The ancient windmill listed awkwardly to one side, its wooden beams splintered where her Torpedo had punched through. One sail hung crooked, creaking sadly in the wind. Green slime dripped from various holes, while the miller stood, arms crossed, muttering about "adventurers and their collateral damage." A zombie helpfully tried to prop up a fallen beam, mostly making it worse.

The loot was significantly better than the previous mobs they dispatched, and most importantly it contained an antidote potion, which Retro used to cure his Diseased debuff. After drinking down a healing potion, the cut on his arm resealed itself magically.

Good to know, she thought. Damage we receive will magically go away when our health is restored. She intended to ask Aida about the details later.

They found a Glamoured Studded Leather which gave a +1 to armor class with a +2 to constitution for Retro. It would help his defense in future battles. She asked Aida to explain stat points in detail, and she learned most of how they worked:

Constitution raised maximum health and gave a boost to armor class.

Strength was the attribute for raising physical attack power, but also helps physical job classes with their aim.

Dexterity also gave a boost to armor class in the form of evasion, but also managed agility and coordination, making physical attacks land more often.

Intelligence was most useful for her, because it raised magic powers.

Wisdom she didn't quite understand yet, but Aida had said it was useful for perception and persuasion checks. She said that in some jobs, like monks and paladins, wisdom replaced strength as the main damage modifier.

And finally charisma also helped in perception and persuasion checks against NPCs. In addition, it improved spell casting in some jobs, like Bards.

These persuasion and perception checks were new to her, and Aida explained it like this:

Aida: I'll give you two examples.

Example 1 — Let's say you want to open a locked door. There are several ways you can do this. You can use a lock-pick, which would roll invisible dice based on your dexterity. If the dice roll is higher than the required minimum for the locked door, the lock opens. Or you could smash the door down, which would roll a strength check. Same concept. Finally, you could just blast the door down with your Titular Torpedo spell, which would roll attack dice. You could blast it over and over until the door's health bar dropped to zero. Even doors have health bars in Nouscraft. There are many ways to open a door, mind you, and these are just 3 of them.

Example 2 — You're talking to an NPC and trying to get information out of her. You could roll a charisma check, which would persuade her with kindness or deception into telling you. You could roll a strength check to intimidate her, making her scared enough to tell you. But what if the information she gave you was a lie. A wisdom perception check is useful here, and you can catch her in her lie, which might reveal the truth, or she might just turn hostile and try to kill you.

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To Mindt, it all seemed rather complex, and she understood it would be impossible for her to max out all her stat points, so she would need to specialize in stat points most important for her job. So for now, she dumped all her available points into intelligence. Later, she would consider dexterity and possibly constitution as her secondaries.

Retro replaced his fencing sword with the level 6 goblin's pick-axe, which applied the Diseased debuff upon striking. Not only did it do more base damage, now he would be able to simultaneously hit monsters with fire damage and Diseased.

Thus far, all the loot they found was written in black text in their field of vision, until she found this particular godsend. It was in blue text, with little sparkles twinkling at the edges.

Wiki: The Corset of Bazooka Support

A mystical piece of armor that provides more sass than protection. Its enchanted laces adjust automatically while making snarky comments about posture. Side effects include the uncontrollable urge to dramatically pose during battle. Defense Rating: Fabulous out of 10. Meaning none. Allows the wearer the ability to store small items in places that defy physics.

This corset grants the following benefit:

Areola Aim - While using the Titular Torpedo spell, the corset will automatically adjust direction to the enemy of choice, granting a 100% hit rate on any enemy in the cone of vision. This is a passive skill.

Mindt nearly fell over when she read the description and immediately donned the corset. Uncomfortable as hell, and harder to breathe in for sure, but it was worth the offensive upgrade.

She turned to find Retro speaking with Gus. "She didn't mean what she said. I promise. Look, the goblin was bleeding to death and she was just stalling for time."

"The goblin was right," Gus spat. "You Nousheads are all twats. Be off with you! I knew you'd end up wrecking my mill, that's why I called for the goblins in the first place!"

Bastard, Mindt thought, anger dwelling up inside her. Gus had known the savepoint would disappear and they would be trapped in the windmill, forced to fight those goblins.

A small pouch appeared in Retro's hands. "Friend, we're sorry about the damage and would happily spare a bit of gold for your repairs. We're just looking for information."

The miller hesitated. "Gold?"

"That's right," Retro said, giving the pouch a good shake, the delightful sound of metal clinging within.

"Well alright, but after this mess. I don't want to see no more of you. You got that? No more of you."

Retro seemed to have a better standing with the NPC than she did. When she tried to speak with him, he just spat at her feet and growled. She assumed his charisma had something to do with it since his charisma stat was double hers, or maybe Gus didn't like all his things being blown up.

"Of course," Retro said. "It was an honor to stay at your mill. An honor."

"You can keep your stinking honor. I piss on it. I'll just have the gold."

He held it out for a moment, and pulled back. "But first, tell us everything you know about the zombies."

"You bloody—. Err. Fine. Alright. The zombies started showing up yesterday. As I said before, they ain't doing nothing but standing around, getting in the way of things. But they ain't attacking no one neither, so I just took them for any other NPC like meself. Stupid NPCs that are good for nothing, but NPCs. A couple of you Nousheads came through earlier, saying they was off to Equinox, saying they heard there was a zombie that could speak English there. That's all I know."

"Equinox?" Mindt asked.

The miller shot her a venomous glare. "Yes, Equinox. Is there a fucking echo?"

Retro put a hand on her shoulder and handed him the gold pouch. "What my companion means to say is, we aren't familiar with Equinox. Could you help us out?"

Gus chortled. "Don't know what Equinox is? You're about as empty-headed as those zombies, I say. Equinox is a grand city just over yonder. Perhaps the biggest city in the world. I got a map that leads you straight to it. For a price."

Retro began fishing in his inventory just as Gus erupted in confetti, the unmistakable warble of the torpedo spell echoing through the air. Mindt casually walked over, picked up the gold pouch and the map.

Retro blinked at her.

"My corset works," she said.