That night, I learned a lot about running away. Speed and a high dodge skill and being able to jump incredible distances was all good, but knowing when there were too many things was far more important.
As soon as one of these things saw me, the others started swarming. I had to make sure I was always on the townward-side of the mass of mobs, and I couldn't risk staying in one place very long.
It took a bit for me to realize it, but the fastball wasn't actually a very useful attack. No matter how hard I threw that knife, I had 9 strength, and the damage was based on that. I wasn't killing level 10 mobs with the knife impacts, I was killing them with the bleed.
The breaking-ball, by contrast, was incredible. It was extremely hard to use, but if I aimed it right I could get the spinning knife to curve along a cluster and just barely nick all of them before teleporting back to my hand. That was the whole point of the Extremely Sharp Knife. The damage of the attack didn't matter, so long as the bleed went into effect.
I managed a sharp arc at the end of a throw that cut the wings of three of the snot rocketeers. They bobbed awkwardly for a moment, then steadied and sent more snot my way.
Two of them got a bleed debuff, which would eventually bring my tally from the night to sixteen kills. I didn't know if that was a lot, but I was proud of myself.
I'd planned to back off again, but instead all the monsters began leaving. In a matter of moments, dawn turned to day, and those nighttime monsters vanished.
I went towards them, looking for any unlooted ones. I'd been collecting everything I could, although it mostly seemed to be alchemical components that I didn't know the value of. While I was looting a chicken-walker, those two died and I reached level 6.
Lacie always spent extra time sorting her inventory so she could loot everything in games. I imagined she was currently gleefully enjoying the infinite-inventory this weird world offered. Whenever we met up, I'd hand off anything she had a use for.
But first I had to see about meeting up with her.
I headed back into town. I hurried about, asking every crawler I saw, "Have you met Lucille Stevenson? She goes by Lacie."
I got fifty-nine noes. Back into the ruins.
The place really was emptier during the day. I got fifteen blocks before I saw my first red dot, and it promptly died at the hands of a fourteenth-level crawler with a gun and a skull by his name.
I ran away before he saw me.
Before long, I saw another enemy. The daytime mobs were nothing like the nightmares of the night had been.
Brick Golem, Level 14
If you leave a protection spell alone too long, it gets its own ideas about how to protect things. Also, it gets ideas about how to cook pizza in its belly. Seriously, there's no oven better than a wood-fired brick golem.
Twelve feet tall, nearly that wide, and made of bricks, the thing did indeed have a fire burning where you'd expect a stomach to be. It also had no head, so that looked a bit like it's mouth.
It didn't seem to have seen me yet. As there was no use in a breaking ball here, I wound up for a nice straight throw. The Extremely Sharp Knife sailed forth, and a health bar appeared over the monster. It still read as 100%, so I guess the system rounded up.
Stolen story; please report.
The thing turned and roared, flame belching from that open oven.
With that, it charged at me. Kinda slowly. It was faster than people generally are, but I took four more throws—it finally dropped to 99%—before I felt like I had to move.
After twenty hits, I realized that bleed probably didn't work on things made of brick. Still, it was practice for my fastball.
I went back and forth on that street six times, flipping over the thing's head to switch directions. The second time, it demonstrated that it could breath huge gouts of fire straight up, and I barely avoided getting burned. After that I was more careful.
It was down to 92% when a group of colorful birds with long, narrow beaks approached.
Stitch-Diver, Level 8
Not only will this skewer you, it'll do needlepoint in your skin as you die. There's no worse way to go than with "Live, Laugh, Love" embroidered on your chest.
Yeah, that I ran from. Well, I threw a slider that hit two, giving neither a bleed, and then I ran. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually faster than the flying birds, so I had to do something about them.
Running back to where I recalled a cleared roof, I posted up and began hurling fastballs as they approached. I had realized an upside to the fastball while plinking at the golem: The faster a throw landed, the faster it was back in my hand.
By doing my wind-up before it reappeared, I could chain throws. Like that, I could send a fastball twice as often as a breaking ball.
By the time they were diving at me, two of them had bleeds going, one of those under half. Up close, I could see their narrow beaks were literally needles, and that they were trailing thread.
I easily sidestepped all three dives, then had to leap awkwardly away when the trailing threads snapped at my neck. Okay, still quite dangerous. As they turned for another pass, I sent a curveball along the trio and cut two of them.
As I wound up for another, the ceiling collapsed below me.
All about me, heavy stones were falling. I pushed off of one and tumbled into the next floor down, looking up at burned and broken wooden beams for half a second before that too began to collapse.
I was close enough to grab a crack in the wall and pull myself flat as stones fell past. Soon, there wasn't a single floor remaining in the massive, open building I was in.
Fire bloomed below, the rubble moving.
Eyes appear among the loose bricks, rising into a massive head.
B-B-B-Boss Battle!
You have discovered the lair of a Neighborhood Boss! Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time for the main event! Are you ready? Can you feel it coming? I SAID ARE YOU READY? I want you to put your hands together. Aaaand here. We. Gooooo!
This time, my mugshot looked semi-decent. Determined, not terrified, like I was mean-mugging for the camera. Below the picture, it said, "Crawler Madison Pomegranate, Level 6."
Versus - Mama Jane's Pizzeria
Brick Oven Golem, Level 17 Neighborhood Boss!
This was once a thriving neighborhood, and Mama Jane's was where all the young skyfowl would roost for a bite. She had all the best toppings.
Now, Mama Jane has become one with her mighty ovens, and all she wants for a topping is you.
I had the sense that, if I really wanted to excel, I needed to figure out how to kill bosses. I remembered Lacie talking about strats while I stared at her over lunch, about how there was a trick to most bosses.
Presumably, I could have figured out a weakness from the brick golem and applied it to this boss, winning some nice rewards in the process. On the other hand, I hadn't seen any doors close me in, and this was boss was almost three times my level.
I leapt to another handhold, then ran up the wall, feeling rising heat behind me, and leapt clear of the building. A gout of flame billowed skyward as I hurtled clear. I had almost made it to the next rooftop when one of those stitch-divers snagged my ankle with its thread.
I panicked, then realized it was just thread and sliced through it with a quick swipe of my Extremely Sharp Knife.
Should have checked below, first.
In the instant I started to fall, I darted a hand out and grabbed back on. We were over the open street, a sixty-foot fall. We were also rising.
I tucked my body, swung my legs, and released again. As my instincts had suggested, a thirty foot fall onto a rooftop hurt a lot but was far from fatal. My health-bar dropped by a third, and I came up running.
New achievement! Cowardice Suits You
You ran away from a boss before either of you suffered any damage. That's fine. You'll keep getting no experience and then die, and nobody will ever care.
Reward: Well, the boss didn't kill you, so you're alive until some other mob does.
"Screw you too," I muttered as I slowed to a stop in the middle of the roof.
The birds had flown away, the boss was still spurting flames, and I was basically fine. Back to hunting.
