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A plague has past through Novel Kingdom, on the edge of Lake Lexicon. The heroes who were previously keeping the kingdom safe from monsters have been particularly badly hit and Queen Skye has put out a call for new heroes to come and maintain the safety of the kingdom.

In recognition of the fact that the kingdom is in a perilous state with all the new monsters, she is planning to pair experienced adventurers with the newcomers to help them find their way around the kingdom while they settle in.

How to take part
Post below saying whether you are a newcomer to the kingdom or an experienced hero. We will pair you up to complete the tasks together. Both of you will receive the same rewards from completions.

Tasks
1. Say hello in the buddy thread set up for you
2. Introduce yourself in the Tavern
3. Newcomer reaches level 2 experience
4. Newcomer levels up a weapon
5. Newcomer levels up both weapons
6. Newcomer defeats their first monster
7. Both partners spell out one of NOVEL, ROLE, PLAY, GAME using standard spell out rules
8. Visit the melting pot and suggest a quest idea that you have worked on together
9. The experienced player gives a gift to the newcomer to help with a quest (e.g. potion/egg/magic item)
10. Both partners read a book that involves a teacher or student, or that has a link to a video game (i.e. Ready Player One or The Last Wish)

Rewards
These are additive (i.e when you complete hard, in total you will have 23 XP, 10 gold and a major heal potion).

Tutorial: Complete 2 tasks for 2XP
Easy: Complete 4 tasks for 4XP
Intermediate: Complete 7 tasks for 7XP and 10 gold
Hard: Complete 10 tasks for 10 XP and a major heal potion

R

Thanks, Sophie!

Hi Sarah! I might be MIA this weekend, but I promise I'll be back on Monday :) I've never played this game before, so I'll probably have many, many questions. Apologies in advance!

EDIT - oh, look at that! I just finished task 1 :)

I said a quick hello in the Tavern as well - /topic/show/...

Sarah, I've a bunch of questions:
1. Do I get the welcome basket? Post here
2. Looking at the level up XPs needed (this post), to finish Task #3 in Message #1, I need to finish a bunch of other tasks to gain 5XP first correct? Are tasks in Message #1 our only options?

Hi Aiswrya, I'm not trying to hijack your and Sarah's thread, but if you need a quick answer to game related questions while Sarah is not online, and if Sarah won't mind, feel free to visit my and Jackie's buddy thread.

1/ yes to the welcome basket
2/ the way i understand it all quests are open to you, you're not limited to the apprentice challenge
battles are also sources of experience points /other than quests/

Hi Aiswrya! I'll be back later on today. Yes, all the quests and monsters are open to you.

Once I've updated my log later on I'll give you an egg which heals 3XP - it lasts a week so you have time to sort your staff out and get battling. (The staff is the easier weapon to upgrade once you're past the lower levels, don't bother with the sword.)

My log is on page 2 at the moment if you want an idea how to set things out, but do things however will work best for you.

Sarah wrote: "Hi Aiswrya! I'll be back later on today. Yes, all the quests and monsters are open to you.

Once I've updated my log later on I'll give you an egg which heals 3XP - it lasts a week so you have time..."

Hi Sarah, thank you! I’ll take a look at your thread. The game seems overwhelming lol

It is enormous! Best to ignore the bazillion quests and monsters until you get your head around everything. Pick a simple quest, build up your staff, and conk a sewer rat.

Try to time your battles so you get free healing when you level up. And go for the rabbit (Easter Bilby Quest) early on so you can get your own eggs (one a week, heal 3XP).

Sir Sarah offers the Lady Aiswyra one rabbit egg, good until the end of 14 Nov. It will heal for 3XP and may be consumed at any time, including during a battle.

Sir Sarah is neglectful of battles at the moment and will be donating eggs each week, as she is not using them...

Sarah wrote: "Sir Sarah offers the Lady Aiswyra one rabbit egg, good until the end of 14 Nov. It will heal for 3XP and may be consumed at any time, including during a battle.

Sir Sarah is neglectful of battles ..."

Yay, thanks!

For task #7 - spell out one of NOVEL, ROLE, PLAY, GAME using standard spell out rules, which would you prefer? GAME might be the easiest since they are commonly used letters in names and titles and the word only has 4 letters :)

I've upgraded my staff to level 5 (/topic/show/...)

I have 10HP and a level 5 staff. Is that sufficient for a monster hunt?

Another question about books I read - can I use them for more than one task, across different quests? For example - I read a book that I can use for our spell out task here and for the easter bunny quest (grass on cover). Can I use it for both tasks?

Yes, you can go a-hunting! I'll take a proper look later. (I think we may be in different time zones, and online at different times of day).

Sadly no, you can only use books once. The only exception is the Academy Quest which is a participation quest, and has expired anyway so you'd need to use a Timewalker potion to complete it.

Or you could use a Duplication potion to use a book twice, but I think that would be a waste for the easy stuff. Better to use those on hard to find books, like high series numbers or chunksters.

I don't mind which word we spell-out, you pick. :)

Sarah wrote: "Yes, you can go a-hunting! I'll take a proper look later. (I think we may be in different time zones, and online at different times of day).

Sadly no, you can only use books once. The only except..."

Thank you! Let's pick GAME? I'm a fairly quick reader, so I'm happy to go at whatever you pace you'd like. No rush!

Yes to the time zones too! I live in the US, east coast. I saw in your profile that you're from the UK. That's probably why we keep missing each other lol

Battle time...

So you have a staff at level 5, which means your attack is 7. Both the staff and sword have a +2 modifier to your level.

Level up to level 2 happens at 5XP, and you are at 3XP. So we can battle two monsters, heal for free, take on a third and eat that egg. Sound good?

First up, one Sewer Rat. You can one shot this as a sewer rat has 5 health points, and you can attack for 7. How you note your battles is up to you, I pretty much follow the way they are set up in the Monsters thread. So your battle will look like this -

Attach Sewer Rat #1

Attack Sewer Rat - 3 Attack 5 Health - Reward: 1 Experience
Hero: Level 5 Magic Staff (7 Attack), 10 Health

•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: Dead
•Hero: Gain 1 Experience.

Sewer Rat: Last Killed: XX/XX/XXXX, Available Next: XX/XX/XXXX + 1 week

Then we can get fancy and take two shots at a Goblin.

Attach Goblin #1

Attack Goblin - 6 Attack 10 Health - Reward: 1 Experience, 1 Goblin Bone
Hero: Level 5 Magic Staff (7 Attack), 10 Health

•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: 3 Health Remaining
•Monster Attacks Hero (6 Attack) => Hero: 4 Health Remaining
•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: Dead
•Hero: Gain 1 Experience, 1 Goblin Bone

Goblin: Last Killed: XX/XX/XXXX, Available Next: XX/XX/XXXX + 1 week

Then you level up and get a free heal and your health points go up to 12 as well.

And finally for a Brown Bat, which will take three shots...

Attack Brown Bat #1

Attack Brown Bat - 3 Attack 15 Health - Reward: 1 Experience, 1 Bat Wing
Hero: Level 5 Magic Staff (7 Attack), 12 Health

•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: 8 Health Remaining
•Monster Attacks Hero (3 Attack) => Hero: 9 Health Remaining
•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: 1 Health Remaining
•Monster Attacks Hero (3 Attack) => Hero: 6 Health Remaining
•Hero Attacks Monster with Magic Staff (7 Attack) => Monster: Dead
•Hero: Gain 1 Experience, 1 Bat Wing

Brown Bat: Last Killed: XX/XX/XXXX, Available Next: XX/XX/XXXX + 1 week

You are down to 6 health, time to eat that egg and get back to 9 health, ready for the next week's battles.

Aiswrya wrote: "Thank you! Let's pick GAME? I'm a fairly quick reader, so I'm happy to go at whatever you pace you'd like. No rush!

Yes to the time zones too! I live in the US, east coast. I saw in your profile that you're from the UK. That's probably why we keep missing each other lol"

Sure, GAME it is.

Hopefully the battles above will make sense to you. You don't have to number them, like goblin #1, goblin #2, etc., it was just something I found helpful.

Thanks for the detailed instructions!! Off to kill my monsters!

I'm back :) What do I use the rat tail and goblin bone for?

Current stats: Level 2: Health: 9 HP/ Magic staff LVL 5 / 6 XP

My monster kills:
/topic/show/...

Task #3 and #6 complete :) Yay!

Task 7: GAME spell out - COMPLETE
G - Sticks & Stones - c Ty Grady For Sarah
A - Eternal Sin - a Ariana Nash
M - Primal Sin - c Mikhail
E - Much Ado About You - a Eloisa James For Sarah

Congratulations on your first kills! The goblin bones and bat wings are needed for some quests, and the bat wings will help you fight one of the dragons later on. They both also help you train your puppy when you get one.

I should get going on the spell-out! The quest doesn't say I can't pull out books from my tote, but that wouldn't seem fair to the newcomer, as you don't yet have a huge backlog of unassigned books! Lol. So I'll read new ones (well, or use already in-progress ones).

Sarah wrote: "Congratulations on your first kills! The goblin bones and bat wings are needed for some quests, and the bat wings will help you fight one of the dragons later on. They both also help you train your..."

haha! Don't worry about it! Feel free to use your tote if you'd like :)

Hi Aiswrya - thanks for the invite to poke around this thread - have been taking notes. Lots of notes 😂😂😂

About to upgrade my weapon as my first step 🤞

I may not be here much until round 2 of the restaurant challenge is over on Sat. Will be back on Sun with another egg and we can plan out your next moves, and how to get the best free healing out of your next level up.

When I started out I spent a lot of time poking around other people's threads to work out the best way to set things up. Everyone is slightly different, but these were all helpful to me:

- Note your HP max level, so always write it as 9/12 HP (your current score). Saves constantly looking up your current max health.

- Keep a countdown in your stats of how many XP you need to level up. Helps with planning out how to get the most free healing from leveling.

- Keep lots of empty posts at the top of your thread- you'll find them very handy later on to keep track of all sorts. And it's where I track quests until they are completed and I'm ready to claim them.

- However you keep track of your stats, I would've got completely lost without using Activity Logs. Under all those empty posts, start an Activity Log, and that keeps the adventure going chronologically.
For example:
Day 1: complete quest, give new stats
Day 2: upgrade staff, new stats
Day 3: battle sewer rat, new stats
Day 4: complete quest, new stats
Day 5: buy something from Jack and Jill, give new gold total

It all helps to make sense of what you've completed and your current position. It's so easy to get lost otherwise, especially as you keep playing and have more to keep track of. But as you play you'll find your own rhythm and what works for you.

Back on Sunday...

Sarah wrote: "I may not be here much until round 2 of the restaurant challenge is over on Sat. Will be back on Sun with another egg and we can plan out your next moves, and how to get the best free healing out o..."

Thanks, Sarah! Good luck on Round 2 :) What team are you on?

Tracking Tasks:
1. Say hello in the buddy thread set up for you
2. Introduce yourself in the Tavern
3. Newcomer reaches level 2 experience
4. Newcomer levels up a weapon
5. Newcomer levels up both weapons
6. Newcomer defeats their first monster
7. Both partners spell out one of NOVEL, ROLE, PLAY, GAME using standard spell out rules
8. Visit the melting pot and suggest a quest idea that you have worked on together
9. The experienced player gives a gift to the newcomer to help with a quest (e.g. potion/egg/magic item)
10. Both partners read a book that involves a teacher or student, or that has a link to a video game (i.e. Ready Player One or The Last Wish)

Sir Sarah returns from the restaurant business bringing one egg, which she offers to the Lady Aiswrya. Good for one week, until the end of 21 Nov.

Congrats on your quest work! Looking good. Are you feeling like things are making sense now? Save the egg for now, you don't need it straight away.

Suggestions for next steps...

Kill Sewer Rat and Goblin OR Brown Bat
Tomorrow the common monsters will be back, so you can attack a sewer rat and either a goblin OR a brown bat (whichever you fancy). That will take you to 14XP and 3HP. You can't attack the other goblin or brown bat without healing, but we can do that by levelling up.

Take out Rock #1
Then I think it's time to go after some rocks. Rocks get progressively harder to kill, but the rewards are great. The Rocky the Rock Quest will give you the details.

There are 10 rocks in total, and the first one has only 5 Health, so you can one shot it. It gives 10 XP, so you'll then level up to level 3 and heal as well.

You'll be on 24XP and the next level is at 30XP.

I think it depends on how close you are to finishing any quest parts and turning in those XP how things follow from there, but you'll want to plan out at least one more attack to use some HP before level 4.

If we've decided raiding of totes is ok, here's my book for task 10.

10. Both partners read a book that involves a teacher or student, or that has a link to a video game (i.e. Ready Player One or The Last Wish)
- The Luckless

And re Sophie's post, we do the spell-out together, so you can reclaim some books. Does two each sound fair? Let me know which letters you'd like me to cover.

Sarah wrote: "Congrats on your quest work! Looking good. Are you feeling like things are making sense now? Save the egg for now, you don't need it straight away.

Suggestions for next steps...

Kill Sewer Rat an..."

Yeah, I feel a lot more comfortable with the rules now, thank you!

Rock sounds good! I'll take a pass at it later today.

Also, I have a questions about potions - I got a bunch of potions with my welcome basket. Some are minor, some major. How many health points do I get for the minor and major respectively?

Thanks for the egg :)

Sarah wrote: "If we've decided raiding of totes is ok, here's my book for task 10.

10. Both partners read a book that involves a teacher or student, or that has a link to a video game (i.e. Ready Player One or ..."

I'll claim G and E back :) Thanks!

Also, for task 10, I think we'd have to read the same book. The Luckless is totally not my kind of read lol. I'll take a look at your tote and find something else that qualifies

Aiswrya wrote: "Also, for task 10, I think we'd have to read the same book. The Luckless is totally not my kind of read lol. I'll take a look at your tote and find something else that qualifies"

Good luck with that! I'm not a romance reader so I think you might have difficulty finding something you want to read. I didn't read the task that way, maybe we should query with Sophie if it needs to be the same book.

Potions-
Minor heal potion heals 5HP
Heal potion heals 10HP
Major heal potion heals 15HP

You can buy them from Jack and Jill or get them from some quests. I wouldn't use them on common monsters though, save them for the dragons and the harder rocks, when the battles get longer. You can still take advantage of the free heals with levelling up while in the early levels, until the XP gaps get bigger.

Sarah wrote: "Aiswrya wrote: "Also, for task 10, I think we'd have to read the same book. The Luckless is totally not my kind of read lol. I'll take a look at your tote and find something else that qualifies"

G..."

Checked with Sophie, we read a book each :) I'll read one soon

Sarah wrote: "Potions-
Minor heal potion heals 5HP
Heal potion heals 10HP
Major heal potion heals 15HP

You can buy them from Jack and Jill or get them from some quests. I wouldn't use them on common monsters t..."

Got it thanks!

Killed all my monsters and a Rock :)

/topic/show/...

this game is a lot of fun!!

EDIT: I have enough health to kill another Rock, but I want to time my level ups.

Aiswrya wrote: "Killed all my monsters and a Rock :)

/topic/show/...

this game is a lot of fun!!

EDIT: I have enough health to kill another Rock, but I want to time my level ups. ..."

Definitely! The next rock will only hit you for 3HP as you can defeat it in two shots, and then you'll level up again. So with 11HP if you wait a week, you can take out another goblin or brown bat to take you down to 5HP, then go for rock #2.

You might want to hold off on claiming any XP from quests until then. You can have things all finished and ready just not claim them until it's most advantageous.

Sir Sarah pops by with another egg for the Lady Aiswrya, good until the end of 28 Nov.

No time to go adventuring today, but I will get those spell out books sorted eventually. I have an idea for the quest as well, just need to sort out wording. Something about masks... See if you like the basic idea.

Needs Good Title Mask Quest

A new fashion for mask-wearing is spreading through Novel Kingdom. (more wordy stuff here)

Make a mask for your hero:
Spell out MASK
Book with character who wears a mask - any sort
Mask on cover - any sort
Bat wings and Ball of Wool for construction

Receive Shield Potion and some XP - masks are protection (shield you from monsters)

Optional embellishments - add decoration to your mask with gemstones and feathers
Book with gemstone in title, and/or on cover
Phoenix feathers

Additional XP reward

I think quests usually work out at a rate of 1XP per book used, may be less if potions are included in the rewards.

Hi Sarah, I’m so sorry for disappearing! I have had two crazy weeks!

I lost the egg :(

Oooh, I like the mask quest. So appropriate for present times lol. In terms of reward, I like shield but maybe consider increasing attack power by 1? Like saying you can head butt the monster with the mask haha. I feel like there aren’t too many that increase attack power so it might be a good one

That's ok, the beauty of this is that you can drop it when life gets busy and then pick it up again right where you left off, without letting anyone down.

I didn't have a chance to do my Sunday update either this week, too many other things to do. And today I'm trying to restrict screen time as I've had a headache since yesterday. I will get back to this and get you another egg, hopefully tomorrow.

Good points about the quest - will have a think. I wasn't imagining a permanent reward, but I suppose a mask could be another clothing item like the hats for sale in Jack and Jill. In which case we'd ditch the potion reward and have to make the quest harder as permanent extra attack is too good a reward, should have to work for it.

Sir Sarah briefly pokes her head in with an egg, good until the end of 5th Dec. She'll be back on the 6th with another...

Thank you!

Sir Sarah has another egg for the Lady Aiswyra - good until end of 12th Dec.

-----------
At last, I've searched out books for the spell out. Here are my G and E books:

G: The Garden of Evening Mists
E: Europe in Autumn

Thank you Sir Sarah! I've also finished the teacher task.

Dear Ava - YA novel. Everyone's in high school.

With that:
Tracking Tasks:
1. Say hello in the buddy thread set up for you
2. Introduce yourself in the Tavern
3. Newcomer reaches level 2 experience
4. Newcomer levels up a weapon
5. Newcomer levels up both weapons
6. Newcomer defeats their first monster
7. Both partners spell out one of NOVEL, ROLE, PLAY, GAME using standard spell out rules
8. Visit the melting pot and suggest a quest idea that you have worked on together
9. The experienced player gives a gift to the newcomer to help with a quest (e.g. potion/egg/magic item)
10. Both partners read a book that involves a teacher or student, or that has a link to a video game (i.e. Ready Player One or The Last Wish)

I'll upgrade my sword to Level 1 today. I'll read a short novel. We are almost done 👏

Alright - my sword is at level 1 now :)
/topic/show/...

We only need the quest now :) Did you have any other ideas to increase difficulty?

Sorry this has taken me a while, but I've finally had time to ponder the quest again. In the end I wasn't sure about increasing attack power with a mask - there are already hats, pets, and potions that do that. There are some monsters that give you a disease though (all the zombies, and the Plague Bringer), so I thought a mask may give some protection from their diseases. Seemed appropriate.

Anyway, see what you think.

One Mask Time Quest

A new trend for mask-wearing is spreading through Novel Kingdom. Not only do masks deter disease-bearing monsters, they look good too. Fashion is proving contagious!

To make your own basic mask:

Spell out MASK using the usual spell-it-out rules
Read a book with character who wears a mask - (any sort of mask from a masquerade or fancy dress mask to full-on surgical mask will work)
Read a book with a mask on the cover - (any sort, as above)
Collect 1 Bat wing and 1 Ball of Wool to make your mask

Reward: 5XP and 1 Mask. Your Mask will delay the effects of disease from disease-bearing monsters by one turn.

Example:
Round 1
Hero (wearing mask) hits monster
Monster hits hero, hero receives no disease from monster
Round 2
Hero hits monster
Monster hits hero, disease takes effect

Your basic mask is functional but lacking that je-ne-sais-quoi. To add decoration to your mask and dazzle your fellow heroes:

Spell out SPARKLE
Read a book with a gemstone (diamond, emerald, ruby, etc.) in the title
Read a book with a gemstone (diamond, emerald, ruby, etc.) on the cover
Collect 5 Phoenix feathers for feathery decoration

Your embellished mask is admired by all heroes and gets you an additional 8XP and a Shield Potion