The palace had been infiltrated, a second Bag of Holding had been acquired, and he’d basically confirmed that King Katani was developing some crazy superweapon… now he just had to finish the rest of his quests.
It was a little weird that the Mystery of the Crystals quest hadn’t completed yet… maybe he had to return to Krystyna first? The item retrieval quests required that, but he didn’t see why the information gathering quests had to do that as well.
Whatever the reasoning on the information gathering quest, that left buy armor, buying scrolls, and retrieving answers to the smaller questions she’d posed.
No matter what he’d thought during his previous emotional outburst, the fact was that he had plenty of time left to criss-cross the city and find the correct shops.
He found the armor and clothing shop first.
There was nothing specifically for women, alas, and none of the outfits were even remotely revealing. However, he remembered the way Krystyna’s current armor fitted itself to her body when she put it on… maybe all of these would do that.
“Let me try that one,” he said to the shopkeeper, pointing to a set that was clearly too big for him.
“You got it,” the thing said cheerfully. “Gathering must be getting dangerous, what with all the humans running about.”
“Yeah,” Jerome agreed. “Dangerous and smelly.”
“So I’ve heard. Hopefully the king can fix the smelliness once he fixes their souls.”
Now that was interesting. ’Fixes their souls’. Rikan had told him to find the girl’s soul… and it would explain why the gnolls thought they were helping humans even as they carved them up. It didn’t change the fact that the gnolls were barbaric murderers trying to build a superweapon, but it did put some sense into their actions.
The shopkeeper carried over the armor and started picking up bits of it and placing them over the correct area of Jerome’s body. They shrank until they fit the gatherer gnoll’s body, forming perfectly to his particular shape. Wonderful! He could buy any of these and they would likely fit to Krystyna’s form, boobs and all.
“How do you like the feel on that? We could do a play fight so that you could feel how it would move in battle.”
“It’s light armor… they don’t all move the same?”
The gnoll shrugged. “Mostly. That one’s got a boost to Dodge, so it’ll be especially nice for you. Increase your odds of getting away safe.”
“Any that can help resist magic?”
The shopkeeper got a mournful look on his face. “It’s been pretty bad since the outer gnolls got their hands on the Hold spell, hasn’t it? I told them combat scrolls on the open market were a bad idea. It took that little secret leaking out until they closed it off, and by then several others attack spells were out, with some of the more common ones getting to nearly every tribe. We’re lucky they’re not united and sharing secrets…
“I’m sorry, I’m talking too much. You want magic resistance, I’ll get you magic resistance.”
Thirty minutes later Jerome walked out of the shop with two sets of the best magic-resist-enhancing light armor the shop carried and two sets of the best dodge-and-strike-enhancing light armor they carried, only having spent thirty-seven gold. Both armor sets went straight into the Bag of Holding.
One set was for Jerome to practice in, and the other set was for Krystyna. The benefit to Krystyna was obvious, as well as the benefit to Jerome when he was fighting in his own form, but there was an additional benefit as well. When he’d transformed into the Commander, he’d gotten the commander’s heavy armor. If Jerome could figure out how to get Krystyna’s armor and the Intimacy Bonus, he’d be that much more powerful.
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The downside of that rule was that if he put on the armor now it might very well disappear, never to be seen again, when he transformed into something else. He didn’t know the rules on that, except that while his Bag of Holding stayed with him through transformations, everything else he was wearing disappeared. Was that because it was on his body when he transformed away, or because it was part of the transformation? He wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to risk this sweet new armor just to find out. What he did know was that when he transformed back to his base form, he always got the old clothes from when he started the transforming, so it was safest to put it on then.
Next: the magic scrolls. The quest said to buy three useful ones, but there was no reason to stop at three. He only hoped that there were useful ones left, since apparently the combat spells had been pulled.
After an hour of combing the city he found the shop.
He identified two things he needed.
First, he needed something in Flows so that Krystyna could level that skill up. The skill didn’t even need to be useful… it would be so that he could use Crystal Overload + Magic Pulse multiple times in her form. Each skill level in a magic category reduced the cost of the move, and since Crystal Overload + Magic Pulse was his best emergency move — especially against mages — he wanted as many uses of it as possible while in his most powerful transformation. That meant a skill that both of them could use to make Flows level up as efficiently as possible.
Second, he needed a skill that helped with magic resistance. Those mages were his weakness, especially if he got caught in a Hold or Crystal Overload.
If he could grab something useful for attacking or breaking down walls that would be fantastic, but he doubted they’d sell something like that, not after what the armorer had said.
“What’ll it be?” asked the shopkeeper.
“It’s getting more and more dangerous to explore,” said Jerome. “I need some protection, and maybe something to control my environment with.” Controlling the environment sounded like something that Flows would do, and it fit into his cover story nicely.
“You’ve come to the right shop! We’ve got all the scrolls… all the scrolls that won’t get my crystal thrown in the ocean, that is. Let’s see, so you’ll want some Healing, some Alteration, maybe some Flows, depending on how much money you have… can’t sell you the best ones, the ones that’ll really set the humans howling, but there’ll be definitely something here to keep you safe. Got’em all arranged by skill, so have a look.”
The gnoll motioned to the sides of the store where shelves held rolled-up scrolls, each labeled with a name. The shelves themselves were labeled by skill.
Jerome went to Alteration first. He saw the Blessing skill he already had, but didn’t see Hold. They’d already pulled that one as being too dangerous for a common gnoll to possess.
One interesting spell from the Alteration was Specialize. He could select one of his attributes and it would temporarily transfer half of those points to another attribute. This would be great for Krystyna’s herbalism — she could transfer half of her Agility to Dexterity while crafting potions, then do the opposite while in battle. When practicing magic they could both take their highest stat and transfer half of it into Connection for quicker MP regeneration.
Jerome set that scroll onto the front counter, starting what he hoped would become a large pile. He had plenty of money, and his only goal was gaining as much power and combat flexibility as possible for both of them.
The next useful skill he found, Ether Ghost, was magnificent! It took any magical effects cast on the user and, instead of applying the effect or doing damage to his HP, it did damage to his SP. The skill itself took no MP to apply, more of an on and off switch for the effect, and so as long as his SP held up he’d be immune to Hold or Crystal Overload. He’d have to experiment and see how much SP a Hold or Crystal Overload ate up, but even if it was a lot this was a useful tactical tool.
He tossed it with the other scroll, then went back to the Alteration shelf.
As he picked up the next scroll he heard another customer enter. Hopefully it wasn’t someone who knew the gatherer whose body he’d stolen — that would be awkward.
“Back so soon?” asked the shopkeeper.
“Dangerous times,” said a familiar voice. “Don’t want that human catching me off guard again.”
Jerome turned and almost dropped his scroll.
It was Rikan. Rikan, who he’d killed.