Mind-boggling, however, was put on hold when a new box came up, detailing a new tutorial.

Welcome to the advanced combat tutorial. Please proceed to the firing range

They were words that Estaria could get behind. Firing Range was her kind of thing. Even if her Captaincy was mostly relegating her to a pistol to keep her on the front lines - there were some Handgunner Captains, but they were mostly not well regarded from their lack of frontline leading, a man wanted to look to his side and see his commander, not have to look a hundred paces behind him - she liked to keep her skill with firearms sharp. So she could command the Handgunners with skill and wield her own with precision. While on her way to the firing range, she decided to check on the inventory, to see what she could learn about her pistol. It was hard to walk and read with the luminescent box, but she managed it well enough.

Her pistol was an interesting thing. Damage was given and then the new damage in brackets from her Powder Child trait. And then range, bracketed range, and two trait Black powder and Imprecise. The two traits read;

Blackpowder - Dangerous speed and exceptional penetration, blackpowder weaponry are great at laying low most targets. Deals 50% more Luck damage and ignores 20% of armour.

Imprecise - This weapon is not made with accuracy in mind or uses an imprecise firing system to make itself work. The projectile will land anywhere within a circle surrounding the intended target (The Precision stat reduces the size of this circle, and is modified by range)

It was good to hear they did extra luck damage. She could use them to rake an Elite of it’s luck before closing in to melee. Getting to the firing range, she was glad she bought the bullets, because there were not that many free bullets to get some practice in. The targets in the distance were the same as usual, one a dull grey, one white, and one orange. The orange being big and intimidating. But at this distance, with a pistol in her hand, that was no worry.

Subtargetting: with ranged weaponry, you may pick a specific body part to target. Each body part has it’s own health and when targeted;

Head - difficult to hit, but has moderate hp and will kill or give a Critical Wound to the target when it’s health is depleted, regardless of the remaining Total Health.

Torso - The easiest, but highest health body part on a person, the most effort is required to reduce this to zero, but will kill or give a Critical Wound to the target when it’s health is depleted, regardless of remaining Total Health.

Arms - Low health, reducing the arm to zero causes it to be unable to use anything grasped in this arm. Two-handed weapons receive mallus to their damage

Legs - Low health, reducing the leg to zero will half the speed at which the target is able to move, and may cause them to stumble and fall if charging

Total Health is the combined health of all limbs. If Subtargetting is not used, then the projectile will not damage a bodypart, but instead, deal damage to total health. If limb damage exceeds remaining Total Health, the target will die regardless of limb health.

This, was certainly befitting of the name “Advanced training”. But, she could grasp its concept. Target either a specific point, or as a whole. Specific point would be harder, as a whole less hard. Cocking the hammer of her pistol, she stuck her round through the mook dummies head, killing it in a single shot. She knew what the quest was asking without even reading the pop-up. Kill one of each. She reloaded the pistol, and then stuck a bullet through the Elite Dummy’s head. Between Blackpowder, and the moderate health of the head, Emily killed it in a single shot, and then reloaded and aimed at the Boss’ head. Strong batch of luck despite Blackpowder, and would take a Critical Wound before dying. Still….Boom went the pistol, and crack went the bullet into the Boss’ head. It drained the luck to the dregs and did a small amount of damage to the head, but needed a second round. The high Precision she had must have been helping her not fall foul of Inaccurate. Her eyes were invaded by another sight before she could reload however.

Hidden quest complete!

Headshot Mook dummy: 1/1

Headshot Elite dummy: 1/1

Headshot Boss dummy: 1/1

Accept Rewards? (Sharpshooter Token)

If the Boss Token was anything to go off, this Sharpshooter token would be interesting to see what it offered as a reward. Still, she decided to finish up here before checking that shop. No telling if luck Regenerated in battle or not. So another round was taken and then a third to kill it off after the Critical Wound. Which was understandable, she had seen some of the Chaos Warriors rush through three rounds before. Second one had her over a barrel with the Imprecise making her miss his head, but the third one hit clean and took him out. Then, she looked to the quests to get this sharpshooter token, and saw a change.

Hidden quest complete!

Headshot Mook dummy: 1/1

Headshot Elite dummy: 1/1

Headshot Boss dummy: 2/1

Accept Rewards? (Sharpshooter Token)

It intrigued her, that these quests started counting beyond the limit. So reloading her pistol again, she aimed at the regenerated mook Dummy, and cleaned it’s clocks. Interestingly, she wasn’t watching the xp pop up the first time, and this time the mook came up at 20 xp. Did ranged kills reduce the xp? She looked to the Elite dummy, and that too was now a dull grey. Frowning, she opened her status screen and looked over stats, seeing her level was level 3. Huh, she must have missed that with the spam of her quest and now this hidden quest and her interest over the sharpshooter token. A new thing, was the Trait point at the bottom just above Powder-Child. Hitting Spend Trait Point opened up yet a new window, and she felt herself pretty cluttered, so shut down the quest windows and the other clutter so she wasn’t overwhelmed.

Here, there wasn’t many things to look at. Only two traits were lit up, the rest were greyed out. One made her laugh. Powder Teen which was clearly an enhancement of Powder Child, and Religious Devotee. Curious, she tapped Religious Devotee, and got the new box.

Religious Devotee - Devotion to the gods beyond the average peasant extracts more from their blessings than usual. +5 to stats while blessed

It sounded cool, but she didn’t know how to get blessings of the gods, let alone how soon she’d get them. So instead she picked up Powder Teen, clicking the checkbox and then hitting the confirmation box.

Powder-teen: Growing fascination and growing excellence makes firearms a most apt choice of arms. 30% increase to range, 20% increase to damage

More range would help her with Precision and keeping inaccurate down. She experimented some more getting the headshots in, but it only went up to 2/1, never higher. So she killed herself two more of the dummies, one Elite and one Boss. Surprisingly, the boss did not drop a token either times. Apparently, they were pretty low drop rates. Maybe she shouldn’t have blown it on cash. But at the same time, she’d not be able to fire off so many rounds without the 20 she had bought from the store. Even those were getting a bit dry. Firing range was finished for the day though, so she turned to the new quest and accepted the rewards.

Hidden quest complete!

Headshot Mook dummy: 2/1

Headshot Elite dummy: 2/1

Headshot Boss dummy: 2/1

Rewards: (Sharpshooter Token) + (Random Box)

Random Box was intriguing. So she went to it and opened it, getting a flurry of images before it slowed down to a picture reading “20 bullets”. Which was nice, she wouldn’t have to spend her gold on more bullets for later shooting. Next came the Sharpshooter token. Since there was only one of them, she could only get three things. One of them was 100 gold which made her think the Boss Tokens really were valuable. And the other two were 30 bullets or 10 Nuln-Forged Bullets. She knew exactly how valuable Nuln-Forged bullets were. Few, if any, places in The Empire could match Nuln, and only the Dwarves exceeded it. So they were selected, and kept stored away for a rainy day. Or a Chaos Day. The hordes were going to descend soon, and having these good quality bullets would go down well for popping heads off the leaders. She scanned through the list, paying only half attention to the handguns on show. She couldn't tempt herself by knowing she could get one. And then, she got to Four pistols. One for 60, one for 70, and one for 80 and the final one for 100. So they were pretty far off. But their names, made her drool.

Micro-Mainspring of Multitudinous Precipitation of Pernicious Lead

Sharpshooter's Micro-Mainspring of Multitudinous Precipitation of Pernicious Lead

Nuln-Forged Micro-Mainspring of Multitudinous Precipitation of Pernicious Lead

Dwarf-Crafted Micro-Mainspring of Multitudinous Precipitation of Pernicious Lead

She instantly recognized the name as the legendary repeater pistol given only to the most prestigious of the Nuln academy. Master Engineers and Steam Tank Commanders. Ohh, to have one of them, the only thing better would be a Nuln-forged Hochland Longrifle, and that was personal indulgence as it did not work with her Captaincy at all.

Still, they were so far away, so she just shut it down. After that, she got a “congratulations on completing the tutorial” thing, 300 xp and 200 gold. She’d explore the store later, and since the xp hadn’t leveled her up, she shut down the Status Screen and headed off to meet the leaders of this place. It was time to focus on the "real" world for a bit...