PenguinKills
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Chapter 56 - Tracy
🕑 Added 2024-06-17 18:38:49 +0000 UTC-AN-
For those who won't see my announcement on RR, I'll add it here.
The support I have been getting is tremendous and honestly blows my mind. Thank you guys for all the support and I want to do something nice about it now that my Rising Stars days are coming to an end. If we hit 100 patreon members I'll put out an extra chapter for everyone!
Being patreon members already this doesn't effect you, but wanted to inform you regardless. If we reach 100 I'll put out an extra chapter and will keep the 11 Chapter lead. Certain milestones should be rewarded and the advanced chapters will continue to grow. Maybe even reach Zogarth's insane 55 chapters one day.
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Tracy Strong's POV
I didn't know if I could take much more of this. Everyone in this camp was an utter moron. Whining about this or whining about that. It was enough to drive a woman mad and I was nearly at my breaking point.
Carrying them through this tutorial was turning out harder than I anticipated. They fought me at every little decision and made me want to strangle them. It got so bad I got fed up and snapped. I didn't mean to be quite so... forceful, but it got the point across.
No one spouted any unnecessary objections after that. In my defense, I didn't know how powerful the relic was going to be when I bought it from the store. The man lived and after extensive time with healers, had no permanent damage.
Thinking about it still made me cringe. I had just wanted to chastise the man, not hurt him that badly.
I cleared my head of those thoughts, there was nothing that I could do about it now. The next wave was coming tomorrow and I had to prepare for it. Always preparing, always doing as much as possible all to see it destroyed in three days.
It was sad to spend every waking moment putting your all into defending the camp for all of it to be in ruins not three days later. I had to do it, otherwise we would all die.
Starting as a Ranger had been strange in this new world. Getting taken out of my life so suddenly and forced to choose between 5 classes like this was some video game.
It was fairly easy to narrow down my decision to Ranger though. There was no chance in hell I was going to swing around a sword or use daggers so Warrior and Rogue were out. I wanted to stay as far away from the monsters as I could thank you very much.
I needed to be able to defend myself and I had never been good with the sight of blood, which eliminated Healer. It came down to Mage and Ranger, both would give me the range I sought but one was something I knew a little about and the other was completely new. Familiarity won out in the end and I picked Ranger.
I wasn't a Ranger anymore and I could have probably gotten to my current class through mage, but it would have been more difficult.
Arcane Trapper had a nice ring to it that made it sound cooler than it actually was.
After choosing my class and getting dropped off into this never-ending hell, I knew that I had to change. It was just like a tower defense game and I had to treat it like such.
Traps and defenses meant more than having an extra warrior on the wall, so that was what I did. Evolving into Trapper had been the logical choice. It gave me the needed skills to help the best way I could without actually having to fight.
Pitfall, spike, even poison. Every new skill came with another trap I could make. It all ran on mana though, which was the only hindrance. To make a trap I needed two things, the materials and the mana to use the skill.
I could make a trap manually, obviously, but my skills were there for a reason and added greatly to the lethality of my traps. Mundane traps stopped being effective long ago.
I had the points for materials, it was the mana that limited how many I could place. Starting as a ranger had most of my points go into perception and agility, which didn't help me much now.
Trapper evened it out with a touch of the magic stats along with more perception and agility.
In my eyes, a profession would even it out. I needed a profession to focus on the magical stats that I was missing, either Wisdom or Acumen. Intelligence wouldn't help with the amount of traps I could place, it would only make the ones I do place stronger.
Enchanter was the obvious choice. It focused on Wisdom and Acumen so I had more mana and recovered it faster along with the added bonus of aiding my trapmaking. Magical components and triggers I could now craft at a fraction of the price.
It certainly alleviated the points I dumped into the store. Points were where all the arguments started. After being pulled in here with a bunch of my college classmates, none of them took this seriously enough.
They treated it like a game and fought each other over 'kill stealing' and fighting too close to each other and splitting experience. Things I would hear my little brother yell about on his Xbox.
Our faction head was the charismatic cliche frat boy who thought just because he was the loudest, that made him the smartest. His rules were stupid and didn't care about what anyone did as long as he got a share.
He let everyone choose whatever profession they wanted without even considering what would be useful. We still didn't have a leatherworker because no one wanted to work with the nasty chemicals.
Watching him die brought a small amount of joy.
No one paid attention to little old Tracy. They saw me as a small weak little girl who posed no danger. That all changed when I nearly killed Jacob.
While they were fighting each other and spending points on frivolous things, I was getting stronger. Small and weak traps placed absolutely everywhere made me a contributor in almost every death in a wave.
I got a part of almost all the experience flowing into our camp. I even bought [Identify Block] so no one would be able to see my level. I needed to build up my strength undetected for my plan to succeed and succeed it did.
With a class not meant for actual combat, I needed to out-level them tremendously to make up for the difference. I wasn't planning on fighting anyone, but I needed the base stats to be able to react and dodge if needed.
I had backup plans and talismans from the store in case of emergencies but I wanted to keep those in my back pocket. After Eric got crushed by the lizard in the 15th wave, I made my move.
Traps activated that I had placed around camp and I forced them to make me the leader. In the rare time everyone used their brains, they agreed to my command.
After becoming the leader, I implemented some changes. After every wave, they would give me all of their points. No more spending it on useless things or on stupid skills they thought were cool.
Defenses were improved and the formations for fighting were ironed out. No more fighting by yourself like some vagabond. Equipment was standardized, and warriors were forced to use a shield.
Rangers had to take [Splitting Shot], mages had to upgrade into Artillery Mages. Weakness would not be tolerated. I was not going to die here with these idiots and if these people weren't going to get their shit together, I would force them.
Having control over the points solidified any doubt that they had about my leadership. Jacob fought me over it mightily. Saying it was his points and there was no way he was going to give them to me. Seeing no other way and the need to make an example out of someone, I used the relic.
The store called it a Thunder Ball and it was a one-time-use item that shot lightning at whatever it hit. I thought it was like a taser, a jolt to the system but otherwise nonlethal. I was wrong.
After the initial shock of nearly killing a man wore off, I steeled my face and tried to work through it. People gave me looks and some were fearful of me but there was nothing I could do about it.
Trying to reassure them and apologize would ruin the facade that I had created. Fear was a decent enough motivator and I didn't need them to like me. After this tutorial was over I wouldn't see any of them ever again anyway.
After that, everyone ceased their petty arguments and went along with what I said. Some even had the good grace to realize I was helping them.
After the evolution to F rank my traps were becoming even more powerful. Hidden even to the Bosses of the wave's senses they were so good. Long past the days of using trivial tripwires and false floors. Magic truly was a wonderful thing. Weaving grand arcane tapestries of destruction.
It was like the traps were notes of a musical and I was the conductor. Every explosion leading to more, building on the last.
The bosses were a slog to take down and I had to use a lot of the points I earned in consumables to be able to kill it. It was a waste to spend points like that but I couldn't afford to lose anyone else so early in the tutorial. I needed defenders to help me.
Already I heard tales of people fighting each other. The months of fighting wearing down on the morals of men. Factions went to war trying to conquer other pylons in some vain sense of glory.
They were blind to the true threat and wasted their strength against each other. It was ok though, I would be there to pick up the pieces. I tried to gather as much information about other factions as I could but doing it was hard.
Gone were the days of instant information, if I wanted to know what was happening I needed to send someone there directly. That changed with Kathy though. She was a fellow student that I had known moderately well, we got along but were never really close.
She was smart and thought much the same as I had, choosing Ranger at the start and evolving it into a useful class. Beastmaster wasn't the path that I chose but a good one nonetheless.
Having her was an unexpected boon. Flyers and birds to scout the surrounding area and keep track of everything that was going on was extremely useful. Her ability to fight wasn't the greatest but she made up for it in other areas.
She could never get enough beasts to make a difference. The monsters of the wave were untamable for some reason and we had yet to figure out why. She had a few beasts she kept for personal defense but sending those to fight would be a waste.
They would die under the onslaught of monsters and all the effort of taming them would be lost. She could spend her days taming as many animals as she could in the forest but they would all perish in the next wave, becoming a waste of time.
That was why she stuck to mostly birds. They could evade attack by remaining in the sky while also being free to launch attacks of their own. As the monsters of the wave became more magical she lost a few but that was to be expected.
Her ace in the hole was the giant bear that followed her around. She put more effort into that than the rest of her tames combined. It started as a level 15 thing that swiftly grew past the F rank. It would beat even me in a straight fight.
The whispers that her birds carried from factions far away were worrying. Many were in ruins and more were barely hanging on. Some even turned to banditry in the woods preying upon any they could find.
The prize of points too great to ignore, valued even higher than human life. The despondent and downtrodden cared little of laws from a faraway place. There were no police to punish them and the need for survival pushed them toward murder.
It was sad to watch the human race devolve into nothing better than animals. Honestly, it happened slower than I thought it would.
The most dreadful of the bunch was a marauder by the name of Chris, or Craig, or was it Gregg? The birds were great but some information didn't transfer well.
He amassed a following of like-minded people and began raiding factions and cared little for the life of men. The way his followers revered him made me think of cult leaders with their undying loyalty. They had this zealous look about them and would kiss the earth he walked on.
Already he took control of more factions than anyone else I had information on. The only thing that didn't make me more nervous was the distance between us. We were in the southern half of the tutorial based on the markers and he started his campaign in the northern half.
He already took over most of the northeast and was making his way south. I didn't want to risk provoking him so I kept the surveillance to a minimum. He wasn't headed in our direction and I didn't want to change that. At least not until I had the traps to stop him.
With wave 21 tomorrow, I only needed to survive 9 more of these. Then I would be free.
Then I could finally go home.
Comments
Alexander C Hyde
It was (okay)ok though, I would be there to pick up the pieces.
