Greg focused for a couple of seconds as a fiery flickering orb manifested in his right palm. He then willed the fiery orb to collide with the nearest feral hounds who were barely a meter away from him. The fiery orb collided with a feral hound's waist as it tackled him. The brownish fur on the hound's back alighted and immediately there were yelps of pain and panic from all the three hounds.
He had used the Psionic Power Psychokinetic Blast under the talent Psionics: Psychokinesis with fire energy. The Psychokinesis talent tree primarily dealt with the manipulation of energy. Psychokinetic Blast was a simple power which blasted a single target with a bolt of energy. At his talent level he could only choose among one of fire energy, cold energy, electric energy and force energy (physical). He had remembered Old Jonas's advice about how the feral hounds would panic in the presence of fire and utilized ti to avoid getting mobbed.
The unlit feral hounds ran away from him as the yelped in panic. The unlucky feral feral hound whose waist fur was burning collided with Greg making him feel a mild pain. He didn't miss this opening as he smashed its neck with his right elbow. The burning feral hound dropped like a sack of potatoes and Greg used his taser to further disable it. While the other two hounds fled in panic, he took the opportunity to stomp the stunned hounds head and neck a few times. After gaining Karma for the kill, Greg holstered his taser and held his 5mm handgun with both hands and took aim.
In the few seconds that took him to kill a single feral hound; the other two feral hounds had recovered from panic and were charging towards him with renewed vengeance. He fired off two shots with his handgun, one of which was a clean hit to a hound's torso while the other shot was a miss. He baited one of the hounds with his exposed left fore arm and hit the other hound was struck with the heel of the pistol. The pistol heel hit was lucky and hit the hound in it's beady eye; making it disoriented and howl in pain.
Meanwhile, the last undamaged feral hound firmly bit his left forearm and his arm felt bruised. Greg shoved the muzzle of his handgun into the hound's ear and fired a shot at point blank range. There was a squelching sound like a water melon being smashed and the feral hound died after a couple of seconds. Greg used the same tactic and performed an execution style head-shot to the last disoriented feral hound and killed it. He then noticed that the silencer of his 5mm handgun and gore on it.
COMBAT LOG:
Spoiler: Spoiler
You struck Feral Hound A with Psychokinetic Blast for 46 damage and made it panic.
36 * 1.3(vulnerability) = 46 fire damage
Feral Hound A struck you with tackle for 8 damage
45 * 1.2(Pack Hunting) * 0.98(SS Phy. Res.) - 38(SS Phy. Dmg. Red.) - 6(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 8 physical damage
You critically struck Feral Hound A with unarmed strike for 57 damage
(26(Str. Atk.) + 11(Unarmed Training Talent Bonus) + 15(SS Unarmed dmg. Bonus)) * 1.1(unarmed mastery) * 1.5(critical) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) - 15(Nat. Arm.) - 5(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 57 physical damage
You struck Feral Hound A with a taser for 15 damage and stunned it.
15 electrical damage
You struck Feral Hound A with unarmed strike for 30 damage
(24(Str. Atk.) + 13(Unarmed Training Talent Bonus) + 14(SS Unarmed dmg. Bonus)) * 1.1(unarmed mastery) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) - 15(Nat. Arm.) - 5(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 30 physical damage
You critically struck Feral Hound A with unarmed strike for 64 damage
(28(Str. Atk.) + 11(Unarmed Training Talent Bonus) + 18(SS Unarmed dmg. Bonus)) * 1.1(unarmed mastery) * 1.5(critical) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) - 15(Nat. Arm.) - 5(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 64 physical damage
Feral hound A dies.
You gained 70 Karma
You struck Feral Hound B with silenced 5mm pistol for 22 damage
48 * 0.9(Phy. Res.) - 15(Nat. Arm.) - 5(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 22 damage
You missed Feral Hound B.
You critically struck Feral Hound B with improvised weapon for 26 damage and disoriented it.
(23(Str. Atk.) + 7(Improvised Weapon)) * 1.2(melee mastery) * 1.5(critical) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) - 15(Nat. Arm.) - 5(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 26 physical damage
Feral Hound C struck you with bite for 10 damage
51 * 1.1(Pack Hunting) * 0.98(SS Phy. Res.) - 38(SS Phy. Dmg. Red.) - 6(Physique Dmg. Red.) = 10 physical damage
You critically struck Feral Hound C's weak spot with silenced 5mm pistol for 210 damage
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
52 * 1.5(critical) * 3(fatal weakness) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) = 210 physical damage
Feral hound C dies.
You gained 70 Karma
You critically struck Feral Hound B's weak spot with silenced 5mm pistol for 198 damage
49 * 1.5(critical) * 3(fatal weakness) * 0.9(Phy. Res.) = 198 physical damage
Feral Hound B dies.
You gained 70 Karma
'Guess I have to clean the silencer.' thought Greg.
He switched on the safety, disconnected the silencer and holstered his handgun while storing the silencer in his backpack pocket. He then unsheathed his combat knife and started butchering the Hounds for loot. At least he tried to anyway. He was not exactly an expert butcher and he made a mess while trying to harvest pelts from the corpses. He gave up on harvesting the pelts and cut away the haunches of the feral hounds. While the pelt would be better than the haunches value:weight wise; eh lacked the expertise to harvest it and had to make do with the rough chunks of meat.
While harvesting the third corpse, all the grime and guts made his combat knife slip and hit the abdomen of the corpse. From the feedback, it felt like a chunk of metal. Curious as to what was in the corpse's abdomen, he slit open its guts. After rummaging through he guts, gores and semi digested yuck that spilled over; he finally found the obstruction. It looked like a mechanical wrist watch without its strap. Wiping the watch the best he could on the dead doggy's fur; he pocket it.
'My backpack is full with fresh doggy rumps. I think this is the watch Old Jonas wanted in exchange for the scavenged SMG. I already collected the putrefied tissue sample for the other auxiliary task. Let me go back sell the loot and turn in the “side quests” for some possible karma and I will be back to explore these tunnels.' decided Greg.
He returned through the tunnels and after several minutes found Jonas still tinkering around the abandoned building's ground floor. He hollered him and received a wave acknowledging him. He went inside the building and addressed the old man while giving him the still-dirty mechanical wrist watch.
“Old Jonas; I found your watch.”
Old Jonas received the watch wiped it on his pants and a wrinkled smile broke on his face. He looked like he treasured the antique a lot.
“Where did you find ti Greg?”
“In the stomach of a feral hound.”
“No wonder I couldn't find it. So do you want the SMG? Or a psionic headband I just found. Select either one.” said Old Jonas with a raised eyebrow.
“Whats a Psionic headband, old geezer?”
Old Jonas rummaged around a backpack near his feet and removed a frayed bandanna from it. Greg carefully observed it and found it looking like a regular bandanna expect for the funky coin sized disk attached to it. The disk was made of what looked like resin with a finely wound copper coil in an elliptical pattern. There were miniature crystalline gemstones near the ends of the coil. The resin also had what looked like aluminum shavings in it. It looked pretty hippy.
“I can see that you use some sort of Psionics to augment yourself. This headband is a standard accessory for many psionic users. It makes your psionics more efficient; allowing you to squeeze out more psionic powers before mental fatigue hits you. It also boosts certain psionic schools.”
'Well my psionics outside of pre-buffing is pretty lackluster at this stage. While the headband will be more useful to em alter on when I have a higher PSI Points (PP) pool; but for now an SMG with burst fire is much more helpful.' thought Greg.
“I will take the SMG for now old man; I am still a rookie regarding Psionics and a SMG will be more helpful in the immediate future.” replied Greg.
Old Jonas handed him a worn out SMG with an approving nod and got back to rummaging a barrel in the building. Taking the hunt; Greg left the building towards the heavy sealed metal door of “Sentinel Station Shelter”. He addressed the intercom like speaker.
“Open the gates Malcolm. Its Greg the newbie.”
“Wait what happened to your skin. Whats with the dark patches all over your arms? Is it some sort of infection.” he heard Malcolm's voice through the speaker.
'I completely forgot to dismiss the buffs. No wonder Old Jonas offered me the fancy looking headband.' thought Greg.
He focused for a few seconds and dismissed Animalistic Aspect and Feline Grace. He skin returned to a relatively normal hue as he addressed the intercom.
“It is just a side-effect of a psionic power to make me react quicker Malcolm. Not an infection or anything.”
“Huh. I thought Psionics was about messing with people's minds. Well come on in then.” said Malcolm's voice as the heavy industrial doors slid open.
Greg entered the “decontamination” kill zone as he heard a few beeps and a dull hum. Apparently everything was in order as the inner set of doors opened and he got access to Sentinel Station Shelter. He acknowledged Malcolm with a nod and headed towards the elevator. He took the elevator to the Agronomy level. He navigated to a large office where a red head woman with a breather mask was dissecting the corpse of a Boar with macabre focus on an operating table.
“Hey Quinton, I bought that putrefied tissue sample you asked for.” said Greg.
The woman named Quinton stopped her dissection; removed her bloody gloves and gestured Greg to hand over the tissue sample. Greg complied and handed over the ampule with the requested sample and the remaining specialized crossbow bolts to her. She dumped the crossbow bolts in a nearby container and observed the whitish putrefied flesh sample. Satisfied she nodded.
“Acceptable. Now I give you 2 choices for your payment. You can either take 50 Sentinel Credits as agreed previously; or I can teach you certain tricks which will help your Psychokinesis Psionics.”
Greg thought for a moment and inquired:
“Can I choose to learn the Psychokinesis tricks later? Right now I really need to practice and grasp my Psionics before learning new stuff.”
“You can. If you change your mind and prefer the Sentinel Credits just meet me later.”
“Sure Quinton. See you later.” replied Greg with a curt nod and left.
On the same floor; he navigated to the animal pens section where a big muscled man named Bret managed multiple fenced animal pens. Most of the animal pens had a small hyperactive rodent like creature known as a Hopper. Near the hopped pens there were many large freezers which held majority of the meat supply of Sentinel Station Shelter. Bret noticed and acknowledged him and went back to fiddling with his wrist-computer. Greg removed his backpack and placed it before Bret.
“Big Bret; how much will you pay for these fresh hound haunches?”
Big Bret took a look at the pieces of meat with skin and fur still attached and replied sternly.
“5 credits for the whole lot. And don't try bargaining. It is more than fair for these haphazardly butcher pieces of meat and you know it.”
“Fine then.” replied Greg curtly.
He then dumped the hound haunches in a nearby empty bucket; received a 5 Credit note and took the elevator to his room on the Private Quarters floor. He then checked his status screen and was pleasantly surprised to see more than 1000 Free Karma.
'I got 280 Karma for killing the four feral hounds. This means the 2 “side quests” from Quinton and Old Jonas gave me around 900 Karma. Nice! Now to upgrade myself before proceeding with further exploration.' thought Greg