Laura examined her character one more time.

She would be a Lioness; a Leonin, with a long mane of reddish-blond hair, a golden furred body and a cute nose and whiskers combination on her face, complete with rounded ears sticking up and out of the sides of her head.

The Leonin had the best combination of strength and dexterity, being one of the rare legacies where you could get both without having to sacrifice something else in exchange. It had the heightened senses legacy perk, which would help keep track of enemies and to avoid the downsides of being blinded. And, of course, it had reach; something that a lot of players didn’t fully account for.

The whole package was wrapped up in the monk set for optimal freedom of movement, modified with a second layer of leather for extra padding in those soft spots where it wouldn’t get in the way.

Laura had tried a lot of different builds during the beta, but the one she had settled on for release was something a little different from the norm. She was pretty sure she had cracked the ideal combination for PVP...at least in theory. This was a build that would allow her to show off the full extent of her skills. Probably.

Running an untested build had risks. But, well, part of the fun was in finding out, right?

 - - -

Laura spawned in the junkyard, within sight of Newbie Town, which was her first destination. The beta tester rewards were all designed to compliment their beta builds, which in Laura’s case made her’s mostly useless. Mostly. It was still worth a good amount of gold. More than enough to fill herself out with a set of starting weapons. And on the way there?

She sniffed at the air, then ran to the nearest slime, it’s acrid smell leading her to it before it had fully emerged. Her Skill Trees didn’t actually give her a real weapon; just a brass lamp post of all things. She could certainly kill the slime with that, but she’d rather try out one of the other perks of her legacy pick; claws!

Normally she wouldn’t be able to make hand to hand worth a damn without the appropriate skill tree, but built in legacy weapons trumped that nonsense! And what’s more, they’d scale with her stats as she leveled up. Sure, they weren’t as good as a properly chosen weapon, but they more than sufficed against a low level mob. And as a bonus, they even had some pretty good techs! Although the unlock conditions for those were pretty harsh, so that was more of a long term bonus.

Laura swiped her hands one after the other, raking her claws through the slime. Each pass carried droplets of slimy grossness away from its main body and threw it back and away from the Lioness. A few more rakes was all it took to finish off the monster before it even had a chance to counter attack. A beginner might struggle with an enemy like this, but a quick barrage of attacks would usually kill it before it had the chance to counterattack.

Laura flashed her teeth, then moved on to the next slime.

 - - -

A quick shopping trip later and Laura was heading out of town, this time towards the forest. She had killed enough slimes on the way in to get just a couple levels. Enough, in fact, to start off her build, if only just. Ideally she would have killed 3 dozen total, but the bare minimum for her plans was 28 and she got just north of 30 of them.

Slimes just weren’t worth that much XP.

She also collected slime drops while she was there for another project. It wouldn’t be something she’d be able to work on for quite some time, but it was good to have long term goals and less grinding later was always nice.

So she walked into the woods, a plain short spear in one hand and a sword in the other.

Two of her skill trees were at work here. The Weaponmaster tree, which allowed her to use any weapon (with the notable exceptions of magic and unarmed) at the cost of not having access to the more specialized skills which were on the individual weapon trees. With it she could use pretty much any weapon she wanted and adjust her build on the spot for any situation. It also had one other very important skill which she couldn’t yet make use of, but it was the lynchpin to her whole build. 

Then there was the multifight skill tree. It let her use two weapons at once, and eventually more than that at high enough levels. It also had a smattering of other skills which loosened the restrictions on what weapons she could use, when and how, but the important star of the tree was an innocent little skill called quick draw, which allowed her to do just that. As long as she had a free hand, she could instantly pull a weapon out of her inventory and equip it. And Laura had a full set of different weapons in there.

The forest had quite a lot of different monsters in it, some of which she avoided and many of which she hunted when given the chance, but her main target for this session were the Hedge-Hogs. Dog-Sized pig-like monsters, with bark for skin and backs covered in green, needle-like thorns. They smelled faintly of pine and tree sap, which made them hard to pick out by scent in the newbie woods that took after the Pacific Northwest, but they were also quite loud, and they tended to move around in small groups.

Laura caught the first one by surprise, stabbing forward with the spear in her right, sword pointed forward and down to skewer the next monster that tried to charge her. The spear was ideal for attacking these monsters. It had a good balance of power and reach which allowed her to mostly ignore their thorns, without having trouble piercing their tough barky hides. A boaring spear would have been better still, but these ‘hogs were too small for one to be required, their tusks only about pinecone sized and not especially sharp compared to their backs.

A twist, pull, and second stab finished off her first mark, while the others started raking the ground and facing her. Laura pulled back again and readied her spear, holding it above her head and pointing down, facing a different monster than her sword.

She approached, one step forward, two to the side, slowly circling her prey even as she drew closer to it. One charged. She stabbed forward. Spear head found shoulder where the monster had turned in an attempt to crash into Laura with its thorn-covered back. Its body continued to twist and threatened to pull her with it, so she let go of the spear and stepped to the side, slash its face as they passed by.

Laura threw her sword towards the next nearest monster; they were all getting ready to charge her now, and pulled a long spear out of her inventory, holding it in both hands and bracing herself on one knee. The next hog gorged itself on her spear, but as she predicted it lacked the momentum to carry itself down the shaft. Instead she used its spin against it and, on the end of her shaft, slammed the monster into the one beside it, finishing it off by impaling it on the thorns of its fellow. Letting go of the spear, a hatchet appeared in her hand. One powerful chop to the right place was enough to end the monster trapped under the dead one.

Only one Hedge Hog was left and Laura readied herself for it. Another weapon, a gun with a wide, short barrel, appeared in her right hand. She rested the barrel on her left forearm and breathed in.

Half breath out.

And squeeze.

A small explosion detonated in front of the barrel, showering the last monster with shrapnel. The scatter gun was probably the most powerful starting weapon in the game, but it was considered impractical by most. Second worst accuracy of any ranged weapon after the Tesla Gun and the worst reload speed by far. The way Laura saw it, people just didn’t care to experiment to find it’s true potential. True, it wasn’t ideal for clearing out a dungeon, but it shined in any scenario where you didn’t need to worry about reloading after setting it off.

Laura let out a deep breath and went about collecting and reloading her weapons. Unfortunately quick draw did not mean quick put-away. Ah well. It gave her a chance to wind down after a fight.

Now then. three or four more groups like that one should just about do it. She had an area boss to slay!

Kaosubaloo

Sorry for the long wait on this one! Partially it was from normal holiday nonsense, but no joke I spent a month and a half trying to force a chapter that just did not want to be written. Lesson learnt on that one.

Anyway! It's going to be regular updates until the end so I hope you enjoy!

And hey, tired of waiting and want to read the whole thing right now? The entire third arc is available right now on My Patreon!

Last of all my quarterly recommendation: Dissonance is a very good story about a girl figuring out that she's a girl while also dealing with an estranged father and the imminent leaving of her brother. Oh, and she also sometimes turns into a fox girl with fire magic. Basically it's a good time with an interesting premise and the promise of more revelations to come.

Five out of Five Raccoon Girls! Give it a try~