Shaman's Call 2- Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3- Bullet Tank

I fired off a quick Frost Rift at the wizard. I wanted to take out their damage dealers but couldn’t afford the time for a slower cast as I had three hundred pounds of screaming barbarian hurtling himself at me. It was probably a long shot to hope that I could take out their wizard with a single spell, but maybe if she didn’t have her defenses up and maybe if the cleric was a bit slow on the uptake. Of course, maybe I’d sprout wings and fly too.

As I cast, I began to pivot to avoid a battle axe cleaving my skull open. Not that I needed to have worried. A streak of silver flashed in front of me and the barbarian was knocked off course to slam into a nearby tree. Atop him was a thrashing and screaming, Violet. Her armor and expanded to completely encase her. The joints of the armor moved fluidly as she repeatedly stuck the pointy ends of her punch daggers into the barbarian in an attempt to see what his insides looked like.

I had to give it to Legends of Selmia. Combat could be extremely visceral. I almost got lost in the way the blood was spurting out of the rather outclassed barbarian. Of course, it didn’t help that she was bucking wildling driving her armored knees into his gut and worse while slamming her fists with blades attacked into his chest as she cried out, “Who’s your daddy now?” and “Big body, little brain.”

At least I wasn’t the only one who was distracted. Even the barbarian’s teammates were lost in confusion for a second. It was like a trainwreck. You just couldn’t look away even though you knew it was horrible. I did manage to cast Call Brother Wolf since they gave me a moment of respite, while watching as the barbarian’s attempts to bat Violet off of him became more erratic and feeble.

The elven archer was the first to respond which earned him an attack from a furry spirit wolf. Brother wolf bit down on his arm ruining the elf’s attempt to get off a shot. The snarling and yelping blended and I turned my eyes back towards their two casters. The wizard hadn’t been hurt by my Frost Rift and finally managed to cast her own spell.

A lightning bolt leapt from her fingertips and slammed into Violet. It blasted her off of the barbarian and sent blue electricity dancing all over her armor. She seemed to spasm for a moment before the energy dissipated. I couldn’t’ focus on her though and instead rushed the wizard. I still wanted to try and take her out but the if she had magical defenses up maybe they wouldn’t stand up as well to nearly a thousand pounds of ogre flesh.

The cleric was already healing the barbarian and I knew I needed to take him out but something about the pretty princess in her pink dress made me want to squish her. I felt the lust for battle rise within me and threaten to send me into an ogre rage. It was much sooner in the battle than normal, but I pushed it aside as my shoulder slammed into a bubble around the wizardess.

It held for a second and time seemed to slow down. I began to think it was going to rebound and send me flying but then the shield popped and I slammed into the petite elven wizardess. I was pretty sure I heard bones breaking as she hit the ground. She screeched loudly enough to wake the dead, but because she was a player and had reduced pain settings her words were full of indignation rather than pain.

“How dare you soil me with your hands. Titus, I demand you get up right now and get this brute off of me.”

I assumed Titus was the barbarian. Healing or not he wasn’t going to be up anytime soon. Violet had done a real number on him. What was more, I saw another flash of silver out of the corner of my eye and knew she was back at it again.

Now that I felt confident of our victory, I let myself go and enjoyed the battle ogre style. I stumbled to my feet while lifting the wizardess up over my head. Shaking her body, I threw her at the cleric. Neither was prepared for that tactic so it gave me a second to follow up with a thrust from my spear. The Spear of the Spirit Walker was a real upgrade and I had yet to tire of how easily it made holes in my foes.

I drove it through the wizardess’ back and straight into the cleric like they were the pieces of a shish kabob. My Strength was enough to pin them both to the ground with so much force that it nearly ripped the elf in half. Her form sparkled and at first I thought she was being sent for respawn but no such luck. She must have had sometime of contingency device because she teleported away. Sadly, the Spirit Bane debuff which procced from my weapon wasn’t able to prevent her escape.

That didn’t help the cleric though who was desperately trying to pull the spear out while casting a healing spell. I made it easy for him and cast Flameburst in his open mouth. With extra mana channeled into it the spell all but ripped his head open. He wasn’t quite dead but when I stopped on his head it finished him off.

I took a quick glance at my allies. Violet had already jumped in to help Brother Wolf finish off the ranger. I only managed to see the last blow. She shouted out, “Double Chopper” and brought both her blades in sideways against the elf’s neck, which quickly lost the head attached to it.

Brother wolf lifted his head and howled while Violet laughed manically. I almost wondered who I had agreed to party with. As if her choosing the name Violet Violence shouldn’t have been enough of a hint. Barbarian, ranger, and cleric all sparkled as they were sent to respawn but left drops behind.

In Legends of Selmia if you died in PvP you randomly lost one of your items. Back when I had access to the boards there was a great deal of discussion about how the AI determined what items were lost. Some of course insisted it was a simple matter of random number generation while others thought it was based upon who started the fight as well as how well you fought.

There were tags for those who attacked other players in non-PvP zones. They would get a player-killer tag become free game to other players and even suffer stat penalties if they kept it up. Of course, a player wasn’t even able to attack another player in a newbie safe zone, but there weren’t that many of those. What I was curious about was how the AI would categorize this combat.

I was a monster not a player, an HI. But I was partied up with a player. Then the notifications appeared and answered the question for me.

After consideration of unexpected situation, it is determined that you will be regarded as a non-aggressor in a PvP match. Thus, there will be no faction loss because you didn’t initiate the combat. Taunts are all well and good. Sticks and stones after all.

No XP is awarded because you out-leveled your opponents by more than 10 levels. Seriously? Pick on children much?

As compensation one of their magical items are randomly awarded for the three players your team finished off. No reward is provided for the player who escaped. You can only eat what you kill after all. And no, that isn’t a suggestion for you to start eating players. Although, who knows what kind of recipes you could make from them.

I laughed with relief. After setting aside the weird sense of humor this AI had, I wasn’t going to lose any faction for this. It more or less told me that if I needed to fight a player, I just had to goad them into attacking me first.

Violet said, “No XP, but oh well.”

Her armor partially retracted. I was a bit curious about how there wasn’t even a drop of blood on any of it, but more so about her fighting style. “You’re pretty fierce. What did you say your class is?”

“I didn’t, but goodies first. Then we can talk.”

She bent down and picked up the item left behind by the ranger. I watched her rather than picking up one of the items myself. I did however instruct Brother Wolf to go scout a bit and make sure we weren’t surprised again.

As I hoped, I got a notification in my party interface as soon as Violet identified the item.

Cloak of Minor Shadows Quality: Enchanted

Wt: 1.5 lbs.

3x/day the cloak can increase its wearer’s stealth rating by 300%. It will have no effect on anyone who was already observing the wearer prior to activating this effect. Duration: 30 minutes

Not being seen is the greatest shield of all.

Since the item was magical, size wouldn’t matter. It would adapt to either of us. Or of course we could sell it. Heck, we might even be able to trade it to some of my other party members, assuming they showed up. I would have thought that a gnome with high agility would be interested in stealth gear, but after seeing her fighting style I didn’t think it was high on her list.

“Do you want that?” I asked.

“Let’s look at the other two pieces before we divvy anything up.”

I simply grunted in reply. It was in keeping with my ogre motif, so why not.

Violet walked over to where the barbarian had been while I bent down to inspect the loot left behind by the cleric. Both notifications popped up at the same time.

Ring of Protection Quality: Enchanted

Wearer gains +10 physical damage resistance.

Now if you can just a bit thicker skinned about jokes at your expense.

And

Healer’s Boon Pendant Quality: Enchanted

All healing spells cast by wearer have a 25% increase to the amount healed but cost 10% more mana.

That looks like it hurt. Here let me kiss the boo-boo better.

I was definitely more interested in the two rings, but I could benefit from any of them. I didn’t speak up again though and instead waited to see what Violet said. How a person handles loot says a great deal about them.

The gnome walked back towards me and I took a moment to look at her in the party interface. Her class was listed there as bullet tank. What a bullet tank was, I had no clue, but I did notice that she was down ten percent of her health and only healing very slowly. I had dropped the ball as a healer because of the loot and the ease of the battle. It was really inexcusable. Player me would have been yelling at a healer who did this in a pick-up group.

I mumbled, “Sorry about the healing,” as I cast Regeneration on her.

She seemed surprised by the way her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I’ve been soloing so much lately that I forgot about it. I have two high quality healing potions in case of emergencies but mostly I just have to wait for my natural healing to restore me.”

“Not with me around. But why have you been fighting alone?”

“Thanks, but remember, I said loot first and then chat. Not to mention we still have a dungeon to clear out. So, my class forbids me to use any type of stealth magic. It creates difficulties but such is life. You can have the cloak. The healing pendant doesn’t do me any good, so no point in worrying about that, but I would like the ring of protection. I’ve already got one but can’t have too much protection. Am I right?”

I wanted to say something but opted to avoid having the AI strangle me again so I bit my tongue and changed what I was going to say. “We should sell the cloak or maybe save it for another party member.”

“Nah, need before greed. You should use it now.” Then she burst into giggles. It was oddly appropriate for her stature but quite a contrast to the blood thirsty killing machine she had been just a minute ago.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just envisioning you trying to sneak around. Definitely keep the cloak. I want to see you try and use it. We can sell it later.”

“Fine, but I want to know what a bullet tank is.”

“Okay, but I have questions too. Like how the heck did you give me sixty extra strength and a crap load of HP?”

“Just a buff I have. One of my affinities is a Hex Warden so I’m pretty good at buffs and debuffs. Arctic Talisman is special though. Let’s just say I got it for a quest reward. I can only cast it three times a day but it lasts nine hours each time.”

“Very cool, I knew it was the right choice to help you out and I totally didn’t do it just because that merchant is a real jerk.”

I laughed at that. Violet was gonna keep me on my toes for sure. “Now, what’s a bullet tank and for that matter why are you fighting alone? Shouldn’t you still be in gnome city or something?”

She paused for a minute before answering, “I’m trying to think of how to answer this in a way that doesn’t make you choke.”

I nodded. “Much appreciated.”

“I’m what the NPC’s call a traveler. Have you heard of that?”

“Yeah, you are from another world and came to Selmia for glory and riches. Right?”

She nodded this time. “I chose gnome because it enabled me to get a specific gear set up and honestly, I thought it would be sorta funny to kick butt at three feet tall.”

I just listened so she continued, “But all the gnomes are crazy sticklers for rules. They have rules about how you design gear, how you test it, and you need permits for just about everything. That was not how I wanted to play err… spend my time in Selmia. I chose Artificer as my profession but couldn’t get permits to make anything. Anyway, enough complaining. In short, bullet tank is an agility and armor based tank who focuses on quick movement and using their armor and body as a weapon. I have some class skills that allow me to streak around and it is always shocking to the big guys. Present company excluded I really like to knock muscle heads down a peg.”

“I think I understand as much as I can about being a traveler. I also find my people to be less than ideal. But I’m stuck helping them for now. That is why I’m recruiting for POP.”

“Okay, enough talk,” she said. “I don’t wanna get all emotional and share our backstories. At least not without a couple glasses of wine in me. So, are we gonna hit this dungeon or not?”