Solomon's Crucible 70. Evaluation (2) (Patreon)

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Solomon's first order of business was to check on the dorm's bathrooms. Thankfully, the system had spared the plumbing here as well. He didn't know how long the system could last without regular maintenance, but at least for now he was able to scrub off the worst of the gore. There was no hot water, of course, which gave him a little extra incentive to hurry.

When he finished, he gave himself a critical once over in the mirror. The good news was that he no longer looked like he was fresh off of murdering a bunch of people with his bare hand. The bad news was that his clothes still looked like he was in costume for a starring role in a slasher movie.

He didn't want to give up the protection of his armored clothing. He also wanted at least the chance of keeping a low profile. He wasn't sure how much of the blood he could get out if he tried laundering it in the shower, and he didn't want to take the time to try.

Solomon was starting to develop a hunch for what was going on in the university. It seemed like his initial hope had been well-founded, that the aliens didn't yet have a strong grip on the populace. Only the red armband wearing guards had fully bought in to the program. Most everybody else just wanted to keep their heads down and survive. Meanwhile, the aliens themselves were occupied trying to expand their holdings and had left a skeleton crew back to mind the store.

It was almost too optimistic for Solomon to believe, but with every minute that passed without a goon squad crashing its way up the stairs to ruin his day, he got a little more confident with his conjecture. The alien that had captured the two of them certainly didn't seem to have hung around. If his attitude was anything like Kanmi's, he wouldn't even care too much about a scuffle between a bunch of humans.

Otherwise, it seemed like those four guards may have been all that had been assigned to keep order in the dorm. It was possible there was a whole army waiting to take him in at the bottom of the stairs, of course, but for now Solomon was going to act on the assumption that he might be able to sneak out and blend in to the crowd.

To handle his clothing problem, he ventured to the hallway opposite the lounge from his sister's. The dorm itself was co-ed, but they separated out the men's and women's dorm rooms by hall. Solomon came up empty in the first two rooms. He couldn't just kick in the door the way that Kanmi had, but his axe made short work of the locks. The third room he broke into had been occupied by somebody more or less his size.

The guy had also shown commendable school spirit. Solomon found a school hoodie and matching pair of track pants that fit over his armored clothes. He snagged a school snapback cap off the shelf to top off the outfit. The end result wasn't exactly stylish, but at least it wouldn't send people running the other direction in horror.

He also grabbed a few socks to use in wrapping up his hook. If he'd had time he would have tried to make a better prosthetic to blend in, but he thought a simple cover up would be enough. Solomon's looks weren't that distinctive. If he wasn't riding through campus on a horse with a gun in one hand and waving around the hook that replaced the other, it wouldn't be easy to connect him with the earlier raid.

Feeling refreshed, he returned to his sister's room. The scent of violence and death was more striking when he came back upon it fresh.

It was a smell that was becoming all too familiar. Solomon put the frustration to the back of his mind and started checking over the guard's bodies. After he got his family out of this craziness, maybe they could settle down in peace.

He came away from the search with another couple of daggers and a pair of short swords. The weapons seemed handy, but nothing particularly special. If the guards had been carrying any real valuables, it seemed the goodies had been tucked in their inventories to vanish on death. A pity.

Solomon tucked the daggers and swords away in his own inventory. His axe would serve him just as well, and he didn't want to take the chance that the weapons were restricted to the guardsmen. Then he turned his attention back to the bodies.

His MP had recovered enough to make short work of making corpses disappear. All that was left behind were three cores, about the same size as the cores he'd gotten from the lions back in the dungeon.

He took a few minutes to load up his two remaining pistols and holster them under his sweatshirt. It was impossible to hide them completely, but he was able to at least move them around until their shapes weren't completely obvious. He tied the white armband around his arm to complete the outfit.

Satisfied with his physical preparations, he braced himself to confront the problem that he'd been avoiding. The change that was going to be the longest lasting fallout from his poor impulse control. He called up his character sheet.

[Name: Solomon Gragg

Skills: Pain Tolerance (MAX), Improvised Weapons Mastery (MAX), Bladed Weapons Mastery (5), Explosives (3), Marksmanship (3), Unarmed Combat (3)

Grids: Tutorial (6/6)
Field Engineering (7/7), Personal Equipment (9/9), Weapons (11/11), Projectile Weapons (13/13), Firearms (15/15)
Bladed Weapons (7/7), Duelist (9/9), One-handed Weapons (11/11)
Marksmanship (7/7), Sharpshooter (9/9), Sniper (11/11), One Shot (13/13), Powder Adept (8/15)
Explosives (7/7)

Free grid points: 6

Strength: 19
Constitution: 20
Dexterity: 37
M. Capacity: 10
M. Intensity: 15

Free attribute points: 2

HP: 200/200
MP: 100/100]

Unarmed Combat sat there on his character sheet, mocking him. Four of his five skill slots were now filled. Unarmed Combat was going to be occupying a slot for a while, too, if maxing it out required a feat anything like as impressive as Pain Resistance and Improvised Weaponry had needed. 

Adding it had also opened up a new grid when he was still struggling to fill the ones he already had available. Perhaps most annoying, the skill points he received in exchange left him one short of completing the Powder Adept grid.

He wouldn't have any shortage of fights in the near future, at least. He wasn't exactly eager to try powering up with the magic powder again, but at least the results were impressive. Maybe he could squeeze out a skill level soon if the system was feeling generous.

Solomon added the free grid points to Powder Adept, almost finishing it. That meant one more attribute point locked into Dexterity and one more free attribute point. Solomon put two points into Strength and one into Constitution.

In fights that went according to plan, all that would matter was his Dexterity as he shot down opponents from afar. As he'd just been reminded, though, all too often things weren't going to go to plan. In those situations, a little more brute force was always welcome.

He dismissed the character sheet and headed for the stairwell. He could worry about putting a coherent build together later. For now, it was time to test his disguise.

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