America, Fuck Yeah!

((Unfortunately, I haven't succeeded at meeting word goals for a while for reasons that are a mix of various factors including simple schedule stuff and mental health things. For most of the fall, I've basically been coasting on an extensive buffer, but it's gotten very shallow of late and the wordsmithing juice didn't miraculously come back to full strength over christmas. So, in order to ensure that I can keep a consistent schedule instead of haphazard releases, I will be releasing chapters every other week from now on until the buffer has grown to a more comfortable size again. My apologies for the inconvenience.

If you would like to support my work in spite of all that, or just want to read more than one chapter today, feel free to check out my Patreon))

Two owldogs and three rattlegeese were outside the inn, just barely being kept at bay by NPC villagers throwing rocks, mugs and bottles at them from the upstairs windows of the inn. Kept at bay, it should be said, but not damaged. The beasts were evading the thrown debris, but the persistent need for evasive action was keeping them from advancing on the inn. It was fairly clear that another beast or two arriving would be too much for the villagers’ defense.

“Looks like two generic mobs and three poison-based glass cannons. None of them have the HP to stand up to some Colt style equality though.” Grinning to Qhila, he switched to the shotgun, set the **** to a wide spread and waited for the beasts to be somewhat bunched up.

Two geese and a dog were soon fairly close together and John fired twice. That caused the last two mutants to charge at John, heedless of the thrown projectiles. They also, conveniently, converged on the way and two more shots put them on the ground.

All in all, only two of the geese had died outright, but the rest were wounded badly enough to make finishing them off trivial. In fact, the last goose died from a rock to the face while John was on his way over to put it down for good. At which point he got an insistent Achievement.

Achievement Unlocked: America, Fuck Yeah!
Trivialize a fight in an Arena or Instant Dungeon by firearm.
Look, I get that this thing is a smart choice for dealing with real threats, but it’s fucking up the game design situations for Arenas and I.D.s in the meanwhile, so I’ve got to put my foot down.
Reward: 10 EXP, a box of shotgun shells, The Shotgun Rule is instated

The Shotgun Rule
For modern firearms and explosives with a higher Item Level than the highest Character Level in the party that are not made by a party member, you can use 1 magazine or magazine equivalent OR 1 piece of explosive ordinance per Dungeon Segment. Exceeding this limit will impact rewards as though the creator of the equipment was in the party. (If you get your hands on significantly overleveled gear of other types, we’ll tackle that then.)

’... Yeah, I guess that’s fair.’ A bit annoying, to be sure, but the same kind of annoying as when a cheesy exploit got patched out of a game where you can’t really be angry about it. At least not if you also want to be a reasonable individual. He swiped the windows over to Qhila and tried to think at his benefactor, ’Does that mean I’m locked into the shotgun and down to half a mag for this dungeon stretch?’

Gaia: No. The limitation starts counting from you getting the achievement.

Well, then there was that at least. He waited until Qhila looked away from the windows before remarking, “So in short, we should try to save the shotgun or frags for bosses or other tough spots.”

“Looks like it.” She actually sounded more annoyed about this than John felt. Perhaps because where John was used to cheese being a cheap tactic that should, at least in theory, not be used or at least not too much, for Qhila it had basically been a way to even the odds a bit in a world that **** her to play on brutal difficulty, so to speak.

“Anyway, between the Levels and HP of those mobs, I think we can consider this part being designed for splitting up confirmed. At a glance, the villagers’ combined DPS looks decent enough as long as the mobs can be slowed down or distracted enough for them to hit. I’ll wager new mutants are going to come trickling in, with the size or the frequency of the groups gradually increasing until we hit either a large finishing wave, a Boss, or both. Since the time of day is off in here, the latest it’s happening is probably either when the sun disappears below the horizon, or when the last notes of orange and red fade from the sky.” John could think of no other reason why the I.D. would show a late evening environment, even though it was early afternoon.

“In other words, I need to get any trapping and fortification done fast, because I’ll never have more breathing room than right now. And also, focusing on hindrance over injury is probably good, given the backup.” She thumbed at the inn’s second story windows.

“Exactly.” John nodded, “I’ll go see if I can get some of the Bonus Objective cleared. If I run into anything I need the shotgun to deal with, I’ll come back and we hunker down. Likewise, if mutants start reaching the door or ground floor windows of the inn, call me back with the Party Chat. There’s probably some grace time while the beasts break down the door too, but it’s best if we save as much of that as possible for the final rush or Boss.”

“Gilt paths.” The expression was the Low Draconic equivalent to ‘good luck’, and how they parted ways for now.

John started out by heading east. Which would have been easier said than done if his minimap hadn’t gotten a small north arrow added when they entered the Dungeon. Since he had no information about the Dungeon Boons attached to the various wayward villagers, his only way to evaluate the destinations was how many Dungeon Points they were worth.

Even if the Miller family turned out to be three adults, the least valuable constellation of 3 NPCs, they were still worth more than a single individual. Following those were Fred, as a kid, and then the two solitary adults coming in last.

Initially, he set off at the briskest walk he could combine with casting Enhance Muscle, opting for leg Endurance. For now, he wasn’t worried enough about fighting the mutants to consider getting AGI for more precise footwork and surefooted dodges, and while getting more speed by buffing STR was helpful to getting to the NPCs, he figured that doing what would let him conserve most stamina for the home stretch of defending the inn was probably smarter. Succeeding at that was worth more than all the NPCs combined, after all.

He had just gotten the mill into view over the rooftops when something zipped in front of his head, barely a hand width in front of his nose. He drew back reflexively, looking in the direction it went in the hope of finding out what it was and seeing a… butterflysnake? Definitely another mutant, but beyond that this was a job for Observe, not guesswork.

In the moment it took him to read the combat relevant bits, 3 more Vipermoths had shown up, and the first one made a turn to dive at him again. They were less agile in the air than normal moths, but a lot faster, both likely owing to their increased size.

These things being mutated from moths gave John an idea though. He dodged the first swoop enough for his jacket to deflect the strike, and loaded alchemist’s fire into the slow release tank of the Alchemfist. The trickled out substance immediately set his fist ablaze, lighting up the chronoclastic twilight.

Sure enough, like their proverbial kin, the moths were drawn to the flame. They remained aggressive, unsurprisingly, but unlike the first two swoops aimed at his head and upper chest respectively, they now came at his better armored and more easily moved right hand.

It took him a couple more swoops to get a good read on the creatures and the timing, then he started swatting them out of the air as they passed. A single hit took a good chunk out of their health but, more importantly, it seemed to pretty much invariably ruin at least one wing, grounding them.

They were very much neither fast nor agile on the ground, having too little snake body to slither and being too front heavy for their insect legs to carry well. It was both easy and riskless to just stomp them dead afterwards.

They would have been harder to deal with if their attacks hadn’t been focused on such a small part of him, but it would still be mostly in the manner of taking time to get a good hit in. And the Observe sounded like they wouldn’t deal much damage either. That combined with the low levels and anemic drop table spoke a clear language: ‘A nuisance spawn. Meant to slow me down, eat up resources and maybe get in some chip damage if I get sloppy, not to be an actual threat. Like zubats in a Pokemon cave or flying gorgon heads in Castlevania.’

They could also be more of a problem when escorting NPCs, depending on how squishy those NPCs were. But for now, the important thing was finding a quick, low-cost way to deal with them and he had that covered.

John dispatched another pack of vipermoths before getting close to the mill, which he did just in time to see the house adjoining it collapse. For a fraction of a second, he cursed having severely underestimated how challenging the Bonus Objective would be. Then he realized that the Objective tracker beneath the party icons, another seemingly I.D. exclusive HUD feature, showed 0/6 for dead villagers still. That was confirmed moments later when a loud bang was immediately followed by fearful screams from the mill itself.

Sprinting, he cleared the corner of the pile of planks and timber that used to be a building. Past it, he could see a pair of curve-horned creatures with flat, paddle-like tails, arriving just in time to see one of them batter against the mill door, accompanied by more screaming from inside.

Them charging as soon as he drew their attention seemed a foregone conclusion. Best turn that to his advantage. He loaded a flask of shardoil into the quick release tank of the Alchemfist, since it made a wider spray than the watergun, and released it across the area between himself and the mutant goats.

The sound wasn’t enough to draw their focus away from the door. Instead, it got rammed again, emitting a creaking groan. ‘No more time for prep.’ Brandishing the water gun, he gave the closest beast a splash of alchemist’s fire. That got their attention.

The enflamed beavergoat charged directly at him. Dashing across the shardoil spikes did a number on its hooves, robbing it of both some speed and surefootedness, but it continued heedlessly. Apparently, setting its butt on fire had pissed it off something fierce. The other mutant charged as well, but reversed after stepping on the first spike, bleating angrily and opting to go around the hazardous terrain instead.

With the goat’s movements hampered, John managed to narrowly sidestep the business end of its horns. Trying to strike it in passing with the spike on his gauntlet missed, though.

The beast turned as sharply as momentum allowed and launched itself into the air towards John, trying to skull bash him. John knocked it aside with his palm and tried to grab it by the horns, hoping to use his greater size and weight to control it.

And then he was on his ass in the grass. He had gotten too focused on the flaming mutant and lost track, and line of sight, of the other one. The charging headbutt hadn’t dealt all that much damage, but it had knocked him down. The beasts seized upon the opportunity immediately, both swarming at him and trying to bite him with their beaver teeth.

Remembering the feeling of giant rat teeth between the bones in his forearm, he was in no hurry to get gnawed on. Avoiding it was easier said than done, though. Lying down, it took both his arms to match the strength of the unburned one. The other one, he was keeping off balance by kicking at its injured legs, but it was a matter of time before it got an opportunity to take a bite out of him.

With the icy calm of his Gamer’s Mind Perk, he could tell that despite being higher Level than the giant rat, the goats were not as strong. Whether that was a body shape thing or because they weren’t Bosses, he didn’t know, but he did know that handling just one of them at a time wouldn’t be an issue.

Dealing with both at the same time though… He wasn’t quite there but he didn’t feel like he was that far from being able to do it either. An elixir or two would do the trick, but he would prefer not to have a bunch of lingering side effects when the Boss showed up.

If he had something that could buy him a moment- That was it. John swapped congealed lightning into the slow release tank. It took a moment for the gel-like substance to be pushed through the tubing and coat his hand, causing magenta sparks of electricity to dance across it.

In that time, he missed a kick at the crispy mutant’s legs. As it sunk its vicious incisors into his thigh, thankfully the outer thigh so no risk of hitting the artery, he let go of one of the other one’s horns and gave it an electrified slap across the snout.

It didn’t do much damage, but the staggering effect of the electric shock bought him a moment. Gritting his teeth against the other beast’s attempts to tear out a piece of his leg muscle, he sat up and rammed the spike of his gauntlet into its side and injected the contents of the venom tank. As an added benefit, the hit caused it to bleat, freeing his leg in the process.

It was a toxin with a meager DPS but a hefty AGI penalty against low Level and/or low END creatures. Between that and the leg injuries, it was having trouble staying on its feet at all while moving. All the rage in the world didn’t do any good when stepping on a shard embedded in your foot wrong robbed the leg’s ability to carry weight.

The other beavergoat was back on the offense swiftly, but with John freed up to put all his focus and strength towards the single enemy, he could make of it a wrestling match where he had all the advantages, then taserpunch the beast into oblivion. In the time it took him to kill one mutant, the other had begun to either shake off the debuff or figure out how to move in spite of it.