I Qualified for the Heroic Games and Immediately Ran Out of Money

The Heroic Games are finally real.

I cleared the Gaia Brigade qualifier, which is the first point where all the talk about getting Cai into the Games stops being setup and starts being the thing I am actually doing.

Now I am in Chapter 5, and the game has responded by opening another handful of systems at once: Arena Training, class upgrades, the Stables and Luring on Cai's route, and more Mentoring. Castor is one of the people I can learn from now, which matters partly because he knew my father and partly because I like the idea that the training systems are attached to actual people rather than a faceless menu.

I also discovered that I am suddenly very short on cash.

That produced exactly the kind of question this site is supposed to save me from asking twice: do I sell the expensive-looking stuff in my bag?

The immediate candidate was the Large Insect Pearl.

No.

That one is going in the category with every other resource whose value is not obvious from its vendor price. There is a quest chain built around the pearls, and the Large version is specifically requested in the next step for a payout that is much better than treating it as random loot.

So Chapter 5 has given me a new resource rule:

Being broke is not evidence that an item is meant to be sold.

The better plan is to let the quests pay me, use Vandahl Trading when materials can replace a gold purchase, and stop acting like every weapon-shop upgrade is mandatory.

I am also adding one small calendar habit now. I had worried that I might have already missed Heroic Games qualifiers that I could have watched from the stands. I have not found one before this point, but spectating is now part of the Arena system and there is a documented qualifier on 3/21.

So when I pick this back up, I want to look at the calendar before I start spending Turns.

That is where the save is now:

qualified, learning, and temporarily broke.