The Wolves Ch. 002

This one was awful, and really, really made me wish rerolling perks was an option. Minor Constitution increases the amount of Constitution I gain by 2% from all sources, meaning I would need 50 Constitution to get any bonus out of it. A bonus is a bonus, I guess. Even if it sucks.

I exited my profile and opened up the team page for The Wolves. There is room for an image for a team logo to be added, so we would have to work on that. Sonja is a pretty good artist, perhaps she could take care of it.

I heard a door open, and speaking of Sonja, she was the second one of us to finish. "Sonja, over here!" I called, waving my hand in the air. She walked over and sat beside me. "How'd you do?" I asked.

"Pretty good. I got a 4 in Strength, 9 in Agility, 6 in Intellect, 3 in Constitution and 9 in Endurance. I was just going to take a look at my skills. How about you?"

"8 in Strength, 7 in Agility, 46 in Intellect, 0 in Constitution, and 8 in Endurance. I ended up getting 3.5 skills that are good, and 1.5 that are bad," I answered.

Her eyes went wide when I was talking. I'm pretty sure it was when I said 46 Intellect. "How the hell do you have 46 in Intellect? And why do you have 0 Constitution?

"I'll tell everyone about the Intellect part later tonight. As for the Constitution part, I didn't take a hit during the duel, so the computer or whatever couldn't calculate a base Constitution for me. Apparently when we're finished with this dungeon and start the next one we need to be evaluated again. It'll just have to wait until then, it's not too big of a deal."

"I'm glad you were the first one out," I said while bringing up our team page Showing it to her, I continued, "Think you can work up a logo for our team?"

"I can't believe I forgot about that!" she exclaimed. "I knew we were probably going with 'The Wolves' for our team name, so I put together a few sketches. I meant to transfer them from my computer to my phone this morning, so we could pick one as a team."

"No problem. We'll be back tomorrow, so we can just stop and have it changed then."

I noticed there were headshots of each member of The Wolves on the team page. I tapped on Sonja's image and her profile opened up with all her stats, including her skills and perks. I was about to take a look when a door opened and Ben came out of room 3. He saw us and came over.

"Hey guys, how'd you fare in the eval?" he asked.

Sonja and I both listed our attributes and then Ben listed his, "5 Strength, 6 Agility, 10 Intellect, 4 Constitution and 9 in Endurance."

"Awesome. Did you get any Auras right away, or will that have to wait?" I asked.

"Not sure yet, was about to spend my attribute points and then take a look. From what I've read up on from other people's experiences, you usually get two skills that suit your combat style, and the others will be random. So I should get at least one or two auras. Hopefully one of them will be somewhat useful."

"At least I can verify that the 2 skills that suit your combat style is probably accurate. I got one spear related skill, a shield related skill."

Sonja had apparently been engrossed in her own profile page and she verified it as well, "I got a bow skill, and a two-handed sword skill, so looks like we'll all have something useful early on. If not, we can always buy some Skill Gems later on if we want a specific skill."

Everytime you kill a boss in a dungeon, you are guaranteed to get a Skill Gem. The higher level the dungeon, the higher tier Skill Gem you can get. In low level dungeons, like the ones we're about to delve into, you'll almost always get a tier E Skill Gem. There is a small chance to get a better gem but the chances are small. If I remember correctly, this dungeon should have an 85.9% chance at a tier E gem, 7.5% chance at a Tier D gem, 5% chance at a tier C gem, a 1.5% chance at a tier B gem, and a 0.1% chance at a tier A gem.

The dungeon in the Amazon Rainforest, however, has a 0.01% chance at a tier E gem, a 0.1% chance at a tier D gem, a 1% chance at a tier C gem, a 10% chance at a tier B gem, an 85% chance at a tier A gem, and a 4.89% chance at a tier S gem. The chance at a tier S gem is why so many high level adventurers farm high level dungeons over and over. Either they use the gem themselves, or they sell it giving them a very nice payday.

A tier S Skill Gem can go for over 1 million credits, depending on what it does.The most expensive one I had ever seen was sold for 2.4 million credits. In that particular case, it was a perk that greatly increased all the person's attributes. I'm pretty sure it was something like 20 bonus attribute points per level, as well as 200% more strength, agility, intellect, constitution and endurance gained from all sources. The person who used that gem would gain 25 attribute points per level, and each point spent would give them +3 attributes in whichever one they put it in to. So in actuality, it was more like 75 attribute points per level, and it would apply retroactively. A level 200 adventurer getting that gem would pretty much instantly gain 4000 attribute points they could spend, and who knows how much bonus attributes from other perks. It would be like jumping 800 levels in an instant, BEFORE all the other bonuses kick in.

It is almost impossible to get the tier S Skill Gem that you want. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different skills and perks. With such a low drop rate, you're better off farming a high level dungeon to sell the tier A Skill gems, since those can sell for thousands or tens of thousands of credits as well. You'll probably have better odds to get a tier E gem from the dungeon in the Amazon than the tier S gem you want. That's how shitty the odds are.

Whenever you loot a Skill Gem, it will have the tier level, and a number on it to let you know what skill or perk it contains. They'll also be the same color as the corresponding tier. White for tier E, green for tier D, blue for tier C, purple for tier B, orange for tier A, and a yellowish color for tier S. There is a page on the Adventurer's Guild website that lists all the discovered Skill Gems by number, which skill or perk it contains, and how much they're selling for. You can sell it on their website, or sell it to the Adventurer's Guild itself.

While I was thinking about Skill Gems, Anja was the next one to finish her evaluation. Figures that she would get the exact same base attributes as her sister. They are identical twins, after all. It suits her well though, since her playstyle will be that of a rogue or assassin, using her speed and mobility to dodge attacks.

A few minutes after Anja came out, Mason exited his room.

"Well, well, well. Who is the slowpoke now?" Anja teased.

"Bite me, Anja," he growled. "Did any of you have trouble with the combat portion of the evaluation?"

"I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't have any issues," I said. "Won the first one, drew the second one, and won the third one. Didn't take a single hit in any of the three rounds."

"I didn't have much trouble," Sonja answered. "Mine took place in a forest and I had to hunt down another archer. Lost the first round, but won the next two in a row."

Turns out Ben had some trouble as well, but not to the extent of either Anja or Mason. Rather than have to fight another opponent wielding a staff, Ben's opponent had two weapons called Bastons. They're basically wooden sticks, but it's a lot harder to defend against 2 sticks than another staff. It took him three attempts at the duel before he was finally able to win.

Anja had to fight almost a mirror image of herself. She tried using all her weapons, and it took her five attempts to win the duel. Mason took 6 attempts. He was simply outclassed in the speed department. He's a very big guy and was going up against a guy that was both shorter and probably weighed 60-70 pounds less. Eventually, he went full defense and won by points rather than killing his opponent. His base Constitution did end up being 10, so maybe having his ass kicked so much helped him out. His base stats were calculated as 9 Strength, 6 Agility, 5 Intellect, 10 Constitution, and 7 Endurance.

He did get damn lucky with his skills and perks though. At tier A, he got Major Attributes, which is 5 bonus attribute points per level, as well as 20% more Strength, Agility, Intellect, Constitution and Endurance from all sources. His tier B skill is called Whirling Leap, and allows him to leap into combat and strike all surrounding enemies with his weapon. He would have to be careful not to hit Anja or myself, but it could be devastating.

That doesn't compare to the skill that Anja got. When she told us to open her profile on our phones and look at her skills we all stood in shock. She got a tier S skill called Precognition that none of us even knew existed. The ability allows her to see things before they happen, up to 2 seconds in advance. That's all it does and she needs to channel a hefty amount of mana to use it, but it is incredibly powerful. It would probably be better if her sister had it, but it will be invaluable for someone who wants to avoid getting hit. Unfortunately it costs 50 mana per second, and it nearly halts all mana regeneration while active, so she won't be able to use it all the time. Not yet, anyways. At rank 1, Precognition reduces mana regeneration by 99% while it is active. For each rank the skill gains, the regeneration reduction will be reduced by 1%. So at rank 5 she will suffer 95% mana regeneration reduction, at rank 50 she will suffer 50% mana regeneration reduction, etc. Who knows how long it will take the skill to rank up, though.

It took longer than we thought it would for all of us to get through evaluation. We only had about 9 good hours to work with before we would have to leave and head back home, so we decided to stop standing around looking at our skills. Everyone spent their available attribute points and we entered the dungeon.

Into the depths we go.