Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Why do these attack skills glow when I’ve seen other skills be used and not glow? Like, when Ace uses his wood magic his hands are glowing or anything.’

Ally shrugs, ‘The best people can figure out is that it is related to how the skill is being used. Each of the basic combat skills is meant to jam more power into the attack than is normal. That is why with higher skill levels, the area that glows becomes more constrained. The glow is more of a byproduct, which is why it never goes away. Kind of like how when you heat a metal, the metal will glow.’

Doyle tilts to the other side, ‘Well, what if they hold off on activating the skill until the last moment?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘The reason it takes time to activate is because of the requirement for the power to build up in the first place. I’m sure you’ve seen the gimmick of the one inch punch? It gives the false image of being able to just punch something without any build up. In actuality, to throw a punch like that requires the person to tense their muscles and such. It isn’t pulling extra power out of nowhere.

‘The same is true for any activated skill. You can hold an ax right next to a person and activate a skill for it just the same as the one inch punch. That is, you’ll be holding the ax there for a moment as the skill charges up and then you can cut them.

‘Mind you, the required activation time will shorten, but that tends to also be matched by an increase in the user’s ability to swing their weapon as well. This doesn’t have to be linear, but most likely if a person is able to activate the skill twice as fast, they’re probably also able to swing the ax twice as fast as well.

‘So in a roundabout way, I guess yeah, you could technically activate the skill at the last moment possible. You would just need someone pretty unbalanced for it to matter? Like, the skill will only do so much. There is a reason the timing tends to stay about equal with the swing. The difficulty to increase your strength grows at about the same rate as the difficulty to reduce the activation timing. To focus on one and not the other will just make you weaker than people in a similar place in their training.’

Doyle laughs, ‘I could probably make a monster that can do that. Just pump a bunch of mod points into their starting skill level.’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘We both know you’re joking with that. Yes, you could, but the resources spent wouldn’t be worth it in any way.’

Doyle nods, ‘True enough. Now, back to the other part of the question. How did my kobolds know how to use a bow? They only have the active skill and not some sort of bow use skill.’

Ally, ‘That is easy enough to answer. By making a skill like accurate arrow an innate skill of theirs, you also make the use of whichever weapon they’re using innate as well. It won’t ever be as good as a skill for using a bow, but you could think of it as having level zero in a skill like that. 

‘Useful for you and funny when someone tries to cheat in learning a skill. If someone managed to gain a skill without training, if that skill wasn’t a proficiency skill like bowmanship, they’re going to be lost. Even a skill like accurate arrow can only do so much. It doesn’t matter how accurate the arrow is if when the person releases the arrow it falls off the string.

‘Another example of this is with monsters like your wind wolf. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but their wind blade skill isn’t ever just fired off. It always comes from either their mouth or their claws. If instead they had the wind magic skill, or really any magic skill that would allow the use of wind blade, your wolves would be able to fire off the skill from any direction without needing a source.

‘They would also be able to change the shape of the blade. For that, you can just look at how the core mages in Wolf’s Rest all use that fire ribbon spell. While it probably is an actual spell at this point, it likely just started as some kind of fire blade spell. So with a bit of control and likely a lot of experimentation, Ruby was able to develop an entirely new and more powerful spell off of one of the generic starter spells.’

Doyle, ‘I never really thought about that too much. With the wind wolves, it just seemed natural that it would come off their claws or from their mouth. Though now I want to go and buy them wind magic. If anything, it would probably open up a nice evolution for them. Right now, though, I need to take a closer look at what skills are available for the myconids if I’m going to make them the focus of my tenth floor.’

Doyle is about to turn around and leave when he thinks of something, ‘Would you like to look through the skill list with me?’

Ally had been planning on doing something, but the offer shocked her. The two had mostly been like those friends who sit together and enjoy the silence. Not that she was against working together, in fact as she thinks about it, she decides to give it a try and shakes her head yes.

They both settle down as Doyle pulls up the list and if the kobold list was long, this one was even longer. Though some of that was likely because it has the skill for generating basically every type of spore under the sun and beyond it. There was even a skill that made their generic ‘make more mushrooms’ spores survive in space. Suffice it to say, the two of them got sucked into sorting through that list.

Though they aren’t the only ones looking through system menus. At the settlement up river, Jim has finally managed to get a meeting with Ben. At this point, however, he has had the spark knocked out of him and instead of trying to take control, Jim and his party find Ben sulking in a room, looking through the small list of settlement options. Most of those options, however, are grayed out as he had been forced to transfer control over to the council.

Jim shakes his head, “So are you going to let this place die?”

Ben doesn’t even look up, though his few supporters grimace. One of those supporters steps forward, “We don’t really have any hope? They’ve taken control of the town pretty thoroughly.”

Jim snorts, “Then what are you all doing here? Either move to somewhere actually trying to survive or work on taking it back. That corner over there isn’t going to have the answers. At this point I’m expecting to hear about how this place was wiped out with every new boat that comes down river.”

The supporter laughs, “We set up some decent protection and the town is being supported by the system. About the only thing that would wipe us out would be a civil war and, as your group shows, that would really cut down on the population.”

Jeremy steps up next to Jim and laughs at them. “You think your pre-system junk is going to work? Did the system shop suddenly start selling bullets cheap or something? No, the second any decently defensive monster shows up this whole place is probably done for! The system won’t protect you like you’re expecting it to.”

Ben looks up, “And what do you know? We don’t have many guns, but all the monsters we’ve seen have been either killed or scared off with a shot or two. By the time we start getting low, the council promises the military will be here. Then what? You want us to fight the army?”

Jeremy rolls his eyes, “Do you really believe the army will be coming? At this point, you should have had people from all over filter through your settlement. How is the army even going to gather together in the first place when the system seems to have done an excellent job of mixing everyone up? The only people that end up together are family and not even then sometimes. Though our doctor suspects that it judges that by karmic connections and not your classic who’s married to who nonsense.”

Ben sighs, “Even if that is the truth, so what? I’m sure the system will eventually allow the purchase of bullets, and even if it isn’t going to protect us, it should at least give us access to ammo.”

Jim shakes his head, “The system isn’t there to hold our hands anymore. What being in a settlement protects you from is outside influence, not local monsters or other natives. If you want it to sell you guns and ammo, what you’re going to need to do is upgrade to a town and purchase a gun shop. Ace has access to that option, but it costs a pretty penny and we don’t need it.”

Ben looks up, “Oh, so all they’ll have to do is fully take over the town and then they’ll get their bullets?”

Kelly steps between Jim and Jeremy, putting her hands on their shoulders. They both look at her before nodding. She lowers her hands and focuses on Ben, “Okay, you’re clearly feeling defeated, but I don’t think they’re really impressing upon you how much danger the settlement is in.

“This isn’t some kind of ‘oh no, maybe a dangerous monster will find us’ sort of situation. You have already been found. There is no possibility that even monsters from deeper in the forest don’t know about your location. At the moment, the only thing keeping them in check is the sense of danger they get from humans and those guns the council is so fond of.

“All it will take is some sort of lizard or turtle to break through your defensive line before you get swarmed. Even the monsters that won’t survive a gunshot wound will want to get in on the fun. This settlement is on a clock and at this point I personally am more than willing to leave you here to die.”

From behind the three, Kellinger grumbles, “What happened to the man who was in charge not that long ago?”

Ben waves his panel up onto a nearby wall. “I’m bloody not in charge anymore! Gray option after gray option of things I’ve seceded to the council. Worst of all, though, the people love them! I worked to get everyone ready and now they scoff at me! They laugh at the idea of guns ever not being the absolute king of weapons. Even the idea of running out of ammo doesn’t matter to them as the council has promised the army should be here well before their stock runs out.

“None of them believe me when I tell them we’re almost out of that same ammo. None of them believe me when I say that not all monsters will care about those fancy guns! They don’t want me anymore. Even to the normal people out there, I was just a figurehead. Now that I’ve outlived my usefulness, they don’t need me.”

Jeremy snorts, “So why are you alive? Don’t for a second believe they don’t need you. You’re the uninvolved third party. If you died, they would argue for hours on end about who should take that seat, because let me let you in on a little secret. All those options you handed over to them? You can just remove their permission. There isn’t anything stopping you.”

Akhier

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