[NeoRealm] Chapter 23 - Finally the Quest reward (Patreon)

 No, not all the quest rewards will be like this for him. Anyway I have a lot of things in the bottom note. 

Andrew freezes for a moment then a grin spreads across his face, “Right you are lad. It had completely slipped my mind. Penny, get us a private room so we can figure out what is up with Jason and his purity nonsense!”

“Fine, follow me. All of you actually. Might as well keep the rewards secret for the whole group as I think none of you guys have a normal weapon.”, and then after saying that Penny leads the other four down to the training rooms. “So this could be an important secret. We can’t use the highest rank rooms but a B grade should be good enough. Especially with Andrew here to pay for it.”

Andrew has a bit of a sour face at that but then just sighs and grabs a B rank keystone from the wall. Once inside, he closes the door and turns to the others, “Now for the fun part. Each of you will get a special system generated ‘weapon’. Starting with you James because despite the uniqueness of your weapon it is relatively boring. I know you had to settle for a normal whip, [Dwarf Name] is a friend of mine. We like to share stories about interesting whelps like you. Anyway, for those out of the loop his weapon of choice is actually a whip sword. Now System, spit out his weapon so I can show it off.” Then he holds his hand out and a blue glow covers it. With shocking speed the glow spreads out into a longsword. It stands proud for a moment only to have it slump over and droop to the floor. Soon after the whip sword is fully revealed. Each segment of the blade seems to made of a mix of Amber and Obsidian.

Living Ambersidian Enchanted Whip Sword

Description:

• A Whip crafted from the segments of a longsword. The original blade was made of a clever mix of a Sapling World Tree’s sap and Lava from a naturally spawned Lesser Lava Elemental to create an almost alive mix of Amber and Obsidian. It has been further enchanted to make the concept of a whip sword work in the first place. Furthermore, an additional effect developed from the mix of the magic and living nature of the Ambersidian

Effects:

• 2 Forms - Whip, Sword
• Being made of a Living ore, any damage that would destroy it instead has a chance to reduce it to an unusable state while it heals itself. Materials related to it can be used to speed this process up.
• Sharpness - Increased Bleed chance
• Quest Reward - Can’t be dropped upon death. If it changes hands lose Quest Reward Effect.

Damage:

• 4d4+4[Slashing]

Bonuses:

• +5 Agility
• +3[Nature] healing to Healing Spells

Andrew switches the Whip Sword back into its sword form and hands it to James. Turning to Rosha he continues, “And now for your little set of puzzle pieces.”, This time he extends both his hands. In one two separate glows form while the other clearly has a bow taking shape. The two glows quickly turn into a pair of curved daggers. One of them appears to have a blade made of bone while the other is clearly Amber. After taking this all in the bow has finished forming. A simple bow that is quite similar to Rosha’s current weapon but the wood is a deep blood red.

Bloodoak Bow with twin curved daggers of Bone and Amber

Description:

• The bow is made of a century old Bloodoak from which an Amber Fox spawned while the daggers have been crafted from the bones and amber of said fox. When equipped together they show a synergistic response and this was further improved through a series of simple enchantments.

Effects:

• 3 Forms - Bow and Daggers, Bladed Bow, and Bladed Staff
• Bloody Bow - Sacrifice HP for random increase to Penetration and Bleed Chance
• Bone Dagger - Low Chance to lock up nearest joint
• Amber Dagger - Increased Bleed chance
• Linked Source Material - Chance to reduce cost of Bloody, Add conditional Returning
• Returning - When bow and daggers are all equipped the daggers will return after thrown
• Quest Reward - Can’t be dropped upon death. If it changes hands lose Quest Reward Effect.

Damage:

• Dagger - 2d4+2
• Bow - +5
• Bladed Staff - 2d10+4

Bonuses:

• +10 Agility

Rosha reaches for them but Andrew pulls away. Then with a flourish he connects the daggers the bow. His movements seem even smoother than Rosha’s and he just follows it up with an even quicker unstringing of the bow into it’s bladed staff form. Nodding in satisfaction he returns it to the bow and dagger form before finally giving it over to Rosha. “Now for the mystery gift.”, and Andrew turns to Jason, “You body is your weapon and that means the System will likely have to do some remodeling. Going to assume that means some pain so hold on to your butt, cause ready or not here it goes!”, and a glow envelopes Jason.

As the glow flows over his body Jason doesn't really feel much. If anything it felt somewhat like dipping into a pool at the perfect temp. Then once finally covered the pain comes. At first he couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from but then it was blindingly clear. His bones, they itch and boil. Almost like his skeleton was melting away and at the same time freezing solid. Soon though it stops.

Living Amber Skeletal System

Description:

• This masterpiece of magical items is the opposite of the undead. While undead are the living that are killed and turned into magical items, this is a magical item turned into a living piece of a creature. An intricately carved full skeleton made entirely of Magical Amber. It was then hollowed out leaving just the barest of a lattice work. When magically implanted into the host the bone marrow was grafted into these cavities. Because of difficulties and dangers that appear when trying to enchant a living creature they have instead been imbued with magic.

Effects:

• Sap like Blood - The blood produced by the marrow is more viscous and sticky when it leaves the body. Slower bleed rate and more likely to stop bleeding
• Crafted Bones - Because of the material and structure, the bones are tougher and can take an impact easier
• One and the Same - Despite being a magical item they will not show up as a separate item and only appear under the possessors character screen. Any attempt at removal will face the same difficulties as removing a person's actual bones.
• Soulbound - Not even death will part you from this item

Bonuses:

• +5 [base] toughness
• +5 [base] hp

Andrew scratches his head as everyone takes a look at the screen, “Well of all the things. Now this isn’t the first magically grafted items I have seen. However this is the most major modification I know of. People lose and replace the odd arm or leg all the time. However to completely replace a skeleton? Even to the point it affects the blood itself? I just have to say you are incredibly lucky with ‘One and the Same’ because otherwise people would try to dig these out if only just to study them.”

Things I wanted to mention but didn’t:

The ‘Quest Reward’ effect is simply something the System put in place when too many new players where getting ganked after handing in quests. It doesn’t stop someone from trading it away or a thief stealing it but when that does happen it loses the protection from being an option to drop on death.

Soulbound is actually quite rare. Basically the only thing that can take a Soulbound item permanently is the System itself. Much more common is a conditional Soulbinding. These are done by things like Gods and other such higher powers. In those cases the binder can take it away as well as anyone with more power. There was even a strange case of a peasant farmer gaining the ability to soulbind items but anyone who was stronger than that peasant could take the item.

One and the Same is really important because of how loot drops work. While realistic the designers drew the line at being able to just butcher anything you wanted to and so bodies are just fancy chests for anything that drops. Special actions can get specific things but no one is going to be able to just hold Jason down and dig his thigh bone out to check out the magic. This effect can either be seen as the rarest or most common. Technically everything a person is made of is ‘One and the Same’ (things like a demon’s heart or a dragon’s blood) but on the other hand no one except the system can make an item with it. This is a problem with things like prosthetics even if things literally attached to a person at death don’t drop.

Just to want to note once again not all of Jason's quest will go and replace body parts. This reward happened because what they defeated was an Amber Fox. If he had instead defeated some kind of advanced horn rabbit he might have gotten a passive skill for jumping. Maybe a Boar would have enhanced his sense of smell or provided a bonus against bludegion damage.

Oh and the bones add [base] toughness and hp. This bonus is on top of what his old bones provided him. If he could see a panel for his old bones it would probably have something like +2 [base] toughness or similar. While not exactly breaking down every single bit of the body and giving it specific bonuses, whole systems tends to effect it. A rhino would have skin that provides a lot of toughness while a human has skin that generally only gives none or maybe 1.