Not such a Nightmare...
Death by Jotuns and spells continued as I kept up exploring the house and altering my tactics to limit the number of giants I had to face at any one time. The guests in the ball room would turn into reinforcements with a suitable shout from Dad the Duke, but only the men, and only a few at a time… although if they saw a carpet of dead giants in front of them, their calls for help grew really sharp.
I confirmed that if I took bling from them, it wasn’t there my next time through the place, especially since I Burned it all as fast as I could.
I was lasting longer and longer as I fought. Although they still dealt immense amounts of damage if they hit me, the giants were less and less able to hit me. I was getting better at hit and runs, making it hard for the Casters to keep line of sight on me, and alpha-striking whenever I got an opening.
Tremble was getting really good at looting on the fly, too. One Prestidigitation Cantrip, and a golden medal, ring, necklace, earring, or whatnot would fly into his Hilt Chamber for later Burning. I didn’t bother to get it all at one time, since I would get it all eventually.
But the big reason was that I was getting my Level Four in Secondary Classes.
I’d taken my Expert/6, and basically just dumped all 8 Skill Points into the Knowledge skills to keep Courtier of Death going, and moved on. The Mastery Advance went to Resistance/2, which meant Null +1.
Level Four was the Level we got Stat choices. Being Sustained meant I got Sustained Effort, which reflected the Stat bonuses across the mental/physical divide.
The three best Classes for gaining Stats were Monk, then Melee and Scout. Monk gave you your choice, then your lowest physical and mental Stat, and then your lowest Stat, resulting in extremely solid fundamentals, even if you dumped Charisma or something.
Melee and Scout gave you your choice, and then lowest physical and mental. Archer gave you choice, and then lowest Stat. The remaining Classes just gave you choice.
But when you have a lot of Classes, and Sustained Effort, that’s a rather large number of Stats, building up your weak spots and making them strong, even if they don’t overpower your main Stat.
Furthermore, Stats in Secondary Classes had to be in the prime requisite of the Class, so the ‘choice’ option, actually wasn’t.
Naturally, there were minor Class abilities, and more importantly, more Skill Points, and Skills that would feed Profound Artisan.
So, taking my Monk/4. Four Skill Points, which became Meditation +2 and Concentration +2, both getting to 6 Ranks. This was the entire foundation the Moon and Sun combat styles were based on, trying NOT to associate them with martial mastery was impossible. My Profound Artisan hit +30.
+1 Ki. Centered Mind gives a ki-boosted enhancement against enchantment spells, not as much a problem here, and a Ki Feat, which was doubled for Forsaken. I picked Tiger Leap for +10 to all jump distances, including vertical, as long as I had at least 10 ki unspent, and Way of Fire II: Spreading Inferno, for all those much-too agile not-giants I was running across and needed to kill faster.
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The Mastery Advance went to Strength Mastery/1. It was the only Stat I hadn’t Mastered up yet, and since it had to be done with a Class level, Monk was fine.
Stats. +1 to Wisdom, mandatory. +1 to Con, Sustained Reflection. +1 to Str, and Cha. +1 to Cha, and Str. +1 to Str, and Cha, filling in my low Stats.
All my dump Stats were no longer dump Stats. I couldn’t say I minded, especially since higher strength/weight ratio felt just awesome. At a 16 Strength on my own, I was as strong as the most sturdily naturally built full-grown women, without being nearly as broadly built.
It was only going to get better, and I was looking forward to it. Being short didn’t matter all that much if I was also strong!
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As the deaths continue...
Scout and Archer followed. Scout was Dex +1, Sustained Int +1. Then Wis (Con) +1, and Str (Cha) +1. 21, 19, 19, 31, 17, and 20.
Ten Skill points, two Talents, Uncanny Dodge (hard to flank). First Talent went to Way of Shadow II: Comes Darkness, raising my Sneak Attack damage to +6d6.
Ten Skill points went to Disable Device, Open Locks, Bluff, Sense Motive, and Ride, raising all to 6 from 4 Ranks. Sense Motive was designated a Class Skill with my Int raise, so as to get the Cunning Bonus.
Bluff and Sense Motive were Skills that could directly affect combat, the one through Feinting and the other through seeing through those Feints and being able to assess your opponent accurately. Profound Artisan rose to +34. Ride was also a combat skill, but the bonus would only be given when riding, naturally. +2 higher ground bonus instead of +1, and the normal +2 damage.
Archer/4, 4 Skill Points. Advance to Str/3, +1 Strength. Weapon Mastery for Crossbows +1, doubled by Spec to +2, despite me not ever holding one yet in Dream. Bonus Archery Technique, Rapid Fire Technique. Bonus Archery Feat, Zen Archery II: The Arrow Finds the Path.
+1 to Dex, and Int, to 22/20, and +1 to Wis/Con, 20/32. Skill points to Bowyer/Fletcher and Survival, +2 each to 6 Ranks.
The extra 6 Skill Ranks from Int rising to 20 went into languages, I don’t even remember which ones, because that made ten of them, which meant I could take Polyglot with the bonus Talent and basically learn them all upon being exposed to them within an hour.
Health +2 to 77. Soak +7 to 190. Fort Save to 25, Will Save to 17, Reflex to 17. Null +1 to 35, Ki +1 to 38, Ess +1 to 35, Vajra to 35/73.
And I still had Artificer, Alchemist, Minstrel, Soulshaper, and Vizard to take. +1 Int/Dex, +1 Int/Dex, +1 Cha/Str, +1 Con/Wis, and +1 Int/Dex, respectively. Power Feats and Power Masteries to click over. Just taking Roll With It raised my Damage Reduction up to 7/-, which was nothing to Giants, but damn incredible to normal folks.
My ending Stat line was something like Str 19, Int 23, Wis 21 Dex 25 Con 32 Cha 21, with Leadership/3 providing the extra Charisma point.
My AC had climbed significantly. Right now, the giants could only hit me with a surround and a whole lot of effort. My Null was now at 35, spiking to 43 with Guardian, and the spells that used to punch me 75% of the time were now hitting less than a third of the time.
I also finished the Ward Stone, which brought my Saves up as Soulwarding was reflected across Mind and Bodywarding. Another +3 was nothing to sneeze at. The giants’ AoE effects were basically useless, as were basically all their mental/charm attacks.
I explored the whole house by dint of hacking my way through it, and giants followed me and tried to kill me the whole time.
The well-dressed young giants were probably would-be siblings. The not-so well-dressed ones were probably their servants. There were maids and butlers and chaperones and a lot of guards, and the house would have been big even if it weren’t sized for people six times my size.
There were dogs and cats and more rat Swarms, an ooze the size of a room in the garbage disposal, killer canaries and parrots that could give giant eagles the stink-eye, animated suits of giant armor, a man-eating rug in the study, a tome Formation in the library that killed with a thousand paper-cuts, glass golems made from the windows in the ball room, paintings that spat out the creatures portrayed on them, and let’s not get into the Animated cutlery in the kitchen…
There were sixty-two giants in total in the household to dispose of. It took me thirty more deaths to kill them all.
And then, it was time to go outside.