As Hirrus caught his breath, he felt the two Arcana he had seen the men use enter his arsenal. He wanted to turn his nose up at them, but considering his SnowBarrage had just turned the fight in his favor, it seemed like they might become relevant in the future.

Peppered Breath

+1 TEN, +30 Cleave Rating

Damage: 2xBUR + 1xSUP

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Added effect: Affected enemies are afflicted with Burn (debuffID 1620) dealing an additional 10% damage and reducing ATT by 5% for 30 seconds.

TK Bullets

+3 RES, +32 Attack Speed Rating

Damage 1xATT + 1.5xRES

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 0.25 seconds

Added effect: knock back enemies 5 feet.

While the damage the spells did were unlikely to be worth taking the time to practice with them, he had to keep in mind the added effects. Those might end up being useful. What struck him as odd were the statistics immediately beneath their names. Checking his statistics, Hirrus confirmed that they were indeed adding to his attributes, but beyond that, he could also see they were adding statistics beneath them.

Level 2

HP: 65750

BUR: 810

SUP: 610

TEN: 811

ATT: 360

RES: 365

GLE: 810

There were a series of scores beneath those numbers, rating a handful of unfamiliar statistics. Most of them were at zero, but now Crit, Attack Speed, and Cleave had small numbers next to them - only that which he’d gained from his Arcana.

Without any ability to interpret what they meant or what the ratings themselves offered, it wasn’t worth wasting his time looking them over.

A sound from the alley caught his attention. Hirrus glanced over at the third adventurer as if seeing him for the first time. He was between the Sleek Goliath and the inner city wall.

For a moment he feared the adventurer would attack, forcing Hirrus to defend himself. But the man was still sitting against the wall, staring at Hirrus with a clear mixture of confusion and gratitude.

Hirrus hefted his axe over his shoulder. “We aren’t going to have a problem, are we?”

“Fuck no,” the man said immediately. He raised his hands, as if being arrested. “No problem at all, sir. I agree wholeheartedly with your actions. This is great. You’re great. I’m a big fan of your work, uh…” He gestured at Hirrus, obviously fishing for a name.

“Hirrus.” He was slightly amused at the man’s sudden and complete ingratiation. “What were you doing here?”

The man struggled to his feet. “Well, at first, I was looking to chase this questline. The reward is supposed to be a relic weapon, which sounds too good to be true for a quest I can start down here at level five, but it seems a great way to make myself an asset for an eventual raid team.” He walked over and kicked the nearest of the two dead men - the taller man with the hammer. “These fuckers were saying they could fast track me if I joined their guild. I just had to go through an initiation. Which was, apparently, them beating the shit out of me.”

“I would be surprised,” Hirrus said, returning his axe to its place on his belt, “but Last of the Strong have larger sins weighing against them than being unkind to their fellow adventurer.”

“Right.” The man nodded, but didn’t provide further comment immediately. Hirrus wanted to let the silence stretch on until it became uncomfortable, but the man’s tolerance for silence seemed nonexistent. “So what are you, some kind of guardian angel? Or did I happen to hit the lottery and you walked in right when I needed help?”

“Coincidence,” Hirrus said with a shake of his head. “I’m hunting down Last of the Strong for what they did to Yenon. Their recruiters are the only lead I have right now.” He looked down at the pair of corpses. “But I appear to be approaching a dead end on that front.”

“Yeah. Um, honestly, they’re probably jerking you around.” He nodded across at the man with the polished breastplate. “That fucker was talking shit about taking out some aggression from being beaten up earlier. I assume that was you. But they meant for you to never find your way to anyone of consequence.”

Absentmindedly, Hirrus reached down and picked up the fallen scimitar on the street, holding it up to examine it. The gaudy red gem in its hilt was undamaged from the fight - a sign that it was not just a cheap hunk of colored glass - and the blade itself was well-made.

“Woah.” The adventurer was looking at him with wide eyes. “How did you do that?” Hirrus was surprised at the fear that lurked in that gaze. “How did you pick that up?”

“It was on the ground,” Hirrus said, reaching down again and grabbing the fallen hammer. “I picked it up the same way anyone does.”

“Yeah, but, like…” The man seemed to struggle for a moment. “But that’s player gear. You’re not… You’re not a player right? Or are you just a really deep method actor doing some weird antagonist RP?”

Hirrus stared at the man for a moment, waiting to see if the words would start making sense with a moment of focus.

They didn’t.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last.

“Nevermind, forget it,” the man said, waving a hand dismissively. “It’s not the important part. But when a play- uh, adventurer. When an adventurer dies, their gear is supposed to be lost forever.”

Hirrus looked between the hammer and the scimitar, and focused for a moment before the two weapons vanished into his inventory.

“Holy shit,” the man said. “What the fuck?”

“I keep hearing you people say that,” Hirrus remarked. “I don’t think it has the weight you think it does.”

“So you can just straight-up jack people’s shit?” The man pointed at the bodies. “Like, can you take their other stuff? Can you use it?”

Hirrus shrugged and grabbed a hold of the taller man’s gloves, pulling them off. They came off easily enough, and once they were in hand as a pair, Hirrus was able to put them into his inventory as well.

“Shit.” There was a breathy quality to his voice. “That’s wild. Wait. Can you equip them? Are they better than what you’ve got?”

“Better?”

They had just been random leather gauntlets. He didn’t consider-

Boiled Leather Gauntlets

Hands

Ilvl 22

+110 BUR

+110 TEN

+220 Crit Rating

“Hm.” Hirrus took a moment to equip them. “These have attributes on them.”

“You mean your stuff doesn’t?” The man gaped at him. “You beat the shit out of these fuckers butt-ass naked?”

Hirrus ignored the bits he didn’t understand. “I’ve never seen gear with attribute bonuses before. My armor has always seemed perfectly functional. I didn’t know there was an alternative.”

The adventurer laughed, a deep-throated thing. It almost sounded evil. “You were a fucking terror already. Imagine what you could do with real shit?”

While Hirrus had been willing to push onwards while disregarding the Arcana he was gaining, the promise of power from gear was undeniable. By his reckoning, replacing all of his gear with items of this quality would add nearly half-again his attributes, if they were evenly distributed between his various statistics. The adventurers he’d faced so far hadn’t put up any real fight, but if he had his way, it would only be a matter of time before he was facing larger threats.

Hirrus moved to the man with the breastplate, retrieving his metal gauntlets.

Burnished Gauntlets

Hands

Ilvl 25

+125 SUP

+125 TEN

+250 CDR Rating

“Hm. These are even better.” Hirrus added them to his inventory, swapped his gear, and then retrieved the Boiled Leather Gauntlets from his inventory. “Did you want these?”

The man reached out tentatively. “Can I?”

Hirrus handed them over. The adventurer looked down at the gloves as if he’d been handed the keys to a castle.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “What the fuck?”

“You keep saying that,” Hirrus said with a frown. “If you intend for those words to be meaningful, you should save them for when it matters.”

The adventurer ducked down and grabbed a hold of the tall man’s boots, trying to pull them off. They stayed rigidly attached, no matter how the man twisted and contorted and wrenched.

Hirrus stepped up and pulled it off smoothly.

“Did you want these, too?”

“Uh. Yeah.” He looked at the other adventurer’s polished greaves. “If those are better for you, I mean. You get first pick, right? You did all the work.”

After a few minutes, Hirrus had peeled the gear from the two corpses like the husks from ears of corn.

At the end of it, his gear had made a dramatic improvement.

Mostly.

“I can’t give up my axe. It has… Sentimental value.”

It wasn’t the only piece he was unwilling to give up, but he doubted the adventurer was going to question being handed three rings instead of only two.

“That’s easy,” the man said, “just take the gem.” He demonstrated by retrieving the hammer Hirrus had handed him - being the weaker of the two weapons in terms of statistics - and grasping the modest green gem set into the bottom of the haft. After a moment the gem came free. The man drew his own weapon - a simple-looking dagger - and popped a chipped orange gem out of the hilt before settling the gem in the spot, where it stuck fast instantly. “There. Level five dagger becomes level twenty-two dagger. No muss, no fuss.”

Hirrus popped the gaudy-looking red gem out of the hilt of the scimitar, and saw that without it, the weapon no longer offered stats. His axe had a socket at the top of the head that was almost the right size, and he was shocked when the gem fit snugly and stuck fast, as if it had always belonged there.

Guard Axe

Weapon

Damage: 1.25xBUR + 0.25xSUP

Ruby Of Lelsin

Ilvl 26

+130 SUP

+130 GLE

+260 Attack Speed Rating

Hirrus took a moment to take stock of his attributes, outfitted as he was now with a mixture of burnished metal armor and mismatched leather.

Level 2

HP: 65750

BUR: 1050

SUP: 865

TEN: 1291

ATT: 455

RES: 475

GLE: 1145

“Thank you,” Hirrus said. “It hadn’t occurred to me that… That using adventurer’s gear might empower me so much.”

“No problem.” The man offered his hand. “Please, call me Kur- uh, I mean. Alric. My name is Alric Webb.”

Hirrus gave him a dubious glance before turning away. “Sure. Thank you, Alric. If you’ll excuse me, though, I must be on my way.”

“Wait,” Alric said, stepping up beside Hirrus as they left the alley. “You’re the first person in this game who’s been nice to me since I got here. Let me help you out. What are you after?”

Hirrus adjusted his new gloves, and patted his upgraded axe from where it hung on his belt. “The Last of the Strong owes me a debt of blood,” he said. “And I’m going to collect.”