Ch.9

I awoke next to the Hearthflame. I was only startled for a moment, this time, and quickly looked around for any hidden Brides. I remembered to use Eyes of the Efreet this time, too.

Nope, looks like I’m alone this time. Huh, my day was crazy... uh, wait. A crazy thought dawned on me.

Was I kicking so much ass yesterday because my stats, Classes, Talents, and Feats were helping me back on Earth, too? I mean, obviously not all of them were, I wasn’t blasting people with lightning... Ho-lee shit! Yeah, dodging a bullet like that? Crap, I... I think it WAS!

The consequences were mind blowing! Even if the supernatural stuff wouldn’t transfer, a few more levels and Feats and I’d be getting darned close to unstoppable in the real world!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how sure I was that’s what was going on. I remember how sure I’d been about what the mooks were going to do when I ran into them. My Sense Motive and Perception rolls were really high compared to a normal person’s, so reading what someone was going to do would probably be pretty easy...

My Lore (Martial) was telling me that I was probably right, too.

Damn. This just keeps getting crazier! Huh, I just realized I can remember the details of my life back on Earth a lot more clearly than I could my first time here. I still can’t remember the names of anyone I know personally or anything about where I live, specifically, but everything else is a lot clearer.

It was a big difference. Yesterday? Well, last night, I guess? I could only remember the barest details of my life. Now, though, most of that stuff was back where it belonged. I didn’t know if it was because I’d leveled or if it was because I’d gone and returned, but it barely even mattered.

I was here, and while I was here, kicking ass was the name of the game! Getting stronger, buying more Feats, raising my stats, getting more Talents, skills, Masteries, and most of all levels.

After all, if all of the non-supernatural stuff works on Earth, the cooler I am here, the less I have to worry about Russian gangsters, there!

I needed more Records before I could buy anything else. Time to go see if my three arachnid friends were still there.

As I got up, I couldn’t help but glance at the other exit to the cave I was in.

Not yet, Ray. The new level made a big difference, but that mini boss was nasty! Grind out the eeps for a little longer, one, maybe two more levels and he won’t be much of a challenge. The half-ogre's info said it was 4th level, but it had at least 3 racial templates on it! It's probably closer to the equivalent of 8th or 9th level, man! If you go back now, you’ll only get your ass kicked again!

It was probably true, but man, my ego did not appreciate that particular Truth right now!

I went into the spider cave.

The three spiders were still there and weren’t much more a challenge than they had been before! Seriously, the extra levels had made a noticeable difference. Not really that surprising, but nice to verify that I could kill them more easily than yesterday, anyway!

After checking the room again for anything I had missed with Efreet Vision; Eyes of the Efreet is just too long of a name, even to think, dangit. I went through the large opening on the other end of the spider room away from the Hearthflame.

I found another big cave with lots of spider webs... and more really freaking big spiders.

There were three more of the dog-sized spiders I’d been fighting, plus one that was the size of a freaking small car! My IR vision let me see them easily, being the only real heat sources in the room... plus the big mama spider was almost impossible to miss!

Giant Black Widow, 5th level

Aaaannnd here she comes!

Really all four of them were headed towards me. I angled towards the middle of where two of them would meet if they kept coming straight at me, arranging it so they were pretty much right next to each other when I charged the remaining distance with a flying kick at one of them.

My foot landed, electricity discharged, and the spider died. That let me Cleaving Finish into the second one by rebounding off of the first one into an axe kick that killed it with another loud discharge of lightning!

A moment later the larger spider, the one I’d mentally labeled Big Momma Spider scuttled towards me as quickly as it could, but it didn’t even come close to hitting me.

With a 27 AC, the odds of it landing a hit were slim to none – well, 5%, really. A natural 20 on a d20 would do it, and nothing else, at least for this thing!

Giant spiders were universally venomous, though, and I had no desire to deal with THAT at all, so I decided to kill this big thing as fast as I could. I triggered Spark Strike, expended a point of Pneuma to get +2 to hit, and unloaded with everything I had!

The force behind the blow was obviously impressive, but it still wasn’t enough to kill something this big!

Unfortunately, this had given the last spider time to get in range to attack me, and it did so right away. It and Big Mama Spider had the same problem, though. Even with the +2 to hit bonus for flanking, it STILL wasn’t quite cool enough to hit me!

Hilariously enough, though, even its eight legs, which did give it bonuses versus being Tripped, weren't enough to keep me from tripping it when it triggered Redirection! I know, that sounds crazy, right? But I’m REALLY good at tripping enemies! My +14 with my Trip Combat Maneuver Bonus is kind of absurd at my level...

The spider landed prone next to me, and I immediately Viciously Stomped down on its head, crushing and killing it immediately... which then let me Cleaving Finish into the Big Mama Spider!

I turned the stomp on the smaller spider into a spinning heel kick that slammed into the side of the huge spider’s head using the free attack from Cleaving Finish, and the larger spider died with no more fuss!

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I checked the room to see if there were any more spiders hiding, but I didn’t find any. What I did find was a small chest. I was just about to open it when that 20 Wisdom kicked in and reminded me that the makers of Black Spirits LOVED using mimics!

I went back to Big Mama Spider and hacked off one of her legs and used IT to try first poke the chest and then to pry it open.

No nasty trap appeared, and no mimics attacked.

That just means it’ll be the next chest! I was almost positive that I’d run into that trope sooner or later.

Inside was a few small, round, flat pieces of metal, a few dozen copper and silver pieces, and what looked like a small, silvery-white candle flame.

Without the candle, of course!

I thought I knew what this was, but I wanted to be sure. I kneeled down and touched it.

Congratulations! You have gained a Dreamer Weapon Echo!

Congratulations! You have gained 21 copper Imperials and 7 Silver Imperials.

Dreamer Weapon Echo: Choose a weapon. The Dreamer Weapon Echo will transform into the weapon of your choice.

Well, that was nice! I imagined a nice pair of Shield Gauntlets. They did less damage than my fists would, at least for right now, but they also acted like a buckler shield for purposes of defense!

Even better, once they were enchanted, the enhancement bonus from them counted for both uses of it, offensive and defensive! They were one of the weapons specific to the Broken Chains Combat Art, and for the cost of a single Feat, I’d be able to let them do my Unarmed damage when I used them, a big deal at higher levels, AND I could still use the Shield Gauntlets better Crit Range!

Since unarmed attacks defaulted to 20/x2, the fact that these things gave me 19-20/x2 was a REALLY big deal because of how the Improved Critical Feat worked. It doubled the range of whatever your base crit chance was!

Until I found a way to make an enchanted pair of them, though, or at least had a chance to take the Discipline Focus Feat for Broken Chains, something I was going to do anyway, I just couldn’t until I leveled again – they were less useful in most cases than fighting bare handed.

Time to go see how many Records this lot was worth?

As I’d feared, the answer was, ‘Not nearly enough.’ To go from 2nd to 3rd level was more than twice what it had cost to go from 1st to 2nd... which meant that Feats, Masteries, and the rest were more than twice as expensive, too.

On top of that, that spiders in the first room were worth 200 Records instead of 400, now.

Time to do some more exploring. Gotta go full murderhobo here if I want enough Records to get everything I want before I level up. It sucks, because I really want to get to 3rd! That’s when I got my Qi Pool, and so it's when I can start qualifying for all the Qi Feats that are gonna start letting me go to the Next Level of OP!

So, after going back to the Hearthflame, I killed the spiders in both rooms again and ventured further in. I was surprised to find that there were no spiders whatsoever in the next room, not even any of the oversized spider webs were anywhere to be seen.

Instead, camped in front of what looked like a roughly hewn hallway entrance were a half dozen rat... people?

There were five of the rat people and they came in three different sizes, too. Three of the ratfolk were smaller, coming in under four feet tall. They had short bows and short swords, well, short swords for them. For me they were just big knives.

The other two ratty boys were a good bit larger, though. One was almost as tall as I was. He also had a short bow and a pair of short swords... but the last ratty boy was freakin’ huge!

He completely dwarfed all of the other ratty boys, and to be fair, he was bigger than I was by a good margin, too!

We’re talking as big as the half-ogre had been, at least before he hulked out and transformed! Damned thing was something called a Ratkin Mutate, FFS! A goddamned huge ass, anthropomorphic fucking rat, totally yoked out the wazzoo! Like, we’re talking The Rock of ratty boys!

Its biceps might have been bigger than my head! If I try really hard; I wonder if I can smell what he’s cooking?

Oh, yeah, it's also got a freaking four foot long butcher’s cleaver instead of a left hand!

They’re Skraven, aren’t they? I realized with a big sigh.

My Lore (Dungeoneering) whispered into the back of my mind that, yes, the giant-sized humanoid rats meant that they were indeed Skraven. A race of Evil, anthropomorphic ratmen who were worshippers of a god dedicated to plague, pestilence, mutation, and pretty much just all-around evil.

Ok, so that means they gotta die, right? Or at least that I can kill them with a clear conscience. Uggh, not looking forward to having this discussion with myself, going forward. I mean, I made a joke about going full murderhobo earlier, but I don’t think I could live with myself if I became that kind of person!

I knew myself well enough to hope I’d always want to take a few seconds to consider the consequences of what I was about to do. Skraven are racially evil, they're a supernaturally created race, made by an unholy fusion of the wererat Lycanthropic curse, evil divine magic, and Frankensteinian Weird science.

In other words, they were designed and engineered from the ground up to be evil as hell. Literally!

Ok, so let's think about this for a second. Can I just charge in there, ready to fight? Sure, and I’ll probably win, too... but I’m pretty good at moving around quietly. Maybe let’s try a Stealth approach? Ninja Gaiden and Assassin’s Creed are cool, too, after all! There’s plenty of shadows and almost no light. Wait, they can probably see in the dark. Yeah, in The Game they definitely have infravision. Huh. Nope, there’s nothing to block line of sight, like, at all. Can’t wait until I can get Qi Cloak!

Qi Cloak was a Qi Feat that let a Qi user basically turn into a ninja. It was basically a combination of Jedi mind trick and a brief illusionary distraction that let you act is if you had enough cover to hide behind for 1 round... though it only worked on targets within sixty feet.

Still, it would be perfect for this kind of situation, but I needed to be a 3rd level Monk so I could get my Qi Pool, first.

Oh, well. Headfirst it is!

I smashed into the Rat Mutate at full speed with a leaping Superman punch, triggering my Stunning Blow Feat at the same time. The lightning detonating on its chest forced it to scream in rage and pain!

Unfortunately, it looked like it made the saving throw – DC 16 is nice and all, but not really overwhelming, and something this big probably had a decent Fortitude save modifier.

It was a surprise round, though, so none of them got to react. All five of them were pretty obviously surprised to see me, and unfortunately for them, I was really fast. I got to go again before they even had a chance to act.

Flurry of Blows means two attacks per round, but it takes a full round action – so it kept me from using Combat Art maneuvers. That was ok, though, because Skraven were known for how agile they were, and they were still flat-footed. In other words, they hadn’t recovered from their surprise yet. That meant they were losing out on their Dex and Dodge bonuses to AC.

That made this almost a joke. A side kick slammed upwards into the Ratkin Mutate’s chin with a zorch of exploding lightning, smoke started coming out of its ears, and it collapsed to the ground.

That triggered my Cleaving Finish once per round, which I smashed into one of the smaller Skraven. It died immediately. Now I had my second attack for the round, which missed, unfortunately.

Finally, it was the three, still standing ratty boy’s turns. The larger one whipped out his short swords and began to lash out at me...

Which triggered Redirection, from Flowing Water Monk. I made a trip attempt, and my +14 trip Maneuver Bonus made the trip’s success almost a foregone conclusion.

The second largest Skraven was tripped and fell prone next to me, triggering Vicious Stomp.

Crunch!

Huh? Weird – the Stomp connected with its chest, the lightning triggered, and I could smell burned rat parts but something felt off...

Then I saw its partially collapsed chest pop back up, its body basically unfucking itself!

Does it have some kind of damage resistance or self-healing?

Lore skills engaged and told me I was probably dealing with a wererat – they were pretty common among Skraven, as they could convert most races using the wererat version of lycanthropy, at which point their evil god of plagues, The Horned King, would simply take control of them, forcefully converting the new wererat to an obedient servant. Unless they were particularly strong willed, or already dedicated to another deity there wasn’t much they could do but get dominated.

Hilariously, one of the remaining smaller Skraven managed to get in a lucky hit for ten points of damage! My DR kicked in, lowering it to six. I still wasn’t very happy.

The other ones missed by a mile, though.

The one I’d tripped tried to stand up, triggering yet ANOTHER attack of opportunity from me. He’d tried to make the Acrobatics check to stand without provoking, but he blew it badly.

This time, the roundhouse kick I bounced off the side of his head finished the job, even his DR couldn’t let him survive two of my kicks! Plus, DR (Damage Reduction) doesn’t do much against the lightning damage I was dishing out!

Or any good, really. DR only worked against physical damage, after all. He needed the correct Elemental Resistance to stop energy damage.

Hilariously, it was now my attack again. Getting off five attacks in a single round, six seconds, that is, isn't too bad for a second level character, though! Between Flurry and all the different ways I had to get attacks of opportunity, I could push out a BUNCH of attacks.

Of course, I had plans to get even more... I just needed more levels, higher skill ranks, and higher attack bonuses to qualify for them.

For now, though, slow and steady wins the race to OP!

Anyhow, Cleaving Finish triggered after that hit, and the second one died, too. It felt weird – I was kicking everything’s ass that I ran into – well, NEARLY everything – and so far, everything I’d run into had been higher level than me.

Though, I guess that since I was stuck solo, that was fine, right?

That was two more rooms cleared. I decided that was enough for now, I wanted to see the results of my hard work. I grabbed the three short bows as I left, and went through their pockets for spare change, and was left disappointed by what I found in them.

Or rather, the lack of what I’d found. The short bows would be worth a few gold, but I would need to find someplace to sell them.