by Ros Per
- Hey, guys, it seems the northern fox came to us.
The tense voice of Elephant distracted me from loading the next ribbon for Buffoon’s machine gun, and I turned my head toward the aisle. Elephant, together with Siniami, stood near the opening leading to the landing, and was looking somewhere around the corner. The first oddity was that I didn’t see any living monsters, and strange sounds were coming from somewhere on the stairs. But both stood quietly and had not taken any action yet. Having exchanged glances with Buffoon and after everyone picked up their own weapon, we rushed to the two of them in order to evaluate the scope of the threat approaching us.
Now we were standing together on the landing and looking down at the flight of stairs that led up from the previous floor. More precisely, not at the staircase, but at the creature that was slowly, without haste, approaching us, simultaneously devouring the remains of other mobs. A massive triangular head, covered with a chitin shell and with a crest in the middle of the muzzle, was crowned with two pairs of horizontally placed mandibles, with which it ground up the bones of the corpses before using its elongated mouth.
I couldn’t see the maw from where I was standing, it was covered with a piece of chitin from above, but judging by the characteristic sounds of the remains of bones being chewed up, I suspected that it also had very big teeth. The head was attached to the body with a short, thick neck, covered with ring plates that clung to each other and formed something like segment armor. The middle of the body was covered the same way, connecting two large plates that completely covered the front and rear halves of the body, dropping from the sides almost to the ground, covering six massive legs with rather big claws. Behind it was a long, flexible tail, consisting of triangular segments, like pyramids inserted one into another, which ended with an impressive sting.
When you look at it, it’s nothing special. Just how many armored monsters can you meet in such an aggressive world? This creature was about four meters long and about two meters wide, because of which, when moving upstairs, it kept breaking the railing. Not only that, but there were also three lines above this creature - red, blue and green. Red was, obviously, life, but what the others designated, I could not even begin to guess. Moving my gaze a little higher up, I saw its level, and I was in awe.
Tarconite level 83
- “Yeah, I just stood and stared at it a while, too,” at that moment, Elephant’s voice rang out to my left, - “How are we going to bring this creature down?”
- Did you try to shoot it with something? -
- “Do I look like an idiot? I don’t wanna risk dealing with this beast without an armed raid group backing me up. Well, not without at least having the best escape plan possible in place.”
- “And you will have to come up with one,” Siniami told us sadly.” Upstairs, three floors up, everything is filled with rubble. And it’s so tightly grouped together that even a mouse could not squeeze through.”
- Who has any suggestions, how do we get out of this situation? - This time, the engineer was the one who’d spoken.
- “Without any information on its armor and resistances, I’m not gonna deal with this mob. I think it’s necessary to run away and, at the same time, feel it out for vulnerabilities, trying not to come any closer to the aggressive mob.”
- Are there any mines or explosives? - I turned to the engineer, while the others started quarreling in the background, once Sin started going off about stupid risks.
- No, I'm an engineer, not a sapper. -
- That sucks, now I only see one way out. You will quickly collect everything and move to the next floor. When you get there, I make a couple of test shots with my rifle; it has an average penetrating damage in the range of 95 units. If the damage goes through, I start leading him along, and while I do that, you think about how you can kill it using your weapons. As soon as you’re ready, I will lead it to you, and then the fun begins. If we need to, we’ll have a couple more floors to fall back to and change tactics. -
- “Fucking stupid plan! But we don’t have any other plans, so I'm for it!” Elephant supported me.
- I’ll start to assemble the cannon,” Buffoon shrugged, and then went to tinker with his toys.
- “I’ve already had enough of it with these two idiots. I’d just started to rejoice that I would get a break from these idiots, but no, they’ve gone and picked up another insane guy off the street,” Siniami sighed heavily, it could plainly be seen that they’d often gotten into difficult situations because of the other team members. “Okay, let it be so! At least you’ve come up with some kind of plan; normally, these idiots rush into the thick of things without any sort of plan at all.”
In the end, we all agreed to implement the plan. We even threw the remains of the monsters scattered on the floor down the steps, so that the mob would take more time to eat and not pay any attention to us, since Buffoon needed a couple of minutes to collect all his belongings. The sub-machinegun had to be given to Siniami, which was bothering me. We agreed that she would hand it to me and take a rifle from me instead, at the earliest opportunity. That, of course, would happen if the creature took any damage. When we finished preparations, we agreed that if the machine gun ends up being capable of inflicting damage, we’d go up the stairs in a way that will force the monster to expose itself to us, so at least one of us can shoot it, as we climb up.
The only problem was that Buffoon had only thirteen percent in the stationary machine gun skills, which greatly affected his accuracy, which meant he could clip Elephant with his shooting. And in this game, unfortunately, “friendly” fire can easily kill you. As for plan B, we agreed to go even higher, try to throw grenades at it, and, if possible, bring down the stairs. But I didn’t want to do that, because we would still have to descend somehow.
For the monster to get to our floor, it needed to go up only a few steps, and devour a couple of the corpses left. And I was already lying on the cold floor, taking up a position at almost the very end of the corridor, facing the steps exactly. I was lucky that the corridor I was in had several more exits to different rooms behind me – that’s the way I’d run from the mob. It was bad that this building had a very wide layout, which meant the monster could move almost freely, despite its size.
I kept the already prepared letter in the upper left corner of my window, meant for Elephant. It will take me a few seconds to add the necessary text there. As soon as the head of the Tarconite appeared above the floor platform, I immediately activated the “First Shot”. I hoped that it would work, because in this situation, the conditions for it to operate are tricky to pull off. I might not be able to use it because of the restrictions specified in the description of the skill. But I still have a Sniper Shot skill in reserve. Ideally, it’s best to use it after activating the “First Shot”, so you get the maximum effect possible out of it. But in extreme cases, I can still use it on its own.
Sniper Shot II
Description: You exhale all excess air, steadying your diaphragm, and take a moment, between heartbeats, to line up a shot. + 30% to accuracy, + 15% increase to your chance to cause critical damage, + 45% to the amount of critical damage.
Activation time: 3 seconds.
Duration: before the shot, but not more than 7 seconds.
Cooldown: 3 hours 50 minutes.
Restrictions: It can only be used with weapons that have sniper scopes.
There it is! The skill’s been activated, painting the visible part of the mob in different colors ranging from green to red, where red showed the most vulnerable spots. Oddly enough, the most vulnerable place wasn’t the eyes or the mouth, which only had a yellow highlight. On the front of the mob, only two red dots were highlighted, showing their status as the most vulnerable spots - the small recesses under the lower pair of mandibles had been highlighted. If the main part of the mob's torso hadn’t been on the stairs yet, I would’ve hardly seen these places at all. Normally, they were practically near the ground, covered with a bunch of
armor and mandibles.
The indicator in the sight has been signaling that the rifle is charged and at the maximum for a while now, but I have wait for those unfortunate three seconds needed to activate the ability "Sniper shot", the start of which made me exhale fully and hold my breath. As soon as the skill was activated, I mentally brought the sight to the required point, and, again mentally, pulled the trigger with my finger. It’s a little problematic to manage your body this way, but unfortunately, using this skill, it’s only possible to do it like this, because all the muscles are completely under the control of piconites, and they determine the requirements for a shot.
As soon as the sound of the shot was heard, my body was immediately released from strain, and I reflexively breathed in, immediately jumped to my feet, picking up the rifle at the same time, and only then did the information on the results of the shot reach my brain. And the results were rather unsatisfying: the bullet had ricocheted from the red shell that had appeared for a split second, and the yellow strip above the monster was reduced by an insignificant amount, roughly one percent. Quickly transferring the information, I rushed to the room on the right.
I ran back to the doorway of the next room and froze for a little while, bringing up the rifle, waiting for the mob to appear, since it should’ve followed me. How mistaken I’d been! The wall near me was almost demolished, and a huge armored ball rolled into the room, the blow of which just swept me into the room. Lifting myself up a bit, I saw the ball opening up, and the Tarconite looked at me from its depths. It turned out that this creature can fold into a kind of protective ball, somewhat remotely resembling an interesting animal. If my memory doesn’t fail me, they’re called armadillos. The only difference is they have no mandibles and a triangular head. Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway.
Getting close, I stared at the mob. I’d lost the rifle when I’d been thrown by the violent explosion, and there was no time to look for it now. I could only tease this creature with my guns, not a very smart thing to do. I thought I could still try to blow it up with grenades, their damage was good enough. But the space was so small, and so far, I hadn’t seen any locations where I could safely hide from the explosion, and I didn’t feel like being a suicide bomber. Then my eyes caught the partially destroyed ceiling. Why not try it? What a good idea!
At the same time, there were windows around us, which meant that this was the outside wall. I moved slowly to the right, not taking my eyes off the monster, while neatly pulling out my pistols on the move, and then the ball unfolded in front of me, swaying slightly on its armor. I didn’t know what it was expecting, but I was in charge now, because I didn’t see any other options for getting myself out of this room. This armored piece of shit had cornered me between the two walls. And approaching closer to it was not what I wanted to do. I’d lost 17% of my life just from being sideswiped by it a little. I was afraid to think about what could happen if this creature scratched me with one of its paws, or, God forbid, with its mandibles, which could grind up bones very quickly.
Having gotten into a very good position, I was prepared to attack the mob, but it didn’t seem to view me as a threat, since it had decided to come out of its ball and go after me. Raising both pistols, I began to shoot it with the ammunition available there. I realized that I couldn’t even hurt it, but my task was different, and I achieved it.
The Tarconite curled into a ball again and rolled in my direction, picking up the speed of its rotation with every meter. Just a little bit ... a little more ... Now! Without looking, I threw the pistols and, jumping up with all my strength, I grabbed the armature sticking out of the ceiling, sincerely hoping that it wouldn’t break off at the wrong moment. I pulled myself up, clinging to the ceiling, pulling up my legs as close as possible, and missing the Tarconite beneath me. A powerful blow behind me forced me to release the armature against my will, and I found myself on the floor again, however, this time I was helpless and on my back. The message that popped up in front of my eyes made me laugh.
You have gained the Acrobatics skill.
I’ve been jumping and dodging everywhere for ages and only now had they given me the acrobatics skill. I don’t understand the algorithm for giving skills, I just don’t get it! Rolling over, I stared at the hole in the wall. I’m glad that my impromptu plan worked out. The Tarconite, because of its armor and total mass, hadn’t even needed to go that fast to break through the wall and fall out onto the street. Getting up and going to the edge of the newly formed gap, I looked down. The monster showed up almost immediately, and others did as well. On the street, there was a kind of local apocalypse happening. A lot of monsters were squabbling with each other.
Their numbers, compared to what we’d seen at the beginning of the wave, were quite low, but there were still quite a lot of them. Now they were no longer rushing in one direction, but, as I understood it, they had begun to divide up the territory, defending their right to it with fangs and claws. One of these local skirmishers and our fiend had crashed into each other in the middle of it. It would seem it hadn’t been particularly affected by a fall from such a height. A couple of the bigger monsters he crashed into figured that this was another contender for their territory, and they charged this new opponent together. I didn’t wait to see how these clashes would end; the main thing was that the Tarconite wasn’t here at the moment. Walking around the room, I collected my weapons and moved to the stairs, simultaneously sending a letter to Elephant that I was going up to them, and that our problem had solved itself. While approaching the stairs, just in case, I also shouted:
- “I am coming to you, it’s me!”
- Damn, Volp, what happened to you down there? Where did this ... - Elephant began, descending toward me, but then his eyes got wide and he began to bring up the machine gun, which he’d been holding in his hands. – Look behind you!!! -
As soon as I saw the look in his eyes, I immediately began to roll forward, turning around, and then there was only one thought in my head. I’d really wanted to ask: "Is there something behind me?" But either my subconscious mind had worked faster, or the dodging skill had worked, and as a result, I’d managed to dodge the attack from behind. However, it was a dubious achievement, because the paws of a new monster had slammed into my chest, pressing my whole mass to the steps. Greenish scales flashed before my eyes and an extended maw, filled with three rows of large teeth, which then began to close on my head. The last thing I remembered was the sound of the machine gun that they’d started shooting, but, unfortunately, they hadn’t had the time to do anything, and then darkness came.
Convulsively inhaling, I opened my eyes and in the process, I moved my hand over my belt in search of any weapons. I’d need them to get rid of this creature. But I didn’t find anything, and only then did I realize that I was in completely the wrong place. Only after two painful seconds of going through the disorientation accompanying the death that I’d just suffered, it came to me that I was in the replication capsule installed in my room. There were no icons for the group in sight. Either I’d been thrown out upon my death, or the group had just thrown me out of the party after some time.
Judging by the clock in the neural interface, about twelve hours had already passed. I wondered where my mind had been for all of that time? It seems that something was still clinging to my memory, but it was impossible to bring out those vague flashbacks. All right, what else do we have there? Under the bars for health and other nonsense there was a debuff icon, lowering my performance by twenty percent for a period of half an hour. It looks like this is a sort of posthumous penalty. Getting out of the capsule, I found that almost everything hurt. I had to do warm-up exercises in order to be able to at least move, more or less. While doing the warm-ups, I looked through the logs and system messages. I had a lot to go through and think about.
...
...
You have dealt 0 points of penetrating damage to the Tarconite creature, all damage is absorbed by the psionic shield
.
You have dealt 0 kinetic damage to the Tarconite creature, all damage is absorbed by the psionic shield.
It turns out that not only mutants have psionics, but also mobs, which was a very unpleasant discovery. I had to improve myself, if I wanted to get anything done against these kinds of foes. The other info in the logs was of no particular interest for me - well, except for the fact that I’d gotten an odd message after getting level 16, so I moved on to the system messages.
Congratulations! You are in the TOP 10 000 of Undying Characters. You’ve lasted a long time without any replication in especially hostile conditions. Your current rank is 7,563. As a reward, you will receive 1 unallocated point for your attributes. Attention! Before distributing it, we strongly recommend your “thirst” and “hunger” indicators not exceed 25%. It is also necessary to take a horizontal position, since the process of reconstructing the body with piconites can take from 20 minutes to 12 hours, depending on how high the attribute obtained is after the increase.
Wow, that’s some good news! The attribute point is great, but it’s kind of miserable, when I consider that another seven and a half thousand players have never died. Let’s look further.