Started with Custom Hard, no points invested, minimum sparks (200). Took the first Guild contract offered:
This is actually a great starting slave, in my view, because:
She will be less resistant than average with none of her nature, pride, intellect or temperament attributes being above average and a couple of them below average. She will be less affected by punishments because her sensitivity/empathy is low, but she will also be less prone to depression; for my purposes, this means I can force rules on her longer before she will become depressed. She has high enough gladiatrix skill to succeed in the arena for several decades at least, so that will be a helpful source of income, and she will qualify to complete the Guild contract as soon as I raise her Nature to B+ and get her obedience up enough. Since she has most of her skills at F-, like my slaver, if he can teach her anything he will gain some experience in the process. He'll have to gain some skill first, and although he could spend 40$ for clothing to give him a boost, he can also learn by doing. For example, he can clean the house himself until he reaches at least D- in stewardship.
For training the slave, there are two approaches: carrot and stick. This slaver can't effectively punish her into compliance yet, so he'll have to keep her happy enough not to attack or escape while he builds up his skills. How to keep her happy before he can order her to do something and earn a reward? She's unhappy about being naked, for a start, so putting clothing on her will improve her mood. If he gives her nice, comfortable clothing, she'll be even happier. Therefore, sun dress (5$) and soft slippers (5$) are the first purchases. Because she has gladiatrix skill B+ or higher, she also will be happy wearing a spiked collar (10$), so a trip to the Steel Role is next.
We want to avoid her becoming spoiled, which means we need at least three rules (on hardcore) while she is not fearful. For now, that means we need to give her at least one rule she will want to break. She will be gaining temperament from the arena, so I will give her the silence rule, which can be forced with a reliable gag (20$) from the Steel Rose. While there, I will also pierce her nipples (5$) and buy her a nipple chain (10$).
This puts her mood at Hopeful despite being upset by the piercing.
The immediate goal is to raise the slaver's strength:
I don't want to spend sparks on restaurants, so I'll spar at the Colosseum. I can reach D- by losing to unarmed slaves, so it's time for some masochism.
To keep her mood up after becoming dirty from her daily Colosseum spar (just one spar per day, for now), I spent 3$ to give the slave a bath and massage at the spa. Meanwhile, the slaver was beaten up a few more times:
She started her period the next day, lowering her mood, so she got another visit to the spa (3$):
Our hapless slaver has now reached D- in fighting skill:
While he might be able to win spars unarmed like this, it would be much easier with a weapon, so he'll buy a stiletto (10$) before leaving White Town:
Having equipped his stiletto, it's time for more sparring:
Revenge is sweet. However, fighting unarmed slaves won't do us any good now that we're already D- (our strength started at D- too, because F- strength is game-over):
So let's try a more difficult opponent:
It's doable with some luck, and now we've gained more fighting experience and strength. Once we reach C- fighting skill, it will be easier to win consistently at this level, and then we'll be able to maintain our strength level at Unfit C- (it will drop to Weak D- each night due to low quality food, but we'll still get extra energy the next day if we were Unfit when we went to sleep, and winning one rank-two spar the next day will bring us back to Unfit).
This puts us at the end of day 4. The slave is Hopeful even though she is Unclean after winning her daily spar (we're doing these to compensate for the temperament drain from the silence rule, to build up her Nature, and to keep her from gaining weight). Meanwhile, due to the forced silence, she has become Open.
Day 5 begins, and it's time for the first arena battle:
Now, the slave is injured, and if we leave her to heal naturally she will have some scars, which will reduce her mood, so it's best to get her treated at the Technosphere, which will cost 15$.
What to do with the 5 merit? We don't want to spend sparks unnecessarily, but giving her a blanket would be useful, so we can promise her a gift for now. Our F- slaver isn't convincing, so the promise won't improve her mood, but it will at least develop her awareness.
Day 6, our slave is unhappy again because she is dirty, so it's time for another spa visit (3$) after her daily spar:
Meanwhile, sparring is still very difficult for the master so let's learn a special technique to help. He needs more energy for that, so it's time to buy Kamrian Resin x5 (10$).
Day 8 dawns with our slave unhappy again. (Incidentally, I noticed during this testing that the slave is getting mood drops that she shouldn't be, due to a bug that's making her feel ashamed every night for no reason, but I'll play this out without the fix.)
First order of business, let's drink some camra:
With our extra energy, after our slave's daily spar and spa visit (3$), we can learn Battle Cry:
Day 9 dawns, and our slave is Hopeful but our slaver woke up with no energy due to his exhausting training the day before:
Still, he can muster enough to take his slave for her daily spar:
First decade ended:
Expenses so far: 96$, income so far: 50$ (not counting the 60$ pre-payment from the Guild, which won't be repeated). Still, if we're only paying 34 sparks for food, then even if she earns us only 50$ at the arena this decade, that would leave 16$ for other expenses (those spa visits do add up). Let's see how our slaver does with his new special technique:
Our slave gets another spa visit (3$):
And our slaver has now achieved C- fighting skill:
Now, the house is messy, which is a problem for the slave's mood, but our priority is still to raise the master's strength. Let's speed up that process a bit by using the rest of the camra we bought so we can spar an extra time each day:
Our slave gets yet another spa visit (3$) after her daily spar, but don't worry. Once we level up our strength, we can start cleaning the house and stop bleeding sparks at the salon.
Success:
To improve our strength or fighting skill more at the arena we will need to defeat Shinobi, which will require better equipment / another special technique, so we can accept C- for now and turn our focus to leveling a different skill: stewardship. (Remember, we still need to spar once a day to maintain our strength.)
We'll need to take the slave for another spa day (3$) because we're not good enough at cleaning yet to reduce the house mess level with our remaining energy:
Day 15 dawns and our slave is Pleased, and we have 3 energy. Tomorrow is the arena battle:
Her mood is so good in fact today that even being Unclean doesn't drop it:
Meanwhile, we've managed to make the house Tidy again:
Time for the arena:
Remember we calculated that we had 16$ left over after per-decade expenses if she won 50$? She won 64$, which gives us an extra 14$. This puts us back at 219$ (recall that we started with 200$). Can she keep winning in the arena without armor, with each time increasing the amount of sparks? Yes... but if she becomes a champion, we will have to free her, unless we can make her devoted first. That will be difficult since she has no taming:
Still, we have another two decades to solve that problem, and we could always take our chances with letting her be defeated; the crowd might let her live, and then we would have one more decade to work on the problem. Of course, we'd have to do it without a week's winnings. But, even without actively training her beyond making her spar, promising her a reward, and keeping her happy, we've still managed to build some awareness and habit. If we continue in this way, by the time we develop some skill in stewardship, she might be compliant enough to take lessons from us.
For now, let's take her for medical treatment and then give her the gift we promised:
Thus ends day 16:
Although she's Filthy, she's still Calm, so no spa visit today:
But she'll need another on day 18 (as a reminder, her mood is lower than intended here because of a bug):
Day 19 dawns with a pleased slave and a Neat house. We're still at F- stewardship, but give it time... So ends day 19:
Oops, we spent 3$ more on food this decade. Still, we're doing okay:
Day 20, no spa visit needed after sparring:
Unfortunately, there is no mess to clean up, so what to do with our left-over energy? Nothing comes to mind, so we'll just save it for tomorrow:
Today's sparring has raised our slave's Nature to Independent, so she now qualifies to complete the Gladiatrix contract at the Guild, except for her obedience and lack of other common skills. We can defeat her in combat now, with our weapon and special technique, but we don't want to make her unhappy while she still needs to learn a common skill (D- in housekeeping would be sufficient, which we soon will be able to teach her), and we also want her to earn more sparks for us in the arena. Meanwhile, the contract timer is ticking, and it will be worth less as time goes by. If, hypothetically, we could turn her in today, we would be paid 400 sparks for her. For every day that goes by, we'll be paid 10 sparks less. The next arena battle is in 6 days, and she'll earn around 70 sparks. That gives us small a net profit vs. turning in the contract. The following arena win will earn around ~90 sparks, which is slightly less than turning in the contract would pay, but effectively this means we break even since the previous win gave us slightly more. So we have 16 days to get this slave to the point where we can turn her in, or alternatively we can let the contract timer keep running (to be resolved later with a different slave, for zero pay) and instead live off of the current slave's arena winnings indefinitely (if we can make her gain some devotion within the next 26 days, which is also possible).
Let's continue with the "turn her in" plan for now. Since we have some spare energy after sparring and cleaning as much as the house mess will allow, we also can start working on our mage skill - with failed casting of auspex. Of course, this costs sparks too, but we have some reserve still. This is somewhat wasteful, since we don't need magic yet, but it will be useful eventually. Instead of spending sparks on magic, we could start eating meals at the Hip now and raise our strength higher instead of doing our daily sparring/strength-maintenance routine; I'm deliberately challenging myself more by not doing that.
Fortunately, our slave is keeping her good mood now even though she is Filthy, so we are saving sparks by cutting back on the spa visits.
By the end of day 24, our magic efforts are rewarded with a level-up of our mage skill:
This means we could teach our slave magic, if she were willing to take lessons... but she isn't, yet.
We also have a potential problem; she's aroused enough to want to masturbate, which is against the rules. Let's buy a chastity belt (30$) to deny her that option. This leaves us with 100$ and two days until the next arena battle.
Thus ends day 25:
Day 26 dawns with a Melancholic slave, and a Neat house. Our master unhappily cleans it ... and earns a level-up:
Not only that - he has also become a Coward instead of a Wimp, thanks to his brand reputation from the arena wins.
On with the regular program of sparring and spa visit (3$).
Day 27 - time for another arena battle:
Slightly smaller purse sparks than anticipated, and we'll actually end up slightly further behind the contract value because I hadn't accounted earlier for the cost of treating her wounds (10$), but since we can't turn in the contract yet, there's not much we can do about that. More importantly, she's Calm and has earned 5 merit. What to do? We gave her a blanket earlier, so we can promise another gift. Unfortunately, she's on her period again, so she is a bit moody, but that will be enough to keep her Calm tomorrow.
Thus ends day 27:
Day 28 requires a spa visit (3$):
Now, she's still reluctant and doesn't want to be taught, so the next several days will just be more of the usual routine while we wait for her to gain more awareness and habit. Once she does, we should be able to start training her in housekeeping, and it's only a short distance from there to turning her in. We could accelerate this process by inciting her to rebel with a punishment and then beating her (which we are certainly capable of doing at this point - I've tried it in a "discarded timeline" or two), resulting in her gaining some fear, but we've come this far without having to punish her or ever ending a day with her having a negative mood, so let's see how this plays out without breaking that pattern. Her empathy is slowly rising, and will reach Insensitive soon. That will both help and hinder us; help by making it easier to raise her fear, hinder by making her more susceptible to depression.
Day 30 another spa visit (3$) -- so many sparks wasted because of that mood bug... which could instead be spent at the Hip raising strength if you wanted, or casting Magna Magnifika... or buying a better weapon (a Whip would help with tier-2 sparring).
Our slave has leveled up her empathy now, but she's still not ready to take lessons from us (of course, this is hardcore difficulty - on normal, she'd be obedient already). We could just continue the routine patiently (she's gained more habit already) and eventually she would become obedient enough to work with, but we have another weapon in our arsenal, which will be more effective now that we've increased her empathy:
We'll repeat this tomorrow and the next day (which is also the next arena battle), and we should be able to start training her after that.
Day 37 is another spa visit (3$).
Day 38, we Explain her Position for the third time, and then ask her what she thinks of us, and she says...
With this, we should be able to start training her tomorrow. But first, there is a battle to be won:
And a medical bill to be paid (15$). With this, our brand status has increased to Recognised C-.
With her 5 merit, we'll go to the beach (2$), which will clean the slaver too... and with this, it seems I've reached the forum's image limit. She's Pleased after the outing, and in the morning she's Hopeful. And... she accepts a housekeeping lesson, listens attentively, sincerely tries to do everything right, and gains 4 merit. As a reward, we'll take her to the onsen (2$). This makes her Pleased again.
Decade bill is 40$ again, leaving 139$.
Day 40 - after daily sparring and a housekeeping lesson, we let her have fun until evening.
Day 41 - She wakes up unhappy, so we'll take her to spar first, then a spa visit (3$) and lastly a housekeeping lesson. After the lesson, she has 2 merit and the house is still not fully clean, so we reward her with a walk around the city (now she is Pleased) and then repeat the lesson. The house is clean, so we switch to witchcraft lessons. She gains 3 merit and the house is now Tidy. Our slaver is out of energy, so we drink some camra and then give her another housekeeping lesson. Finally, we give her another weighty compliment and end the day.
Good news - our slave has gained D- housekeeping, so we can complete the guild contract! Except, she is still not obedient enough. We could take up the stick at this point and start punishing her, but we'd have to raise her fear by two levels to reach D-. Since we still have time (134$ sparks remaining - and we don't
need to send her to the arena again), we might as well continue training her with the carrot method; we can at least teach her more about magic.
Day 42 - Witchcraft lesson. She gained 3 merit. We'll take a day off from sparring and teach her again. Reward with another trip to the beach (2$). Order her to tidy up the house. 2 merits. Give her Praise. Disable the Silence rule to remove a mood drop factor, enable Act as Maid instead.
Day 43 - She is Calm. Master has gained a level of Personality stat due to his increased reputation from the arena wins. Order to do Gymnastics. She gains 3 merit. Give a bouquet of flowers (2$). Teach witchcraft. 3 merit. Trip to the beach (2$).
Day 44 - She is Pessimistic. Order to do Gymnastics. 2 merit. Cooking lesson at academy (2$). +3 merit (total 5). Go to the beach (2$). She is Calm. End the day.
Day 45 - She refuses to clean the house. 1 guilt (first time this slave gained any guilt). Chastise her. Order to do Gymnastics. 1 merit. Cooking lesson (2$). 3 merit. To the beach again (2$). She is still Pessimistic. Disable maid rule since she's breaking it. Only 2 rules now, but asking how she feels indicates she's still afraid, so it won't spoil her. Allow her to masturbate too; should cheer her up a bit. Have the slaver clean the house. He's exhausted now, but she's Calm. End the day.
Day 46 - Slave masturbated, she's Hopeful now. 3 days to arena battle. Order to clean. 2 merit. Order to do gymnastics. 5 merit. Bring to Golden Cage (5$). Enable maid rule again. Master has half energy remaining. Go to Outcasts, buy more camra (10$). End the day.
Day 47 - Slave is Pleased. Order to clean. 5 merit. Go to the beach (2$). Witchcraft lesson. 5 merit. She has reached D- and we can teach her no more. Go to the theater (4$). End the day.
Day 48 - Slave is Pleased. Order to clean. 3 merit. Do Gymnastics. Take her to the Garden of Gethsemane. End the day.
Day 49 - Arena battle day. Order to clean first. 3 merit. Take her to the onsen (2$). She is now D-, has one star of devotion, no fear. Take her to the spa (3$) for an extra energy star before battle. She wins the battle; the audience demands her freedom; she returns to you. Purse won: 115 sparks. Turn her in to the Guild to complete the contract - 120 sparks. (Or keep her and live off the winnings - she's an arena champion now.)
Total sparks: 329$ (no debt). Master stat progression: Weak, Loser, Compliant, Recognised, Peon, Duelist, Esoterist.
