After Grim and Hound left, the crowds in the streets dissipated within moments. She thanked Katsu and the others for their business and traded away the remaining goods in her inventory. They inquired about her relationship with Grim, seeing as he was a police officer, but she managed to dodge most of the questions by saying she knew him in real life.
“Is he like that in real life, too?” Hammerhead asked.
Chuckling, Guin told him, “Oh, you have no idea.”
With that, she said goodbye and left them with promises of returning, with or without goods, and headed down the road in the direction of the Cathedral of the Lady.
It was time for her to advance her class.
Smirking, Guin walked at a swift pace.
Dozens of groups were now in front of the Catacombs gate. Besides the fact that Silver Hound had managed to draw a massive crowd, it was also starting to get to be later in the day. With the classes staggered across the day, some probably had early morning classes to attend.
A couple of groups asked if she was looking for a group as she pushed through and were concerned when she said ‘No’ but went on her way. There were whispers and giggles about her appearance and about her ‘brave but stupid’ choice to run solo. Guin just shrugged at these things. She had never really understood why people were so afraid of the Catacombs. There was nothing down there she had found that was even close to her experiences with the corruption in the woods.
When she started descending, her [Fear of the Depths] trait kicked in, but this time, she ignored it. Liorax floated to her shoulder and rubbed her face.
“How proud I am of you, half-Che,” he said. “Your demeanor is quite different from the last time you were down here, is it not?”
“I know what I should expect this time,” Guin scratched his head and made sure her other buffs were on. “Also, I’m a lot higher level than I was before.”
As she made her way through the starting point, another couple of passing groups asked her if she wanted to join them, but she waved them along. Liorax disappeared into a buff, and she took her fox form, prancing off on her own. With her experience and increased levels, she was able to easily avoid most of the dangers she had encountered in her first run—and those that she wasn’t, she dealt with efficiently.
Outpacing or eliminating the hordes of mice without much effort, she found her way to the room with the many intricate doors.
Sitting quite serenely as it emitted a dim glow in the center of the room was one of the white fox spirits that served Lady Amikavi in her hall. Its pink eyes blinked warmly at her as she approached in her fox form. Guin bowed to it, and it nipped at her ear.
Knowing that this spirit had to have been placed there as her guide, Guin nodded to it, and they sped off down the hall of gold, passing through the traps without hesitation. The little white fox led her through hall after hall at a dizzying pace. Just as when one of them had escorted her out the first time, nothing bothered to attack them.
And then they came to the great stone door. Guin took human form and used her key, then entered the large hall that now held only the great spirit of Amikavi and her attendants. Guin kneeled before the white, fiery visage she had come to know so well.
“So,” the voice of the great fox spirit echoed over her. “The one who would be Tatterskin has returned. And here I was, thinking that I would die of boredom before you finished my simple request. Show me, then, your handy work, and prove yourself more worthy than so many of those who came before you.”
Taking off her cloak, Guin presented her work, holding it out before her. “Is it correct, Lady Amikavi?”
“I think that you should already know that it is,” Amikavi mused. “Or, at the very least, you should know that it is acceptable. I even sense magic in the seams; a wise addition. You have done well, child. With this, Tatterskin, you have earned your new form. Partake in it now, and rejoice, for you are not as useless as you once were.”
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<[To Sew a Dress of Fur and Leather (Class Quest)]>
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Guin hugged her cloak in excitement as she closed the quest window. Throwing the fur back around her shoulders, she looked at Amikavi expectantly.
“Now look again at your Tatterskin menu,” Amikavi told her. “Show us what new coat your work grants you, Tatterskin. Today is when your story truly begins.”
She opened the window and began to re-read what was there. Liorax reappeared at her side and swatted at the screen with his paw. “You see it there! You just have to drop the image of my pelt into the right slot, and then, woosh!”
The class screen now showed the first of the three abilities as a question mark, with two open sockets branching off from it. A pale yellow light outlined them as they waited to be filled. Guin dragged and dropped the images in the management screen into the slots, and with a loud shing! that rang through her ears, the first of the new abilities ebbed into its new life.
Glowing, then, was a new icon, similar in appearance to the orange fox head that was used for the base Tatterskin form. This new one was a three-eyed cat symbol, blue and black in color, echoing the coat of Liorax himself. Clicking on the new abilities revealed a very interesting ability; Guin’s breath caught in her throat as she read the description:
<<[Form: Coat of the Moon - Fox Spirit Focus]>>
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<< You have become the personification of death. Darkness, Wind, and Ice are your weapons of choice—sometimes, with a little bit of pestilence and poison. >>
<< Body, Endurance, Reflexes, and Perception increased by 10%. Running Speed is increased 10%. Damage is increased by 5%. Health and Mana Regeneration +5%. You are restricted to Tatterskin specific, or cloth, armor. Crafting and Gathering abilities have a -10% success rate. Crafting and Gathering abilities have a -10% experience rate. After entering this form, all forms have a 5-minute cooldown.>>
<< Cast Time: -- seconds - Duration: -- Seconds - Cooldown: -- Seconds >>
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“Holy crap!” was Guin’s first reaction, but settled herself down in order to calmly assess her new power. Darkness, Wind, and Ice are your weapons of choice... Those sounded like the elemental powers that Drakov had mentioned earlier. So there must be a connection, she considered, though she wasn’t all too clear on what that would mean for her in the long run. She supposed that one thing she should do is look into just what powers she could acquire with that in mind.
Nibbling on her fingers, she wondered, though, if this would also mean that the two other locked abilities were forms similar to this one that would use different elements. And perhaps even different classes.
Aside from that, she noticed that the form ultimately had similarities to her original Tatterskin form, though many of the positives and negatives were flipped. For comparison, she pulled up her Tatterskin information and looked at them side-by-side:
<<[Form: Tatterskin - Fox Spirit Focus]>>
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<< You are but a person wearing a fox’s skin. How appalling. >>
<< All stats are reduced by 40%. Running Speed is reduced by 40%. Damage Reduction 40%. Health and Mana Reduction 40%. Players inspecting your character window will be met with false stats and character information. You are restricted to Tatterskin specific, or cloth, armor. Crafting and Gathering abilities have an extra 40% bonus success rate. Crafting and Gathering abilities have a 40% bonus experience rate. From this form, all shapeshifting forms become instants.>>
<< Cast Time: -- seconds - Duration: -- Seconds - Cooldown: -- Seconds >>
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It has the same armor restrictions, she noted. Why did the game have her level up her leatherworking skill if she ultimately couldn’t use leather armor? Would she eventually get recipes for proper Tatterskin clothing? Annoyed, she continued to compare the two forms. It was clear that her [Coat of the Moon] was an all-out combat form compared to the more domestic [Tatterskin] form. The only other thing of note was which stats it buffed—or, more precisely, which ones it didn’t.
It was a rouge form.
Guin clicked her tongue and settled on the reality that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and what she got was far more preferable to what the class could have been if the form had just ended up being a variation of the initial Tatterskin form. At least the class had a combat form at all—it was just that she hoped she didn’t need to worry about learning any assassin-like abilities.
Oblivious to Guin’s conundrum, Liorax floated over and rubbed against her face. “You like it, yes?” he went. “I am quite powerful, you know.”
“I do like it,” she told him. It wasn’t a lie—it simply wasn’t the whole truth. “Alright,” she murmured as she added it to her quick cast bar. “Let’s see what this can do...”
And so she clicked the button.