having hurt a fox {complete}.

- Achieve 1000 reputation with foxes.

Another two charisma? Roth was thrilled! Just with the bonuses of [Friend of Foxes], and [Revered] alone, he had an extra 7 charisma points. He still hadn't felt the benefits of having the stats, but he guessed that they would show in the long run. Now that he thought about it, could he have unlocked some extra reputation points when he rescued foxes because of his charisma? Or was it because he had saved so many of them at once? There was no way of knowing. Unfortunately, the information that the game gave wasn't always clear. Much of it had to be pieced together by experiencing different things in the game.

Now that he had the system's blessing to learn Foxian, he approached one of the foxes. He saw that the name of the fox was in green, signaling their friendly relationship.

Common Fox (Friendly)

300/300

Lvl. 4

Entering its aggro zone, Roth sighed in relief at not being attacked. Every wound and attack in this game was extremely painful to him. He avoided the tiniest scratch if he could. The fox regarded him curiously. He tried to speak to it.

"Hello, I am Roth. What's your name?"

"Woof woof," responded the fox.

The barks and snarls of the fox start making some sense to you.

Progress in learning Foxian: 1%

For the next few hours, Ross attempted to communicate with the foxes. Like in reality, foxes in the game were very social animals who gathered in packs. Roth sat in the middle of the crowd, listening to them barking and howling at each other. As he tried to understand them, he would sometimes unlock an extra percentage point of Foxian.

The howls and shrieks of the pack of foxes make more sense to you now.

Progress in learning Foxian: 14%

According to how things were progressing, Roth estimated that he would need a full day before he could speak Foxian. But a few hours in, he could already make sense of some of the things they were saying.

"And, woof woof, the fox snarl, shriek, bark fooled the wolf," said an older fox to a group of younglings.

It was interesting how foxes had such different personalities from mice. Mice were squeaking, laughing little creatures that easily munched on the grass while telling jokes and sharing witty comments with each other. Foxes were different. They had a more defined routine. They had a time to cuddle with each other, a time to bask in the sunlight, and a time to nap. As Roth began to understand their speech he discovered these creatures enjoyed good stories. In these, foxes were always portrayed as the hero, the character who managed to trick everyone else or come to an unexpected solution to a puzzling problem.

After a full day of sitting around in the midst of a pack of foxes, he finally got the notification he was hoping for.

Congratulations. You now speak Foxian.

+100 reputation with all foxes.

Roth waited for a title but got none. That would have been the cherry on top of the cake, but he couldn't unlock a new title at every single turn of the game. Having unlocked the full potential of the language, he addressed the fox closest to him.

"Well, hello! How are you doing today?" The fox looked up at him.

"You can speak so well in our language, human. We thought that you only knew a few loose words."

"Yes, after spending the day hearing the pack talk, it seems that I've been able to learn the language."

"Good for you." Roth waited. Nothing happened. Strange, he thought. As soon as he learned Ratan he was immediately invited to an audience with the King. Did this mean that he didn't have enough reputation with the foxes to get the same VIP treatment from them yet? If so, he would just have to keep grinding for reputation. He decided to walk around for a bit and found no players hunting in the vicinity. Apparently, word had gone out in the forums again, saying that the crazy activist was tormenting hunting parties in the woods. All players had scattered and declared the fox fields where Roth was as dangerous as a radioactive zone. That meant that Roth couldn't farm experience by rescuing foxes from players.

If he remembered correctly, when he reached this stage of the relationship with the mice, what had worked for him? Wasn't it telling jokes? Did he know any fox jokes? He tried one.

"Hey, why was the artist taking a long time drawing a fox? Because he paid too much attention to de-tail."

The fox facing Roth stared at him blankly.

"I don't get it." It finally said. Uuf. Tough crowd. He thought that, since foxes were so smart, they would appreciate a good joke. He decided to try again.

"What do you do if you find an injured fox? Give it furs-taid. Ahaha! Get it?"

The fox leaned her neck to the side. "That's just wrong."

Your horrible puns are hurtful to the ears of the foxes. Go tell your jokes elsewhere.

-3 reputation with all foxes

What? This was the first time he got negative reputation points with a faction. No. That wasn't true; he had received those -500 reputation with the Ratans. But that had been reversed in the end. He didn't get why the fox didn't like his puns! These jokes would have been a huge success with the mice.

"Do foxes not like jokes?"

"No. That is a mouse thing." So straightforward, thought Roth. What else could he do to entertain or build a relationship with foxes?

"Do you like poetry?"

"That's a badger thing."

-4 reputation with all foxes

"Mimicry?"

"Nope."

-5 reputation with all foxes

"Riddles?"

"That's a raven thing."

-6 reputation with all foxes

Oh, man. Roth was losing some precious reputation points instead of gaining them. At least he had already learned something that other races liked. He thought for a bit more.

"Magic tricks?"

"No!"

Your pestering is annoying the fox. You're making a bad impression.

-10 reputation with all foxes

He thought about what he had seen from the foxes while he was learning their language. Any player who saw a pack of foxes from afar would think that they were just barking at each other. But once you learned their language, there was much more to it. They were storytellers who loved recounting tales where the hero was a fox. They cherished fables that highlighted a fox's wit and smarts. He decided to risk it.

"What about stories? I have a wonderful story about a fox. A very smart fox."

"Go on," the fox said, its interest peaked.

Bingo. This was the way to go. But what story could Roth tell? He had never enjoyed reading, and he wasn't very creative. The only stories he had to tell were of his time in prison. He supposed that if he changed the characters in the stories he had heard in prison to animals and embellished them a bit...

"Ok. So, there was once a fox and a wolf. The wolf was bigger and stronger than the fox. The wolf stole the fox's food, appropriated its den, and threatened the fox, saying:

"If you don't bring me more food, you will become my next meal."

The inspiration for this story was something that actually happened to a guy he met in the Rageaholics, a guy named Jamie. When an enforcer from a local gang became his cellmate, his life was miserable for a while. The guy stole his food and gave him beatings when he was bored.

Overhearing the story, two more foxes joined and sat listening, wagging their tails contentedly. With a more numerous audience, Roth continued: "So the fox thought to itself, 'How can I get rid of this bad wolf?' It had an idea. The fox told the wolf:

- Wolf, tonight I am bringing you delicious chicken for dinner.

- But where will you find the chicken in these woods? asked the wolf.

- This den is just a small shelter. I dug it out for a rainy day. My house is further into the woods. There's much more space there, and there's a pantry full of delicious food.

Hearing this, the wolf, dissatisfied with the cramped space of the fox's den, decided to sneakily follow after it so that it could see this much bigger house it talked about. They arrived at a big cave. The fox went in, and the wolf followed. He would take over this den as well and gorge himself on the food that the fox had prepared. Upon entering the cave, a mountain lion pounced on the wolf. Confused, the wolf screamed out to the fox for help:

- Little fox! Little fox! Help me. I'm being attacked by a lion.

The fox appeared, and the lion said to it:

- Little fox, as promised, since you have brought me a bigger meal, you are free to go.

The fox had used the appetite and greed of others to regain its humble den."

"We had never heard that one before. It is not in the Fox Canon."

The foxes listening to your tale of wit and shrewdness of a fellow fox are entertained by the story.

+3 reputation with all foxes

Roth simplified the true events of the story he had heard in prison and changed the characters into animals so that the foxes could relate. Apparently, it worked. When his friend Jamie had enough of his cellmate bossing him around, he made him believe that he had a phone stashed away in a secret hideout in prison. Phones were forbidden and highly coveted. Anyone who could smuggle one was in possession of a treasure. Jamie had gone to a place and used the phone, being careful not to let his tormenter follow him. What the enforcer did not know is that the phone did not belong to Jamie, but to a gang leader, no one had dared offend in prison. When Jamie stashed away the phone where he had found it, the enforcer went to get it for himself. Just as he picked up the phone, the gang leader appeared and caught him red-handed. Long story short, the enforcer got so many broken bones out of this that he never messed up with Jamie again.

He was glad that telling the story had worked but was disappointed at how much reputation he had gained. Only three? That was too little. It would take him ages just to recover the reputation he had lost when trying to figure out what foxes liked and disliked. In the meantime, the foxes' excited buzz attracted four more foxes. Their companions shared the gist of the story Roth had told. Roth cursed. That was plagiarism! Now he could not get a reputation from repeating the story to these four newcomers. The seven foxes sat, waiting for him to continue,

"Uh? Do you want to hear another one?"

"If you will honor us with one more, yes. We do."

Hmmm... what story could he tell? He remembered that one of his old cellmates had shared a story about how his grandfather had become rich. That was the thing about prison. There was so little to do that even if you were shy or reserved, you eventually ended up telling your life story out of boredom. If he adapted it and changed things around a little bit, it might make a good fox story.

"There was once a beautiful forest. Although there was little rain, the river that ran through it kept all the trees green and all the animals satisfied. But in one particularly dry year, there was so little rain that the river became a thin stream. It was hardly enough to quench the thirst of all the inhabitants of the forest. Trees began to dry and no longer gave fruit. If things kept going like this, the animals would starve. The animals retreated to their burrows, dens, and caves. They would hibernate to save up their energy and try to wait out the drought. There was only one animal that decided not to go to sleep. A beautiful, smart fox." As the story continued, Roth noticed that more and more foxes continued to join the group.

"Where all other animals saw disaster, this fox saw an opportunity. What sort of treasures had been hiding under the riverbed? The fox decided to go dig in the now-dry river. There, the fox found gold. It found so much of it that when the drought was finished and the animals awoke, the fox had become the wealthiest in the forest. Where animals saw disgrace, the fox saw an opportunity."

The foxes listening to your tale are fascinated by the story of a witty fox.

+18 reputation with all foxes

Wow. That had been an impressive difference from three to eighteen. Why? The stories were basically of the same garbage quality. Roth thought for a while, and after seeing a few more foxes arrive, he came to a realization. He did a head count. That’s what was going on. He gained one reputation for each fox in the audience. Then he had to gather as many as possible.

"Gather around everyone! I have the most amazing fox story you have heard in your life. Call your friends. Tell them to come." More and more foxes, drawn to a human speaking Foxian, came to join them. He began again.

Ch. 22 - Little Foxie

INDEX

Ch. 24 - Dead End