Chương 18: Hunting Giants

We do make it back to the park before the sun fully sets, but it's a near thing. El and Ashley are waiting for us, having done a little bit of fighting monsters outside the park but mostly spending their days practicing with their weapons, sparring with one another and boosting their stats while they're at it. Some things are easier to upgrade than others, apparently. While waiting for the darkness to fully settle in, we decide to try playing a bit of tag in the park.

It's a good way for us to practice our stealth and our awareness, and it's a way for all of us to improve our alertness skill. I cast Camouflage and we go into a hunt sort of mode, where I try to sneak up on everyone, and they try to avoid me getting close to them. It's not a fair game, though; with my spell I can almost stand right in front of them and still not be visible. I move with such silence that they can't hear me, and I manage to tag my way out of being it without any trouble.

But that doesn't really matter. Because I'm so hard to spot, so hard to hear, everyone's alertness goes up more quickly, and the rare cases where they can spot even the direction that I'm coming from helps to increase their skills rapidly. And everyone looking for me specifically as I try to sneak up on them has made my sneak go from 11 to 12, and then up to 13 before full darkness makes it just too easy.

When we switch and let Gigi do the hunting, I'm able to increase my alertness to five, which I think qualifies me for another class. Or at least gets me more qualified for Tracker when I can get the other skills caught up. The hours we spend playing the game also increases my Awareness from 10 to 11, which in turn improves my magic resistance. Good to know that those two are linked. I'm learning more and more what my sheet does and how each of my stats effects the rest of my attributes.

Learning things that really should be common knowledge if this were a normal tutorial. When full dark hits, we debate whether or not we can go out and fight. No one else has taken dark vision. El chose the toughness talent and so did Ashley. So all three of our melee fighters are now appropriately tank like, and our spellcaster is a better spellcaster than he was before.

So no one wants to go too far away from the open space near the park, because shadows at night are just huge blind spots, and the large buildings still cast those shadows. I want to go out and learn more about tracking. It and scrounge are all I need for the Tracker class, and I only need one more level of scrounge. I can get that tomorrow before the time runs out. I'm not going to go ranging that far from the park again, though. I don't want to get delayed and end up being unable to get back in time.

I know that will kill me, and then I'll have to go through the tutorial all over again. And while I don't think that will be particularly difficult to get back to this level, or to exceed it before the end of the three day period, I'm done learning things in my old world. I want to go to the new world. There's one thing that I keep focusing on every time I look at my character sheet. It's not the experience needed for the next level, it's not the HP, it's not even the class. It's the word before class.

The sheet identifies me not just as a level 12 pathfinder, but as a level 12 human pathfinder. If we're going into a fantasy world, does that mean we're going to get to become fantasy species? Am I going to become an orc, a dwarf, an elf, or something like that? Will we end up as furries? There are all kinds of potential options, and I don't see them coming to fruition while we're still stuck in the tutorial session. So that means getting through it.

There's still the chance that we're in the wrong park, in which case we'll have to do this all again. But I really don't think so. I think this is the park we want. It's the only one that has really shifted in shape, and it's central enough to be a good landmark. It's a place that would make sense for us all to go, and so it's a likely candidate for being the park we want. I guess we'll find out for sure in 29 hours and 15 minutes. I can't believe we still have a full day of this tutorial session.

A full day that we can spend just leveling up, or just training our stats and skills so that we can qualify for more advanced classes. It's like we got twice the time we were meant to, even if we did suffer the death penalty halfway through and need to start over again level wise. The fact that we didn't need to start over with skills meant a lot, and I'm not going to forget that.

It makes me think that even if I do die in the new world, even if I'm forced to start over at level one again, I'll be able to increase it without much difficulty. All I need to do is make sure I keep my equipment if possible and make sure that my skills are as sharp as they can be. Also, the higher I can get my stats, the less of a problem it will be to lose five in each one. Of course, that's assuming that the penalty will be the same forever.

It's entirely possible that after a certain level, I'll lose more than just five from each stat. What if I lost ten? Or what if every stat just reset back to a base level? I don't want to assume that dying is the power game way to improve my stats. If I only ever lose five from each stat, that's 40 points I've lost when I die. I get that many points back making it up to level 11. So in theory, if I die now that I'm level 12, I'll be ahead of the game when I get back to 12.

If I'm level 30, I'll be way ahead of the game by the time I get back to that level. My stats will be a lot higher than they're meant to be. It's a power game way to make sure that my stats are super high for my level. Would it be better to just keep leveling up? I mean, in the time it would take me to go from level 1 back to level 30, I could probably instead make it to level 35 or even 40. And wouldn't that be better?

Wouldn't it be better to be stronger and tougher rather than to just have higher stats for my level? It's a balancing act I'll have to consider, should the opportunity ever arise. For now, I want to avoid dying as much as possible, which realistically means treating death as if it were final, and not being cavalier about my life. Which also means not going out by myself into the city, even though I can still see.

Still, the five of us are willing to leave the safety of the park to get at least a little bit of experience. And maybe I can track down something big and nasty, and lead it back to the others so that they can help me take it out and we can share the XP among us. That might be worth doing for one of the giants. Everyone sets up near one of the bridges into the park, ready to run back across it if need be, and I head out to hunt down a giant.

Giants are pretty easy to track; they leave foot prints that are size fifty something, and they have a tendency to squash down everything they step on, including little trees that are planted by the side of the road to make the city more green and pretty. I dutifully follow the tracks, hoping to run into more than one of the creatures. My tracking increases to five around the time I finally spot them. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Giant.

Elite Uncommon monster, level 12. HP 1200/1200. There are three of them. Definitely more than I could take on by myself. But we're only about a quarter of a mile away from the park. I think I can probably outrun them long enough for the others to get into range and be able to help me. And that's really all I need. So long as the others are shooting at them too, the giants should keep coming. Then it's just a question of whether we can kill three giants at once.

And if we can't we can run back into the park and hide until they go away. Assuming, of course, that the giants can't come into the sculpture garden. I take careful aim with Sniper Shot and let loose an arrow at one of the giants. I aim for the one farthest away, hoping that I'll get the chance to take a few more shots before they start following me in earnest, the way I did with the giant mantis swarm. I do 186 damage with Sniper Shot.

Which then does another 93 damage, then 46, then 23, then 11, then 5, then 2, and then 1. And for all seven seconds of the bleed, the giants look around confused. They aren't sure where the shot came from. I wait. If this were a game and the AI wasn't very smart, they'd eventually dismiss the attack and assume they imagined it, or that the threat is gone.

I count down the seconds until I can do another Sniper Shot, hoping they won't notice me, knowing that my sneak is high enough that I have a chance that they won't actually find me. I know I'm not going to be able to pull this off forever. Still, every time I hit one of them with the Sniper Shot, it does 367 damage. And that's nothing to sneeze at. I get off a second shot, hitting the same giant. It slaps at the wound, looking around more eagerly, but it still doesn't seem able to find me.

The giants start to spread out, looking for me with loud snarls, but my hiding place seems to continue to serve me. As I get off the third Sniper Shot, I start to wonder if I'll be able to take out one of the giants by myself. It would mean a lot of experience. But that isn't the plan. The plan is to make them follow me. So even though one of the giants is down low enough that another Sniper Shot will kill him, I don't take my fourth shot on him. I take it on one of his companions.

And then I fire another shot, and another, and another. By the time my seventh arrow hits one of the giants, they've spotted me. They roar and start moving towards me. For lumbering beasts, they are fast. It's because their stride is about five yards long with each step, which is far faster than mine. They start moving towards me, and I don't have time to fire anymore. I have to keep running, sprinting as hard as I can back towards the park.

I should stop to make sure they're still following, but I find that I don't need to do that. I can hear them following. I can feel them following, getting closer with ever step. I start to wonder if I'm going to make it. A quarter of a mile isn't all that far, but it's farther than you might think it is when there are three fifty foot tall monstrosities heading your way with the singular thought of squishing you and potentially ripping you to tiny pieces. I run as fast as I can, glad of my agility being so high.

It seems to help my running speed, as I can't remember ever sprinting this fast. I'm sure adrenaline has something to do with it, but I'm inclined to thank my stats while I'm at it. Notifications are popping up every second, it seems, but I ignore them all. I need to get close enough to the park that the others can start shooting arrows too. I need to get close enough that my companions can drop the most wounded giant, leaving us just the two still to fight.

While I'm running, I do nock another arrow, but I don't turn back to fire it until I see the park in front of me. I'm running downhill now, giving me a chance to put a little bit of distance between me and the giants before they crest the hill and start to pick up speed too. I hear a grunt of pain behind me, and realize that Gigi and Ashley are firing arrows over my head at the giants. I see a spear of ice go flying over my head, and one of the javelins that I brought back for El joins it a second later.

Once I see that, I do stop sprinting and turn around. I turn and fire in a single movement, casting another Sniper Shot and hitting the unwounded giant, letting him bleed a bit as he is peppered with shots from the others. I join the group, and Vinny and I keep shooting, him with his ice spears and me with my bow, while the girls step forward and prepare to take on the giants with their sword, axe, and mace.

One of the giants swings an arm and sends El flying back a few feet, but though she lands heavily on the pavement, she's right back on her feet a second later, laughing and charging back into the fray. I kill the most wounded giant with another few arrows, and even fire a ball of flame at one of their eyes, trying to distract them so that my warrior friends can do more damage without getting squished or smashed too badly by the giants.

The giants are going from being mildly annoyed and wanting to squish me to fighting for their lives, and it's just been a matter of seconds. They hit Gigi against her shield, and I notice her push forward at the last second, breaking the giant's fist against her newly reinforced shield, her sword coming around and slashing even as she slides back from the impact against her.

I keep shooting, glad that I have as many arrows as I do and wondering how many I'll be able to retrieve from the giants when we finally put the other two down. The last giant decides to try to run away, but a Sniper Shot to the back of the neck stops it, and it falls heavily onto the ground, breaking any number of arrows underneath its bulk. You have defeated Giant x3. You gain (3600/5) 720 experience. I decide to look at the other notifications while I'm at it.

Seems my Bow has gone up to 11, my Dodge to 6, and my Sniper Shot to level 2. The Sniper Shot now deals 320% damage and has a cooldown time of only 55 seconds. That's pretty impressive of a change. I also gain a level of Agility, which makes me happy. I start going over the giants to see how many arrows we can retrieve. We've lost maybe a dozen of them to bending or breaking when the giants fell. I'm able to get the arrowheads back for eight of them, giving me a total of fourteen arrowheads.

I may have to spend some time making new arrows. Maybe I can get the wooden shafts from somewhere. Possibly from the goblin spears, if I can find a way to split the spear hafts into quarters and smooth them out with sandpaper or something like that. The hafts would still be straight and strong. And I can cannibalize the broken shafts of the hunting arrows that didn't survive contact with the giants to get fletching.

"You just never stop working, do you?" El asks me as she sees me taking the spears apart. I use a hatchet to break the shafts into long strips, chopping the hafts first down the center into four roughly equal lengths and then chopping them in half to give me arrows that are maybe a little bit longer than the ones I already have, but that I can trim down to be able to fit both the arrow head and the fletching into.

"I had an idea for making new arrows," I say.

"I want to make sure that we all have plenty of them. Besides, I figure I'll need to learn to make new arrows eventually. Might as well get started now." She sits down to help me, rubbing sandpaper over the newly crafted arrow shafts I've made. I'm able to get eight arrows out of every goblin spear I took from the lynxith riders. The spear heads I'll use for something, I'm sure. But the hafts are what matter to me now, giving me a chance to make new arrows.

My scrapping skill goes from 3 to 5, and I gain a new secondary skill called Fletcher, which I gain two levels of as I make another twenty four arrows. It takes El and I about two hours to make them, binding them together with duct tape and glue from the hardware store. Never underestimate the power of tape and glue, I suppose. Class: Bowyer. Progress: Bowyer 1/3, Fletcher 2/5, Scrapping 5/5. Another crafting class. One that maybe fits me a bit better for what I'm trying to do.

It seems like Tracker is the way to go, and I'm getting the skills I need to survive in the wilderness by myself. All I need to do now is learn to make fires and to cook, and I should be okay. Maybe for the next class in that chain I'll need to learn those other skills. Maybe I should start learning them now, before I even qualify for Tracker.