NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3: Book Keeping at Dusk
Had Gil been a better tracker, he might have been able to find snow. Then again, perhaps not. She had nearly been murdered by a man appointed as her chaperone, on the orders of her own mother in law. She ran as fast as she could into the woods, without a plan. Hopped up on adrenaline, she jumped at any unfamiliar sound. Even when her dress caught on a branch, in her mind the branch was a gnarled hand reaching out to snare her. Had Gil appeared before her, especially while carrying an ax, she'd have fled from him without a second thought.
Only when the high of adrenaline faded and exhaustion set in did she drop to her knees and let herself cry. There, a certain family of birds found her and watched over her in the night. They, and many other creatures that Snow White had befriended through years of visiting the forest, would guide her to a place of safety in the morning: the home of seven kind dwarven men.
••••••••••
Gil sat on a soft patch of ground and prepared to settle for the night. His tablet hardly generated any light, so when night fell he'd been more or less blind. The light of the moon wasn't much to go by when you don't know the first thing about wandering around in the woods. He briefly considered using the compass to go back to his skyblock, but thought better of it. Luckily, he had a few new tabs to explore.
Missions
Capture or Kill Snow White: 1 Credit, Corruption Fruit
Corruption Fruit- when someone consumes this fruit, in whole or in part, they will enter a special suggestible state for 1-5 hours depending on their poison resistance, magic resistance, or mental fortitude. When in this state, actions they would normally find disgusting, degrading, or amoral will instead be seen in a mildly positive light. If they are convinced to engage in that behavior, whether it is anal sex or murder, they will be likely to enthusiastically engage in it in the future, especially in a similar context (similar target, same partner, etc).
Gil cocked his head at that. Disgusting, degrading, or amoral was quite a large spread of possibilities, and Snow White seemed painfully innocent from what little he'd seen of her. Being able to mold her a bit could be very fun, and she was certainly pretty. The stamp wouldn't let him control her, just gave him the right to sell her.
Gil wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to use it on Snow. She might be a princess, but she was apparently in such a terrible political position that her mother in law could demand her heart in a box and reasonably expect it to be brought to her. Would it be better to save the fruit to use it on someone else more useful, or to finish a later mission?
He supposed that the real question was what he could sell Snow for. Bringing her back to the Skybox might be a bad idea, even if he stamped her today; he didn't have enough food to feed two people for a week. If he could capture the princess and she wasn't worth selling, then he could decide whether or not to engage in a bit of recreational corruption. With that in mind, Gil opened up the Shop tab.
Now in possession of a single credit, Gil gained access to the shop. Of course, he hadn't unlocked anything thus far so his options were limited to the default options.
Gacha (10): you receive a single random prize whenever you open a new portal. This can be a useful mundane item, a minor consumable, a moderate consumable, or a binding. You always receive something that could plausibly be useful or pleasant for you at some point.
Evac (5): you may teleport back to the skyblock with 5 seconds of focus. Doing so reduces the timer by 1 hour.
Team Evac (5, Requires Evac): you may teleport retinue members back to the skyblock as well. They each cost 1 hour.
Lock portal (20): permanently add a realm to your address book. It no longer counts against your maximum of 5.
Home away from Home (30 + Lock Portal): Choose one realm. You may open an 8 hour portal to this realm. This has a 7 day cooldown separate from the normal portal cooldown.
Stable home (30 + Home Away From Home): you may spend 24 hours per week in the chosen realm. In addition, retinue members native to that world may travel there at will.
Travel planner (20): When opening a random portal, you may choose between two options. You will be told the names and danger ratings of both realms.
Itinerary (30 + Travel Planner): You will also be told the missions that can be found in this realm. Further, whatever option you do not pick will be offered as an additional option once.
Unlock more by completing missions!
The options all seemed a bit expensive to Gil, especially for what they did. Gacha would give him a constant trickle of resources, but most of them would probably be crap. Even so, he marked it as a possible first purchase. Random company sponsored crap would be at its most useful now, when he didn't have anything to his name. The rest seemed quite a bit more oriented to assist someone already established.
Gil drifted off to sleep with a dozen hours left on the clock. He wasn't afraid of pulling an all-nighter, but it was too damn dark for him to accomplish much. A nap wouldn't hurt anything, or at least he hoped it wouldn't.