As we walked towards the south, I changed my titles around, experimenting with every combination of prefix and suffix I got with my new title, but nothing came of it. [Spawn Seeker], on the other hand, was nice, giving me a radar showing mob spawn locations as the grand title effect, alongside two prefix and two suffix effects - though both prefix effects kinda sucked, and one of the suffix effects was very conditional, the other suffix effect was insanely good, increasing my visual acuity, and thus the range I could shoot from effectively.
Along the way, I used the spawn radar to find a newly spawned flockatrice, and promptly slaughtered it with a six-hit Astra. What I learned from that test is that it summons some illusory swords that follow different paths, and I can, to some extent, control those paths. Each sword is independent when it comes to crits, as the first, fourth, and sixth hits were crits but the other three weren’t. Finally, the damage reduction multiplier seems to be about 50%, given how much damage a single hit did compared to a non-astra hit - although the comparison isn’t exactly fair, due to the difference in swordfaire multipliers between Swordmaster and Stardust Swordmaster.
“Well, we’re here. Now we just need to find a few armored boars - err, wait, what’s the drop rate on pig iron?”
“Why are you asking me? I’ve never hunted armored boars. I was an alchemist, not a blacksmith, I never had to work with iron. Lead and gold, yes, iron, almost never. When I did, it was just applying coatings to already formed items”
“Well then... I hope it’s not too low. If it’s much lower than 50%, it’ll be hell to gather all 10. We also should gather some oinkmint extract while we’re here, in case that’s one of the optional materials”
“Yeah... but how many will he want?”
“It’s an uncommon item, so I’d say it’s not likely to need much more than the pig iron. 15 should be enough”
“Sounds like a good target to shoot for - and speaking of targets to shoot, is that an armored boar over there?”
It indeed was, and a level 19 one at that, but my shot did literally no damage due to the naturally-grown plate armor the boar was covered by. It was too far away to actually hear it, but I could swear I heard a comical *dink* sound when my arrow bounced off the boar’s neck.
“Uhh... how are we supposed to kill that thing?”
“Maybe it doesn’t have any on its belly or something? We could look it up...”
“Or, as a quick test, you could flip it over, or perhaps even skewer it with an earth spike”
“Yeah, true. Can you make it stay still for a moment after it gets close?”
“Sure, since my bow is useless, I’ll switch to my swords”
I said that, but before I put away my bow, I shot one more arrow to get its attention. Hotrings are nice, allowing me to put my bow away instantly so I could draw my swords before it got close. Once it did, I lept to the side so it charged past me, and when it stopped to turn around, I closed the gap, not giving it time to get up to speed. At that point, I could parry it with a well-timed slash, keeping it confined to a small region. A few exchanges passed, and then the boar squealed as it was lifted into the air by the quickly growing stalagmite that penetrated its unarmored underside.
“It really worked, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. But now we have a proto-pork kebab to which we can do whatever we want. First on the menu, a better Astra test”
“Go for it, the spike will last for a few minutes if you don’t hit it directly”
[-17]
{-119}
[-24]
[-21]
Four hits, roughly 20 damage on average. Not the best, but then again, I can’t crit it easily, so the damage in the high double digits or low triple digits I got used to just... isn’t gonna happen, despite my now 7x crit multiplier (but only for sword attacks, arrows are still 5x). Next, I tried a few non-Astra hits, and... well, it died to the second one, so not much info I could get from that.
[-38]
[-40]
What I did glean is that the reduction is somewhere around 40 to 60 percent, meaning, yeah, a 3 hit minimum is still a net damage increase, though not one worth 15 MP if you get minimum hit count and max damage reduction - that’s a 20% damage boost, vs 30% from Sol or Luna, which cost less MP and have another effect. 4 or 5 hits is more worth, 60% to 200% more damage, and 6 or 7 hits is definitely worth it. 7 hits at 40% reduction is 320% extra damage.
“Hey Gaia, why is there a spider here?”
“There’s a what?”
“A spider, like the ones in the starfall forest”
“Speckled, Star, Sky, Shooting Star? What kind of spider?”
“I don’t know, I just see a spider over there”
I looked where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was a lone spider just barely visible off in the distance.
“Let’s go investigate, maybe it’s a quest trigger”
“Ooh, that’d be nice, though we don’t have much time to do another quest right now”
She was right, but we still chased it down, and were rather disappointed in what we found. No quest, not a boss, not even much of a variant, but at least it was a rare type and a decently high level.
|
Meteor Shower Spider [Elite] {Wanderer} Level 17 HP 819/819 MP 394/394 Skills: Web Shot IV Remarks: “Having lost its queen, the clan was forced from its territory and fled in all directions” |
As with the Sky Spider Queen before, it had a tag we’d never heard of, this time, the {Wanderer} tag.
“By the way, you said you were going to look up that {Evolvable} tag, what came of that search?”
“Uhhh... I forgot”
“Gai~a... please be more mindful of what people expect from you, and at least follow through on your promises”
“A lot happened in a short time period, and also, shouldn’t we take down this spider before we talk?”
I said that, but even before she asked about the tag, she and I had already been attacking the spider, and at that point it’d been cut to about half HP. That’s when I realized it’d be perfect for Astra tests, and tried to activate both Astra and Luna at the same time, which instantly emptied its remaining HP bar. There were some interesting drops, Artemis traded an earring to me that had the Hawkeye skill attached to it, and I tried to trade her some gear, most of it she accepted, but one she refused with a laugh.
“What do you mean, I should have this one? It doesn’t fit with my gear, and you don’t have anything in that slot, right? Put it on yourself!”
“But... I don’t need one. I don’t care if you sell it or toss it in your storage, I’ve never worn one and I’d rather not wear one ever in my life”
“Are bras really that scary to guys? Just try putting it on, I don’t even know if the game would let someone who apparently has a male character wear a bra”
“I... okay, I am actually kinda curious about that too... maybe it’ll auto-resize to fit a flat-as-a-board guy since males generally don’t have boobs”
“Oooh, you’re right... that’d be interesting... and painful. Well, try it, try it! Go on, strip!”
It sounded weird, but it was a not-incorrect term for what I proceeded to do while she faced the other way - hide my armor, take off my shirt, and shiver due to the cold air on my bare skin. I then tried to put on the new drop, and...
“Artemis? I... I don’t know how to put this on”
“Oh for the love of... where are the attachment points, and what type are they?”
“That’s the thing, I can’t figure that out”
“Alright, I’ll help, embarrassing as it is”
“I’m the one embarrassed by being topless, you just have to look at me. If the roles were reversed-”
“Don’t you dare fucking finish that sentence”
“Sorry, sorry”
With some help, I was now sporting a pair of black spiderwebs as the censorship the game forgot to impose initially, with precisely zero support due to being self adhesive, no straps or structure. As Artemis would later point out, technically these are very large pasties that cover more than just the tip, though most of it is effectively lace.
Oh, and for the record, they did change in size to be larger than they started.
|
[Wandering Webs] - Uncommon Level: N/A Weight: Negligible Class modifiers: None Physical strength: None Magical strength: None Additional effects: Changes size to fit wearer Remarks: "Be careful, this silk undergarment has a mind of its own, doesn’t like to stay in one place, and might move elsewhere at inopportune times. Other than that, I hear the feeling is indescribably pleasant" |
The remarks were correct, I couldn’t explain how or why, but it did feel really good to wear. The closest I can describe is the feeling of having some moisturizer on dry skin, cool, soothing, and slightly moist but not in a gross way.
What I wasn’t prepared for was to feel the webs move around on their own once I put on my shirt. I shrieked involuntarily, flailing my arms around a bit. It didn’t feel bad, just weird.
“Gaia? What happened?”
“The webs... they moved”
“Like they slid down?”
“No, like an octopus lifting a few tentacles at a time to walk along the ocean floor, it mostly just rotated in place but still like what the fuck”
“You wanna take ‘em off?”
“I... let’s see if I can get used to this. If I can get used to this, I’ll be able to wear anything”
“I’m not sure I follow the logic, but sure”
I said that, but it was barely ten minutes later when I stopped mid-fight (hacking away at another pork kebab) to remove my shirt and the web bra, because they started to curl and contract, squeezing my breasts in a way that reminded me of what I did when I was first, uh, experimenting with my new avatar. It was quite pleasant, but very distracting.
“These pervy-ass devs! What were they thinking? How is this game not an eroge? How is it rated Teen?”
Having cursed the developers a bit, I continued killing the boar, and began walking towards the next one before Artemiss reminded me I was once again topless. Wordlessly fixing that, I marched towards another pre-prepared boar skewer to vent my anger. That being said... I didn’t throw away the webs, I simply stored them for potential use on a later date. What I’d use them for, I had no idea at the time, but...
[Chapter 6: Boars and Bras - fin]
