Chương 17: Hardware store

You have defeated lynxith rider x4. You gain (2000/3) 666 experience. Every little bit helps. I need 3500 to get to level thirteen. Gigi is level 11 and Vinny is level 10 finally. He picks a talent that helps him with magic. He's becoming quite the mage, or rather quite the spellslinger.

"I'm aiming for warlock," he says as we move towards the hardware store, after taking the spears from the goblins and the fangs and teeth from the lynxiths. I want to make more bracers like the ones El and I have, and I'm going to need as many claws as possible. We leave the fur behind this time because we don't want to have to carry it, so my animal harvesting doesn't improve at all. But I don't really need it to, aside from the fact that I'm just trying to get every skill to improve if I can.

"What do you still need for that class?" I ask.

"Mostly to improve my presence at this point," he says.

"The rest will come in time. But I need more meditation, more alertness, more spellcraft – basically more of everything. Do you think you can help me up my alertness again?"

"Sure thing," I say.

"We'll play stealth games when we get back to the park. Maybe other people will want to play too. And I've got a spell that will make it that much harder, so I can practice with that too." First, though, we have to go and see what we can get from the hardware store. It's being swarmed by giant mantises. Once again, there's about two dozen of them. This time, though, we don't have the other three to help us, and we can't very well move cars into position to prepare a killing field.

They're filling the parking lot of the shopping center, and we're standing on a hill looking down at them. They only have 75 hit points each. I can kill them with a single Sniper Shot. But sooner or later, they're going to figure out we're here, and they're going to charge at us, en masse. Can we take out enough of them that we'll be able to fight the rest when they swarm up the hill? The one piece of help we have, environmentally speaking, is a guard rail.

We can stand on one side of it, forcing them to climb over it. It might slow them down or force them to come in a more scattered grouping. Or they might walk over it like it isn't even there. I can't be sure.

"I'm thinking we sneak around them," I say.

"I don't know if we can take that many of them out before they overwhelm us."

"I can cast a spell that will slow them down," Vinny says.

"My ice storm spell won't kill them, but it'll hurt them pretty bad and slow them down. If they get stuck in the storm, they'll die, but the storm is pretty small and they probably won't stay in it. Still, I might be able to take out a few of them before they can get to us."

"I can take them out one at a time with Sniper Shot," I say.

"But it has a full minute cooldown. I figure I'll be able to take out three of them before they figure out where we are. I can probably take out another three on their way to us."

"I can take out two on their way to us," Gigi says.

"I'm getting pretty good with the bow. Between us, I think we can take out maybe half of them before they get to us, depending on how effective that ice storm is."

"Leaving us with four to fight each. We'll be surrounded."

"I can take it," Gigi insists.

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve," Vinny agrees. Damn. I'd really have preferred to sneak around them. But my companions are a bit more blood thirsty than I am, apparently. So I guess we'll try to just take them out as they come. I take careful aim with Sniper Shot, picking out the giant mantis farthest from me. I want them to look in the wrong direction as much as possible.

Thankfully, they aren't all that smart, and after I take one of them down, the others crowd around it rather than looking outward for where the attack came from.

"That's good," Vinny says.

"Can you get them to do that closer to us? I only have so much range."

"I can try, but I want to keep picking at the far ones for now. The longer I can get them in the wrong direction, the fewer of them will be left to take us out." I shoot another arrow when the cooldown ends, this time into the crowd that was gathered around the first. Another giant mantis dies, and I smirk to myself.

"I'm going to sneak a bit closer," Vinny says.

"That way they'll be in range of my spell." I don't like the idea, but I watch him carefully pick his way forward. He's not as sneaky as I am, but his sneak is still pretty good. I don't hear him move, and I have a hard time even watching him. But I keep my eye on him as I wait for the cooldown to end, and see him climb down the hill and into the parking lot, taking cover behind a streetlight. Then I fire and take out another of the mantises.

They're starting to look outward now, and I figure it's just a matter of time before they spot us. But I've already taken out as many as I thought I'd be able to with Sniper Shot, so I figure any more that I manage will be a nice bonus. I'm not looking forward to fighting four of the mantises at once. If I can reduce that number, even just down to three, I'll be a lot more comfortable. Sniper Shot number four draws a few heads pointed our way, but doesn't make the swarm start heading towards us.

Another shot will, though. I'm pretty sure of that.

"After I fire this next time, let's just start shooting into the crowd," I tell Gigi.

"They're going to spot us anyway. Might as well get off as many shots as possible."

"Right," she says, taking up her own bow and leaning a few arrows against the guard rail. That's a good idea. I lay a bunch of arrows against it too; they're easier to pick up than they would be to draw from my quiver, which means I'll be able to shoot a little bit faster. Maybe we can get off enough shots to reduce their numbers to a more manageable level. Sure enough, after this fifth Sniper shot, the horde of giant mantises turns towards us and begins moving our direction.

They make it barely a dozen steps before there is suddenly a storm cloud over them, shooting down spikes of hail among them, cracking carapaces and making them adjust their movement. They don't stay under the cloud for long, but those that were caught under it seem to be moving slower than their brethren by a pretty significant margin. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Vinny comes up the hill slowly, shooting more spears of ice into the coming crowd of mantises, taking down at least two of them before he gets back to where we're waiting for him. During his trek up the hill, I fire four times and Gigi fires three. We're not aiming at specific mantises, but rather firing into the pack, hoping that the bleed takes them out before they get here. I'm doing as much as 54 damage with my bow, which is enough bleed to kill them before they get to us.

Between Gigi and I, we take out five more of the creatures before they get to the base of the hill. I do a quick count. We've killed at least half of them already, and those that remain are in two groups. If we can take out the six that are coming up the hill now fast enough, we won't have to worry about being surrounded on all four sides. I let another arrow loose, taking down another mantis. Gigi does the same, and Vinny takes out a third with his ice spear.

Now we have an even fight, followed by a fight with double our numbers, provided we're fast enough. I've reupped my Shell spell, so I'm not overly worried when I switch to the ranger's blade. And Gigi seems almost eager to switch to her sword and board, which I understand. She does a fair amount of damage with the bow, but nowhere near what she does with a sword. I'm the other way around. I can do 54 damage with my bow, and tend to, but with my sword I only do between 35 and 47.

Not bad, but a noticeable difference. Plus, my sword doesn't cause bleed. I need to hit the mantis at least twice to kill it. I can't hit it and then just avoid it until it bleeds to death. Except I can, with Bleeding Strike. I'm able to kill one of the mantises right away, letting me help Vinny with his while Gigi takes out hers. We're ready for the six to make it up the hill, but now I've got nothing to use except my actual sword skill. I needn't have worried.

The giant mantis can barely get around my defense, and when it does, it only does about 5 points of damage. It doesn't make sense that I can take so little damage when I'm surrounded, but I don't stay surrounded for very long. Before my Bleeding Strike can even come off cooldown, I'm down to a one on one fight, and that is over before long. I still didn't kill mine before Gigi killed hers, but I at least won my fight before Vinny, who blasts back one of the mantises just as I turn to help him fight it.

The mantis staggers when the spell hits it, and one stinging stab from me is enough to wipe it out. You have defeated Giant Mantis x24. You receive (1800/3) 600 experience. That's good. Another six hundred points closer to the next level. Seems like I'm obsessed with leveling up again. It's all I'm really focusing on. I need to make sure to take some time to smell the roses, as it were. As soon as I can identify what the roses actually are.

I'm not sure what kind of things I should be doing other than obsessing about my level and my stats, but I'm sure there are better uses of my time. I mean, it's not like I need to keep leveling up to stay ahead of everyone else. Everyone else, after all, is just four other people. We haven't seen anyone else in the past four days. For all we know, we're the only ones left. So I don't need to stay ahead of them, even though I am ahead of them. It's not a competition. At least, I don't think it is. But what if?

What if it is a competition, and we'll find out at the end of the tutorial that only one of us is going to make it to the next world. Will the rest of us have to go through the tutorial again? Will we just die for real? I don't want to die, not for real or in the game. I don't want to have to go from level one again, and I definitely don't want my stats to drop again. Not for the first time, I really wish that this tutorial period came with an actual tutorial.

I wish there was a tutor to provide information and let us know what was happening and what was going to happen. We don't know anything, other than that we need to be in the park. And we only know that we need to be in the park because of the message that came after we failed to get into the park last time and died. Inside the hardware store we find just about everything we could need to improve armor and weapons. While there are a bunch of power tools, there are also just normal tools, and workbenches.

The workbenches are the important part. I'm able to unstring my hunter's bow and put the bow into a clamp, then file down where the string rests to make it easier to restring the bow, wrap the handle with tape to make it easier to grip, and even sanding it down a little bit to make the wings a bit smoother. With the tools and the equipment, I'm able to improve my bow up to level ten, increasing the damage to 24-36.

I'm also able to sharpen the ranger's blade, bending a bit of a curve out of the blade, and putting grip tape on the grip to improve it up to level 10 as well, causing it to do 35-45 damage. I'm able to improve the chainmail gloves while I'm at it, using pliers to make sure the rings are tight and adding a bit of wire across the gloves to provide more protection and support, upgrading them to level 8, increasing the armor bonus to match.

That puts my defense at 57, which I'm starting to feel like is a respectable number. I don't just work on my own stuff. I bang out the dents on Gigi's shield, and we find some metal tape to put along one side, then cut the wood to fit it in the way she wanted, making her shield heavier but much stronger. Then I use leather hole punches and a thin chain to lace some thick canvas onto the leather that makes their chest armor, improving those.

Then I get to work on another set of claw bracers, making this one with the thin but strong chain, essentially wrapping it around Gigi's arm with a piece of metal to hold it in place, the claws pressed against the metal and through the chains to give her one of her own. I then wrap more of the chain around my own arm and improve the bracer to level ten, increasing both the armor and the amount of damage that it does from 8 to 10. Dealing 1-10 damage against unarmed strikes really isn't that significant.

I mean, ten points of damage isn't even enough to make a lynxith reconsider attacking. But it's the principle of the thing, the chance to do just a little bit of damage back when something attacks me, that's appealing. All of this work improves my Armorer secondary skill from 3 all the way to 7, and my smithing from 5 to 8. I also get a new secondary skill, Bowyer, at level 1. I wish there was a quest for improving secondary skills.

Or maybe there is one, and it's a secret quest that I'll find someday when I actually get there. The secondary skills are interesting because they have no adventuring related use, the way the other skills do. They're more the skills that you expect someone to have that aren't adventuring related, the kind that NPCs have. Maybe that's the option of what to do other than hunting and killing, other than trying to level up as much as possible.

Maybe the goal is to get the secondary skills up, to have some kind of trade that you can do, some art work that you spend your time doing. Art is a good reason to spend time. I don't really feel like an artist yet, but maybe after a few dozen ranks in the skills, I will. I check my clock to see how long we've been doing this. We've got 35: 17: 58 left until the tutorial period ends. I think that means the sun is going to set soon. Or maybe it's already set, and I just didn't notice because I was working in here.

No, my vision hasn't transferred over to the black and white of dark vision yet, so it's not yet sunset. Probably soon, though.

"Can we make it back to the park before dusk?" I ask, as we load up more chain, wire, grip tape, sandpaper, and other tools into bags that we can easily take with us.

"It'll be close," Gigi says.

"Might be full dark by the time we get there. But it's going to be another full moon, so it won't be that dark, all things considered."

"Oh, I don't worry about the darkness," I say.

"I took the dark vision talent when I hit level ten the first time."

"That explains a lot," Vinny says, adjusting his own bag on his back.

"What do you mean?"

"Last night, you ran out of the park and were gone pretty much all night. You come back several levels higher. It figures that you can see, must've made it easier to fight and to level." I nod.

"Oh, yeah, it definitely does."