Unforeseen path, p.9
Unforeseen Path, page 9
“No, not really. No one was ever stupid enough to do something like that,” Töten said with a shrug. As Phoenix and I rolled our eyes at the comment, he quickly switched gears, “If you’re done looking, we’ve got places to go and people to kill.”
“Yeah, we’ve seen enough,” I said, after getting nods back from my companions, “Lead on oh Lord of Darkness.”
“Funny, isn’t that closer to your title?” Töten asked, snorting at the Legend’s reference, “Besides, that pussy only wishes he looked this cool.” Whirling his mount around, the Anti-Paladin raised his hammer into the air and bellowed. “Now, let’s ride!”
“This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?” Phoenix asked, watching the pair ride down the slope onto the plains.
“You’re saying that like it’s something new,” Neristhana chortled as the Barbarian grimaced.
“Just think how much you’re riding skill is going to level up today,” I laughingly said, nodding to them both as Neysa leaped down the hill after Töten while the mass of Ghouls moved out to screen our flanks.
“Ayeiii!” Neristhana screamed as she clicked her heels into her Palnisdale Mount’s side and leaped after us.
“I’m just thinking how sore I’m going to be tonight,” Phoenix complained as she urged her mount into a trot.
This trip across the grassy plains was going to be vastly different this time around. While we’d seen a number of monster herds in the distance, they’d actually run away from us before the raid had gotten close enough to get a good look at them, let alone cast an Identify. It wasn’t that particularly surprising given that the monsters had mostly been in the level 30 to 40 range and our raid had outnumbered and out-leveled them so completely. The handful of level 45 to 50 monsters who hadn’t run we’d handled without breaking a sweat. Even so, I didn’t particularly want to waste time by running afoul a pride of Elite Dire Frost Tigers or a pack of Elite Spiked Plain Hunters.
Now though, I could see there were many herds moving around the grassy fields in the distance, and this time, none of them seemed overly concerned about our presence. As we looked down at where the horde had stomped a path through the snow-encrusted plain, I was stunned to see numerous Steel Wool Sheep, Black Fang Rams, and Cobalt Antler Caribou herds eagerly consuming the remains of the Orc corpses that had been left behind by the Crevice of Shadows monsters. These most definitely weren’t the herbivores of Earth but omnivorous monsters that had no problems eating a free meal of opportunity. As Töten led us down the slope to the plain, an eager squeal caught me by surprise as two Ghouls suddenly went charging ahead of us.
“Steel Wool Sheep!” Neristhana shrieked in excitement as she spurred her mount into a gallop. As we all looked at her riding past in shock, the Gnomeling called back over her shoulder, “Don’t just sit there like a bunch of lumps on a log, we’ve gotta skin as many of these monsters as we can!”
“What the hell?” Töten cursed as he reined his mount to a stop.
“Why are we attacking trash mobs, Star?” Phoenix asked, slowing down as she twisted around in the saddle to give me a confused look, “And sheep of all things.”
“Fuck if I know,” I grunted while commanding my Ghouls to go after the remaining Steel Wool Sheep in the herd. While I didn’t know what was up, it was too late to argue about it now.
‘How do you want to handle this?’ Helgath asked as I kneed Neysa in the flanks for her to follow after my recalcitrant companion.
‘I’m not sure,’ I hurriedly sent as Helgath drew her blades, ‘Just take down as many of the monsters as you safely can and we’ll figure out what the fuck is going on once this is all over.’
‘Gotcha!’ Helgath and Neysa both answered.
As the two Ghouls tackled their Steel Wool Sheep, Neristhana leaped from the back of her mount like a maniac. Yanking out her hand axe, she brought the blade slashing down on the broad neck of the Steel Wool Sheep with a resounding clang that made my eyebrows rise. That didn’t deter the hyper Gnomeling in the least. With an excited shriek, she began hacking the monster about the head as the rest of the herd began running away.
While I didn’t exactly understand what was going on, I knew enough to command my Ghouls to target the Steel Wool Sheep’s heads. Warning Neysa and Helgath to do the same, we galloped past Neristhana’s fight to chase down the rest of the herd. As we came up behind the stragglers, Helgath smoothly leaped from the Silver Dire Wolf’s back first to take down a pair of monsters.
Unslinging my Black Coral Iron-reinforced Defender and yanking the Vicious Executioner's Axe of Cruelty from my belt, I slid off of Neysa’s back, using her velocity to launch myself at another two of the lower-level trash mobs. Shield Bashing the first beast in the side of the head, I blasted the monster off its hooves with the overpowered blow. As the trash mob collapsed like it had run into a brick wall, I turned on the second Steel Wool Sheep and brought my hand axe chopping down on the back of its head where the protective coat was at its thinnest.
The resulting clang caught me by surprise. It felt like I was chopping into a thin sheet of metal. Even so, the Steel Wool Sheep staggered from the blow as its run faltered. Before the beast could recover, I began going to town with a purpose as my axe repeatedly hacked into the base of its skull. Being eighteen levels higher than the trash mob made it relatively easy to physically overpower the beast. As it collapsed to the ground squealing in rage, I Executed the monster with a two-handed chop that ended its life.
Whirling around, I was just in time to see the first Steel Wool Sheep that I’d attacked climbing back to its hooves. While it shook its head to clear the effects of the stun, I charged back the way that I’d come as I saw Neysa pounce on another pair of the low-level mobs out of the corner of my eye. Wanting to end this quickly so I could give the Silver Dire Wolf a hand, I slammed a Shield Bash into the beast’s head, stunning it once again. As the beast’s legs folded underneath it, I strode forward and struck the monster on the back of its neck, decapitating it one clean blow as the hand axe’s special attack proc’d. Swinging the blade back up to my shoulder, I quickly spun around in place scanning the immediate area as I searched for more members of the herd needing to be cut down.
In a flash, I saw that Helgath was working with Neysa to take down the pair that the Silver Dire Wolf had run down, while each of our Ghouls had managed to take down the beasts that they’d run down. From the look of things, Phoenix had managed to finish off the monster that she’d pursued and was now helping her Ghouls to finish off the ones that they’d nabbed. While Töten, to my surprise, had taken out the last four from atop his mount and was now waiting with an annoyed look plastered on his face.
Seeing that the stragglers had been taken care of, I turned back to see Neristhana already hard at work trying to skin the Steel Wool Sheep that she’d taken out on her own. Giving Töten and Phoenix an apologetic look, I shouldered my Black Coral Iron-reinforced Defender and slid the Vicious Executioner's Axe of Cruelty back into my belt as I walked up behind the happily humming Gnomeling.
“So, um, you want to let us in on why we just hacked apart a herd of low-level Steel Wool Sheep?” I asked as I came to a stop behind the Gnomeling.
“Yeah, because this is one of the few ways you can gather Blue Steel ore,” Neristhana excitedly said, not looking away from her work as she fumbled around with the corpse. Annoyed, she slammed her fist into the side of the dead beast with a loud clank, “By the dark, how do you skin these damndable things?”
“I don’t know,” Phoenix said as she walked over to join us, “but I’d probably start with the bunghole first.”
“Do you mind speaking in Common?” Neristhana irritably snapped as she turned around to glare at the smirking Barbarian.
“She means the anus,” I clarified, trying not to smirk as the Gnomeling threw her hands up in frustration. This must be something pretty big because I’d never seen Neristhana act this way before over crafting materials.
“Then say that next time,” Neristhana irritably grumbled as she called her Ghouls over to hold up the corpse. Standing up, she precisely cut a hole around the monster’s anus. Even then, it took some work to get the skinning knife to cut through the surprisingly dense hide. As she began slicing her skinning knife down the length of the abdomen from the inside out, the Gnomeling happily sighed, “Now, that’s much better.”
Going over to one of the other dead Steel Wool Sheep, I bent down and grabbed a fistful of the creature’s metallic-blue fur. To my surprise, the texture felt like it was made from coarse metal, yet at the same time, it was soft enough for me to run my fingers through it like regular fur. That’s weird, I thought, kneeling down next to the dead monster to take a closer look.
Unsheathing my skinning knife, I decided to try a few experiments. If I slammed the blade against the fur, it stopped the knife as if I were hitting a sheet of solid metal. Pressing the point against the undercoat, it felt like I was trying to force the tip of my knife through a solid piece of metal, but when I took my leather glove off to run my fingers through the monster’s coat, the fur gave away like a real sheep’s fur. Looking next to me, I saw Phoenix doing many of the same tests with her skinning knife.
“Dude,” Phoenix said in awe, “Do you think we can make clothing from this?”
“I don’t see why not,” I replied in the same tone, “if we can, it would be crazy strong.”
“Are you guys going to just sit around and fondle the monster corpses,” Neristhana asked in a caustic tone, “or are you going to help me skin these beasties?”
“Come on,” I said, jerking my chin at Phoenix to get busy. Looking around, I saw that Helgath was already hard at work as Töten let out a big sigh.
“We’re not going to be doing this every time we run across a herd of Steel Wool Sheep or Cobalt Antler Caribou, are we?” Töten unhappily asked. “Otherwise, I’m going to just ride on ahead while all of you farm your hearts out.”
“There’s Cobalt Antler Caribou around here too?” Neristhana excitedly asked as Töten’s lips angrily pressed together, “How many herds are we talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shutting the Gnomeling down before our new friend could take further offense, “Neristhana, we’re responsible for completing a time-limited quest and you won’t be taking off again unless I say otherwise. Got it?”
“But, Star,” Neristhana protested as she whirled around to stare at me, “Do you have any idea what kind of coin we could be making on the open market if we farmed both types of herds at the same time?”
“It doesn’t matter what they’re worth,” I said, giving her a stern look that brooked no argument, “I promised Töten that we would give him a hand with his quest.” As an unhappy look flashed across the Gnomeling’s face, Phoenix spoke up interrupting our argument.
“What is this stuff even used for?” the Barbarian asked, finishing up with his skinning of the Steel Wool Sheep he was working on.
“Oh, it’s used for all kinds of stuff,” Neristhana excitedly gushed as she had her Ghouls drag over the next monster’s corpse, “You can smelt the fur down into Blue Steel bars for crafting high-quality components, armor, and even weapons.” Her voice continued to rise as she began skinning the next hide. “Though, the best is selling it to a high-level Tailor,” she let out a low whistle as she worked, “mages and nobles will pay top coin for this stuff.”
“How high of a level does the Tailor need to be to make clothing out of this?” Phoenix curiously continued asking as I gave him a silent nod of thanks. While I understood where Neristhana was coming from, now wasn’t the time for it. With a thought, I had an Orc Ghoul drag another corpse over for me to work on, while I sent the rest of the undead out to set up a perimeter around us so we weren’t caught unaware by a surprise attack as we worked.
“The Tailor would have to be at least level 40 to 50 skill-wise to be able to work with this,” Neristhana said as Phoenix nodded thoughtfully at her words, “but you’ll get an even better quality if you can find an Expert Tailor to do the crafting.”
“I guess I’d better give you a hand if I don’t want this to take all day,” Töten grumbled as he climbed down off his mount to give us a hand with the work, “By the way, thanks for that.”
“It’s no problem, man,” I said as Töten started skinning one of the Steel Wool Sheep that he’d taken out, “Like I said earlier, I owe you big time for all the help you gave to my people in Darom.” As he gave me a silent nod, I motioned at the hide in my hand. “Just curious, have you ever worked with this stuff before?”
“Not really,” Töten said, holding the body of a monster up one-handed as he started the cut with the other, “but I heard talk about it from some of the larger guilds in closed beta.” He gave me an indifferent shrug. “If you’re ever around high-level mages or nobles, you’ll see them wearing stuff like this all the time.” He shook out the sac of internal organs and set the monster down to peel the rest of its skin away as Phoenix and Neristhana continued chatting away behind us. “At higher levels, there was talk of some of the players using materials like this for crafting top-tier armor, but from everything I heard, it’s expensive as hell.”
“For what, armored clothing or crafted plates?” I asked as Helgath finished up her last monster. Getting one of her Ghouls to drag the next corpse over to the two of us, she silently went back to work while listening in on our conversation.
“Both actually,” Töten explained as we worked, “I’ve heard of Mages and Rogues having the natural metal being sewn into their robes and leathers to increase the overall armor class of their gear, but like the Gnomeling said, just finding a Tailor with a high enough skill level to work with this type of material is pricey enough on its own.” He tossed the metal hide to me and gave me a wink. “Gathering enough of this raw ore to craft a full suit of heavy plate would take forever. You may as well sell this little bit to an aristocrat and buy a top-tier suit of Dwarven armor instead. That is if you can get your reputation high enough for them to take your money.”
“What do you mean, if I can get my reputation high enough for them to take my money?” I asked, my face screwing up in annoyance at the comment.
“By now, you should know most Humanoids don’t like demi-humans all that much, unless you’ve grinded out a shit-ton of reputation with them first,” Töten pointedly said as I nodded in agreement, “Well, it’s even worse with Dwarves.”
“Great,” I said, grimacing at his words as I started on the next monster’s hide. Halfling discrimination was definitely an issue in The World. It was like the developers had purposely set that up for another hurdle for Nightmare players to deal with, I silently thought, when an idea suddenly hit me, “With these Steel Wool Sheep being worth so much, I’m surprised no one has bothered trying to domesticate them yet.”
“Dude, they’re monsters,” Töten said, letting out a bark of laughter, “they’re not meant to be domesticated.”
“Not in the typical sense,” I said, rolling my eyes as I worked, “I mean, why not just put them in a small holding area and feed them the appropriate level monsters to level them up.” I mulled over the idea as I worked. “You know, it really wouldn’t be all that different than what I’ve already done with the Carrion Scavengers that I collected after completing my Nightmare quest.”
“You did what?” Töten demanded, turning around to look at me like I was crazy.
I snorted at the Anti-Paladin’s odd reaction as a frown came to his lips. Doing the hand signal to disable my stream’s recording, I began explaining how I’d gathered up the Carrion Scavengers into a holding area and had my people feed them lower-level monsters. We also added corpses into the hole to assist in their breeding. The biggest issue was making sure you were safe when you were removing the cover and keeping them inside.
To my surprise, Neristhana and Phoenix both started listening closely to the conversation and began asking questions about the process. At first, they both wanted to know why I’d even bothered with such low-level critters in the first place. Though, once I explained how we’d been able to level them up and harvest their paralytic tentacles every so often to be made into a salve for arrowheads, weapon blades, and even clay pots that could be burst over a small area, that got everyone’s attention really quick. When I came to the end of my spiel, Töten gave me an approving clap on the back with a bloody hand.
“Hell, Star, that’s even worse than my poison traps.”
“Yeah, that poison you made up was some nasty stuff,” I agreed, remembering back to how my skin kept melting off my bones, “How did you come up with that stuff?”
“It’s basically Mustard gas,” Töten said with a shrug, “It’s not too hard to make in a magic fantasy world like this with Alchemy if you study up on the basic process.”
“I need to get something like that made up for the coming Hobgoblin attack back at BrokenFang Hold,” I said, thinking about how much that would screw up an invader trying to breach our walls.
“That would be tough with Hobgoblins,” Töten disagreed. Seeing my look of surprise, he explained what he meant, “Hobgoblins are straight-up vicious and tricky as fuck. On top of that, they always have a shit-ton of Air Shamans with them everywhere they go.” The Anti-Paladin shook his head as he got a faraway look in his eyes. “They’d be able to figure out a way to push that poison back over your walls lickety-split. While you’re busy trying to heal everyone back up, they’ll be taking over the top of your walls.”
“I wonder if you could somehow hold the poison in place with some powered runes or something?” I wondered out loud as Töten harrumphed thoughtfully.
“That would work at first, but once they knew it was there, the Hobgoblins would overpower the runes and still do the same thing.”
“You know, I’m actually surprised the Chaos Storm Alliance didn’t manage to pull something like that off in Darom,” I said, scratching that idea off of my list of possible anti-siege traps for now. If I did end up using something like that in the future, I’d have to catch people by surprise and know what classes I was up against ahead of time, “That would’ve sucked if they’d managed to push the poison into the Bastion while everyone was inside.”
