Chapter 86: Chapter 86 – Amy: Great plan

As Hugh turned to the blonde to assign her the tank class, I decided he was probably trying to go in order of our becoming system users. That made sense. It was fair.

Of course, his order could also be considered to be his degree of preference for each of us. Which was logical as well.

The blonde made some kind of joke about wearing tank tops and how that qualified her for the position. It wasn’t funny, but I gave polite chuckle. If I was being charitable, I’d say she was trying to lighten the mood. Given her inane questions, though, I worried that, befitting her hair, she was simply a complete moron.

The class gave her one point in constitution, one point in endurance, and one free point, and her skill points were just like Hugh’s, giving her a choice of three out of ten. There were five subclass skills that merited real consideration. First, were two weapon skills, one for longsword and one for shield. Then there were two taunting skills, the core of a tank’s usefulness – Incite, a single target skill that cost stamina to make an opponent really hate the tank with a purple passion, and Anathema, a passive that instilled a dislike toward the tank in all dungeon creatures. Finally, there was Toughened Skin, which made the tank’s skin harder to penetrate, reducing damage taken by one point per hit.

“I think you should go with the two weapon skills and Anathema,” Hugh told her.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “What does Longsword actually do for the party? She’s supposed to be a defense specialist. If she never kills a single opponent, that should be fine, right?”

“Good point,” he said, “but it feels really wrong not to even have a skill for your primary weapon. Julia?”

“I’d rather focus on my core mission. If my job is to make the bad guys dislike me and then take hits, I should use my limited resources to concentrate on just things that help with that.”

To be honest, I didn’t like her all that much based on both my previous experience with girls who she reminded me of and that comment she’d made right after we’d first met when she so gleefully burst my bubble by telling me that I’d have to take my clothes off for Hugh. It was obvious to me that she knew I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, and she had enjoyed sticking the knife in me and twisting.

Even with that being the case, I still couldn’t help but admire her willingness to take hits for the team. Damage dealers were the fun roles in a party. I was really glad I didn’t have to be a heal bot or a tank.

On the other hand, it was easy to stand here in the store and say how committed you are to filling your role. It would be a different thing entirely to actually do it in a dungeon. I just hoped I was wrong about her character.

“Should we go with Shield and the two taunting skills, then?” Hugh asked.

The blonde bit the inside of her cheek. “I was thinking Toughened Skin, maybe? I’m willing to take damage for the team, but reducing the amount of damage seems like a good idea?”

“That makes sense,” he said. “I’d be very tempted to do the same. That means, though, that you have to choose between Incite and Anathema.”

Her health was 235, which seemed extraordinarily high – good for a tank, obviously – and her regen was 28. Per hour. That meant she recovered one health almost every other minute. She could go from near death to fully healed overnight. Her stamina was a bit of a concern, though, lower than both Natalie and Hugh at 115 with a regen of 70.

Incite was a fantastic skill in that it guaranteed that the target mob would immediately switch to attacking her, a huge life saver if any of the rest of us were in trouble, but each instance cost a whopping 25 stamina. Considering that she needed stamina to defend and to swing her sword, she couldn’t exactly spam the skill. That ended up making Anathema the logical choice.

Unlike the others, she didn’t have any free skill points available, so she couldn’t upgrade any of her new abilities. We did, however, have to decide where to spend her free attribute point.

Hugh thought that endurance was the best call as he knew from experience that swinging a sword around took a lot more effort than one would think. There was also the fact that Incite was an obvious future add if eventual subclass level ups provided the option of taking any new combat abilities. She needed to be ready to select it if she got the opportunity.

I thought that CON or END or even AGL, to help dodge some blows, would all be fine choices, so I didn’t voice my opinion. She ended up going with Hugh’s suggestion.

Then it was my turn.

“You should have four free attribute points and four free skill points, right?” Hugh asked.

I nodded.

“Before I send you the archer subclass, do you want to try for any non-combat skills? We’ve had good luck with getting a chance to add Lesser Regeneration by selecting constitution.”

That was tempting. One CON added 20 health and 2 regen, and the skill would add another regen. If we did things right, though, I should remain at a distance and never get hit. Besides, the fact that I was quite unwilling to pursue any more levels in my primary class was a huge hindrance. I need to excel at my core mission to bring value to the party.

I had to admit that charisma was an intriguing possibility as well. Natalie had apparently made herself prettier by upping that stat, which just seemed so incredibly unbelievable to me. I’d been fat and ugly my entire life. Could upping charisma really change that? I had to believe that, given everything else we were discussing, it actually could.

That attribute didn’t help me at all with fighting, though. What would I rather be, pretty and dead or ugly and alive? That choice was probably harder than it should have been.

“I think I’ll stick with only combat skills for now,” I said.

“Min-maxer?”

I wasn’t really, not to the extreme that he was implying, but, with the eyes of all three of them on me, I was feeling more than a little uncomfortable and just wanted to get on with my selections.

I offered up a flippant, “You know it.”

“Understood,” he said. “Your build, your call.”

He sent me the Archer subclass invite, and I accepted, immediately pulling up my status – which, by the way, was such a super cool thing to be able to do that it pretty much made up for the things I’d had to do to gain access to it.

“The subclass added points to agility – I’m guessing to increase my accuracy and/or speed when shooting my bow – and strength – probably to increase draw weight for the bow to increase damage.”

I winced at the low quantities in both my pools. They made sense, of course, in that I had the lowest primary class level of any of them, and I had big fat zeroes in both CON and END. Still, the thought of being so much lower than the others made me feel more than a little trepidation. I’d be dead or worn out a full one third faster than any of them.

Yuck.

If I got down to only five health, it would take me twenty hours to fully regenerate. That was not good.

Yuck again.

“I’m starting with my skills,” I said.

The system was really easy to use. It only took me a second to pull up a list.

“Interesting,” Hugh said after I’d read the choices out to them. “Seems like there are a lot of ranger options. What does Companion do?”

I checked and read it out to him.

“That’s really cool,” he said, “but probably not crucial right now.”

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“Yeah, I think we can also eliminate Woodcraft, Snare, and Tracking at the moment. Like the rest of you, I feel a strong need to concentrate on the core of my class before branching out.”

“So Archery?” he suggested.

“I’m conflicted,” I said honestly. “I already know how to shoot a bow. Would it be a huge mistake not to take that skill?”

Natalie nodded her head vigorously. I hadn’t really interacted with her too much, so I turned my attention to her.

“When we increase an attribute,” she said, “the system appears to bump up our ability based on subjective criteria, not objective. If you fear that taking it will be a waste because it will only convey ability that you already have, I don’t think that’s the case. Instead, my guess is that it will take your current ability as a base and build on it.”

“But you’re not sure of that?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Just a strong feeling.”

“It’s totally your call,” Hugh said, “but I have to agree with Nat on this one. Not taking the primary weapon skill for your class seems…”

“Arrogant?” I supplied. “Stupid?”

He chuckled. “Well, I wasn’t going to actually say that.”

“That’s okay. Point taken. I think it was worth considering, but, given the stakes, it’s probably not worth the risk.”

That decision left me with two slots and five possibilities. I dug down into the descriptions and started eliminating.

Snipe was the first target to get rid of. It increased damage by a very nice twenty percent for the cost of a measly five stamina, and it was stackable with other damage enhancers. The huge downside, though, was that it was only useable as the literal first shot in a battle, and it only applied if our opponents hadn’t noticed me. That was way too situational.

I explained my reasoning, and everyone agreed.

The next to get the ax was Precision. As a passive that increased accuracy, it definitely fell in the nice to have category. Since I was relying on my own ability being enhanced by my new subclass Archery skill, I was going to trust that I could hit targets without any additional modifiers.

As before, the others didn’t object.

That left Quick Draw, a passive that increased my rate of fire with no impact on accuracy; Fast Shot, an active that cost 20 stamina to shoot two arrows in the time it would normally take to get one off but reduced accuracy; and Powershot, an active that increased damage for a single arrow by fifty percent while increasing accuracy but at the cost of 30 stamina.

“I think you definitely take Quick Draw,” Hugh said. “Your stamina pool is too low to support two actives, right?”

“I’ve got five free points. I can stick all or most of them in END.”

“At the expense of your actual core attributes?” He stated it as a question, but I could hear the admonishment in his voice.

“If I take your suggestion,” I said, “that eliminates Fast Shot.”

“Why?” the blonde asked.

“Because we’re likely to encounter two types of situations that put us in danger – a boss where we need each shot to hit and to deliver as much damage as possible and a swarm where I only need a small amount of damage per target but I need to deliver arrows fast. Quick Draw and Fast Shot both really address the swarm concept. Well, being faster still helps with the boss, but you get the point.”

“So, you’ve decided,” Hugh said, “Quick Draw and Powershot?”

“Yeah, and, with my four free skill points, I’m thinking one each to get all of them to Level 2, and, then, for my final extra point…”

I didn’t know. Archery would presumably make me both faster and more accurate. Quick Draw would make me shoot faster, but how much more compared to Archery? And Powershot would hopefully decrease the stamina requirement.

“The way I see it,” Hugh said, “you’re flush on skills and light on stats. I’d used the extra skill point to maybe help with the stats.”

“Powershot is situational, though,” I said.

“True enough.”

“Screw it,” I said. “I’m going to put it into Archery. An across the board advantage is probably my best bet right now. Now I just have to figure out my attributes.”

As much as I hated how low my health pool and its regen were, I only had five points available to spend, and I had bigger priorities. I was really going to have to put my life in the hands of my party, two girls who I’d never even seen before today and a guy I barely knew much better. Great plan.

“I’m going to distribute them between agility, strength, and endurance,” I said, leaving my thoughts about constitution private.

No one said anything, though I could tell that Hugh wanted to. I was pretty sure it was his “your build, your call” philosophy that kept him quiet. For the other girls, I just didn’t think they had the gaming experience necessary to realize the implications of my statement.

Well, Natalie anyway. I didn’t think the blonde cared all that much about me one way or the other.

“Given that one of my skills drains stamina at a fast clip, I think I need to put a minimum of at least two in endurance. That leaves three for my core stats.”

Hugh grimaced, and he was right to. My skills were much more focused than the rest of them, but, pure stat wise, I was going to be, by far, the weakest of them. Even the blonde at only two levels ahead of me seemed in a much better position because all her stats were concentrated in her most important attribute.

“Which is more important – accuracy or damage?” I asked.

Hugh pondered that for a moment. “Hopefully, Level 3 of Archery combined with your years of practice going in will give you a fairly high hit percentage. I’d say you need to emphasize DPS more, especially since I didn’t. That means you’re going to be the heavy hitter in the party.”

That sounded good to me. When I finalized my choices, though, I couldn’t help but feel that leaving attribute points, skill points, and flat increases in both my pools and regens on the table by not leveling up my primary class was a huge mistake.

But leveling meant more embarrassment. I didn’t know if I could do that even though it seemed more and more like my life might depend on it.

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