Jared took aim at one of the larger forms of the monsters and activated his newly Ascended version of Afflicting Shot.
Affliction Arsenal (Proficient I) – Your command over afflictions has grown. Your afflictions more easily overcome resistances and are more difficult to remove. At a slightly increased mana cost, you may combine up to 2 afflictions when infusing a bullet, creating unique effects. This number increases per ten levels in the Skill
Effects available (6/11):
* Major Disease (425/10,000)
* Shadestrider (560/1000)
* Moderate Venom (132/1000)
* Moderate Acid (257/1000)
* Moderate Paralysis (226/1000)
* Moderate Penetration (172/1000)
First, he selected Shadestrider, which would ignore a portion of resistance. Then, he threw in Moderate Paralysis to make sure his prey didn’t go anywhere before he could take them out. He was hoping that the combination would make the paralysis ignore resistance, making it more easily take hold. He really wished he had some sort of wide area effect so he could hit the whole group at once, but he supposed that would come with time.
Adjusting his aim to compensate for wind and bullet drop, he let out his breath and fired. A mottled purple and green light streaked across the plains away from him, impacting with the [Lurking Shadeweaver Queen]. The beast jerked to a stop, almost tipping over from its own forward momentum. The humanoid that had been riding it was flung from their perch at the sudden stop, landing in the tall grass.
He quickly moved on to the other monster mothers, making sure to hit each with the same purple and green combo of Shadestrider and Moderate Paralysis. He wasn’t able to hit each one more than once, though, as his line of sight was blocked by a small wall of earth that rose up, covering the beasts.
“Looks like that’s all the damage I can do from here. Let’s move in.” They set off at a jog, quickly covering the intervening distance. As they neared the improvised fortification, Bonlanu took the lead, a large wooden tower shield and shortspear forming in his hands.
Jared hung back a little, crouching down and moving around to the side to more quickly establish line of sight. When he found a spot with a good view of where Bonlanu and Elesia would engage with the surviving beasts, he took a knee, using the other to stabilize his aim. After no more than a moment of watching, Bonlanu and Eleisa reached the mass of smaller beasts that had survived the massacre beneath the tower.
Bonlanu slammed his shield into the ground, and all of the monsters turned their attention to him. Using the opening, Eleisa took to the air, her spear once again lengthening into a lance she could use from the air. As they fought, Jared placed his shots strategically, taking out monsters that tried to flank his party members and lessening pressure when the creatures got too thick in any one place.
A flicker of movement to one side caught Jared’s attention, and he noticed that the humanoid was once again trying to escape, this time through a tunnel that the octodont mother was digging at a prodigious rate. The other beastly mothers surrounded them, trying to act as living shields.
Nuh uh. You’re not getting away on my watch.
Switching his aim, he infused his next shot with Shadestrider and Moderate Penetration. He fired, and a blue-violet light erupted from Mimi’s barrel, punching straight through the body of the leader of the harvestmen, slamming into the digging octodont. The oversized rodent let out a screech of pain as its living shield collapsed to the ground.
With his line of sight to the digger now open, he fired another bullet with Shadestrider and Moderate Paralysis applied, stopping it in its tracks. Then he focused on the other three large beasts. The rat mother was looking around, sniffing at the air as if trying to find its attacker, the ant queen was staring impassively, its antennae twitching, but the shadeweaver queen must have sensed his use of Shadestrider, as it took off towards his position.
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He was about to switch his aim to take it out when a mass of roots sprung up from the ground, entangling it. They didn’t hold the catlike beast for long, just long enough for wall of wood to crash into it from the side, closely followed by a spear slamming down from the sky like divine judgement.
Considering that situation handled, he refocused on the octodont, which was already starting to twitch back to life.
Paralysis must be less effective when used in succession on the same creature. Good to know.
He landed his next shot in its head, just before it could fully break free of the paralysis. By this point, the humanoid, which Jared could now make out was a human man, was screaming at the other beasts in panic. Even at this distance, the sound grated on Jared’s ears, so his next paralyzing shot was aimed at the source of the annoyance.
As soon as his bullet hit, the mother rat shook its head, looked around for a moment, then pounced on the ant queen. Despite being the apex of its species, the large ant was built almost exclusively for breeding, not combat, so it could muster little defense against the ferocious attacks of the rodent, and soon it was torn to pieces. It happened so quickly that Jared barely had time to adjust his aim before it was over, the rat having dismembered the ant queen.
He quicky put down the mother rat with a couple of shots to its head, and checking on Bonlanu and Eleisa, found that they had finished off the shadeweaver.
Jared stood, making his way over to where the man had fallen and was now playing dead. Placing the tip of Mimi’s barrel against the back of the man’s head, he leaned forward slightly to get eye contact with the man.
“You make one wrong move, and I’ll paint the ground with whatever sludge you call a brain. Now, why have you been terrorizing Panstrum?”
The man sneered. “Once they hear of this, my masters will come for you. You so much as lay a finger on me, and I’ll have your head.”
Jared shook his head. “I don’t think you quite understand the situation you’re in. We will be taking you straight to the City Guard. We have proof that you are the one behind the infestation of Panstrum, and I imagine that they will not look kindly on that. Your so-called masters will be able to do nothing to save you.”
The man grinned. “I congratulate your abilities, you are quite the formidable team. That will make it all the better when I feed your corpses to my next pets.”
“You know, when I arrived in this place, I thought I wouldn’t have to go around killing humans anymore. I could kill monsters instead and have a much greater impact. When I first saw you, I thought I was wrong.” He leaned closer. “But you’ve proven that you’re much more of a monster than even the ones you enslaved. You’ll be lucky if you ever see the light of day again.”
The man snarled up at Jared. “If you think you’ve caught me, you’re sorely mistaken. One day, I’ll get my revenge, and you’ll wish you had never messed with Kezron.”
Jared frowned, and was about to ask what the man meant, when his body disintegrated into a writhing mass of insects. Glancing around quickly, he saw a humanoid shape emerge from the ground a couple hundred meters away. Jared sighed. Lifting Mimi, he fired one last time.
The man who called himself Kezron jerked, falling to the ground. A moment later, the GEAS came to life, spelling out Jared’s rewards for the encounter.
[Giant Formica Ant] x15 Slain!
[Giant Sewer Rat] x8 Slain!
[Giant Octodont] x 12 Slain!
[Giant Harvestman] x20 Slain!
[Lurking Shadeweaver] x5 Slain!
[Mommy Long Legs](lvl 26) Slain!
[Giant Formica Queen](lvl 29) Slain!
[Giant Sewer Rat Broodmother](lvl 29) Slain!
[Lurking Shadeweaver Queen](lvl 27) Slain!
[Giant Octodont Matriarch](lvl 26) Slain!
[Human Beastwhisperer](lvl 48) Slain!
You gain EXP!
Your party gains EXP!
Level Up!
You have free stat points to assign.
Skill Affliction Arsenal has upgraded from (Proficient I) to (Proficient II)
Skill Sniper’s Fieldcraft has upgraded from (Skilled VII) to (Skilled VIII)
Hidden Quest Completed!
Hidden Quest: Catch The Culprit – Just thwarting the infestation of Panstrum was not enough for you. Having discovered the path that the culprit used to flee, you pursued and eliminated him.
Reward: Random Skill Ascension
Calculating Rewards from Regional GEAS Quest…
For taking out more than 50% of the infestation, each member of your party gains the following rewards:
* Title
* Unique Class Skill
Skill Sniper’s Fieldcraft has Ascended to Sniper’s Sovereignty
Title Gained: Exterminator
Skill Gained: Tactical Reposition (Unskilled I)
Jared stared at the veritable wall of text for a moment before a pair of words exhibited his incredulity.
“He died?”