Abigail pursed her lips and looked at Bart. “Really?” she asked.
Bart suddenly found the drain pipe in the alley very interesting and devoted his entire attention to studying it. “Maybe, maybe not,” he muttered. The man wasn’t shy, but he hated to be put on the spot. Vale grinned.
Abigail smirked and turned back to Vale. “So there’s no other way I can gain your trust?”
Vale sobered. He said, “Honestly…not really. You helped me out of a bind, true, but I still find your sudden appearance out of nowhere too suspicious to tolerate. Plus, I’m about to negotiate a streaming deal, and anyone in my group will probably be in it. It’s true that I need some allies, and I’ve been kind of a loner player for a long time. That has to change.
“This is a really tough decision for me because I really could use a ranged fighter and technologist in my group. However, since my name is so well known now, I think I’ll have trust issues about anyone joining.
“So what’s it going to be? If you won’t show me your character sheet, that’s fine, but if so, this is where the ride ends.”
Abigail frowned. “I don’t know who I’m more pissed at, you for making me do this, or Yggdrasil for making it such a pain in the ass just to share a character sheet.” She glared at the alley wall for a moment before she sighed and said, “Fine.”
Vale got a prompt:
Abigail van Cog wants to share her character sheet with you.
Character sheets should not be shared widely with strangers.
Do you accept this intimate request?
Vale rolled his eyes. The prompt’s wording was ridiculous. For a company that could create such an amazing game, Yggdrasil Entertainment was really strange.
Vale chose, YES.
In his vision, Abigail’s character sheet popped up. To his eyes, Abigail herself also lost all her clothes, or rather, they turned almost completely transparent.
Abigail stood defiantly, her arms crossed over her chest. She glared at Vale but otherwise was not trying to hide her body. He didn’t stare at her, but he did glance. Her breasts were less modest than he’d thought they would be.
Vale always thought it was interesting that when someone shared their character sheet with someone else, each layer of clothing turned transparent and could still be seen. He could tell she was wearing zebra-striped bikini-style panties.
Sheesh, girls really get into accessories in this game, he thought. He kept his own underwear as the game’s default. He noticed Bart trying not to show how jealous he was. Vale rolled his eyes. He ignored Bart’s envy and Abigail’s indignation to focus on the character sheet.
Name: Abigail van Cog
Class: Technician
Subclass: Artificer
Level: 10
Experience: 552229
XP to next level: 107771
Stamina: 49/49
HP 49/49
Mana: 80/80
Stats: (Total/Original/Level Ups/Bonuses)
Strength: 5/4/0/1
Agility: 8/6/2/0
Stamina: 5/3/2/0
Intelligence: 9/6/3/0
Willpower: 12/6/4/2
Luck: 4/4/0/0
Class Skills: Marksmanship, Pistol Appreciation, Tinkering, Inventor, Advanced Gunsmithing
Permanent Bonus Source: Twilight Trench Anklet (Will +2), Pharaoh’s Eyes
Vale whistled soundlessly in shock. On one hand, Abigail had told the truth about everything. He doubted she was the mysterious ABI now. She had no stealth or espionage abilities. In fact, her skills were rather straightforward for her class and build.
On the other hand, she had two permanent bonus items! At level ten with two permanent bonus items, and her smart stat distribution, Abigail was top tier!
Vale still didn’t understand why she wanted to join his group. He’d never been popular before, so he wasn’t sure if this type of thing was something he needed to get used to. He thought about it briefly and decided it probably was.
Despite not personally understanding Abigail’s motives, it was obvious she’d be an asset to the group. He stood there lost in thought for a moment before Abigail growled, “Hey, dummy! Are you ever going to release my sheet? You get a good eyeful? Do you enjoy perving out on innocent girls?”
With a start, Vale realized that Abigail was still naked to him, her character sheet accessible. Vale didn’t think it was possible for Bart to look any more jealous, but his friend was practically drooling. What the hell is wrong with him? He dates cute girls all the time, Vale thought.
“Yes, yes, sorry about that,” he said. “But it’s not my fault that Yggdrasil Entertainment made people strip just to show their stats.”
He released her character sheet, and Abigail was once again as properly clothed to Vale as she appeared to the rest of the world. Vale ruefully realized what a strange scene the whole situation could have been for the last few minutes. He sincerely hoped ABI was nowhere around. He’d hate to have the whole world think he was some sort of opportunistic pervert.
“I am going to start a group right now,” said Vale. “I’ve never been into grouping before very much. Bart or someone else could help me out with stuff, or I could join a random group. However, some of the new quests I’ve gotten are pretty hairy. Do you want to join my group, Abigail?”
The girl sniffed, and her frown improved some. “I suppose. I did save your ass in the stagecoach, and if you never demand to see my character sheet again, I guess we can get along. Maybe. If you’d stripped me in real life, I would have shot you.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. How are you so good with guns?” Vale thought back to her display of skill with her strange weapons.
“Practice in real life, duh. Just like you probably practice fencing IRL.”
Vale sighed and shook his head. He was curious about her statement, but it wasn’t worth asking further questions. Abigail was irritated, and now he couldn’t really blame her. He felt like kind of a jerk. He wanted to explain that he’d thought she might have been ABI based on her first name, but he was afraid he’d sound like an idiot.
Vale began the process for forming a group.
Are you sure you’d like to form a group?
Each member of your group will share experience earned.
Group members may be able to share quests.
Vale chose, YES. Then he added Bart and Abigail. Both his friend and the irritated steampunk girl accepted.
Vale began leading his new group to his meeting with the Vermillion Entertainment rep again. He could understand Abigail’s mood, but after he had a streaming contract, she’d start earning money too.
With a flash of insight, he realized that had probably been her goal from the start. Now he believed that she’d been bored and wanted a group. After all, he also needed to group up now to start tackling harder quests. Beyond that, though, she probably also wanted to be part of his group so she could also be a part of his stream. She could make money. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he pretty much had to start streaming after becoming so famous in such a short amount of time.
If Vale walked away from the meeting with a streaming contract, he was going to immediately start tackling his legendary weapon quest. He needed to get away from cities for a while. Wanted posters, the Lords of Finality…he knew all the drama he’d experienced was going to be nothing compared to what was in store for him.
Once the entire world saw ABI’s video and knew what he looked like, he was in trouble. But what he was really worried about was Brutus getting back into the game. Time was ticking towards his enemy’s revival.
Brutus never gave up—ever. A chill ran up Vale’s spine, and he sincerely hoped the meeting with Vermillion Entertainment went well. He needed to prepare for Brutus’s return. He wondered how many people would watch his stream just to watch his inevitable rematch with Brutus. The thought did not make him feel better.
Deadication
For the first time since he’d start
ed playing SOO, Vale was jealous of players with crossbows and guns. As more of a scholar character, a great deal of Vale’s XP had come from solving riddles, discovering mysteries, and sneaking through ruins. Whenever he’d actually needed to fight monsters or other adversaries, he’d joined a group. That had actually been how he ended up on the expedition that had made an enemy of Brutus.
As Vale dodged yet another zombie lunging at him, he really wished he had a way to keep the damn things off of him. If any of them clawed him, much less got a bite in, the potions he had to use in order to cure the nasty diseases they carried were very expensive.
Meanwhile, Bartholomew casually tossed alchemical vials around from the inside of his coat. His aim was good, and whatever strange concoctions he used made the living dead run away or melt into puddles. Abigail was able to take down zombies with contemptuous ease. Her aim was fantastic, and she was very fast at reloading her strange, bulky pistol. She called it a “pepperbox revolver” and she said she was making another one, too.
Vale was not a warrior. He didn’t wear armor. He was ill suited to be holding hordes of zombies at bay with his rapier, and yet here he was doing exactly that. He grumbled under his breath and knocked a groping set of undead hands away with the flat of his blade.
A rapier was a fantastic weapon in duels and against things that bled. However, using a rapier to fight creatures that were already dead was difficult. Vale pretty much had to go through an eye or the roof of a rotting mouth to reach a zombie’s brain, and he had to be far too close for comfort for either attack.
He was also getting hit by attacks to his sanity, too. In SOO, the game attacked characters directly with a sanity attack, or SAN, while players fought monsters. The more otherworldly or horrifying the monster was, the more debilitating and more often the SAN attacks could be. Players were able to resist SAN with high Willpower or other related skills. SAN attacks usually manifested as physical damage.
Vale had a low Willpower stat. At a six, he was only one point higher than the generic starting value of five. At level one, the six was pretty decent. At level twelve, it wasn’t very good. Of course, up until now, Vale hadn’t really needed Willpower. His [Ancient Body Magic] used a Willpower check, but he hadn’t used the magic that often. Most of his fighting had been in duels where he’d surprised his opponent with quick kills. However, now that he was fighting monsters, he kept watching his health go down from repeated SAN attacks.
And zombies weren’t even that bad! There were monsters in the game that would make him pass out and die by just looking at them!
Vale dodged yet another set of nasty, groping hands and realized his little group needed to find a party member who could help with SAN attacks. Most groups usually included a Priest class or an Occultist Ritualist, but Vale wasn’t sure what the best approach would be.
His musings were cut short when Bart downed a health potion and asked, “Why are we here again? This sucks.” Abbey nodded but didn’t say anything else. She was busy reloading her pepperbox. She had another couple pistols ready to fire if she needed them, though.
Vale sighed. “Do we really need to have this conversation right now? Again?”
Bart did something with vials, mixing two potions together into a single tube before throwing it. There was a bright flash and half a dozen zombies turned into nasty puddles. “Yes, we do. Killing so many of these things is expensive. Between potions, reagents, vials, mixing tools, and all the crap Abbey needs for her guns… The person getting off cheapest is you and this is your quest.”
Vale considered what Bart had just said and nodded slowly. He had to admit that his friend had a point. He said, “That’s true, but I’m streaming right now. You guys are going to get paid for all this play time.”
“Not for another couple weeks or something. There’s a delay in pay,” said Bart. “I also don’t want to buy stuff in-game with real money, at least not for a while.”
Abigail nodded, not looking up from her reloading. “Plus, the stream itself doesn’t even air for another few days. There’s a week between raw footage and the editing process.”
Vale already knew that. It was part of the agreement he’d signed with Vermillion. As long as he was streaming, Vermillion was pretty much his boss. The contract the rep had laid out for him and explained was fairly standard for the industry. Even if streaming channels could edit faster, they wouldn’t. If streams were broadcast without a delay, it would be too easy for chuckleheads like the Lords of Finality to ruin broadcasts.
Bart frowned. “Seriously, what are we even doing here? If we were going to come here and stay put, fighting zombies for the next month, we should have brought another person with guns. We’ve been here for over two days, man. I’m getting sick of these ruins.”
Vale rolled his eyes and said, “I told you guys when we got here. I got a tipoff about a cool weapon based on NPC hearsay. I already did the first couple legs of the quest myself. One was a rumor quest and one was basically a fetch quest. The next portion is here. I’m not sure what we’re looking for or what we’re supposed to do. We’ve almost cleared the whole place, though.”
Abigail must have been done reloading. Her powder and other tools disappeared, probably into her internal inventory. She looked as she usually did with her guns attached to her belts and corset. She asked, “So we pretty much just need to finish clearing this place, right?”
Vale nodded and answered, “Exactly. Once all the zeds are gone, we can search for whatever I’m supposed to find.”
Abigail bit her lip and seemed to be thinking about something. Finally, she nodded to herself and said, “Yeah, I just want to get this over with. It’s worth the cost. I really want to speed this up.”
She took off her pack and fished around, eventually bringing out a small chrome pistol. It was one of the newer-style percussion cap weapons like her pepperbox revolvers.
“I just got done making this,” she said. “I can reload a lot faster, but the ammo is more expensive to make and takes time to put together.” She pointed at Vale. “You owe me three gold to help cover ammo costs after this. This little thing is a pain in the ass to aim, too, so keep them off me.”
“Yeah, that’s fine, whatever.” Vale thought of all the money he still had left from selling Brutus’s gear and tried not to smile. He was still loaded.
Abigail grumbled and walked forward, the little silver pistol in hand. She cocked the hammer, took careful aim, and the closest shambler went down with a clean headshot. Then Abigail did something to make the barrel flip open. She inserted what looked like a little paper packet, and closed the pistol up again. Then she put a cap on the little nub to the side of the pistol, cocked the hammer, and fired again.
Vale didn’t know much about firearms, but he was impressed by how fast Abigail was firing the little gun. She was actually mowing the zombies down much faster than the entire group had been proceeding before.
“How many of those bullets do you have, Abbey?” asked Vale.
“I made about two hundred of these paper cartridges, but I really didn’t want to use them all up. You owe me for this. Don’t forget.”
Vale nodded and began following Abigail as she methodically put down the undead. Every bark of her weapon resulted in another non-ambulatory corpse. Despite her earlier warning to keep them off of her, none of the zombies even got close again.
Vale was relieved. The group seemed to almost be done clearing out the ruins, and since none of the zombies were getting close, he wasn’t getting hit with SAN damage anymore.
Suddenly, he was struck with a realization. He frowned as he advanced slowly behind Abigail and thought about his elemental magic. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about it over the last two days of grinding zombies. Apparently, it was so new he kept forgetting he had it. He really hadn’t gotten much chance to experiment with it, either.
While Abigail was reloading again, fitting another paper tube in her pistol, Vale held up a hand and said, “Hey, wai
t, let me try something.”
Abigail nodded absently. “Knock yourself out.”
Vale stepped forward and concentrated on his magic. Magic systems and skills in SOO supported player creativity. In fact, at lower levels, Vale had used his [Ancient Body Magic] to create his
He went through his list of spells and grunted. He settled on
Suddenly, he got a system message! It read:
You have created a new spell. Would you like to name your spell?
Vale chose, YES.
What would you like to name your spell?
He grinned and thought, Wind Slash. The spell was instantly added to Vale’s spell list. Vale breathed deeply and concentrated. Casting a spell for the first time was always hard.
A large group of zombies was slowly but surely closing on him. He absently counted over a dozen of the nasty things shuffling towards him, blocking the hallway. He could feel Bartholomew and Abigail’s concern behind him, but he ignored them.
He drew his rapier. The guard’s graceful curves protected his hand, and the glittering blade extended straight up before his eyes.
His Rapier of Twilight had been hard won. He’d gone to hell and back to get the thing. It didn’t have any magical properties, but it was still a very high-quality weapon. Vale drew his sword to his shoulder and cut forward, triggering
He aimed about head height.
Wind screamed around Vale, lifting his hair up and scattering dust all around him. He could visibly see the flat blade of wind rocketing towards his targets. The zombies didn’t have a chance.
Luck Stat Strategy (Secret of the Old Ones Book 1) Page 5
