First, Will took a look at the skill shard he’d gotten from clearing the dungeon.
Skill shard: Lesser Mana Beast
Tier: Basic
Type: Wizard
Cost: 40 mana
Level 1
XP 0/100
Creates a being out of mana to fight for the caster.
The Mana Beast has 20 health points per skill level and will remain until killed.
The Mana Beast can attack for lesser magic damage.
What kind of beast? Why, it’s a Mana Mandrill Monkey, of course!
Huh. That’s an interesting one. Costs a hell of a lot of mana, but it’s a one-time cost until it’s killed. Only lesser damage, but I might be able to boost that with aspects or levels. Not going to be using it right now though, since I’m still low on open skill slots. Still, it looks like a decent drop. Now let’s see what loot the boss has for me.
The Mole-o-tov and Re-vole-ver seemed to count as a single quest target and boss, but they were still two distinct enemies in the eyes of the Harvester skill. Will chose to start with the Mole-o-tov
Mole-o-tov corpse harvested!
Gained 2 Mole-o-tov cocktail
Gained 1 Fire Aspect Shard
The Fire aspect went directly into Will’s Passive Defense skill, where it merged with Stone and turned into a Lava aspect, which Will immediately boosted back to level two.
Aspect: Lava
Tier: Advanced
Level 2
XP 0/200
Mitigate all damage by one extra category, as long as the hit was on a part of the body covered by heavy armor,
Anyone hitting an armored part of the user’s body with natural weapons will receive least fire damage.
Level 2: Mitigate all earth, fire, or lava damage by one extra category, as long as the hit was on a part of the body covered by heavy armor
Reduce all environmental earth, fire, or lava damage by one category per level
Not bad. This should completely negate the environmental damage on the volcano Spaces. Now, what about those Mole-o-tov cocktails?
Mole-o-tov Cocktail
Rarity: uncommon
Type: consumable
Can be thrown a distance of up to twenty meters.
Deals minor fire damage to everything within five meters from the impact point.
Spreads flaming liquid in a five meters radius around the impact point, dealing least fire damage every second to anyone inside.
Fire will linger for one minute.
Woosh!
Hmm. Not too strong, but it does have a better blast radius than Thunder Ball, and will keep doing damage for a while after the explosion. Definitely a keeper. Let’s see what the vole has to offer.
Re-vole-ver corpse harvested!
Gained 1 Gunslinger Hat
Gained 1 Re-vole-ver pistol
The Gunslinger Hat was completely useless to Will, being both a common light helmet.
Gunslinger Hat
Rarity: common
Type: light helmet
Reduce the physical damage of all attacks that hit the wearer’s head by 1 category, to a minimum of least damage.
Caution: wearing heavy armor increases mana and stamina costs of all skills by 25%
Yee-haw!
The pistol, on the other hand, might actually be useful.
Re-vole-ver pistol
Rarity: rare
Type: pistol
Shoots a pistol bullet at a target up to 10 meters away, dealing minor physical damage.
The pistol contains six bullets, and can be recharged by spending 10 mana and 5 seconds.
Damage is increased by two categories when used against varmints
The question is, of course, what would a Re-vole-ver consider to be a varmint?
There should have been no way for Will to operate the gun with his paws, but once again the game style logic of the Board seemed to overrule common sense. The weapon fit nicely into Will’s paw, and he could aim and fire it without issue. And somehow, he knew that reloading the pistol would just require some concentration.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Higher damage per mana than anything else I’ve got, but it’s not magical damage. Still, a decent back up weapon. And it should be really strong against varmints. Not sure what would count as a varmint for its purposes though. Guess that’ll be up to trial and error
There didn’t seem to be anything else to do in the boss room, but Will still stayed put long enough to heal himself up as much as he could. Which turned out to be almost up to full health. He’d gotten hit a lot fighting the mole and vole duo, but none of those hits did over slight damage, which meant that he could reduce all of them to least, or even heal them completely.
It still took time, since Will’s mana regeneration was very limited. Which he was planning on finally trying to solve, if the dungeon’s exit was really at Sarlisa and Bob’s.
Which, after Will was finally ready to move, turned out to be true. As soon as Will had passed through the gap in the hedge fence, he’d found himself in the alchemist’s part of the Elixir and Enchantment Emporium.
“Greetingsss, Will! Welcome back to Sssarlisssa and Bob’sss Elixssir and Enchantment Emporium!”
Hi, Sarlisa!
“I’m afraid my ssstock isss fairly depleted at the moment. I’ve been having sssome trouble getting ingredientsss lately.”
Because of the rodents eating plants in your garden?
“You know about thossse?”
Yeah, I had a quest to clear your garden. Just got done with it now, actually.
“That’sss fantassstic! I can finally get back to work! Here, you can have what’sss left over from my previousss batch.”
Quest complete!
10/10 moles slain.
10/10 voles slain.
1/1 a-hole slain
Reward:
100 XP.
2 Minor Healing Potions
2 Minor Mana Potions
2 Minor Stamina Potions
Thanks, Sarlisa.
“No, thank you, Will. Now, asss thankful asss I am, I’ll have to asssk you to leave, ssso I go to my garden and sssee what I can sssalvage.”
See you next time I’m around then.
“Of courssse! I’ll have new potionsss to sssell by then!”
Will left the alchemist’s workshop, and went into Bob the enchanter’s half of the Emporium.
The gnome was doing something with a piece of crystal and a complicated machine. The crystal was glowing with a rainbow of colors, some of which Will was absolutely certain shouldn’t have been part of any rainbow. And some of which he didn’t even know existed.
“I’ll be with you in a minute!” Bob yelled, without taking his eyes away from his work. “Can’t stop this in the middle without losing the shard.”
No worries!
It took a little more than a minute, but eventually the light settled down into a uniform yellow, and Bob straightened out to the fullness of his not very impressive height and turned to face Will.
“Ah, Will! Welcome back! How can this humble gnome help you?”
Do you happen to have a mana aspect for sale?
“Of course! What kind of enchanter would I be if I didn’t have mana aspects?”
I don’t know?
“The kind that doesn’t sell mana aspects, of course! And that’s a kind that is significantly less than the finest in the world! And as you know, we sell the finest potions and aspects in the world!”
That makes sense. So how much for a mana aspect?
“For you, my favorite customer in the whole world? Five silver marks!”
Will chose not to point out that he was one of two possible customers on the Board. There really wasn’t any way to get Bob to admit that he was hyperboling. Instead, the wombat took five hundred copper bits out of his inventory and handed them to the enchanter.
“Fantastic! Here’s your mana aspect.”
Aspect shard: Mana
Tier: Basic
Adds the Mana aspect to a skill or piece of equipment. Effects vary according to the target.
Warning: aspect may have adverse effects on some targets.
No Snowths allowed!
Attached to Will’s Mana Poll II skill, the Mana aspect changed to show its specific effect, which would increase Will’s mana regeneration by a whopping eighty percent per level.
Thanks, Bob. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while now.
“You’re very welcome! Is there anything else I can help you with?”
No, thank you. This is everything I can afford right now.
“I’ll be back to work then. That Light aspect won’t make itself, you know!”
Without waiting for an answer, Bob turned back to his machine, and the crystal started glowing again, this time cycling between different shades of yellow.
Will spent a few more minutes spending his XP. He spent a hundred and fifty XP to bring the Mana aspect up to level three, boosting his mana regeneration to three and a half mana points per minute, and two hundred more to bring Least Cure Wounds up to level three, which reduced its cost to sixteen mana.
Taking one last look at his updated status sheet, Will left the Emporium and rolled his dice.
Name: William Jackson
Race: Wombat
XP: 125
Health: 111/125
Mana 182/182
Stamina 140/140
Innate abilities
Dice Roll (2)
Skills 9/11
Name
Type
Tier
Level
Unstoppable Lance Charge
Cavalry
Advanced
2
Harvester
Harvest
Expert
1
Claw Proficiency
Beast
Basic
3
Least Cure Wounds
Healer
Basic
3
Passive Defense
Defender
Advanced
3
Mana Pool II
Resource
Basic
3
Stamina Pool I
Resource
Basic
1
Thunder Ball
Mage
Advanced
2
Darkness Shield
Mage
Basic
2
Boosts
Dungeoneer
Special
Unique
2
Arena
Special
Unique
0/1/0/1
Attacks
Claws – minor (least) piercing damage, least armor piercing.
Bite – lesser piercing damage
Charge – Average (slight) piercing (bashing) damage (Slow aspect)
Equipment
Bronze claws (front claws)
Wombat Breastplate of Lesser Life
Horned Wombat Helmet of the Heavy Assault Unicorn
Wand of Vinegar Stream
Re-vole-ver pistol
Inventory
4 minor healing potions
2 minor mana potions
2 minor stamina potions
1 Pickle Dead skill shard
1 Miner skill shard
1 Air aspect shard
1 Light Armor Proficiency skill shard
1 Medium Armor Proficiency skill shard
1 spear proficiency skill shard
1 Bite Proficiency skill shard
1 Lesser Mana Beast skill shard
60 Bronze Arena Tokens
2 bottle of Wild Sage oil
2 Living Earth (good)
7 Chunk of Iron Ore (good)
1 Chunk of Silver Ore (good)
1 Sphere of Thunderglass (good)
13 Brass Cog (good)
2 Brass Cog (excellent)
24 Living Cloud (good)
4 Living Cloud (excellent)
1 Lightning Mane
1 Living Acid (good)
1 lump of Crystalized Cloud
1 Novelty T-shirt
17 Golden Torch Cactus Fruit (good)
3 Golden Torch Cactus Fruit (good)
17 piles of Bone Dust (good)
9 pile of Red Reptile Scales (good)
30 wolf pelts (good)
3 wolf pelts (excellent)
3 pile of truffles (good)
16 Hyena pelts (good)
3 hyena pelts (excellent)
5 Wack-a-mole pelt (good)
5 coil of Vole-T wires (good)
3 fulmigating foxglove (good)
5 guacamole (good)
4 Vole-V grace (good)
1 Vole-V grace (Excellent)
1 gunslinger hat
2 Mole-o-tov cocktails
800 copper bits
Status effects
Wounds
Left shoulder: Least
Head: least, least
Butt: Least, least, least
Right flank: least
Minions