54 Friendly Competition (2/2)
Rolling his eyes at Jun's ribbing, Eric turned to Griffin and Gio. ”What about you two?”
”I'm not so sure I like the idea. You guys might be able to carry groups and be successful. But I don't think I can do that and continue to be a tank. I'd prefer to stay as a group,” Griffin said after a moment. Beside him, Gio had a conflicted look upon his face. Seeing this, Eric turned towards the quietest member of the group.
”Gio, you've been pretty quiet. What do you think?”
”Honestly, I don't like it,” Gio replied softly.
”What was that?”
”I said, I don't like it,” Gio replied, a little louder this time. ”I'm already bad enough at fighting as it is. If you guys get me to lead a group I'm just going to die and embarass myself. As long as you guys are around, I don't mind fighting. But I don't want to fight if you guys aren't going to be there with me,” he said, spilling his words out in a rush, as if afraid that he would be cut off if he didn't speak as quickly as possible.
Going silent, the group stared at Gio for a moment. A few of them wore looks of surprise, while Ryan had a look of acceptance on his face.
”I'm glad you finally said it man. I've been wondering if you were really enjoying yourself for a while,”said Ryan, placing his hand upon Gio's shoulder.
”I do enjoy playing with you guys. It's just that I'm not that good at combat. Especially compared to Jun and Eric.”
”You can just practi-” Jun began, but Gio cut him off.
”No,” he said firmly, Ryan's support having given him confidence. ”I know where my talents lie. I'm just average at combat in Fate. No matter how hard I practice, I'm never going to be as good as you, Eric, or Ryan.”
A conflicted look flashed across Mark's face as Gio said this. But he remained silent as Gio continued.
”I don't want to quit, and I also don't want us to split up the group. But Eric's right about splitting up the party being best for Riptide, and I don't want to be the reason that Riptide doesn't succeed either.” A look of frustration crossed Gio's face as he said this. ”Honestly, I don't really know what to do.”
”What do you want to do?” Mark asked carefully. ”We don't want to force you to do something you're not enjoying. It's ok if not everyone leads their own parties. It might be better even.”
The rest of the group nodded at this, reassuring Gio that they wouldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do. Face brightening as his friends gave him their support, Gio pondered for a moment.
”I like the crafting stuff. Helping out with stuff around the village, doing random quests for villagers. That sort of stuff,” Gio replied at last.
Hearing this, an idea struck Eric. ”The goal of this is to raise the reputation of Riptide, right?” he asked, speaking up for the first time since Gio had started his tirade.
”I thought it was to become platoon commanders?” Griffin asked.
”That's the goal of splitting up to lead different parties for this exercise. But the other goal is to attract strong players to Riptide. However, we don't just need players who are strong at fighting, and we also don't just need players. If we want Riptide to succeed at owning a territory we'll need blacksmiths, farmers, fletchers, and all sorts of non-combat professions. We're not going to attract those types by fighting monsters and raising our rank with the militia. Or at least, we're not going to attract very many of them,” Eric corrected himself. ”What if we let Gio stay in town and integrate himself in the local scene? He's already the one with the most NPC friends, and I'd bet he's the one with the highest reputation among important villagers who aren't Alistair or Lucy, what with all the little quests he's always doing.”
”Would that work?” Gio asked in an unsure tone. ”If I didn't go out fighting, and just stayed in the village?”
”Probably, there's no reason it shouldn't. Especially if you get one of the villagers to take you on as their apprentice, like Tom did with Griffin, or Craig with Jun,” Mark said slowly. ”It's something I've been wondering about actually, if we can really keep ignoring the non-combat aspects of Fate the way we have. Look at how much more powerful Jun's bow is then the one he started with, or Eric's new sabre. If we could make that level of stuff ourselves, how much stronger would we be?”
”Way stronger. This bow is actually great, and Craig's not even that great a fletcher. He complains about it when he gets drunk,” Jun confided. ”If Gio can become good at fletching or something else then that would be way more useful than having him as a shitty tank.”
”Gee, thanks,” Gio said dryly.
”No problem.”
”So we allow Gio to stay in the village while the rest of us form parties of our own then?” Eric asked, turning the conversation back to the topic at hand.
”I want to stay with someone else's party. Finding a competent group as a tank is just exhausting,” Griffin spoke up.
”Just stick him with Mark. That way he doesn't need to waste time finding a tank he can rely on and he can safely heal,” Ryan suggested. Mark nodded at this.
”That works for me. You cool with that Griffin?”
”Yup.”
”Ryan, Jun, are you two okay with forming your own parties?” Mark asked. ”Jun, I don't want you flaming anyone that's not up to your standards. The entire point of this would be to try and recruit new members to Riptide while raising our reputation with the militia. We don't need you driving people away.”
”I'd only drive away shitters like Eric,” Jun protested. Seeing that Mark was glaring at him he relented. ”But yeah, I'll try my best.”
”I can think of a few people I could recruit,” Ryan volunteered. ”Not sure if they'll have parties by now or not. But they should be willing to help me if I ask right.”
”Sounds good. Alright then, since we're all going to be starting parties of our own, we'll postpone our first raid indefinitely. Remember, we're looking for new members to join Riptide, so don't just recruit the first people you find. We want the best,” Mark reminded them all sternly.
”Yeah yeah, is that all then?” Jun asked with a bored look. Seeing Jun's disinterested gaze, a light flashed in Eric's eyes.
”Anyone want to make a bet?” Eric asked slyly.
”A bet on what?”
”On who'll have the best party. For fairness sake, we'll determine best party by whoever has the highest rank by the next expedition.”
”I'm game.”
”Me too.”
”Sure.”
”What's the wager? Same as usual?”
The other members of Riptide asked. Only Mark abstained, merely sighing as he gave Eric an annoyed look, clearly warning him not to take things too far.
”How about we spice it up a little this time?” Eric suggested. ”Screw the last bet we had. We still haven't decided who's going to be the guild leader, right? Just that we're going to make the guild as soon as we can. So let's say that whoever wins is the guild leader and gets to be leader of Riptide after the guild is made.”
”Sounds good.”
”You're on.”
As the group began to discuss the bet, each person claiming that they would be the one to win it, Mark clapped his hands to get their attention once more.
”Let's not waste too much time. We don't want everyone to have found parties while we're still messing around out here. Remember guys, quality over quantity. We want strong members to join Riptide. We won't be able to take on Nova Five or any of the other big teams with scrubs.”
”Yeah, yeah.”
”Who's going to make the guild and be guild leader while we wait for the next expedition?” Griffin asked, piping up for the first time in a while.
”Just let Mark do it like we usually do,” Jun said with a bored look, clearly already planning who to recruit to his party.
”Mark's good, yeah.”
”Whatever.”
”You good with that, Mark?” Eric asked.
Mark shrugged. ”Not like you guys don't get me to make the guild in every game anyways. Yeah, I'm cool with it.”
”Sounds good. Alright then, let's form some parties and start clearing out some goblin dens!” Eric said with a grin.