Ruthless ~ 37!

~ 37 ~

“No way am I letting you tear it down!” Mike told Joe as he looked at the new building with shining eyes. “Our guild members would eat you alive!”

“I don’t understand.” Joe admitted after staring at Mike long enough to make both of them uncomfortable. “Did I not just tell you that once every five days or so, someone will die in there?”

“Exactly!” Mike’s eyes were practically releasing light of their own. “Only once a week or so, and only one person! You know how often people die out there? How many party wipes? It's constant. Everyone will fight to stay in here for that experience bonus, and they’ll train their luck to not be the person that dies! Can I name the building?”

“Technically it is called ‘Hungry Apartment Building’.” Joe was shaking his head at all of this; the situation seemed odd.

“I’m gonna market it as ‘Gamble Hall’.” Mike was rubbing his hands together. “When people see the blood coming out of the walls, they won’t be freaked out or scared… no. They’ll cheer, knowing that they survived!”

Joe started to reluctantly nod. “Alright… I can see the appeal.”

“Can you make more of these?” Mike bluntly wondered. “I want ten.”

“I can’t right now, and I think it is more important that people can sleep safely?” Joe didn't want to have to scan the building and need to figure out how to make the newly Rarified building. There was only a single day remaining before the blatant attack, and there were still many things that required his attention. “Do you agree?”

“I mean… yes, of course.” Mike coughed into his hand and had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed. Only slightly. “Anyway, if you can get the other four set up as planned, our teams should be in high spirits for the battle tomorrow. Other than that… any updates?”

“Not particularly.” Joe thought for a long moment. “I’ve had a few members of my coven doing research at the library, as well as the Mage’s College. They might be able to come back with something interesting. Oh, and I completed five scrolls for the guild this morning, though I’m gonna need payment for them.”

“Oh? What are the spells?” Mike took the scrolls that Joe handed over, his eyes going wide when he saw them. “Cone of cold, Dale’s Shattered Earth? The first one is understandable, what is the second?”

“First off, what do you know about scrolls?” Joe prodded him.

“Lets you cast a spell from it even if you don’t know the spell, correct?” Mike raised an eyebrow at the question. This was gaming one-oh-one.

“Yes, you can cast the spell directly. If you cast these as-is, they will be as powerful as an upper-Apprentice casting it. But… you also could use these as study material. If someone manages to do it, they will learn the spell somewhere between novice one and novice nine; if they are both intelligent and lucky.” Joe’s words made Mike look at the scrolls in a new light. Even with the discount they got at the Mage’s College, learning a spell from them took a large chunk of gold. But the spell would usually start in the beginner ranks, so there was still some trade-off. “I’d also trade directly for some Cores.”

Mike waved off the issue of payment, that would be handled by acquisitions. He had stopped making those deals himself after he got in trouble for being too generous; a fact that would have made Joe scoff at him. “You’ll get paid. Fair market value, I guarantee it. What do the spells do?”

“Cone of Cold sets out a blast of cold air… more like a spray of liquid nitrogen, actually. It does frost damage, it also inflicts the ‘brittle’ debuff. That makes rigid things take more damage, and increases the damage done to the durability of armor and such. It should do between… three to five hundred cold damage to anyone in a cone, if the scroll is used as a spell.” Joe had done some quick math on that one. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to show proof.

“Interesting.” Mike held up the other one. “And this?”

“I think it is something like a siege weapon.” Joe answered after a short pause. “Really quick, do you know how depth charges work to destroy submarines?”

“Joe. Of course I do.” Mike chuckled at the question. “The explosion creates a cavitation bubble, and the actual damage is from the weight of the submarine settling into that and getting shaken really hard. It's called hydraulic shock.”

“Right, same concept here.” Joe motioned at the scroll. “Unlike an ‘earthquake’ spell, this creates a targeted sinkhole. The ground literally shatters, and that can cause damage as well. This was put away into the ‘useless’ archives a long time ago, because it is really hard to level up the spell. Using it on monsters doesn't offer any increase, and there are only so many buildings that you can build and destroy. Outside of war… yeah, not really so useful.”

“So why make it?” Mike asked the easy question.

Joe grinned darkly. “Huge casting range. Let’s say someone brings siege machines, you can drop those into a sinkhole that should be… twenty feet deep and wide? Or, if we counter against an aggressor, this should be enough to destroy a large section of wall or an important building.”

Mike gulped at the intense look on Joe’s face. “Put a lot of thought into this, have you?”

“I’m trying to think of a way to counter it, actually.” Joe admitted ruefully, realizing that he was getting too intense for Mike. “If someone uses that against us, we would need to rebuild whatever building was hit. Also, only Uncommon and higher buildings can resist an under-Journeyman ranked earthquake spell. Found out about that in a lore book on architecture.”

“When do you have time to read lore books?” Mike scoffed, but Joe only shrugged.

“I don't sleep all that much.” Joe summoned Mate, as well as two coffee cups from his ring. “Want a cup of me?”

“What?”

“Want a cup of Joe?” Joe chuckled at the pun as he downed his fifth cup of the day. It was already nine in the morning, after all.

“No thanks, I don’t want your sleeve coffee.” Mike shook his head with his eyes closed. This made him miss Mate making a rude gesture. “Besides, what makes you think that they will have siege equipment? This is gonna be a bunch of low-level people trying to zerg rush us.”

“Mmm.” Joe held up a finger as he drained his cup. Mate bubbled happily before sinking into Joe’s sleeve. “Ahh. Right, but there’s no way that this isn't an attack sponsored by other groups, right? I’m betting that there will be a lot of really high-levels hidden among all the lowbies. That would just make sense, right?”

“That is a possibility that we considered.” Mike admitted easily. “The fact remains that we will have the full, concentrated might of the guild in a defended location. I feel confident that we will easily be able to turn them away if needed.”

“Got it. I’ll be back at one, so try and have the materials for the other buildings ready to go!” Joe nodded and started to walk away. He paused. “Mike, one last thing. If you know that we can push them back, and they know that we can push them back… what will be the actual point of them attacking?”

Mike froze, and nodded slowly as Joe walked off. “Good question… we’ll need to look into that.”

Joe continued walking, his plan for the morning already set. He was on his way to the testing dungeon, and he was going to be trying to solo the dexterity area. But, while the increase at the end would be nice, Joe was actually after the Neigh-Bears. There were very few places with such a high concentration of monsters, and even though there was a low success rate, Joe was planning to grind his skill levels for Corify and his newly learned spell: Cone Of Cold. 

The reason he had been willing to trade the scrolls for Cores was pretty simple: he was out. He hadn't given too much thought to the matter before, but beyond two powerful Cores that he had stored in his codpiece, Joe was flat out. He tried to think about everything he had been pouring the Cores into, but in a real way he just had no idea where they had all gone. Hopefully the investment into his growth would pay off in the future. He started trying to psyche himself up.

“It’s fine, Joe! It’s all~l~l goose.”Joe sputtered, stopped, then started laughing at tripping over his words; this was going to be a new saying for him. “It’s all goose! I can only flap my wings and honk angrily!”