Zeroth Member

"Right. I'm sure a lot of people will be at the Assignment Board tomorrow after class, we're bound to find some others who'd like to partner up." Hayato said. "Anyway, I better get my stuff sorted out and see if I can get some last minute review in. I didn't do so hot in the academic sector last year, almost got held back. Can't make that mistake again. I'll see ya around, Joe." With a farewell wave to his new friend, Hayato headed into the dorm, too deep in thought to notice anything or anyone else. Professor Gene had told him to focus on his studies and on getting real field experience. Hazel had shown him just what that experience was worth. And given all the attention their match had drawn, maybe he wouldn't have such a hard time finding a group to party up with. All in all, aside from a lesson in utter humiliation from a girl, today had actually been pretty productive. In the professor's office, before, he'd felt like he was being told all his efforts thus far were useless. Maybe they had been. But, maybe, if he had some help, and tried his best...maybe he could catch up. Finding his room on the E Rank floor, right above the lobby, he headed inside and locked the door behind him. A hot shower, unpacking, and some reading in the Intermediate Swordplay book would probably wrap up his night. --- The next day, both students and teachers literally hit the ground running. For most, the first class would be a physical education course designed to not only keep all the classes in decent physical shape (even the Magi needed to stay healthy) but to get their blood pumping and raise their energy levels. With this boost, the bleariness most normal students would have in their morning classes was eliminated, and with their brains now fresh and alert they would move on to various general education courses. After lunch the various Classes would head towards their different training courses, things like swordsmanship, stealth, tactics, magic control, and whatever else they'd secured on their schedules. Afterwards, those who weren't worried about homework (which, with this being the first day, was light) either went off to do their own thing or gathered in the entrance lobby of the main school building, where a large holo-board was displayed with all the publicly available Special Assignments. Hayato was looking for something he thought would be a good challenge for a full 5-person group of E-ranks, and so far he'd picked out three that he liked the sound of: D-Rank: Blighted Woods A research group is attempting to establish a base of operations in Excaledvol in an area of thick forest. Exbeasts in the forest are attacking the researchers. It is vital that we clear the monsters out enough that research can continue, so that in the future we'll have more information about Excaledvol and how to separate our two worlds again. The Exbeasts are E-Rank, but there may be several and they are on home territory. At least two people are recommended for this assignment. Reward: 50 Academy Credits. Bonus: Exbeast materials. D-Rank: Cockatrice Hunt We've recieved a report of a Cockatrice, a D-rank Exbeast, prowling around a local rural community. While it's not a powerful combatant, a Cockatrice has very potent magic venom that causes organic material to petrify. At least three party members are recommended for this quest. Reward: 100 Academy Credits. Bonus: Exbeast materials. D-Rank: Fire Rat Extermination A small harbor town is plagued by Fire Rats, Ex-Beasts with fireproof fut that start small fires to make their nests in and thus can potentially burn down buildings, and has asked Academmo for help dealing with the pyromaniac rodents. Reward: 50 Academy Credits. Bonus: Exbeast materials. --- OOC: All students can take missions of up to one rank above their own rank, and a full 5-person party can take missions of up to two ranks above the lowest ranked person in the party. Thanks to Duthguy for submitting the idea for the Fire Rat quest, and if anyone wants to come up with more quests feel free to do so! Academy Credits, or AC, are roughly equivalent to USD. Exbeast materials means anything from the monster you can chop off if you think it's useful; for instance, the fur of the Fire Rats would make good fireproof clothing.

Having Hazel be something like "the upcoming school idol" like they always talk about in anime that follow these sorts of conventions actually sounds sort of interesting to me, Diggerton, so I don't think it was a mistake. Higher ranked students can still do lower ranked Special Assignments, they just don't have as much use for them. If any of you have played the Monster Hunter series, that kind of quest system is what I'm aiming for. By the time you've done a few higher ranked quests, you don't need the materials you'd get from lower ones as much and you could get better money doing the less difficult, but higher ranked quests. But yeah, tutoring or helping other students sounds like a good idea to me. Since it looks like most people are in the dorms now, would anyone be opposed to a time skip?

"Hayato, nice to meet ya Joe." The two shook hands, and Hayato nodded at the suggestion of training. "Sure, that sounds good! Maybe we can party up with some others and go on a Special Assignment. I actually met a cute Cleric girl at the gym after Hazel nearly broke my arms." He chuckled with a slight frown, remembering how that last strike of hers could have ended badly. "With a good Cleric and maybe a Binder, Knights and Strikers are at their best; at least, that's what I remember from my Basic Tactics last year. I think they let up to five people go on missions together, unless there's some extenuating circumstance that requires a person to go it alone or to bring a whole group with them."

Hayato found the boy from before, whose name he still hadn't learned, at the dorms. When the other student saw him he called out and asked about the spar. "So, how was the fight? What's her fighting style like?", he smirked. "Probable defensive wasn't it?" Hayato grimaced and rubbed one of his shoulders. "No, actually, she hits like a freaking truck. Her defenses and evasion skills are probably her weakest traits, but she has enough speed and strength to make up for the lack of technique." He sighed. "But she didn't get that way just by training. She's been on a lot of Special Assignments, out there fighting actual Exbeasts while I've just been in a dojo swinging a shinai around. Tomorrow, I'm going to start changing that." Again he held out his hand to shake with the other boy. "Sorry about getting pulled away before. I still never caught your name."

> Personally I don't mind people posting while they're online. Sometimes RPs get super slow if there's a set order and one person stops posting. > > But whatever everyone decides is fine with me. I'd be happy to keep my character with anyone that is in a time zone different than anyone else, so we could RP together while we're online. That way everyone could post at their own speed or a good time for them. This is a good idea too, if we have enough offense/defense people that each "timezone party" has enough members to be effective. But if one group is going to end up with nothing but support classes while all the others are capable of fighting, it's not going to be very fair or fun, at least in my opinion.

> Oh snap. Sorry I was outside today. What did I miss? Nothing much, Hayato and Joe were interrupted by Hazel, who challenged Hayato to a spar. She beat him pretty handily with overwhelming offense, and most everyone else either watched the match or interacted afterwards.

What if we were part of a group of settlers trying to build a new town in a large, very wild area known for having a variety of Monsters, and in the beginning our Hunts are mostly to protect the settlers and gather resources for buildings and stuff?

"Bye, Rian. See you around!" Hayato waved enthusiastically as the healer left. "She" was pretty cute, he thought, as he turned back to the others. Definitely not as clashing a personality as Hazel...although the other Knight wasn't bad herself. Not wanting to go off on that tangent at the moment, though, Hayato instead turned his attention to someone else who'd come down from the stands. They must have drawn a bit of a crowd, huh? He looked up to see who else was around, and lo and behold there was another girl, one with bright blonde hair. He gave a simple nod of acknowledgement when she noticed him looking at her, then turned to see if there was anyone else in the stands. He noticed someone by the doors, too, probably someone who had stopped by to see if anyone else was in the building. The boy looked to be Japanese, like him, though he had silver hair. And the gun on his hip didn't look standard issue; was he an older student? Lots of opportunities to meet people today, from the looks of it. Now that Hayato thought about it, aside from the two or three people sitting immediately next to him in his classes, he'd never really gotten to know many people at the Academy. And for Special Assignments, he would need to make friends that he could party up with, right? He pondered this for a moment, before shrugging and turning back to Hazel. "I'm gonna go ahead on to the dorms, I'll see you later." he said with a wave, before turning and heading out of the gym, hands in his pockets. As he passed the silver haired boy he nodded at him too, with that look that said "'Sup," in the way guys often did without actually speaking. Then he began the trek across campus towards the boys' dorm, stretching his fully healed shoulders before folding his hands behind his head. This year was gonna be very different, for sure.

> That might help greatly yes. Perhaps doing a recap after you place in a time skip and do so for everything in a similar manner. So after a timeskip recap, or after a large event/GM stuffs? Yes, I can certainly do that! As for currently, you haven't missed anything of real importance, just character interaction. All that's happened is that the first day's entrance ceremony is over and students are moving back into dorms, taking tours of the school, so on and so forth.

> Very very intrested, is there still some places left? with the lack of intresting rps around im very desperate xd Yes, there's plenty of room for everyone! As to those of you worrying about the speed and timing of things so far, I wouldn't be opposed to a posting order if everyone wants one. I usually just try to post whenever I'm available for anyone who speaks to my characters, so no one's waiting on me, but for posts on the more GM style thing my usual method is to wait for everyone to post and then to do a group response. So while it seems fast now because of character interaction, when it comes to doing missions and fighting enemies it won't speed by so fast. Would it help if I placed a Recap section in the google doc or anything like that?