image [https://i.imgur.com/mj8t9a6.png]
OK Will, think. I need five more rats to finish my own quest, Will thought. And there are more rats here I can get pelts from. On the other hand, that asshole is ahead of me, and it looks like every time he finishes a quest, things get harder for me. I can try to move as fast as possible to get ahead of him, or I can take my time and get the skill shard and pelts.
While considering his options, Will went to the closest rat and activated his Hunter skill, letting the duration run while deciding.
If this place works like a game, it should get more difficult the more we “play”. And the wolves were already harder than the rats. I think I need to treat this more like a marathon than a sprint, which means getting as much as I can out of this place.
There were six dead rats in the square, and Will managed to harvest the pelts out of three of them before he was interrupted mid-skill by a loud and angry squeal.
The noise startles Will enough to jerk back from the corpse and lose contact with it.
Hunter skill interrupted!
Stamina lost.
Will swiped the message away quickly and looked around himself for the source of the noise. Fortunately, the large and angry rat was very easy to spot. Although the sight was almost enough to make Will wish it wasn’t.
The rat was big. As big as Will himself, though longer and slimmer. Its fur was as mangy and dirty as that of its smaller brethren, its claws were filthy and encrusted with things Will really didn’t want to think about, and its teeth were large enough to protrude from its mouth, colored a bright green, and had drops of green liquid falling from them to the ground.
Not to self: don’t get bitten by that thing.
Strangely enough, Will wasn’t really afraid of the big rat. He didn’t know if it was the Calmness that still affected him, or if he was just starting to get used to things, but he was more annoyed at the wasted stamina than scared of what was probably an elite monster.
Without a second thought, Will charged at the big rat, boosted by the familiar feeling of Unstoppable Force speeding him up. The rat chittered angrily at the charting wombat, and waited until the last possible moment before jumping to the right and avoiding Will’s attack.
As Will passed the rat by, the rat turned and swiped its claws at Will. Fortunately, the attack landed on Will’s padded and armored behind, barely managing to scratch the tough hide. Will continued running to open up some distance from the rat, then turned and charged at it again.
Once again, the rat jumped to the right and evaded Will’s charge, but this time, when the rat went in to retaliate, Will kicked with his rear leg and managed to hit the rat’s snout.
On the third attempt, Will anticipated the rat’s evasion, and broke right as soon as the rat jumped. Boosted by Unstoppable Force, Will managed to knock the rat down and trample over him, accompanied by a sickening crunching sound.
The rat, however, was far from idle. Will was almost past the fallen monster when he felt a searing pain in his right flank, followed immediately by a sense of numbness.
Suddenly, Will’s left hind leg wasn’t quite in sync with the rest of him, and the wombat stumbled and fell on his face, mere centimeters away from the rat.
By the time he realized something was wrong, Will’s leg was completely numb and unresponsive. It took him more attempts than he was willing to admit to get back up, all the while waiting for the rat to strike again.
A strike that failed to arrive, and when Will finally managed to stand up and turn around, he could see that the rat was in an even worse situation than he himself. The rat’s right front leg was bent in a direction that clearly wasn’t natural, broken by Will’s charge or trample. The beast’s right shoulder sported deep claw marks, and it had a dazed look in its eyes.
Will backed away from the rat, limping slowly, until he’d opened a distance that he’d felt was too much for the rat to cross quickly, and opened the messages he’d gotten when the rat bit him.
You’ve been poisoned!
You are taking damage every minute until the poison is removed.
Severity: lesser
Duration: 13:38 minutes.
You’ve been paralyzed!
You cannot use your left hind leg until the effect is removed.
Severity: lesser
Duration: 13:38 minutes.
Nasty. But I’m faster than the rat is now, and I don’t think it’ll recover from a broken leg in fifteen minutes.
The rat was crawling towards Will, trying to reach its enemy even while badly wounded. Will, however, had little trouble staying out of reach. He even managed to glance at his status screen, using the distraction of number crunching to ignore the combination of numbness and burning sensations the poison was causing.
I’d started the fight with eighty-six health, and I’m down to seventy-seven. Let’s wait for the minute to tick down…
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Will’s health dropped to seventy-five as soon as the duration reached the thirteen-minute mark.
That’s two damage per tick for lesser poison. Which means I’ve taken seven from the bite and scratch combined. A least attack and a lesser, I guess? Less than the wolf, but the addition of poison more than makes up for it.
The Board’s slowest game of tag ended thirteen minutes later, with the recovery of Will’s leg. Now capable of moving freely, the wombat had little trouble circling the rat and charging at it again from behind, finishing the battle.
Venomtooth Scavenger Rat slain!
Gained 10 XP
Same as the wolf? That hardly seems fair. If it managed to bite me before I crushed its leg, I’d have been in real trouble here. What does XP do, anyway? I wish I’d thought to ask one of the dwarves.
Quest in progress
6/10 Scavenger Rats slain
Oh, nice. It even counts for the quest.
New achievement “Elite Slayer!”
You’ve managed to kill an elite monster!
Barely.
I mean, that was just embarrassing to watch.
Like a snail jousting a tree. And missing.
Reward:
1 common aspect shard
I’m starting to get really tired of whoever is writing those. But at least there’s a reward from this one.
A quick look in his inventory revealed a new piece of crystal that hadn’t been there before.
Aspect shard: Slow
Tier: Basic
Adds the slow aspect to a skill or piece of equipment. Effects vary according to the target.
Warning: aspect may have adverse effects on some targets.
Like a tranquilized sloth in winter.
Interesting. Let’s see how this works.
Choose a target to attach your Slow aspect:
Unstoppable Force (skill)
Hunter (skill)
Bronze Claws (weapon)
Don’t want an “adverse effect” on my skills, so I guess I’ll try with the claws.
Attach Slow aspect to Bronze Claws (weapon)?
Effect: targets hit by Bronze Claws will suffer from a slow effect
Intensity: least.
Duration: 1 minute.
Yes/No
Oh, it tells me what the effect is before I commit? That’s reassuring. Let’s see what it does with the skills.
Attach Slow aspect to Unstoppable Force (skill)?
Effect: When performing a charge attack, any attempt by the target to block, evade, or counter is slowed.
Intensity: least.
Yes/No
That would have been useful against the rat.
Attach Slow aspect to Hunter (skill)?
Effect: Increases the duration of the skill.
Intensity: least.
Yes/No
And that’s my adverse effect right there. Definitely not taking this one. Not that it’s that hard of a choice to begin with. The effect on the claws only works if I hit something, while the effect on Unstoppable Force will help me hit and avoid getting bitten again. Definitely a winner there.
After choosing Unstoppable Force and approving the change, Will waited in the clearing for his stamina to refill before going back to harvesting the rats. The remaining three regular rats yielded the expected poor-quality pelts, but the Venomtooth rat had a nice surprise for him.
Venomtooth Scavenger Rat corpse harvested!
Gained 1 giant rat pelt (poor)
Gained 2 Venomtooth rat fangs
Not bad. Those would definitely be worth something at Kili and Fili’s. I think I’m ready to finish this quest and move on though.
The rest of Will’s quest went by without any undue excitement. He did run across a pack of what looked like starved dogs at some point, but they didn’t seem to see him, and he’d decided on the better part of valour against the unfavourable odds and avoided them. Finding and killing four more rats took a while, but eventually Will got a couple of very welcome message screens.
Quest complete!
10/10 scavenger rats slain.
Reward:
50 XP.
Heavy Armor Proficiency skill shard
New achievement “Baby’s First Quest!”
You’ve managed to complete a quest!
Well done. You’ve killed ten rats and completed the most clichéd quest in the book.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Reward:
1 common utility skill shard
…And one less welcome message screen.
Rank up!
A main quest has been finished in this space.
Enemies will now appear in larger groups.
Even less welcome was the fact that the skill shard from Baby’s First Quest was another copy of Hunter.
Let me guess. Kili will offer me less than a hundred copper bits to buy it back. I’ll have to see how much the pelts are worth, but I’m fairly sure I came out behind on that deal. Unless the teeth are worth something good, I guess. Either way, time for me to roll the dice and move on.
Heavy Armor Proficiency, on the other hand, was kind of a mixed gift.
Skill shard: Heavy Armor Proficiency
Tier: Basic
Type: Defender
Reduces the stamina and mana penalties for using skills while wearing heavy armor by 10% per level.
This still won’t let you fly like a butterfly, but at least you’ll be protected when the other guy stings like a bee!
On one hand, I don’t have any armour, and my skill slots seem to be limited. On the other hand, I would definitely like to have some armour, and reducing stamina costs would be good when I do. I think I’ll keep this one in my inventory, for now.
There wasn’t anyone around him, but Will still entered one of the ruined houses to give himself some privacy for his dice roll.