64 Chapter Sixty-Four – Healing Edge, Expert/8 (1/2)

Binder/3.

Binder/4.

Expert/8. +1 to Int, Mirrored to +1 Dex. Int 24, Dex 26. +8 Skill points, plus 8 more for Int increase. 2 to Shipwright (8), 6 to Pilot (6), default Expert Knowledges.

Alchemist/5. +1 SA, now totaling 7d6, 3-6 per die. +1 Bonus Alchemist Feats. +4 Poison Resistance. Most importantly, could now make up to 5 Potions per day, subject to the 1k limit. I was making very sure that damn Alc Golem had no opportunities to destroy that lab, every day.

That meant up to 5 Growth Potions/day… or a Giant Growth, if I cared to make one, which I didn't.

This day, I got past the Gugs.

There was an infestation of Moits riding civilian humans behind them.

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Artificer/5. Bonus Artificer Feats. 4 skill points. I could retain magic on magic items without using a formation now. Effectively, I could punch Tremble into a magical Weapon used by anything, and she could munch it down within two minutes. Could still only Apply 1k gpv a day, but I could at least store the stuff in the assortment of gemstones off dead giants' jewelry… or pass it off to other Named Weapons…

I finished melting down pieces of the Duke's sword down, and making myself a Buckler. Tremble dumped all his current defensive enhancement into it, calmly starting to regain it all just to toughen himself up, if nothing else.

Stand had always been the name of my Shield, and Tremble immediately started adding new stanzas to our Song of 'Stand and Tremble, She Comes!' I made it as a buckler, then a small shield, large shield, and even a tower shield. Its first Slot was Soulbound, so it was tied to me, and freed up room in the Hilt Chamber for more shards of metal to be added to it.

I had an effective Strength of 26 at the moment, so a Buckler with a Compressed boss on it weighing thirty pounds was nothing.

Stand wasn't intelligent yet, and I wasn't going to make it so without more thought. It was there to enhance my defensive benefits, no more, no less.

It had the same limit on QL as Tremble, and so 7 Slots. As I could and did take my time with this crafting, I drove it all the way to 12k worth of Value Crafting, on top of what Tremble ceded to it.

Most of that went into Bane Variants on the Weapon side of things, because Shields were the biggest value sinks in the game.

You didn't need a special Feat to make a Shield a Weapon, like I had done on the inverse with Tremble as a moving shield.

+3 Fortified Greater Soulbound Defiant Shield. +1 Shield AC, plus double Shield Focus equaled +12 to AC from Shield, costing 4 Essence. 100% crit immunity when stacked with my Alchemical changes to my physique.

And also a Heavy +1 Greater Soulbound Bane Enmity Defender/Guardian Bashing/Bane of Legends/Energized Shield, with Morphing and all the Impervious/Indestructible things going for it. Set permanently to Defender, unless Guardian might be needed in Arsenal.

Continuous +9 Defender bonus to AC. To get the same, had to lose the primary offensive power on Tremble, and I needed the AC with all the cheaty Teamwork Feats everything suddenly had.

With Shield as part of my Profound Primary Weapon Group, it was a Profound Weapon and I could wield it without losing my Wis bonus to AC.

Add in a Missile Warding Augment Stone that used to be a ruby on a giant's finger providing a +5 to my Ranged AC and a free missile deflect every six seconds, and my defensive side got another nice shot in the arm.

No chance at crits, immunity to ranged attacks, improved AC, greater reach for the bigger combatants equaled more staying power. As long as I kept those in combat range who could attack to three or less, I would mostly be fine. I hoped.

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Of course, Gugs with five attacks and Moits the same, not so easy compared to giants. It looked like the Curse had stumbled on a winning formula and wanted to exploit it.

Naturally enough, following the Moits were Uterrioz, four-armed reptilian warriors with snake lower bodies, who normally existed underground in time-lost carverns and stuff, having themselves a good ol' time hacking everything in sight, and then me.

After them were the gargorians, the extremely powerful four-armed lords of the gargoyles. They learned not to fly around me quickly enough, but four claws, two horns, a bite, and tail swipe was a lot to deal with. Just two of them could turn into a nightmare of one making me totally vulnerable to the other, and I didn't get past them for some time.

But that was okay. I had Advanced Classes to raise to 3, I had to finish out Archer, Scout, Minstrel, Artificer, Monk, Vizard, and Soulshaper to /5.

Key points: Scout added another d6 to my SA, bringing it to a full +8d6, the max for my level. Monk, with Enlightened Master, +1 Ki and improved Lightfoot, immune to disease; with Sohei, Improved TWF on a flurry attack, which I rarely used since it required standing still.

Minstrel: Inspire Courage went to +2, so with Song of the Heart it was at +3, doubling with Wardancer to +6, and then heaping +3 to +5 on top of that in morale bonuses to hit and damage from Courageous on Tremble…