Counter-Productive

Examine shelf



Let's see...

Three HP potions, two JP potions, and whatever was in that bottle down there must have leaked out through the crack. Also there's a cobweb. You're pretty sure Grandma didn't sell those.

If there's a broom anywhere in the building, it's probably in the back room. But first...


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You open your inventory. Currently, it is holding your favorite jacket, your key ring, and your letter from Grandma.

You put the cracked bottle in your inventory and remove the key ring and letter. You want to refresh your memory of what it says.




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So what'll it be first? Lockbox? Back room? Balcony? Or upstairs?

>_

Check the toilet



The toilet is clean, thankfully.


Check the kitchen



In the cupboards you find the standard kitchenware. Plates, bowls, utensils, a box of crackers, a can of beans, and a can of corn.

You nab a fork just because.


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The fridge is practically empty. There's a bottle of ketchup and a jar of pickles. You guess you can live off what Grandma left behind for a while, but you'll need to get more food at some point.


Look in the freezer for good measure



You open the freezer. Inside is--

Oh.


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MY.


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GOD.


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It's the delicious, the divine, the oxymoronic, JUMBO SHRIMP!

There are few delicacies in this world so tantalizing (to you) and so sought after (by you) as jumbo shrimp, and yet here they are, six beautiful crustaceans, all lined up in your freezer, all for you. It's almost more than you can bear.

This is the best gift ever.


->



And yet, it is with a heavy heart that you wrench yourself away from them and close the freezer door.

A bountiful haul such as this is a gift, to be sure, but one to be saved for an emergency.


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All right, enough of that. You've got a store to run.

Today's Sunday and the store is open Monday through Saturday, so you've got the rest of the day to get everything cleaned up and put some merchandise on the shelves. Can't run a shop without anything to sell.


What's that brown tub?



That's a planter box. The plants inside are so shriveled and dead you can't tell what kind of plant they are. It's a shame it took so long to get here from your old house. You could've been here in less than a day if it weren't for the monsters blocking all the passes.


Open the boxes



This must be the stuff Grandma ordered to get you started. It's an intimidating tower of magic cardboard, but it won't get any smaller if you just stand around and gawk at it all day. Best get to it.


->



The boxes dissolve into thin air and their contents spill all over the balcony.

You are suddenly even more intimidated than you were when it was all in the boxes. You're not sure the back room is big enough for all this.


>_

Get the safe combo from the lockbox



Oh right! You almost forgot.

You grab your keys again and open the lockbox. Inside is 50 Jewels, a coral ring, and a scrap of paper with the safe combination written on it.


Take stock of what sweet loot your gram-gram left you



You unlock the safe. Inside is...

Oh.

Oh no.


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It's a Luck Pastry.


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Luck Points, or LP, is a powerful stat. Most people only have two or three LP, but at high levels you can use your LP to make actual miracles happen. Luck Pastries are the quickest way to level up LP.

It's said that the Luckiest being in existence is the King of your beloved land. Unfortunately for everyone living in it, he's a tyrant. He's outlawed anything that could be a threat to his rule, including traveling through the passes without a permit, all forms of electronic communication, and of course, Luck Pastries.

Having pretty much anything to do with a Luck Pastry is illegal. Owning one will land you in jail. Selling one will get you executed. And you're not sure what happens to the people who eat one, but you don't want to find out.

Why the hell does Grandma have something like this?!




Practice your secret weapon techniques



Thinking about it is starting to give you a headache so you lock the pastry back in the safe.

If you're going to keep contraband in the store, you'd better be ready to protect it. You head up to the balcony and equip your Grandma's ring. Coral is a mid-level material for rings that channels magic well. It looks like this one has already been crafted into a Magic Projectile ring, which is exactly what it sounds like.

You place the cracked bottle on the lip of the planter box.


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->



Nailed it.




What can you do with the runes and coupons?



You scoop the glass shards up into your inventory so you don't step on them later.

The Point Allocation Coupons are like the Luck Pastry; they raise the level of one of your stats. However, they can be used on any of your stats rather than just LP. The only reason they're not illegal is because they only level them one point at a time. They're also very rare.

Selling these would make you a small fortune. However, Grandma did say you could use them for yourself...

The runes, on the other hand, are made specifically for crafting. Each type of rune has a different effect. A "Reverse" rune, for instance, reverses the properties of any item you combine it with. If you were to combine a Reverse rune with an HP potion, you'd get a potion that damages you when you drink it.




Craft fancier seeds by using a seed packet and rune as ingredients, then plant your rad magic beans in the planter upstairs



Now just hold your horses! You may have an unusually high MP stat, but it's not infinite. You'd better stop and think about what you're crafting before you go spending MP willy-nilly.

Combining a seed with a rune would be easy enough, but you've got to consider the effects that would have on the plant it grows into. Take the pumpkin seeds, for example. If you were to craft them with a Reverse rune, instead of a tasty, nutritious pumpkin, you'd likely get a poisonous one. If you crafted them with a Break rune, you'd just break the seeds and render them useless. And if you crafted them with a Grow rune, the pumpkin might grow so big it damages the planter box.

All three of these would cost 3 MP, and then you'd need to spend another 3 MP to craft the result with a Clear rune in order to fix it. You've only got 30 MP.

You're not opposed to doing some crafting, though. Crafted goods sell for more than standard scrolls and daggers, after all.


>_

Exposit on what you know about runes. Presumably there are other types of runes, either in your stock or in the world at large?



Of course. There are seven types of runes, including the three you just explained.

An Accelerate rune exaggerates an item's characteristics. Continuing to use the pumpkin seeds as an example, combining them with an Accelerate rune would make a super-pumpkin. It would taste like heaven and be extremely nutritious.

A Fuse rune fuses two items together without combining them as you would if you just crafted them. Fusing two pumpkin seeds together would grow some sort of mutant pumpkin which, while still edible, would not be very attractive.

A Shrink rune makes items smaller. Shrinking the pumpkin seeds would make tiny pumpkins.

There is also the Clear rune. Unlike other items, runes cannot be "uncrafted" from the items they're combined with. If you combined two items together, crafted that item with a rune, then uncrafted that item, rather than getting the rune back, you'd have the two original items which both have the rune's effects. That's why the Clear runes exist. They remove all rune effects from an item, essentially "clearing" the runes from within them.

The reason for this is that runes, as you said before, are made specifically for crafting. They don't work so well in reverse.

Runes also can't be combined with other runes directly. If you wanted to make an incredibly strong broken sword, you'd need at least a Break rune and an Accelerate rune. This is possible, but you can only combine them each with the sword one at a time.

There is a legend that tells of an eighth rune. However, this has never been confirmed. As far as you know, it's just a legend.

Can you combine a Point Allocation Coupon with a grow rune to grow your stats by an amount more than 1?



Nope. There are certain things that just can't be combined. Anything that can't fit in your inventory, living creatures, and Point Allocation Coupons are all off limits.

That's probably the other reason PACs aren't illegal. There's no way to cheat the system.


What are your other stats?



The pink bar is your HP, or Hit Points. Or Health Points, depending on your region. If you've ever played a video game in your life, you know what these are. You have 20 HP.

The blue bar is your JP, or Joy Points. It's something about your mood, you guess. Honestly, you're not so good with this stuff. All you know is that it has something to do with that little smiley face in the corner, and hitting zero makes your other stats stop regenerating. You have 10 max JP and your current JP is a comfortable 6. Your current mood is Feelin' Alright, a neutral mood.

The green bar is your MP, or Mind Points. Now this is your area of expertise. MP is the stat used in crafting. You know the rules, you're good at figuring out what combinations are the strongest/most efficient. You have 30 MP, an unusually high number.

The yellow bar is your LP, or Luck Points. The exact mechanics of LP are hard to describe, but it can basically be summarized as this: If there's something that can happen, LP can make it happen. You have 2 LP, a fairly average amount. That's enough to knock a precariously-balanced lamp off a rickety shelf.

The last bar is your IP, or Illness Points. This is the one bar you never want to have any points in. You kind of doubt it'll come up though. You have a max IP of 7, and thankfully, it's empty.

Explain scrolls and potions



Scrolls contain one single-use spell each. If you have the money and inventory space, you could carry a bunch of scrolls around to cast at any moment. However, scrolls are written on a magic paper similar to the boxes your store's deliveries come in; once it's fulfilled its purpose, it vanishes.

Combining a scroll with something more solid like, say, a ring makes the ring able to cast the spell multiple times--with a cooldown. Your Grandmother's ring is a coral band crafted with a Magic Projectile scroll. This works for other objects as well. You can also craft spellbooks that can cast one spell per page by combining a scroll with a blank book. The blank books on your shelf have 30 pages each.

Your current scrolls are:

2 Fireball
2 Ice Spike
2 Shock Lance
2 Magic Projectile
2 Poison
2 Parasitic Plant
2 Blind
2 HP Steal


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Potions can have a number of different effects. Theoretically, you can make a potion for any of your stats, though for most people an LP potion would be useless and no one would want an IP potion. There are other potions whose effects range from the mundane to the bizarre to the oddly specific.

Next to the potion-making set on the wall is a list of recipes for potions. HP, JP...no MP sadly, but there are two potions you've never heard of. You're not sure what they do.

Does your shop have any competitors? Are you on a busy street? What's nearby in town?



The town you're in is small but it gets a fair amount of through traffic. You don't really have any competitors here. There's a grocery store, a post office, a hospital, and a large building that you think is hosting some sort of event. You're probably the only weapons and magic shop for miles.