“So, what was I interrupting between you and Robin?” Maria asks as I bring my hammer up to swing at a wall filled with iron ore. I’m honestly kind of impressed that she waited long enough for us to get into a dungeon before bringing it up in the first place.
I sigh before saying, “I don’t really know. I think it’s possible that there might be some mutual feelings, but I just don’t know. She makes me nervous, and I’m new, and I don’t know what I’m doing at all. I haven’t ever dated much, and Robin is... well, she’s Robin. You’ve seen her personality; you’ve seen her jokes; beyond all that, you’ve seen her.” I punctuate the last 'her' with a grunt and swing of my warhammer. “She’s so far out of my league that if not for The Collapse putting us into positions where we ended up in the same party, I’d never have had the confidence to speak to her.”
Maria laughs as she sets the head of her pickaxe on the ground to lean against. She then looks over at me and says, “Mike, you’re kidding, right? You’re a great guy! You’ve got some work to do when it comes to people skills, but I kind of think that might be playing to your advantage here. Robin at the very least likes you as a person and thinks you’re funny, and you spend a good amount of your free time teaching her how to talk with us. Plus, and I mean this as platonically as possible, you’re a good-looking guy. Just take it slow, and keep doing what you’re doing.”
We sit in silence, mining away for a while as I ponder what she’s said, but eventually we’re interrupted by a snarl. I turn around to find a small pack of [Direwolves] have approached us.
“I’ll handle this; I need the Exp. more than you do after all.” I say, as I turn away from the iron deposits and heft my hammer in a battle-ready stance. From what Maria had told me, I can expect the monsters in this dungeon to be around Level thirty. They shouldn’t be much of a challenge when compared to the amount of mining she plans on putting us through today.
“You don’t happen to be good boys and girls, do you?” I ask. It never hurts to try diplomacy first, after all. A barking growl comes out of the throat of the leader as they stalk their way forward in an attempt to surround me. With a sigh, I say, “Guess not. What a shame; I did always want a puppy after all.”
I squat down, locking my limbs into place, and after just a bit of straining, release them. These wolves shouldn’t be much of an issue; after all, I’ve got them by nearly twenty Levels. I release the tension in my legs and shoot forward much faster than the wolves had been prepared for, and my hammer finds the first wolf's head. As I pull it back to prepare a second swing, I realize that I can no longer find the first wolf's head. I guess this hammer packs more of a punch than I realized. I’ll make sure to read its stats after I deal with this interruption. I step back, putting all of the Direwolves back into my field of view before launching myself at the next, recreating the blow I dealt the first one.
The remaining two begin stepping back after watching me effortlessly dispatch their companions and hastily retreat once they’ve put enough distance between us. After struggling so much with High Orcs, Minotaurs, and even Goblins recently, this feels kind of underwhelming. I go to follow them, but stop. These wolves won’t give me all that much experience, and I’m here for mining purposes anyway.
I quickly check my stats to see if this was enough to push me over any advancements I might’ve been close to.
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[Michael Ward - [Defier of Depths] [Vowed Defender]
HP - 11694/11850
Titan - Level 50
Strength - 464 [+31] [+4]
Dexterity - 187 [+1]
Defense - 220 [+0]
Intelligence - 33 [+16]
Vigor - 237 [+10]
Charisma - 101 [+45]
Skills -
[Passive] Overwhelm II - Further increase your Strength stat based on physical muscle size. Increase height by 9” and muscle growth by 12.5%.
[Passive] Might I - Two-handed weapons can be wielded one-handed if strength requirements are exceeded by 50% or more, and ordinary objects can be used as weapons, receiving stats based on their material and shape.
[Active] Shatter II - Hitting a creature while this skill is active deals extra damage equal to 1.1x your Strength stat. 20 minute cooldown. Ready
[Passive] Basic regeneration II - Restore 3 HP per level, per hour.
[Passive] Strength in numbers I - You may train individually with members of your party. This will increase applicable stats trained for both parties up to a maximum of the lowest Level shared between you. Due to current party Levels, you may train each party member's stats to +50 and your own stats by +50 per party member.
Mutations -
[One available]
[Inferior Latch Spring Muscles]
Available stat points - 20
Party - The Misfits
Conditions -
Teamwork - Share all Exp. based on combat participation. (Minimum 8.3%) Receive bonus Exp. from combat while your full party is in a dungeon.]
No progression unfortunately, but as I’m thinking of the Minotaurs, I remember the conversation I’d had with Carlos discussing proper housekeeping when it comes to handling your class. I dump all of my stat points into Dexterity and bring up the mutation window. I filter it by pure Defense, and scroll through, telling Maria, “Give me just a second; I’m gonna do some quick looking around the system.”
After scrolling through for a couple minutes, I find one that sticks out to me enough to possibly work. If I can’t wear armor, why not become it? [Inferior Selective Calcification Glands] will allow me to see an incoming attack and basically choose the part of my body it’s going to hit and harden it. It won’t prevent strong attacks from breaking through, but it’ll decrease my weaknesses significantly considering the only thing I had defending those areas previously was my skin. I feel the same slight itch as when I mutated my muscles permeate throughout my body, and I shiver a bit at the feeling.
That finished. I try and inspect my weapon, but all that shows up is [Orc King’s Crusher]. “Uh, weapon stats?” I say, slightly surprised when the system responds with a screen displaying the requested information.
[Orc Kings Crusher - Uncommon
Requirements - 450 Strength
+150 effective Strength on attacks
Crush - When hitting an enemy, if they are prone or otherwise caught between this weapon and an unmoving surface, deal 20% extra damage.]
Not a bad weapon at all. No wonder the boss that slammed me into the ground with it nearly one shot me. Speaking of, I never even noticed, but James was right; ever since I hit 450 Strength, this weapon just feels different in my hands. I heft it over my shoulder and turn around to go and help Maria finish with this deposit of iron, but find she’s already throwing it into a bag similar to the one Carlos carries around. “Done already? I honestly figured you’d need more than this.” I say.
“I do technically,” Maria says, “but I need higher-tier metals to work with as well. This stuff is fine for making models of the armor I want to use, but I’ll need the better stuff to make actual good products. I’d say we have about six more dungeons to hit today in order to get everything we need, but it’ll go much quicker with the two of us than it normally does by myself.”
“What all do you need to get?”
“I need a decent bit of iron, some coal to mix with it to make it into steel, titanium, copper, cobalt, nickel, aluminum, bronze, vanadium if we can get ahold of it, and mana-steel. Basically anything we can find, plus higher-tier variants of all of them. A lot of this is mostly for experimenting with different alloys and mixing them together to find what works best. Too many of the blacksmiths and divers I’ve seen just use mana-steel and call it good,” she responds, then, putting on a mocking voice, she says, “‘Damascus folded mana-steel is actually the strongest metal you can make weapons from, and it’s all I’ll use.’ A bunch of braindead morons the lot of ‘em. Their mana-steel creations fall apart faster than my grade 5 titanium ones do, and I’ve found alloys that are much more reliable than that in my experiments.”
[+3 Intelligence]
I get a sudden idea, “Maria, would you mind explaining some of the ways those metals interact in their alloys to get what you’re talking about?”
The light that appears in Maria’s eyes makes me think that maybe I shouldn’t have done this.