Azure: Gunner

“Right on my friends! That’s the good shit right there, love me some One Thing More!

“Now, before we get back to the album, I’ve got a little news update for y’all. I saw my man DV the other day, and he told me that the case he was working on is a dead fucking end! Listen up, y’all – DV ain’t no slouch! He’s the best in the biz, and if he can’t find nothing then you better believe there ain’t shit to find.

“Them kids are gone, and that is some heavy shit right there. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it now, we might live in the greatest city in America but that don’t mean it’s all sunshine and rainbows, ya dig? Y’all stay safe out there!”

- DJ Demophon Kerner, on K-RAD LA, August 6th, System Year 453

I left the Blacksmith’s shop about an hour later, my account slightly lighter and my Inventory much heavier. I’d ended up buying three pounds of scrap nails, and ten pounds of solid iron balls. Stenson had measured the diameter of my blunderbuss – 2.5” at mouth and 1.33” further down. I had him measure my shotgun too out of curiosity – it was only a little under ¾”. Half an inch didn’t sound like that big of a difference, but it really was.

He’d forged a set of spheres to the near-exact size surprisingly fast. Each projectile weighed nearly a third of a pound, much heavier than even my slugs had been. I’d flat out refused to shoot him with one of those, but he’d made me promise to come back sometime and tell him how they worked.

He’d even been muttering about various different ideas he had for other things my blunderbuss could fire when I left. Apparently, being a small-town Blacksmith was pretty boring, making the same things over and over again. Either way I was happy, since he’d only charged me four eagles for everything.

Leyla had slipped out part of the way through, and I found her and everyone else still at the A-Z. The Ice Mage was complaining that H’ruk’s new armor covered up all of his muscles. At least she was consistent in her preferences, I had to give her that much. I saw my friend’s face flushed slightly darker than normal, and decided to wait until later to warn him about her predatory ways.

My Squad looked quite different than when I’d left. Everyone had picked out – or was trying on – new armor for their current Level. In the end, Jayce and the orcs decided to bypass Level 6 gear in favor of picking up nicer Level 7 sets. Nothing Samuel had was big enough to fit the orcs ‘off the rack’, as he described it, so they just picked out the sturdiest light armor available for H’ruk and medium-light for G’hala. When attached to their baselayers, the pieces would stretch to fit their frames, getting thinner to do so.

According to Samuel, even though it would lose some protective value in the process, it would still be tougher than their old Level 3 armor. And since it was in the normal ‘human’ style, it would better cover their arms and legs. Leyla wasn’t the only one to complain about that, as H’ruk insisted that bare arms were the tradition of the Ironhides, but he relented when I reminded him that he didn’t have to wear all the components.

While they picked out the rest of the stuff they wanted, I sold Samuel my quiet steps and lightweight mods and asked for a sampling of Level 0 weapons mods for my blunderbuss. I had to go through two racks – twenty mods – to find a self-repair one, but I wasn’t too upset because I also found another ghost ring sight mod. Now my weapon had proper sights, which I clearly didn’t need for the nails but I hoped would be useful for the solid iron shot.

Amusingly, instead of a paired front sight appearing along with the ghost ring, a sharp notch was cut out of the flared muzzle instead. To aim it, I’d have to line up the top of the notch with the center of the ring. I wasn’t sure how accurate it would be, but it was certainly better than guesswork.

There were a few others in the twenty that I would have been excited about back in the Tutorial, but a Level 0 Fire Damage mod promising ‘marginal’ added fire damage didn’t seem like it would be worth it. A ‘marginal’ amount of damage was at most 5% according to our classes, and it only worked up to the Level of the mod.

In other words, putting a Level 0 damage mod on a Level 0 weapon would add around 5% damage according to ‘science’. Putting it on a Level 7 weapon, however, would only add 5% of the damage of a Level 0 version of that weapon. Basically useless, even if it sounded cool.

When I asked Samuel for possible armor upgrades, he shrugged.

“Honestly Azure, you’re wearing the best set of Level 5 medium-light that I’ve had in a while. I can get you something else, but even my Level 8 options aren’t going to add a huge amount of protection. Normally I recommend upgrading armor every 3-4 Levels when possible, but you can stretch that to 5 as a ranged fighter.”

I nodded, disappointed, but he quickly continued.

“Now, I won’t pretend to know what’s going on up at the school, but I’ve overheard your team talking as if more Levels are coming their way soon. I’ll tell you what, I have a couple sets of Level 10 medium-light that are quite sturdy, if less attractively finished compared to your current gear. If you want to invest a bit early, I’ll give you a discount on one of them if you buy today.”

“Uh, that sounds very nice, but can I ask why?” I responded, unsure if I wanted to get that far ahead of myself. The Merchant gave me a wide, honest smile. At least, it seemed like a super-honest smile. I trusted Samuel. Mostly.

“You wound me, dear Azure! And what if I said it was because you’re one of my favorite customers?” he asked.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’d ask how many favorite customers you have!” I retorted, and he chuckled, then sobered.

“All of them, of course! But alas, I’m sure you can imagine that business has been… significantly impacted by the situation at the school. And I’m afraid I’ve heard nothing from the Academy about when it might reopen. I was pleasantly surprised to see your two Squads today, but your team already told me that the rest of the students remain in the city.

“Ah, but I’ve gone off a tangent. Simply put, I’m thinking of closing up the shop for a while. I’ve some family in LA, and I haven’t seen them in years. Can’t think of a time when I’ll have a better chance. So, can I interest you in a little look? Surely you can do that for your friend Samuel?”

I laughed, but of course I agreed. It couldn’t hurt to look, right?

The Merchant led me over to the other side of the store. About two-thirds of the first floor was Tier 0 gear, with the remaining third being Tier 1. My eyes definitely didn’t widen as I took in the two sets of Level 10 medium-light armor sitting on adjacent stands. They both looked awesome. Both were badass and much less ornate than what I was now wearing.

The first set was made of quadrosaur leather. I was interested both by the idea of wearing the hide of a beast like the one that had nearly killed me and my team, and by the way it looked. It still had scales on the leather, mostly along the outer sides of the thighs and on the vambraces! It came with a sturdy, if plain, steel cuirass and helm.

The other set was Army surplus ‘scout armor’, according to Samuel. Unlike the brown-and-tan camouflage of the soldiers I’d met before, this one was patterned in mottled black and grey. The finish covered the entire set, including the metal cuirass and helm along with the thick leather which was taken from a Tier 1 trihorn. I loved the way the paint gave it a menacing but practical look. Samuel saw my eager look and chuckled.

“Like the colors, do you? It came to me in standard Army tan, so I had it re-colored to what I thought was a more Delver-appropriate look.”

Then he started telling me about the pros and cons of each, but I cut him off, wanting to know how much they cost before we went any further.

“Azure, these are my two finest sets of Level 10 medium-light. I have a few others in storage, but I keep the best on display. Normally, I wouldn’t let either go for less than fifty eagles.”

My eyes widened, and he hurried on before I could object.

“As a special, one-time offer for one of my favorite customers, I’ll let you walk out of here with one of them for just forty eagles!”

“That’s quite a nice deal,” a voice noted from behind me, and I turned to find Squad Excel’s Arbalist standing there. “Seems like your Squad will be passing us up soon,” he added.

I shrugged uncomfortably, remembering that he had just reached Level 9. “It’s all up to Thompson,” I said finally, and he chuckled, assuring me that he wasn’t holding the situation against us.

In the end I walked out with the set of scout armor stuffed into my Inventory. According to Samuel, it was slightly less tough than the quadrosaur leather but offered better mobility. My decision definitely didn’t come down to the fact that the scout armor came with combat boots nearly identical to the ones I currently wore.

As we met up with the rest of Squad Excel – some of them had run off to the saloon for a beer – I made a quick excuse to my team and stepped back into A-Z for one last thing. It only took a minute, and then I was back out, catching up with the group as they started to wander out of town.

I’d spent nearly fifty eagles in just part of an afternoon, but hey, I’d gotten a Level in Inventory in the process. Totally worth it. Unfortunately, while my teammates had been able to buy a bit of extra ammunition for their pistols, Samuel didn’t have any of the significantly less-common 454 Casull or 410 bore shotshells that would fit my Adjudicator.

As we left town, heading back to the Academy, I marveled at how weird it was to see Tara and Arlo both wearing plain armor. Tara had sold her Level 2 plate to Samuel, apparently unhappy with the offered price but still taking it. I’d overheard Samuel explaining to her that the armor would have to go back to LA to fetch a decent price – no one in Backhorn could afford it.

Even when the Academy re-opened any student rich enough to buy her plate would already have their own. Now she was wearing a plain set of Level 6 steel, much like any of the other recruits might have. Arlo had held on to his polished black leather, planning to take it home for a younger sister that I hadn’t even known existed until that moment.

He’d ended up with a relatively simple set of brown leather, studded with small metal plates over vital areas. None of us had spent anything close to the amount of money that Thompson had given us, even though some of my team had sampled and purchased new mods as well.

We had stopped by Esther’s shop, intending to see if she had any more Spell gems, but it was getting late and the store was closed, so we headed back to the Academy. I was shocked that I’d managed to spend half of Thompson’s eagles already – even if Esther had been in, I wouldn’t have been able to afford a new Spell gem.

Then we had a few days of hard training to get used to our new gear. I tried out my blunderbuss with the solid shot on the training dummies, and the results were impressive, to say the least.

Roughly ten mana was enough to blow right through the torso of one of the clay-like targets. When I used the full twenty, it punched a hole large enough to stick my entire arm into – with my armor on. And got me yelled at. And I lost the iron ball, or maybe it disintegrated on impact. Also, the recoil nearly knocked me on my ass, but only nearly, because I was badass enough to handle it. Barely.

I also discovered that the accuracy was even worse than I’d expected. At twenty-five yards, I managed to hit one of the man-sized targets, though the point of impact was at least twelve inches away from where I’d aimed. At thirty-five yards, I missed completely, unable to even tell where the ball had flown off to.

I pretty much stopped practicing with it at that point – it was never going to be accurate, and I’d be lucky to use more than one shot in a fight. Not to mention that I could only fire five full-power shots total before completely draining my mana. It was still awesome.

My steady shot mod proved to be, well, slightly helpful. Not nearly as exciting as my massive cannon, but possibly more useful than quiet steps. I left it equipped for now.

My team was enjoying their new weapons as well. G’hala’s spear absolutely shredded the target dummies, but it took a full ten minutes for the head to re-form afterward. The similarities with my blunderbuss were interesting – both weapons were essentially one-shots. Mine had the advantage that I could use it more than once in a row, but G’hala’s didn’t require her to dump twenty mana into it for best results.

Then there was Raylan, who was now constantly practicing his knife-throwing skills. He even got a Skill for it, which I definitely wasn’t jealous of. I had plenty of Skills of my own to practice. He’d picked up a keen edge mod for the knives, but while I wouldn’t want to get hit with one – at least not with my barrier down – they weren’t incredibly powerful or anything. The good news was that he could use them far more frequently than our other new weapons, and they were great for training.

Five days later, we went back into the dungeon.