by R. A. Mejia
I wondered how the room gave a ten percent training bonus to melee skills, and then I noticed a statue on a pedestal in the corner of the room near the door. The statue was about three feet tall and was of a warrior dressed in studded leather armor carrying a rectangular tower shield and long spear. The figure was in a battle pose with the shield raised in his left hand and the spear attacking from above the shield. The statue’s detail was amazing. I could see the small studs in the leather armor, the grain of the wooden shield, and even the veins in the man’s arms as he thrust downward. It reminded me of some of the statues I’d seen in the Crafter’s District. Then it clicked, and I used Inspect on the statue.
The Defender
An artistic sculpture of a mighty warrior using a tower shield and spear. The artist has imbued the statue with an enhancement that, when bound to a room, will give any who train in that space a bonus to increasing their combat skills.
Bonus: 10% to increasing combat skills
Reading the description for the statue, I recalled that I’d seen similar objects created by artists. Whether a painting, a sculpture, or some other work of art, they each gave a room a bonus or protection of some kind. I tried to use Magical Spell Scanning on the object but got an error notification.
Error. No magical spell detected.
It was frustrating, but I did scan the statue to see if I could get a schematic for the object even if I couldn’t learn a spell from it directly.
The Defender Statue. Components: 20.2 lbs. Marble, 2 - Tier 3 Monster Cores, and 0.10 crushed diamond.
Well, it looked like I could fabricate a copy of the statue, although whether it would retain the same bonus or just be the base statue was yet to be seen. I also had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn’t be able to make the object until I increased my Fabrication ability.
“You gonna stare at that statue all day, or are we gonna train?” a voice asked, snapping me from my introspective thoughts.
I turned and saw the rest of the group looking up at me, and I felt embarrassed at having gotten caught up in my scans. Deciding I needed to focus on the plans for the day, I said, “Yeah, we are going to train. But first, I need to know what class quests everyone has or what skills they want to train so we can organize our training properly. I know I’m looking to complete self-repair and durability repair quests, and Greebo has a sneak attack quest, but what about the rest of you?”
Manny spoke up first. “I have a Defender quest that requires me to protect someone and take one-hundred damage on their behalf.”
The twins looked at each other, and then Frik said, “We have a quest to do one-hundred and fifty damage while using two weapons. It's supposed to help us with our Dual Wield skill.”
Devena looked at everyone as they shared their class quests, and when they were done, she added, “I’ve gotten through most of the class quests for my level. I’m working on getting a new ability, Whirlwind, which will let me hit everyone around me. But I need to work on hitting multiple targets with a single strike.”
I nodded and thought about how we could accomplish each person’s goals efficiently. “Ok, let’s try this. Frik, pull up your quest and then attack me. I won’t defend, I’ll let you hit me. We’ll see if it’s as easy as letting you stab me.”
Frik stepped forward, took his short swords out, and looked up at me with a concerned look. “You sure this won’t hurt you?”
I nodded. “It’s just like when I lost my hands in the dungeon. I’m just made a bit different. I don’t feel pain. Don’t worry.”
Frik shrugged then lunged forward with both his blades. The tip of the short sword in his left hand skittered off my iron chest plate, sending sparks flying as the weapon failed to penetrate my armor. But the right blade found a small gap just under the right pectoral plate, and it struck the underlying wooden frame beneath. A red five floated away from the hit as Frik withdrew the blade.
“Did that count towards your quest?” I asked.
He shook his head, “No. I guess it has to happen in an actual fight.”
I nodded. My own quest was to repair health, and the quest did not care how the health was taken away. But a combat class quest likely needed the damage to be dealt while fighting. Otherwise, the quest had no point. There would be no lesson learned from completing it. I raised my fists in the air and said, “I thought that might be the case. Let’s try it now.”
Frik looked at my metal-plated fists but raised his own swords, and a moment later, struck out again with the same double stab. I tried to shift my body to the left, but I was too slow, and the blades cut into the plating on my forearms as I dropped them down to guard my body. A red two floated away from me, and I held out my hands and said, “How about then? Did that count.”
He smiled and nodded. “That time it did.”
I dropped my arms and looked around at the group. “Looks like you’ll have to come at me in a group and honestly try to attack me. Don’t worry about hurting me; I need to take some damage so that I can repair it anyway.” I turned to Manny and said, “You will be my great defender. Use your shield to defend me and take the hits meant for me. When you get to half health, we’ll take a break and heal up. Any questions?”
When no one spoke up, I made sure that my character sheet was open so that I could carefully track the damage, and then the training started. Greebo and the twins spread out on my left, while Manny raised his shield to cover my right from Devena. The two smiled at each other, but the serious look in their eyes told me that neither was going to put any less than their best effort into the training. I heard the shifting of feet, and when I looked back to my left, Frik and Frak were already attacking with their short swords. Frik aimed up toward my face with his blades, while Frak slashed at my legs. I noticed that Greebo had disappeared, but was more concerned by the four sharp blades coming at me. I instinctively leaned my head back and raised my arms to protect my face from Frik’s attack. While my forearms guarded my face, they also blocked my view, and I did not see that Frik’s attack had been a feint as he changed the direction of his blades. I felt the short swords bite into the gaps under my pectoral plates at the same time that I felt slashes across my shin plates. Several red numbers floated up from the wounds, but I ignored them as I stepped forward with a jab from my left fist and followed it up with a right cross. The cross caught Frik, and he stepped back with a bloody nose.
Part of me wanted to apologize for hitting him, but I pushed the sentiment down and focused on the training. Coddling the twins would not help them become better fighters. I snapped out with my left foot just as Frak tried to slice my shins again, and the ball of my foot kicked right through his hastily crossed blades and into his stomach. The wind was knocked right out of the goblin, and as my left foot returned to the floor, I pivoted on, aiming a kick at Frik. But instead, I felt a great pressure in my lower back, and I turned just in time to see a purple nine float away from me and a smiling Greebo stepping back with his short sword in hand.
“Got you,” he said.
I laughed and held up my hands and called for a pause, “Hold!” I’d seen my health drop to twelve, which was the 30% limit I’d set for myself before I stopped. I shook my head and said, “It looks like I’m going to be the first one to have to take a break to repair. You guys continue on with the training. This time, let Devena be defended by Manny while the rest attack. It’ll give her a chance to strike out at multiple opponents.”
The group changed positions while I walked over to Greebo’s expanding backpack and took out some of the materials we’d brought and started to repair myself. It took a bit over an hour to repair the damage, but while I waited, I watched the others practice. Devena was a wiz at keeping the twins at bay with her long double-bladed battle axe. The two identical goblins tried the same high-low maneuver they had with me, but the warry dwarf simply stepped back and swung her axe in an intricate weave that stopped them cold in their tracks. Even the dulled practice one she was using carried a lo
t of force behind it, and while it didn’t do nearly the damage her normal weapon did, it could still bruise and break bones if the twins did not defend themselves. The result was the same when Frak tried to attack from one side while his brother attacked from the other. Like lighting, the dwarf’s axe struck Frak across the chest, and then in one smooth motion, Devena stepped into the blow, pivoted, and used the momentum to whip the axe around and catch Frik in the chest too. The twins flew back and landed on the ground, both clutching their chest as single-digit damage numbers floated away.
Greebo had a harder time getting past Manny, who seemed to know Greebo’s fighting style too well to take his eyes off the goblin for even a moment. But once, Greebo struck out with his practice sword and in the fraction of a second that Manny took to raise his shield, Greebo disappeared. Manny growled as he swung his shield out, hoping no doubt to catch Greebo, but the sneaky goblin appeared on his own a minute later as he stabbed Devena in the back while she was fighting the twins. The practice short sword didn’t do major damage, and her health pool barely moved, but it still counted for Greebo as a sneak attack and helped him on his quest.
Manny and Devena worked well together. She attacked while he used his shield to take the counter-attacks or acted to defend her from unexpected backstabs. Manny took some consistent damage as he repeatedly put himself in the way of blows meant for her. But that was what his Defender class was meant to do. A large health pool and good armor were his best tools in fulfilling his class role.
By the time my repairs were done, everyone looked pretty beaten up, and they called a rest for themselves. I pulled out wads of Sphagrium and cast infusions of Minor Regeneration to help speed along the recovery of the worst of the bruises. But despite everyone's wounds, they all chatted happily as they ate some of the food Greebo had purchased, congratulating each other on the good blows they landed and giving tips about avoiding them in the future. It was heartening to hear the two cultures, goblin and dwarf, talk and act as comrades.
When everyone was healed up, we got back to work with Manny defending me while the rest tried to attack. Manny saved me from several of Greebo’s sneak attacks while I pushed back the twins and Devena. Her axe bit deeply into my armor, and I had to equip my old shield just to defend myself from her attacks. Her wide-sweeping style of fighting did not mesh well with the twins’ aggressive style, and she accidentally hit the two several times when they tried to overwhelm me with their own multi-bladed attacks. It gave me something to work with as I moved around the room, using each of them as an obstacle to each other's attack. Still, even using these tactics, it wasn’t long before the powerful blows and deadly sneak attacks added up and I was again forced to sit and repair myself.
So, we worked in a cycle of damaging each other and then repairing and healing. During one of the battles, I got a notification.
Blunt Weapons increases to level 10.
“Hold on, guys,” I said, and the group paused. “I just got to level 10 in Blunt Weapons.”
Devena, breathing heavily, leaned on the haft of her weapon and said, “Really? That’s it? I would have thought you’d gotten a higher skill by now with all the time you spend in the dungeon.”
“Well, I have a penalty to combat skill gain associated with my class, but I have a big increase in gaining crafting skills, though,” I answered with a shrug.
She scrunched up her nose and said, “Yeah, I’ve heard that about crafting classes. It’s another reason why you don’t see many of them in the dungeon.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, I thought I’d find someone I could purchase an ability from. You know anyone?”
Frik and Frak spoke up simultaneously. “Just ask the attendant.” The two looked at each other, and Frak looked away while Frik continued. “The guild sells basic abilities to anyone that has the skills to use them, but they charge non-guild members more and keep any uncommon or rare abilities strictly for guild use.”
“I’ll join you, Repair. I have enough skill points to buy an ability I’ve been eyeing,” Manny said.
The line to talk to the guild attendants was much longer now than when we’d first arrived, and the hall was full of all kinds of fighters, warriors, and barbarians. We got in line while the rest of the group finished packing up the leftover supplies.
While I waited in line, I wondered just what options would be available to me. The only skills I’d gotten to the levels high enough to purchase abilities were my crafting skills Metalworking and Woodworking. It took fifteen minutes until we reached the front of the line, and I requested to learn an ability.
“What skill have you reached a threshold in?”
“Huh? Oh, I reached level 10 in Blunt Weapons today.”
She nodded and said, “Ok. Since you’re not a guild member. It’ll be ten silver.”
It was twice what I’d paid the orc blacksmith Deanly for an ability, but I pulled the silver from my inventory and put it on the counter. The attendant took the coin then turned around and walked back to some shelves. She returned with a glowing crystal sphere that she placed on the counter in front of her. “Here, place your hands on the crystal and choose the ability you want to learn.”
I put my hands on the crystal, and a list of options appeared in my vision.
Edgeless I - Increase damage done by blunt weapons by 10% but decrease damage done by edged weapons by 15%.
Bone Breaker - Increase chance to break bones by 30%. Cost: 5 mana per minute
Endurance of the Dullard I - Increase constitution by 1.
Smash - Increase damage to the next blunt weapon attack by 5%. Cost 5 mana.
My first instinct was to go for the constitution increase. After all, I could not increase my stats through training or exercise like my friends. But would an increase in a single point of constitution really help me much? I did the math and it equated to about 1 extra point of health per level. Sure, if I could increase my constitution by 4 or 5 points, that would make a big difference. But 1 point? Nope. Instead, I looked at the other abilities. Edgeless gave the biggest increase in damage, but only for blunt weapons, and it decreased damage for weapons with an edge like swords and axes. I knew from experience that, sometimes, a monster could only be hurt by a certain kind of damage, and I did not want to limit myself. That left two choices: Smash or Bone Breaker. They had the same cost, but I knew that I was not going to be the major damage dealer in the group, at least not up close, so an increase of 5% wasn’t going to mean much. I chose Bone Breaker. At its cost of 5 mana a minute, I could have it active for up to nine minutes, but the chance to break some bones with one out of three hits could really do some damage on the dungeon field.
I touched the screen and made my choice, and with a flash of light, I just knew how to activate the ability. I just had to mentally or verbally call out the ability to activate it and do so again to end it.
“Will there be anything else?”
The words made me look up from the crystal, and I saw the attendant looking at me patiently. “Nope. All done. Thanks.”
Then I left the line and saw Manny waiting for me by some benches near the main door. As we walked back to the training room, I asked him, “So, what ability did you get?”
“I got Shield Rush. It took all of my class points, but I hope it gives me more mobility when we fight. Wearing this heavy armor makes me slower than I want to be sometimes.”
I nodded, understanding the desire to be able to dodge more of the blows from our quicker team members. I had plenty of scratches and nicks on my armor plating to show where I’d been unable to avoid their attacks.
We returned to the training room to find the others running around in circles trying to slap each other while avoiding others’ slaps.
“What’s all this? We’re gone for a few minutes, and you guys are having a slap fight?” I asked.
The goblins and Devena stopped their running and laughed. Devena said, “Frik and Frak had a class quest to avoid getting hit, and Greebo there sugge
sted a goblin kid’s game, Slap the Weenie.”
I heard a guffaw from beside me, and I turned to see Manny laughing. He looked up at me and said, “Greebo and I used to play it with the other goblins our age when we were avoiding our chores. You pick someone to be the ‘weenie,’ usually the smallest person in the group, and everyone else tries to slap or hit them while they run away and avoid the blows. If someone misses a slap or the ‘weenie’ dodges it, that person becomes the new ‘weenie’. It’s meant to teach younglings how it's better to avoid getting hit. But if you do have to attack someone, you better make sure it lands or you’re in trouble.”
Greebo laughed and said, “But poor Manny was always too slow to avoid getting hit. He would get so mad that he just slapped the other goblins so hard they didn’t want to play with him no more.”
The image of an angry Manny as a child slapping other goblins was so incongruous with the slow to anger goblin I’d come to know that I laughed too. Manny and I joined in the game, though he and I were the slowest of the group. But it also gave Manny a chance to show off his new ability. Greebo had been avoiding each of Manny’s slaps, taunting him, when Manny got fed up with it and gave him a big smile, then shouted, “Shield Rush!” Manny’s body glowed red, and he shot forward at an incredible speed and crashed into Greebo, knocking him to the ground.