Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Sadia managed to roll her squirrel eyes at him.  “Uh, yes, I would think so.  Not only because no one else has completed this dungeon yet, but I doubt in the history of these developmental worlds, anyone has completed it this quickly.”  Crossing her arms across her chest, she shook her head.  “This isn’t exactly the way this challenge is supposed to be handled, but I can’t say that you did it wrong.”

Thaden chuckled at how she seemed both proud and shocked at how quickly they had been able to kill thousands of undead while eliminating the Horde Leaders and the Horde Chief.  Even though there had been a short time there when he’d been slightly worried when the Screaming Banshee had essentially paralyzed him with a psychic assault, he managed not only to survive, but acquired an immunity to that particular scream.  He wasn’t positive how that immunity worked, such as would it work for another type of psychic attack that had similar effects, or would it only be immune against Screaming Banshees. 

He'd have to ask Sadia if she knew more about that later.  For now, he was eager to see how he’d done.

“So, how do we find out how well I did?”

She pointed back toward the town in the distance.  “You have to be in town near the central tower for it to finalize, but you can take your time and loot first.  Your final results have already been tallied, so you don’t need to rush.”

Despite her assurances, Thaden didn’t waste any time as he raced around the area, quickly extracting loot from the Horde Leaders and Horde Chief without looking at any of it, before taking off back toward the town.  It only took a minute or so to arrive, and he leaped on top of the wall with ease, his Physicality more than high enough to handle the height.  Sadia followed on his heels, followed by his Mirrored Vigil, which he considered dismissing since he didn’t think he needed it at the moment, but kept it up just in case.  It wasn’t like it took a lot of Mana in reserve to maintain, especially considering his bonuses.

Another ten seconds later saw him near the center of town, where the alabaster tower sat undamaged with the same 100/100 count of Citizens Alive counter there.  Without any prompting from Sadia, he instinctively reached out with his hand and pressed it against the marble-like tower.

The Ghost Town Undead Horde Siege Challenge – Intermediate Minimal – Completed!

Calculating results… calculating… calculating… results calculated!

The Ghost Town Undead Horde Siege Challenge – Intermediate Minimal – Score Evaluation:

Surviving Citizens: 100/100 (Score: 200/200)

Damage To Defenses: 0% (Score: 200/200)

Raid Party Members: 1 (Score: 398/200)

Raid Party Casualties: 0 (Score: 200/200)

Time of Completion: 00:00:17:14 (Score: 199/200)

Total Score: 1,197/1,000

Score Tier Classification: SSS

Score Tier Reward Breakdown:

Tier F (Score 1-200): 5 gold pieces for each Raid Party member

Tier E (Score 201-300): 50 gold pieces for each Raid Party member

Tier D (Score 301-450): 100 gold pieces and 1 Rare, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier C (Score 451-600): 500 gold pieces and 1 Epic, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier B (Score 601-750): 1,500 gold pieces and 3 Epic, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier A (Score 751-900): 5,000 gold pieces and a full 6-piece set of Rare, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier S (Score 901-950): 30,000 gold pieces and 3 Legendary, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier SS (Score 951-1,000): 150,000 gold pieces and a full 6-piece set of Epic, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Tier SSS (Score 1,001+): 500,000 gold pieces and a full 6-piece set of Legendary, Class-specific Equipment for each Raid Party member

Distributing rewards… rewards distributed!

Thaden jumped backwards in startlement when a large, shiny, diamond-covered, platinum-sheathed chest appeared in front of him.  Instinctively knowing it was for him and him alone, he held himself from opening it immediately; instead, he looked again at the notification about his score results, as well as the reward tiers and how that all worked.

“I lost a point from my time?  It says it took me 17 minutes, but… oh, did it start counting from the moment I entered the dungeon.”

“It did,” Sadia confirmed.  “You might be able to improve on the time if you don’t hesitate at the beginning, but it wouldn’t necessarily be worth it to you.”

He looked at the squirrel in confusion.  “Why not?”

“Because you can only acquire each reward tier once,” she answered quickly.  “Thankfully, you can still acquire lower-tier rewards, which will automatically be rewarded if you obtain a higher tier you’ve already achieved.  So, if you were to run it again and get a triple-S-tier Score, you would only be rewarded with the double-S-tier reward.”

There goes my idea to farm this dungeon over and over for awesome loot.  He’d still get PICK from killing all the monsters, of course, but getting increasingly worse rewards every time would be bit of a disappointment.

Looking back at the notification, he noticed that in order to even get a SSS tier Score, he had to go over the normal maximum; that appeared to be only possible if fewer Party members were in the Raid, as he had gotten an extra 198 points from doing this solo.  That meant he probably could’ve had half the Citizens die or have half the defenses destroyed and would’ve still been SSS, though there was no reason to do that since he could defeat the horde without allowing them to even get close to the town.

 Satisfied with his performance and fairly sure he was familiar now with how the score was broken down, he moved toward the chest and gripped the lid with both hands, before flinging it open in excitement.  With the sun shining down from above on its contents, he was momentarily blinded by the sparkly sight of what was inside.  When he was able to see again, he cringed at the appearance of what he saw, picking up some of the soft, slippery-feeling fabric in his hands.  The robe he was holding was stretchy and appeared too small for someone like him to wear; it looked more like it was made for a very thin model than a man, with a waist he could wrap his hands around.  This can’t be right…

Horror flashed through him when he realized that the robe was made for someone like him, because it was meant to be tight-fitting and would stretch around his body like Spandex.  Now, he wasn’t ashamed of his body, and with the increase of his Physicality and Personality, he had to admit that he looked better than he ever had back on Earth—by far—so it wasn’t exactly the tight-fitting part of the robes that made him recoil in horror and nearly drop the piece of equipment. 

No, it was the way it sparkled brightly like it had been rolled in silver glitter and had thousands of tiny diamonds attached to the outside, reflecting the light of the bright sun. 

From behind him, he heard Sadia chuckling lightly, before erupting into belly shaking laughter.

“Yeah, yeah; laugh it up.  If I wear this crap, I’m going to end up blinding everyone who looks at me.”  Ignoring her continued laughter, he held the robe in his left hand and investigated the rest of the chest, seeing a pair of similarly shiny gloves and sparkly boots, a short cape made of the same fabric as the robe that would likely only extend down his back to just below his waist, a glittery skullcap that would completely cover his hair with a pair of earholes on either side, and an eye mask that looked straight out of some renaissance masquerade ball with how shiny and flashy it was.

“This is ridiculous!  Who in their right mind would wear something like this?”

It turned out that he was definitely not in his right mind, because as soon as he looked at the stats on the robe he was still holding, he knew that he’d be wearing them.

Fancy Robe of the Lucky Vagabond

Rarity: Legendary

Class Restrictions: Omenic Drifter

Level Restriction: 250

Physical Damage Resistance: 35

Magical Damage Resistance: 415

+18 Physicality

+120 Celerity

+720 Mentality

+45 Fortuity

9% Reduction in casting time, Mana cost, and cooldowns for all spells

18% Increase in all spell effectiveness

27% Increase to Health replenished through the use of spells and effects

27% Increase to damage mitigated through the use of spells and effects

Set Bonus (2): +30% to all spell effectiveness, +270 Mentality, +90 Fortuity

Set Bonus (4): All previous Set Bonuses, +100% increase to Health replenished and damage mitigated through the use of spells and effects, +720 Mentality, +360 Celerity, and +180 Fortuity

Set Bonus (6): All previous Set Bonuses, all single-target spells you cast have a Fortuity/500 chance to heal you instantly for 100% of the target’s maximum Health, provide damage mitigation equal to 50% of target’s maximum Health that lasts for 3 minutes, increase all spell effectiveness by 100% for 3 minutes, and increases all stats by 10%; does not stack.

All of the pieces of the Lucky Vagabond set had identical stats, but just like the Healthful Protection set he was currently wearing, the only difference were slight variations in the Physical and Magical Resistances.  When he compared it to his older set, there was a massive difference in the value of the Mentality and Celerity provided, but the biggest difference was the addition of Physicality and Fortuity; neither of them were all that much in relation to Mentality and Celerity, but it was a welcome addition that he hadn’t been expecting. 

Divine Robe of Healthful Protection

Rarity: Legendary

Class Restrictions: Support

Level Restriction: 110

Physical Damage Resistance: 12

Magical Damage Resistance: 95

+27 Celerity

+117 Mentality

+5% Chance to double the effectiveness of all Defensive spells

5% Reduction in casting time and cooldowns for all spells

Whenever someone is protected by a one of your defensive spells, they are healed for 1% of the damage prevented

Set Bonus (2): +10% to all spell effectiveness, +90 Mentality

Set Bonus (4): All previous Set Bonuses, +100% to Mana regeneration speed, +180 Mentality, and +27 Fortuity

Set Bonus (6): All previous Set Bonuses, all spells have a 50% casting speed and cooldown reduction, Defensive spells have a 50% chance to double their effectiveness, and every Support spell cast on targets with an active protection spell – that the wearer has cast upon them – are healed for an additional 20% of their maximum Health

As for the other bonuses, almost all of them were better; there were fewer heal-over-time effects, but the additions more than made up for them, especially the Fortuity-based effect from the 6-piece set bonus.  It was only a small chance right now, but once he was able to put the full set on and transfer the Adaptable Mimicry Plates to it, that chance would only increase.

His Fortuity would also increase naturally because would need to bump his Level up to 250, as it was restricted to that Level; what that meant was that he couldn’t wear any of them right now even if he wanted to.  He might have enough PICK now after this dungeon run to get there, but he had to weigh Leveling-up right now when he was about to run this dungeon again with a Raid Party with the need to wear this set.  At the moment, there was no need to do so, as he’d receive so much more PICK and loot if he kept his Level a bit low right now, and he had already proven that he was more than capable of clearing this dungeon at his current Level.

But speaking of loot, when he looked inside the chest, he rummaged through the equipment inside, only now realizing that there was more than one set.  There were a total of three and a half sets, to be more specific, with the half being only 3 items, which were another Robe, another Cape, and another Mask – not that they would do anyone any good.  He couldn’t even hope to sell them because they were restricted to an Omenic Drifter, a unique Class that no one other than himself would be able to get, if he understood what the word unique meant.

It took him a moment to realize why there were three and a half sets of the Lucky Vagabond set, but it quickly occurred to him that his Army Of One I Achievement, which tripled rewards in an Intermediate dungeon, and his Class trait of increasing rewards by 50%, had worked even for these Challenge rewards.  As a matter of fact, as he reached down and pulled the massive bag of gold coins at the bottom into his inventory, the 500,000 gold it should’ve been was increased to a total of 1.75 million, thanks to those two traits. 

“You’re going to wear it, aren’t you?” Sadia asked, still chuckling lightly. 

He still wanted to say no, because the set was hideous, but he couldn’t deny that it would be a huge step up from what he was currently wearing.  “Yes, but I won’t like it,” he answered petulantly.  To take his mind off the thought of being a glittery disco ball once he hit Level 250, he quickly looked through the rest of his loot to see if, perhaps, some of them would be even better.  Unfortunately, all but one of the items he’d looted from the Horde Leaders and the Horde Chief were for other Classes, as well as random crafting materials, but there was one thing that would be an upgrade – and it was one that was well-overdue.

Superior Spiritual Focus Stone of Necrotic Ectoplasm

Rarity: Epic

Class Restrictions: Control, Support

Level Restriction: 225

Physical Damage Modifier: +0

+90 Celerity

+270 Mentality

-27 Personality

+30% increase in effectiveness and duration for all spiritual spells

+30% decrease in mana cost, casting time, and cooldowns for all spiritual spells

While he couldn’t use this new hand-held Focus Stone until Level 225, it was the first piece of equipment he’d owned to date that had spiritual spells as a main component.  The hit to his Personality wasn’t great, but the additional Celerity and Mentality were much better than the +50 Mentality that his current Major Supportive Focus Stone of Healing possessed. 

As far as what else he acquired for loot, he added an additional 300,000 gold from the deaths of the Horde leadership, bringing him to over 2 million gold for the entire run.  Not too bad for about an hour’s travel time and work.

Storing everything he’d gotten into his Inventory, Thaden told Sadia, “Let’s go,” before heading back toward the hidden doorway where he’d emerged a short time ago.  Sadia told him that there was no separate exit like in other dungeons, as there was no official treasure room, so he had to go back through the entrance he came from.  As he had been hoping and as Sadia told him it would be, when he got there, the stone door was open again; he quickly ran back down the long hallway to the entrance before passing through the hazy barrier.

Less than a minute later, he was flying back toward Darkwood Vale, having completed the dungeon in less time than expected, meaning he would have plenty of time before he was supposed to meet with the members of his new Raid Party.  Since he had the time, on the way back, he went a little slower so that he could both fly and look at his messages, as he had yet to do that after completing the Horde Siege Challenge.

He was glad that he was flying slower, because he nearly crashed when a slew of messages filled his vision, but he recovered quickly enough to avoid slamming headfirst into a tree at 150 miles per hour.  After he stabilized himself, he finally read through the notifications with a smile growing on his face.