NOVEL NEXT 2.28 Bounty-Full Harvest
[Equipment]
[Stun Stick
Light | Blunt | Shock | 1d4 damage
Shock: Adds 1d3 electricity damage when active; on a solid hit the target must make a Constitution save against the attack or be stunned for a number of rounds equal to the loss degree.
Martial Maneuver – Shock and Awe: Expend the entire battery to apply double the shock damage, and stun chance, to every enemy within melee range, jumping once for every target that critically fails their save.]
[Snapback Gun
Light | Single action | 25/50 m range | 1d6 damage
Martial Maneuver – Hurts Coming Out: Supercharge the recall as an attack action for an additional 1d4 damage, but you will need to make a Dexterity save to catch the bullet.]
[Wicked Knife
Simple | Sharp | Brutal | 1d4 damage
Brutal: Base damage results of 1 are re-rolled, but the weapon cannot be used for nonlethal attacks.
Martial Maneuver – Serrated Bite: Guarantee a bleed effect on the next successful attack.]
Ricky marveled at the small stockpile before him. After a lifetime of using cobbled scrap, it felt good to have proper armaments falling into his lap. He had set up a small table outside the jitney to properly organize his gear, taking care to leave his hauler suit inside and wear his filter mask. It wasn't the most practical idea, but the hauler suit was his most recognizable feature and without it Ricky felt confident that no one would recognize him. Plus, he needed the room to experiment with his newest piece of gear.
[Bug Iron Targe
Medium | +1 dodge | +1 armor
Martial Maneuver – Targe Charge: The spirit of the cannonbug lives on. Once per round you can charge towards a target, moving your full run speed with a shield bash as one attack action. The target must then make a Strength saving throw against your attack, with a penalty equal to the number of meters traveled, or suffer knockback and fly 5 meters per degree of loss, landing prone.]
Crafting the bug iron into a shield came naturally to Ricky. Logically it was the obvious choice, the baked shell had unfurled into a vaguely shallow bowl and only needed some minor work to shape into a round shield, but Ricky liked to think that he could feel the "spirit" described in the maneuver. The bug wanted to be a shield so it could continue to bash, even in death — a poetic thought, but unfortunately Ricky couldn't test it. The Targe Charge maneuver required a target he could actually attack before it would trigger, and targeting any random object didn't qualify. Ricky felt disappointed but not surprised, otherwise he could easily exploit the maneuver to zip forward whenever he wanted.
Ricky still spent the evening practicing with the new gear, and quickly realized that he already knew the basics thanks to his Armaments class. How to hold a weapon and how to brace his feet were things that Ricky just naturally knew now, as if he had been running combat drills for months. He theorized that every class was defined by one intrinsic quality, and the Armaments description said that it was the only class to know training in every equipment weight class right from the beginning. At first Ricky resented that he was forced to take a class so wholly focused on combat, but as he shot at empty cans implications started to seep through his brain.
If Armaments helped him handle this snapback gun, would it do the same for mounted artillery? If his hauler suit counted as armor, would a mech also benefit? The reductive way the system handled equipment classifications could go either way, since every piece Ricky had identified so far counted as one basic category. Simple weapons were just sticks and daggers; light weapons were anything meant to be used with one hand, like the snapback gun; medium tools could switch between one hand or both hands for increased damage. Ricky had not yet found any heavy weapons, but he assumed they would follow a similar pattern.
"The point is, why are weapons and armor classified based on just their size?" Ricky asked Kakisi. His audience of one snored quietly from their napping spot in the wheel well as Ricky started pacing and continued, "I mean, you'd think there would be separate classifications for swords and maces and stuff. Not that I'm complaining, but it's like the system expects me to just collect every bit of gear I come across. Which I probably should, if I'm ever going to figure out how to synergize my classes…"
Ricky quieted as melancholy threatened to invade his thoughts again. Phanya was running around like a world-star athlete and Tapper broke the rules of physics on a regular basis, but the most Ricky had achieved so far was using his Chain spell on the jitney. Even that accomplishment had been rendered obsolete within the hour by their car gaining access to the system and repairing itself! His Armaments and Artificer classes were not melding the way they should yet, and that final missing piece gnawed at the back of his mind. He looked at the gizmo on the table, currently set up so he could experiment with the Split spell, and wondered again how he might weaponize his pitiful selection of spell components.
Commotion drew Ricky from his musings. Someone was having a heated debate nearby, and Ricky rounded the jitney to find a large buggy and its occupants milling around in front of their ride. They were clearly armed and armored in a mishmash of gear, but their weapons were holstered and they argued like any group that couldn't agree on what they wanted to have for dinner. Ricky nearly turned around to leave them be when he noticed one person was wearing a familiar heavy leather jacket.
"I'm telling you, this is the car!" the Ratfink said, gesticulating wildly at the jitney. One of this companions pulled out a can, spraying a gray goop around the seams of the car's door that quickly darkened as it solidified.
"Hey! The heck are you doing to my ride?" Ricky shouted as he walked forward. "I thought we were good with the Ratfinks!"
Four sets of eyes snapped upwards, and one stranger brought up a floating hologram too small for Ricky to make out. The other person held a thumb up in Ricky's direction and squinted at him over his outstretched arm. As if he were trying to block off the lower half of Ricky's face. "Yep, that's the bodyguard."
Ricky's abysmal social awareness finally caught up to the rest of him. He might not know people, and he might not have the same battlefield senses as Phanya, but his Armaments knowledge knew exactly what it looked like when several people all reached for their weapons at the same time. Ricky backpedaled, everyone started shouting, and the biodiesel buggy roared to life. He scrambled around the jitney, cursing himself the whole while for letting his guard down. Ricky just needed to get his weapons, then his armor, and maybe, just maybe, Phanya won't hold this over his head for the next year.
He rounded the corner just as the buggy screeched to a halt, since it only needed to reverse a few meters to line up the gun mounted on its roof. Ricky watched the gunman line up a shot and pivoted on his heel, sprinting straight away from the jitney to dive behind another parked car. The gunman fired a burst round, destroying the small table and scattering Ricky's armaments all over the parking lot.
"Hey hey, cool it!" one of the mercenaries shouted, before turning towards Ricky. "The bounty doesn't say you need to be alive, but we're all professionals here! Come on out peacefully and we promise we'll bring you in just the same."
Ricky ignored them. Instead he saw Kakisi awake and cowering within the wheel well, and tried to get the familiar's attention. "Kakisi! Hey, little guy!" Ricky hissed, hoping that the mercenaries wouldn't hear him. "Get the gun for me!" He pointed at the snapback gun laying on the tarmac between them, and Kakisi made a chirp that Ricky thought sounded like confusion. He pantomimed shooting at the mercenaries and continued, "The gun! The. GUN. Right there! Throw it over here! You can do it, Kakisi!"
Kakisi whistled in understanding and leaned towards the gun, but suddenly changed his mind and lunged sideways to grab the shield instead. He rolled it, waved to Ricky, and zipped off in the opposite direction. Ricky watched, dumbfounded, as his shield rolled to a noisy stop next to him. "What in the hell kind of octolusk is he?" Ricky mused.
Movement caught in his peripheral vision, glinting off the polished surface of his shield. Ricky turned to find the Ratfink standing right behind him, a pair of handcuffs hanging open in his hand. On reflex Ricky kicked straight upwards, catching the other between the legs. The kick wasn't graceful and it wasn't powerful, but it earned Ricky a few seconds to scuttle backwards and get to his feet. He felt a little bad, and made a mental note to buy a cup.
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The Ratfink stumbled backwards and groaned, but when he started to chuckle Ricky stopped feeling bad. "Well, I tried to be nice." In one smooth movement the Ratfink dropped the handcuffs and pulled a gas pistol out of his belt holster, leveling it on Ricky as he stood mostly straight. He still hunched slightly from the pain, but that didn't slow his aim and he fired three rounds off without any hesitation.
Ricky's shield intercepted all three bullets just as smoothly. He wasn't consciously aware of when he had strapped the shield to his arm, but once Ricky held it his instincts knew exactly where to put it. All three bullets bounced off in different directions, one broke a car window next to him, and for a beat the two stared at each other in surprise. Then, Ricky charged.
The first time Ricky tried a martial maneuver, he tripped. Every muscle in his body tensed all at once, just for a split second, and when the sensation passed Ricky fell flat on his face. But the second time Ricky tried a martial maneuver, he soared. Ricky theorized that his full-body flex somehow funneled his intent into the piece of gear, but that was mostly a gut feeling. Now, he felt his body tense with one heartbeat, and in the next he felt a response pulse from his shield. A sign/countersign, and for a few seconds Ricky's body outpaced his mind.
Ricky probably still wasn't as fast as Phanya's top speed, but with the shield he charged faster than he could ever run without his exosuit. He closed the distance before the Ratfink could react and rammed every ounce of momentum through his shield arm, slashing out with a massive metal backhand that caught the other square in the chest. The Ratfink soared and crunched into the side of a vehicle, landing with enough force that he stuck to the dent and went limp. Ricky winced, but didn't wait around any longer than it took to scoop up the gas pistol and take stock of the situation.
In front, a gulf of empty pavement with the jitney on the other side and his snapback gun laying in the middle. The gap was only a few meters wide, but the mounted gun staring down the middle with a bright searchlight effectively made the short distance a no man's land. Behind Ricky sat a maze of parked cars, but any chance he had of hiding there were matched by the odds of a bounty hunter sneaking up on him. Again. He wasn't even sure of how many mercenaries were in this group, but he noticed several hunched figures moving between the cars and using the long shadows of twilight as cover.
The sharks were closing in. He needed to take out the buggy's gunner, and Ricky steeled his nerves as he leveled the pistol's sights on the stout mercenary. Or tried to, but when he pulled the trigger the pistol instead played a loud buzzer sound as diodes flashed bright red. The mercs bio-locked their weapons, and it just announced his location to every bounty hunter. One overeager mercenary charged across the gap, maniacally swinging a machete over his head, and Ricky took a calculated risk.
He threw the useless pistol to distract the buggy and vaulted over the parked car, meeting the machete mercenary on the open pavement. Ricky banked everything on the hope that these bounty hunters weren't so bloodthirsty that they wouldn't risk shooting at their own, and for a terrifying second the buggy's searchlight locked onto him. But someone whistled, the machete mercenary's wicked smile glinted in the light, and he lunged at Ricky. He swung the machete in wide arcs that telegraphed every attack, and as Ricky deflected his blows two more mercenaries casually strolled up to watch the show. Their cheering emboldened the machete wielder, and he pulled out a familiar stun stick with his off hand to double his assault.
Not only were the mercenaries having fun while Ricky fought for his life, they were using his own weapons to do so. Annoyance mingled with the fear and adrenaline burning in Ricky's chest and he tried to push the offensive by chopping with his shield, but his Armaments instincts reigned him in. If he lost his cool then Ricky would lose an arm, he needed to play this smart and use the merc's overconfidence against him. Ricky slowly pivoted the fight until the two onlookers were standing behind his opponent, waited for the merc to reel back for a big swing, and lurched forward. He shoved the opponent back while his free hand grabbed the stun baton on the business end, willingly taking a painful shock for his trouble.
The thing about electric shocks is they lock up your muscles, and Ricky couldn't drop the stun stick if he wanted to. After a second the baton's safety feature automatically shut off the jolt and Ricky fought to keep control of both his footing and his bladder. He watched his health tick down in his inner eye, and a pop-up followed right after.
[Constitution save vs Shock: Success!]
Damn it hurt, but the system message pulled Ricky's grimace into a grin. His opponent had crashed into his teammates, and while they joked and jeered at each other Ricky flipped the baton over in his hand. They still thought they were in complete control so Ricky used that moment to pulse his willpower into the stun stick, and they stopped laughing when the baton visibly crackled with electricity. No time for jokes or one liners, Ricky just slashed out with the baton and struck the machete mercenary square in the chest. Blue arcs exploded outward between his companions, and all three mercenaries seized and collapsed into a twitching pile.
[Bounty Hunter level 2 defeated! +5 XP]
[Bounty Hunter level 3 defeated! +7 XP]
[Bounty Hunter level 2 defeated! +5 XP]
"Whoa, shock and awe indeed," Ricky whispered to himself, before another voice shouted in surprise and Ricky remembered there was a mounted gun pointed right at him. He scrambled behind the jitney before it could open fire, and to his dismay found that every door on his vehicle was sealed with hardened goop. And that he had forgotten to grab his snapback gun after the fight. But he still had his shield, and his foot bumped against the one piece of equipment that the mercenaries wouldn't consider worth stealing.
Ricky snatched up his gizmo and started cranking the key as his mind raced through options. He hopefully only had two more mercenaries to deal with in the buggy, but they had him pinned down behind the jitney. If he ran either way then they'd be on him in seconds, so he needed to either take out the gunner or stop the car. Once the gizmo fully wound Ricky pulled the trigger and a fist-sized orb of prismatic light appeared over the barrel, held in place by the ticking clockwork. He looked up at the jitney in thought and shook his head; even if he was okay with blowing a hole in his own car, the goop was too spread out for him to actually free the door without a dozen spell applications.
It had to be the buggy. Ricky played a frustrating game of cat and mouse, dipping out in one direction and doubling back before the buggy could set its sights on him. He couldn't escape this way and the buggy occasionally shot at where he was to prove that, but Ricky was focusing all his attention on gauging the buggy's response time. Ricky pretended to stumble, the buggy took the bait, and Ricky sprinted with all his might around the other side. He just had to get close enough, and with both hands Ricky threw the gizmo where the buggy was about to emerge. Unfortunately, throwing his gizmo did not count as either a weapon attack for his Armaments class or a spell attack for his Artificer class, and the lob wobbled generously.
Fortunately, the glowy bit just needed to touch the buggy bit. Some fist-sized hunk on the mercenary car Split into ultrafine fragments and exploded outward with a loud crack — Ricky had wanted to experiment on why that happened, and the first step is proving he could reproduce the effect. And for a bonus effect Ricky must have hit something important, as the buggy instantly died and Ricky could hear both occupants shouting in anger. Ricky huffed a single laugh in amazement and turned to jog back around the jitney; he's pretty sure the front passenger door remained unsealed, and his precious armor awaits.
The mounted gunman managed to unmount his gun and met Ricky by the door. Without the armored gunner's seat the stout mercenary looked minuscule underneath the massive rifle, but he hefted it at Ricky and chuckled. Ricky hefted his shield and mockingly chuckled back, the tension drawing into a proper standoff. He did not want to find out whether that rifle caliber would shred through bug iron, and thanks to a blur of neon colors he didn't have to.
Phanya leapt off a nearby semi truck with a long cobwood staff held over her head, cracking it down with full force on the gunman's cranium. He never saw her coming, and only managed to wheeze in surprise as the mercenary crumpled. Ricky let out the breath he had been holding, but Phanya's relieved smile turned to shock the instant before a heavy leather arm snaked around Ricky's throat in a choke hold.
"Drop it! Both of you, drop your shit now!"
"Oh god damnit!" Ricky cursed, mostly at himself.
Phanya spread her hands in confusion. "What the hell, man? We're friends with Skidmark!"
"Fuck that mutie cyborg! I'm here to get paid," the Ratfink snarled, and pressed the barrel of his gas pistol against Ricky's temple. "Now drop everything or I'll drag your corpse to the bounty board!" They did as the gunman slowly regained consciousness, and the stout mercenary shuffled away from Phanya with his gun trained on her.
Ricky ground his teeth in frustration. But if Phanya was here, then surely the rest of his party would follow right behind. Right? The others were starting to argue over what they were supposed to do now, but for once Ricky noticed something first. Something wide and lumpy crested a nearby garbage mound, floating above the ground at a sharp sideways angle.
"The heck is that?"