[Axey]

While he was having fun getting drunk in a tavern the night before, Axey realized one thing that he really missed: sweets.
This world didn't seem to have any knowledge of what sugar was, the only sweetness in foods came from either fruits or from honey, but honey was quite rare. Rare enough that Axey was unable to find any in the local market.
While looking for alternatives to sugar, Axey remembered reading in a book back in his second year in medicine school that sugar can be made from the sap of pretty much any plant, but beetroot and sugar cane were by far the most profitable ones.
I guess I know what I'll be looking for. he thought while looking through his friends list to see if anyone wanted to join him in his search for sap, mint and honey.

Using the voice chat feature, Axey messaged Atlas to see if she or Ellie were interested.
"Hey Atlas, Ellie, I'm gonna be going out to look for ingredients, do you wanna come with me?"
"Sorry, we're kinda -hyah!- busy right now."
"Are you fighting something? Are you ok?"
"Yeah, we can handle it. Don't worry."
"Alright then. Stay safe."

Since Atlas wasn't able to join Axey kept looking through his friends list as he walked towards the city gate. Next on the list was the player named "Cat" who Axey had met shortly after spawning in. He messaged him like he had with Atlas.
"Hey, this is Axey, we met right after we got transported to this place. I'm the guy who sang the opening to Big Time Rush." why am I so bad at introductions... "I was planning on going to the Ciminian Forest to find some ingredients to make sugar. Would you be interested in coming along?"
After chatting for a little bit, they agreed to meet at the city gates and cut the connection so Axey could invite others to the group.
"Hey, Astaroth, I'm the bard from last night at the tavern. Me an a friend are going to be searching around the forest nearby for some materials, would you be interested in joining us? Having a spellblade in the party would certainly help a lot in case we get attacked."
Luckily, the spellblade Antas also agreed to join, making the party decently balanced.
Most of the other people in his friends list were busy, but some of them mentioned they might be joining them later.

Now that that was settled, Axey sat down next to the city gates while waiting for the others to arrive. Hopefully we don't find anything too dangerous...

---

Word Count: 439
Total Word Count: 439
Tags: Cat Astaroth
Notes: hit send too early, forgot to tag you guys

[Astaroth]

Astaroth had been surprised to get a message from one of the people he met in the tavern, considering - well, everything. He wasn't going to question it, though. He pushed away the lingering doubts about a repeat performance of the last pair of players he met and decided to accept the invitation.

Unsure about how to reply telepathically, he had called up the interface and cast about for some kind of help screen. He found out where several functions were without even trying. At least he no longer jumped at the sight of the transparent prompts popping up in his face. Finally he remembered seeing someone in town actually communicating by pressing a finger to their ear like they were in a cheap sci-fi show, so he copied the gesture and hoped for the best.

"Hi - Axey, is it? That sounds like fun," he had said, in his body's new, honey-warm tenor. It was still a little startling to hear that smooth operator out of his mouth. He wasn't sure if he liked it, it made him sound more intelligent than he was. "Can't imagine I'd be any help, but sure, I'll come along. Meet you at the gates."

Astaroth had made his way there shortly, with nothing else to do but loiter around the city like a bumbling gray-skinned dumbass. It was easy to recognize the Faunri, there weren't many other pink Axolotl-inspired characters that he could see, and he approached quietly.

"Hello there," he said lightly, raising a hand. He leaned against a nearby wall with a sigh in the shade of the gates. Immediately his horns knocked hard against the brick and he winced, rubbing his temple and then folding his arms in a deliberately nonchalant way. "Augh. Pain. Er, uh. I mean, nice playing last night?"

---

Word count: 302
Tags: Axey  Cat

[Cat]

Startled, Vincent made a little jump on the chair he was sitting on. He had perched himself outside of the inn he and Wolf stayed at for now, until at the least they could affort their own house. The lack of privacy and solitude was getting to him. The wooden chair from inside was dragged against the vine-choked wall basking in the midday sun, chatter and birdsong alike filling the paved streets of Romalia. It was a much calmer place, around here, but nonetheless there was enough ambient noise to slightly dampen the telepathic call he got.

It would take a while before he got used to suddenly hearing voices in his head.

"Axey?" Before he knew it, Vincent had said his name out loud, as if he were trying to remember it. Which came as soon as he mentioned "Big Time Rush" - even among the thousand of anime figures come to life, a pink axolotl faunri stood out. He propped himself up from his relaxed posture and jammed his fingers to his ear and mouth in response, at first unsure of how to reply.

"Ah, nice to hear you again, Axey. Yes, you're speaking with Vincent. Ahh.. Going out to the ciminian forest? Uh, uhm.. Will there be anyone else? ... Maybe?" Radio silence from Vincent's end as he thought over his options. He did want to go outside the walls and gates once again, and the chance to do so with two meatshields aside him would be great. "..Alright, sure, I'm in. Uhuh, yeah, I'll meet you. North-East Gate? Got it, yeah, be there in a while."

Well, going out would be a great chance to spend some of the experience he already acquired since then. Whilst navigating crowds without bumping into them at mixed success - slamming face-first into a tiny teenage Zaria boy at one moment - he eventually made his way tot he north-east gate, with enough control over the holographic UI to have succesfully allocated his points. There sure were a lot of interesting options.

There, the tall Enoch could be seen approaching the bard-spellblade duo from afar, with his tall size and massive wings, and long hair that fluttered in the pleasant warm breeze. He raised a hand, awkwardly, towards the both of them as he stopped next to them to form a circle of three, his wings slightly more properly tucked in this time.

"Hello."

---

WC: 404
Tags: Axey Astaroth
Notes: Here com dat boi

[Axey]

Axey didn't have to wait very long before Astaroth arrived at the gate. Axey spotted him a mile away due to his horns reaching over the heads of most of the crowd.

"Hey th-" Axey began before the Antas hit his horn on a wall. "Are you ok?"
"Augh. Pain. Er, uh. I mean, nice playing last night?" he replied rubbing his temple.
"Thanks. I had a lot of fun playing. At since I'm a bard it does more than just sound nice. Here, check it out." with that, Axey grabbed his lute and began softly playing Canon in D Major for a brief moment, activating Music Focus and letting the gentle music soothing the pain on the spellblade's temple. "Better?"

Soon after the Antas came the Enoch, his gracious figure standing out among the crowd despite his average size. He seems to be more used to his wings now.
"It seems our Sorcerer has arrived."
He told Astaroth as Vincent approached.
"Hello." His introduction was simple and straightforward.
"Hey there! Vincent, this is Astaroth, a Spellblade. Astaroth this is Vincent, a Sorcerer."
Axey watched as the two introduced themselves, thinking about how these two characters were basically complete opposites. One was a gray-skinned Antas melee fighter wearing heavy armor while the other was a pale-looking Enoch ranged mage wearing light armor. And here I am in the middle as a gay frog that sings Despacito... WAIT FUCK he thought, accidentally putting that earworm of a song in his head and being unable to stop "singing" it mentally.

Once the introductions were out of the way, Axey opened his HUD, send a Party invite to the other two and exclaimed
"Okay, let's go. Those materials aren't gonna gather themselves!"
While the group advanced towards the forest Axey began to explain.
"Alright then, here's what I had in mind.
You know how people have been able to craft stuff that wasn't in the recipes list since the apocalypse, right? So that got me asking myself this question: 'what is something that the people in this world don't seem to have discovered that A) Can improve quality of life, B) I really miss having from our old world, C) We can sell to make money?'
Well, I found something that does D) All of the above.
Axey paused for a moment as if to let the others try to guess it.
"Sugar." he said, watching Vincent's expression go from curious to interested, and Astaroth make a confused expression.
"Basically, the idea is we go into the ciminian forest and look for any kind of sap, honey and mint we can find. I know how to make sugar with sap, and once we have sugar we can make all sorts of stuff. In particular, we can make a type of candy I was a huge fan of back home usig sugar honey and mint.
What do you guys think? Sugar trade worked for the British Empire, it'll probably work for us, right?"
Looks like they're on board.

After a very short walk through fields made by landers the trio arrived at the forest. "Oh hey, already found some mint!" Axey said picking up some herbs off the ground. "Off to a great start."

---

Word Count: 540
Total Word Count: 439 + 540 = 979
Tags: Cat Astaroth

[Astaroth]

The feeling of physical pain being soothed by music was a weird one, and at first he flinched before he realized what the bard was trying to do. He turned to Axey with a grateful, if sheepish smile. "Yes, thanks," he had replied.

When the sorcerer arrived, Astaroth gave him a little smile and a slightly wary once-over, trying to be discreet. He was around his own height, maybe a little taller but it was hard to tell, and seemed friendly enough, if maybe a bit quiet. It looked like this was another Enoch who he wouldn't have to worry about pissing off with his mere presence. Sorcerers were probably pretty powerful, compared to his half-and-half class.

Vincent. That named sounded pretty normal. Was that the man's real name, or that of his avatar? The thought made him squirm inwardly - Was there any kind of etiquette around names in this world? Would someone get mad if he used the wrong one? Or didn't it matter, seeing as everyone was pretty much treating this phenomenon as a free-for-all? With a small sigh, he decided to stick with his character's moniker until further notice. He still wasn't really even sure if he was Emery, or just happened to have Emery's personality, his feelings and memories. Sometimes he felt like a different enough person in this body that it was disorienting.

He was still mulling over whether or not you were 100% the same person after a full-body transplant when Axey sent him the party invite. The pop-up on his interface snapped him out of it. He accepted and listened carefully as the bard explained their mission. He followed a step to the right and behind the other two, wanting them in his sight in case a repeat of his first week happened, or anything dangerous. He tried not to shudder as he entered the forest once again.

Axey wanted to make - sugar? That was unexpected. Kind of strangely practical in what Astaroth assumed would just be a game about killing things all the time, but as Axey elaborated it started to make more sense. Here was confirmation of Astaroth's tentative observations that not everyone in this game - post-apocalyptic world, whatever - was from the "real" world. And of course he knew they were technologically primitive, for the most part.

"Well, I mean, I'm down for it," he said amiably, once Axey appeared to be finished speaking. "My Chef... skill... thing... might come in handy with the candy-making. Not that I know what kind of candy you're talking about, but..." He trailed off, feeling unsure.

They hadn't gone far when the Faunri discovered some mint. He also picked some up and stood, glancing around with a handful of it staining his gloves with the sharp clean smell. Sap would presumably be found in trees, but maybe it could just be lying on the ground, too. As for the honey, he had no idea. Visions of being chased through the fields by magical bees as the other players laughed at him flashed through his head before he firmly forced them away and concentrated on helping.

---

Wordcount: 522
Tags: Axey Cat

[Cat]

"Nice meeting you, Astaroth." There would be a day where Vincent got used to calling people by weird names. Today was not that day, yet. At least the name Astaroth fit the antas with their shared demonic looks. "Spellblade? So you will be our surrogate tank." Less bothered than before, and slightly more used to it, the mental blip sound alerted him to check out his hud. It flicked up in front of him, and he simply tapped the yes button before closing it again. Unceremonious.

He followed Axey - at first a step behind to his left, but when it became obvious that Astaroth insisted on staying behind as well, he figured it would be awkward to do. Thus he sped up to be walking next to the.. Pink axolotl humanoid. He tried not to stare too much at him, despite how interesting it was, and instead cast his eyes over the unfamiliar sight of exiting the north-east gate. He had only left via the north one so far, twice. It was not too different - gently rolling hills, agricultural fields, and an eventual forest. Hence the namesake, after all.

A, B, C? "Could be many things," he replied bluntly at first, "Figure we could implement healthcare here? Flavio is a Merchant after all. Or are you planning to sell, like, proper medical supplies? Antibiotics?" The reply, while much less benefitting to the average citizen's health, was much less boring and more interesting to flavio. Sugar. His eyes practically gained a sparkle.

When he was told to come along, he expected to be used solely as bodyguard and company. But seeing Astaroth bend over to pluck as well, he internally grimaced. It made sense to help harvest, at least. He slowly knelt down, trying not to dirty himself too much, but eventually just sat on his ass in the grass. The sun was warm and the scenery was amazing. Like this, he slowly picked herbs - most unfamiliar to him  - and all types of grasses, passing them along to Axey to see if they were Mint. He got the hang of recognizing it eventually, at which point he instead thought about his own "career".

Mechanic. Sage. He went from place to place to pick some mint, keep an eye on the surroundings, and ponder. At most there were a few common animals in the distance, and they hadn't fully entered the forest yet, so it was mostly safe here. Maybe he should try out some Sage stuff..? He headed into his HUD to toggle Sagacious Aptitude on, but stopped right before. Instead, he simply tried doing so mentally.. To success. Except nothing really different happened, seeing as there was nothing nearby that he recognized as being elemental.

---

WC: 459
Tags: Axey Astaroth

[Axey]

Axey and the other continued gathering herbs and sap at the edge of the forest for a while. While doing so Axey grabbed some sticks and leaves that would produce a good amount of smoke when burnt, and after having a good amount of them he announced the the others.

"I think we have plenty of mint right now. To make the sugar we're gonna need some sap. Most trees don't give a lot of it, but I saw some cypresses in the forest the other day, their sap should be rich enough in sugar to make it useable for producing it."
Handing each of his comrades a knife, he explained "To get the sap, you just gotta cut the tree vertically and then make small horizontal cuts along the big vertical one and the sap should flow out pretty easily. Not all trees will give sap, so if none comes out after the initial cut, don't bother making any further cuts and move onto another tree.
I don't think this part is necessary, but don't stray too far from the group, and if a monster shows up, scream.
Last thing, can either of you make a small flame with magic? It'd come in handy for he 'gathering honey without being murdered by hundreds of angry bees' part. Smoke puts the bees to sleep, so they won't hurt us as much while we gather honey.
The alternative is we find a bear and I use Basic Taming on it but we'd need to find a new bear every 5 to 10 minutes."

After the short explanation, Axey and the group ventured deeper into the forest to harvest the materials.
The plan to make bees drowsy with smoke seemed to work way better than expected. Turned out the few bee stings they did suffer were few and far between enough that just singing in Adagio allowed the group to basically stay at full health most of the time.

The sap harvest on the other hand was not going so well, the group was getting lucky and getting some sap here and there but not very often.
I seriously expected this to be way faster than it actually is, and way less exhausting. he thought, stabbing yet another tree.
To his surprise, unlike the several previous trees he had stabbed, this one felt... different.
Hold up did the tree just move? was all he had time to think before roots shot out of the ground towards him and wrapped around his legs, holding him in place as he felt himself slowly get weaker, as if the tree was draining him of his strength.
Grabbing his Lute, Axey shouted "MONSTER!" while hitting the sentient tree with an Instrument Strike followed by a Pracing Attack that activated Minnesong of the White Maiden in Adagio, playing the first song that came to Axey's mind, which in this case was that one weird-ass German song about trees.
Well, shit, looks like trees are pretty tanky. he thought seeing the sentient tree, which the HUD now marked as a "witch tree", barely lose any HP from his attacks.

---

Word Count: 521
Total Word Count: 979+521 = 1500
Tags: Cat Astaroth
Notes: Where's a vegan when you need one.

[Astaroth]

Astaroth found gathering sap a fun activity, regardless of how much they actually found - It was strangely calming and required patience, which he naturally had boatloads of. He sliced away at the trees in a steady, methodical manner, relying on the others to create the smoke. Having never been stung by a bee in real life, he did run away from the first few in what might have been called a mild panic, flailing at one with his borrowed knife. Luckily, Axey's healing powers quickly cured him of his fear of the yellow menaces. Thank god for party members.

Suddenly he heard Axey cry out and whipped around, thinking it was maybe a particularly large bee. It was not. He stood there gaping at the moving tree for a second, then sprang into action. He drew his sword, briefly marveling at how this body seemed to know how to hold the heavy metal without falling over, and dashed over as the status buff from the bizarre song washed over him.

Seeing the Faunri get snared, Astaroth threw caution to the wind, coming to a stop directly in front of the monster to try to draw attention away from the beleaguered bard. His sword began to glow a wintry blue as he pulled it back. "Oh hell oh fuck," he grunted as he slammed his longsword into the ground, activating the Cocytus Stabilizer for the first time. Almost immediately a large spike of ice erupted from the grass underneath one of the tree's lower limbs.

At least the attack worked?

---

Wordcount: 253
Tags: Cat Axey