Gunwitch

“Bogumir,” I yelled, shaking my fist. “Get back here, you little bastard!”

I couldn’t believe he’d really take the first chance he got to escape. Had he been looking for a way out this whole time? I thought we were friends! We’d been bonding, sharing stories about our past lives, our hopes and dreams. What kind of psychopath would just sit there—correction, hang there—and listen and talk and then just bite you in the finger and run at the first opportunity? I thought we were going to free Stvora together! Had it all been a lie?

“You’ll never catch—” Bogumir said, looking back over his shoulder. As soon as he saw me he seemed to forget what he was going to say, tripped over his little feet and stumbled. He tried to catch himself to no avail, and he fell face-first onto the floor.

I calmly walked over, picked him up and made him face me, then shook my head, giving him my most disappointed look.

Bogumir tried to smile, but it made him look scared instead of friendly. “I didn’t mean that, you know, when I called you a stupid bitch.”

I raised an eyebrow. “No, I think you meant it. It felt like you meant it.”

“Yeah… I guess I did,” he said with a guilty face.

“You bit my finger.”

“Yeah…”

“That wasn’t very cool of you, Bogumir.”

“Yeah…”

I sighed, unsure what to do. Should I just hang him from my belt? Would he still count as a [Headhunter] totem if he had a body and arms and legs now? Would I have to pull his whole body off so he’d be just a head again?

I narrowed my eyes at him. That would probably work. no? Pull off his head and just hang him back. He’d probably give better stats. Or… I was getting ahead of myself.

“Were your stats really grayed out?”

He went from guilty to ashamed. “Not really. I just wanted you to believe that so you’d unequip me.”

“You’ve been planning this this whole time?”

“Yup.”

“Hah! Why didn’t you just grow arms and legs in my sleep and run off? I never would have noticed.”

“I wasn’t sure if it would let me break the binding that ties me to you…” He looked to the side. “Also I didn’t think of it.”

“So you can just regenerate your limbs at will now?” If that was true, then pulling his head off wouldn’t matter.

“As long as I have mana.”

“Ugh,” I said, wiping my hand over my face. “I shouldn’t have invited you to the party. I should have known you would betray me.” I turned to Vasil. “Should I turn him into a bullet or should I try to offer him to upgrade to one of my skills?”

“I believe—” Vasil started.

“No!” Bogumir cut in. “I didn’t mean to betray you. I mean, I did, but only because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life hanging from your belt. I still don’t. It’s torture, can’t you see that? I’d gladly be your ally. Just not like that. Not by hanging from your belt.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I can trust you after that. You bit my finger for Goddess sake!”

Kasia gently touched my arm. “Hecate, he’s right, you know. I believe him. I don’t think he will betray us. How would you feel if you were hanging from your belt?”

Like always, Kasia’s kindness gave me pause. And like always, Kasia was right. I’d probably feel pretty bad. Hanging from the belt of the person who bested you probably wasn’t the greatest feeling.

“Fine,” I said. “But no funny business. Can you turn back to your regular size?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Your skill has shrunken me, and I don’t have any that allow me to change size.”

“Guess you better start looking for one then.” I put him down on the ground. “Better?”

He walked in a circle. “Yes. Thank you.”

I pointed at my eyes, then at him. “I’m watching you. One wrong move and you’re dead. You’ve broken my trust. You will have to reearn it.”

“I know,” he said, stretching his back. “I won’t let you down. Or Kasia.”

“Alright then. I guess I should equip a new head.”

Now that I didn’t have Bogumir anymore, I was out 7 Strength and Attunement. I should probably use one of the heads that gave Strength, since I already had plenty of Attunement. I mean, you could never have enough Attunement, but I had very little Strength, so that was more important. That left the Bear, Mateusz, and Vulkan as replacements for Bogumir.

I pulled the three of them out and inspected them.

[Headhunter - Bear]

Weapon modification:

+100% Damage

+5% Critical Hit Chance

-25% Weapon weight

Gear modification:

+15 Strength

+20% Physical Resistance

[Headhunter - Mateusz Brodzka, Fighter]

Weapon modification:

+5% Damage per successful hit for 10 seconds. Stacks 5 times.

+5% Attack speed per successful hit for 10 seconds. Stacks 5 times.

+5 Strength

+5 Dexterity

Gear modification:

+5 Strength

+5 Dexterity

+15% Physical Resistance

+10% Movement Speed

[Headhunter - Vulkan Kaminski, Lithomancer]

Weapon modification:

You may increase the size of projectiles fired by you based on your Strength.

+0 Strength. Scales with Earth Resistance

+5 Attunement

+10% Mana Regeneration

Gear modification:

+7.5 Strength. Scales with Earth Resistance

+5 Attunement

+15% Fire Resistance

+15% Earth Resistance

The bear was a solid stat boost, and the Physical Resistance would no doubt help me. Mateusz gave less Strength and Physical Resistance, but also gave Dexterity and Movement Speed. Vulkan seemed the least useful at the moment. I reminded myself I still had three stat points from gaining that level, which made Mateusz look even better.

After some consideration I put three points in Strength and hung Mateusz from my belt. That left me with one more point of Strength than I had before Bogumir, and five more Dexterity. The loss of Attunement was whatever. The extra speed I gained from that may be minor compared to haste, but it was permanent as long as the head was equipped. It also didn’t cost any mana. If someone shot one of my limbs off I could always reattach Bogumir. At least I hoped I could.

I clapped my hands. “Great. Vasil, can you release one of each hand I acquired? I’m going to try and upgrade [Forged Credentials] and I want to see if any of them might be of use.”

Vasil spit out all the hands I requested and I opened [Forged Credentials].

[Forged Credentials]

Type: Toggle

Reality is whatever you say it is. Want to be [Classless] again? Or a [Mayor]? You could even pretend to be a [Saint]!

Change your displayed Class into something of your choosing. Low mana cost.

Huh. I could have sworn the description said something different last time. Oh well. Who cares? Not me. I decided to test if Ambelios would take the flower since I already knew Mēnē would accept the hands.

[Forged Credentials - Upgrade Preview]

Offering: [Empty]

Offering: [Zwotokapka - Flower]

Resulting Modifiers:

This skill is now significantly more effective. Perception checks against your class have a higher chance to fail during sundown.

Off to a good start, and I had five hands to choose from.

The first one belonged to Jerzy Ruta, the [Kinetist]. I actually had his head hanging from my main revolver. It allowed me to mentally influence the path of projectiles I fired and gave Attunement and Mana Regeneration. Now that was very good, but would it be good here?

My mind drifted toward [Generous Gift]. What if I used his hand to upgrade that instead? Would it increase the amount I was able to manipulate projectiles I fired with every kill? Would I get extra Attunement and Mana Regeneration per kill? I should definitely check that out just to be sure.

What if I offered the Blessing of the Firemind amulet in the other slot? Would the amount of Mana I recovered per kill go up every kill? And would I gain even more Attunement per kill?! What about the Russet Damage Conversion ring? If I got 1% more of my damage converted to Barrier per kill, eventually every shot could possibly refresh my entire [Mana Shield]. This made me very excited, and I almost opened [Generous Gift], but remembered what I was doing. I was going to upgrade [Forged Credentials], not [Generous Gift]… yet.

I put Jerzy's hand aside. I wasn’t going to waste him on [Generous Gift], not even despite having two of them. Being able to control my bullets mid-air was simply too valuable. I was certain the other one would be of use in a similar way in the future.

The first hand I checked in combination with the flower used to belong to Vulkan Kaminski, [Lithomancer]—the guy that threw the flaming boulders at my face.

Resulting Modifiers:

This skill is now significantly more effective. Perception checks against your class have a higher chance to fail during sundown. Effectiveness scales with your Fire and Earth Resistance.

This turned out to be a very good one. My Fire Resistance was currently at 92, and while the System didn’t explain the exact scaling, I assumed that was a good thing. I didn’t have any Earth Resistance, and that was unfortunate, but my significantly high Fire Resistance probably made up for that.

The second hand used to be attached to Bogumir’s tank—Sambor Kurek, the [Tvardziel].

Resulting Modifiers:

This skill is extremely effective as long as you have a barrier up. When you do not have a barrier this skill is still significantly more effective compared to the base version. Effectiveness scales with the amount of barrier you have left. Perception checks against your class have a higher chance to fail during sundown.

Alrighty. This one was even better since [Mana Shield] technically counted as a barrier as well and my mana pool was large, and would only continue to grow larger as I leveled up. It would also mean I was less item-dependent, because most of my Fire Resistance came from my gear and there was no guarantee I wouldn’t find anything better. Attunement was something I needed for literally everything, so that would always be on my stuff. Vulkan was out. Sambor took the lead.

Next up was Irena Kopel, [Stormstrider], and if you thought about it, the one who set everything in motion back at the Tail End. If she hadn’t threatened Kasia, all of them would probably still have been alive (because I probably wouldn’t have had to kill them). She had some kind of lightning build and had foolishly not invested enough points into Stamina, causing her to exhaust herself during our fight. I made a mental note to invest some more points in Stamina so I wouldn’t end up earless and headless like her. And I guess also handless.

Resulting Modifiers:

This skill is now significantly more effective. Perception checks against your class have a higher chance to fail during sundown. Anyone who attempts to inspect your Class will receive lightning damage. The amount of damage is based on the difference in levels between you two. The lightning damage has a 20% chance to deal critical damage. The lightning damage has a 50% chance to stun.

This would be good as a trap, but not very good for someone who wanted to be inconspicuous. Someone like me. If everyone who inspected my Class got zapped to death that would surely raise questions and put unwanted attention on me. My beauty was a good distraction. People falling over dead for trying to spot my class was a bad distraction. Still something to keep in mind though, if there ever came a time I no longer needed to hide. Then it would be a pretty nifty trick.

Last, but hopefully not least, was the hand of Leopold Suchy, [Galeblade]. The dirty bastard that kept blowing sand in my face to blind me. Which he did. Successfully, I might add. Such a cheap move.

Then I remembered I’d also thrown sand in Vulkan’s face to blind him, but that was different. I wasn’t a dirty bastard. Vulkan deserved it. He tried to kill a child. Well, maybe he was trying to kill me, but there was still a child right there that he could have killed. He was lucky all I did was throw sand in his face. Okay, maybe he wasn’t lucky because I also killed him and turned his head into a totem. But he also deserved that. I also cut off his hands, but he also deserved that. Point is I wasn’t a bastard. Or dirty. Or a combination of the two.

Anyway. Time to check what this upgrade would do.