Azure: Gunner

Chapter 7-1

The frequency at which you should replace a mod depends heavily on its type. Damage mods should generally be upgraded at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand, utility mods such as lightweight, self repair, or quiet steps can be utilized for an entire Tier if needed.

Damage mods are by a fucking mile the most overrated category of mods for a Delver. You’ll never know what in the Wastes you’re going to be fighting inside a dungeon until you get inside. Unless you’re planning to carry around a shit-ton of modded weapons in your Inventory, you’re as likely to come across a terrible matchup as a great one.

That fire mod you were so excited to get yesterday might work out great when facing undead, but you’ll wish you’d never found it if the dungeon is full of salamanders instead. Damage mods are, quite honestly, much more useful for the Army. Similarly, when you’re traveling the countryside, you may predict to a degree what you might be facing based on the terrain or scouting reports.

- Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 7.3 – “Mod-ing on”

We had plenty of time on our hands after our visit with the Alchemist. So naturally, I insisted we get some training in. Well, I tried to. Only the orcs were in favor. Shockingly, the rest of the team thought we should spend the rest of our Saturday relaxing. Just because classes had been cancelled so everyone could see the Alchemist didn’t mean we had to slack off.

“You’re outvoted 5-3, Az,” Raylan smugly informed me.

“This isn’t a democracy!” I objected.

“Indeed,” G’hala rumbled, cracking her knuckles ominously.

“It’s a democracy on Sundays and holidays!” Raylan argued. “This counts as a holiday!”

“Yeah, you tell her!” Tara cheered him on with a smile, and I glared at her.

“Allow me to make a suggestion,” Arlo interjected, and I turned to him, eyes narrowed.

“Well?”

“I propose we make a trip to Backhorn and purchase self-repair mods for our new weapons. Otherwise, you’ll all have to clean and maintain your new pistols the old-fashioned way, and I’ll have to supervise you to make sure it’s done properly.”

It was certainly something we could do on Sunday instead, but it was better than sitting around at the bar wasting our precious eagles. I was smart enough – sometimes – to see which way the wind was blowing, so I gave in. After the quadrosaur attack, we were required to go to town in groups of at least two Squads, so we recruited the Deathdealers. They had been in line right after us and would be done seeing the Alchemist shortly.

I didn’t mind having the company either, as I’d gotten closer to their team, Venkat in particular. The Ranger and I often sparred together in Melee Combat, and he was a difficult opponent. His longsword had quite a bit more reach than my cutlass, and he was frustratingly good with it. The rest of his team got along well with mine too, though we still did our best to beat the shit out of each other whenever we fought during Team Combat.

When we got to the store, we were welcomed by a cheerful Samuel, whose mood didn’t dim even when we told him we were only there for some inexpensive mods. As we went through the process of attuning a large number of Level 0 mods, I found something interesting.

Item: Weapon Modification – AttunedLevel: 0Effect: Ghost-Ring Sight – sight suitable for fast target acquisition at close rangesType: Passive

I noticed the description was almost identical to my red-dot sight, except that the red-dot was for ‘close to medium’ range. Curious, I asked Samuel if he would charge me to let me try the mod on my weapon. He told me that as long as I removed it afterwards it didn’t matter to him. It didn’t have any effect on the attunement process or the degradation of the mod. When I applied it to the Adjudicator, it changed the rear sight from a simple notch, or iron sight, into a vertical metal ring that I could look through to line up with the front sight.

It was clearly inferior to my red-dot sight, and I wished I’d had the foresight to hang onto my Level 3 red-dot instead of selling it to Samuel. On the other hand, it was an upgrade over the basic sights, so I decided to pay for the mod and keep it. Samuel only charged seventy-five feathers for a Level 0 mod, which was totally reasonable to actually improve the performance of the weapon. I had to attune two full racks of mods to find a self-repair one, but most of the others weren’t particularly interesting.

Sure, it might be nice to have a bit of added fire, ice, or other damage, but a Level 0 mod wouldn’t make much of a difference in fighting enemies of my current Level or higher. In that regard, the ‘utility’ mods like the sight were something I could still make use of despite the Level difference. Sadly, I still hadn’t found another infusion mod.

There was a bayonet mod, which according to the description would enable me to deploy a bayonet from my weapon. Considering my not-so-positive experience with trying to fight with a bayonet on my shotgun, I wasn’t too excited about its practicality, but I was extremely curious about how exactly it worked. After again getting permission from Samuel, I applied the mod to my pistol.

The forend of the gun thickened a bit and I found that it extended down vertically a bit farther from the barrel. A switch appeared on the left side of it, where my thumb would be easily able to reach it when I held the gun. When I pushed the switch forward, there was a solid thunk and a six-inch serrated blade shot forward out of the foregrip, just below the barrel, and locked into place.

I examined the now even longer pistol in disbelief as my teammates cracked up with laughter. I slid the switch back the other way and the blade thunked back into the foregrip.

“Oh Wasted hells, Az, you have to keep that!” Tara exclaimed gleefully. “That gun is already just absurd, and wow, that is the icing on the cake!”

I had no idea what icing was, but apparently it was a good thing? Either way, my other teammates agreed, with Raylan even telling me he’d even pay for half of the mod as long as I promised to use it at least once a week in his presence.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“And just what in the fuck do you expect me to use it for?” I asked in exasperation.

“You should use it to cut your meat in the dining hall!” G’hala suggested before breaking out into laughter again. I had to laugh along with her at the mental image that conjured up.

“Perhaps you could stick the blade in your target first, to hold them in place while you fire the gun!” Jayce added, setting off an attempt by each of my friends to suggest more absurd uses for the bayonet. Raylan, the traitor, suggested that it would be suitable for cutting my hair, while Arlo slyly recommended I use it to trim my nails – but only around Elite Squad.

Finally, I caved to the peer pressure, and so I ended up with three mods on my Adjudicator. Two out of three actually being useful wasn’t a terrible outcome, I decided.

We met back up with the Deathdealers in the town square and returned to the Academy just in time to grab some lunch before the dining hall closed. I was grateful that the trip back had been completely uneventful, without a quadrosaur in sight.

The first week of June went by quickly. The only major difference from the week before was that it was even hotter in the sun, especially in the afternoons. It became apparent why we had PT so early in the morning, before the heat had a chance to rise, but that didn’t help our later classes like Team Combat and of course PT2. I was very, very thankful that I’d gotten the Level 5 thermal regulation mod, and I kept it at maximum power pretty much anytime I was outside after about 10am.

Raylan, who was now more heavily equipped with his Level 5 medium-light armor, had gotten a Level 3 thermal regulation mod from Samuel and was still clearly unhappy with the heat. He discovered that by using his basic camouflage mod to copy the light-colored sand in the bottom of the fighting pits he could stay significantly cooler, and I followed his example. It definitely made a difference, and proved that this particular mod had uses beyond the obvious.

On Sunday, Wilson caught my attention and handed over an envelope with my name messily scrawled on it. I definitely didn’t cry as I read the letter, obviously written by Yuna.

Dear Az, we miss you very much (even Dustin!

We came with the Delvers to Lost Angels yesterday. The city is amazing! It’s so huge, you need hours just to walk from one side of it to the other! I think there are one thosand times more people here than in Sunland. Sister Mercy was sad when we left but the Delvers gave her some money and she said OK. Our new room is so nice and it has a window and thier are indoor bathroms and everything! And we can eat as much as we want and don’t even have to Conjure Bread for brekfast. We have to go to school tomorrow and I hope the children here are nice. Becky told us that there are lots of diffrent kinds of kids here. She said that some of them even have tails! Raerae asked Becky if she could get a tail now to, but Becky told us that’s not how it works. Unfair! Anyway, we hope we can see you soon and give you big hugs!

I blinked away the tears as I smiled at the precious piece of paper, signed by all three kids at the bottom, with RaeRae’s name being twice as big and half as neat as the other two combined. I carefully folded it back up and stored it away safely in my Inventory. I learned from Wilson that sending a letter back to LA with the Guild’s Courier only cost one talon.

I guess it would cost a lot more if I was trying to send something to Sunland, since that would have to go to LA first and then to the post office and on to Sunland. I spent some time writing them a long reply, telling them about my last few weeks at the Academy, and gave it to Wilson along with the fee.

While I was there I figured I should talk to Thompson about something I'd been putting off. After Wilson confirmed I could enter, I walked up to her desk and sat down in the yard guest seat. The Head Instructor just looked at me, clearly waiting for me to speak. I took a deep breath, steeling myself.

“Yuri still owes me an item."

"By honor, yes.”

"What's that supposed to mean?”

"Duels are technically legal under certain circumstances, and the ones we hold here qualify. However, the stakes are an Academy tradition, not a legal contract. As such, I can enforce them using my authority as the Head Instructor.

“They are not legally binding."

It didn't take me long to figure out what she meant by that.

“So he gets away with it! He's not a student anymore so there's nothing you can do. Why didn't you make him pay up before he ran off?"

“I did speak to him briefly when he retrieved his Skill gems, and reminded him of the debt. He informed me that as he was no longer under my ‘boot’, I didn't have the authority to compel him. He was, unfortunately, correct. And entitled to the return of his gems by virtue of not having broken his agreement to keep his dispute with you inside the rules."

“Fuck!" I spat the word out with a sneer.

There didn't seem to be anything else worth saying. I slammed my palms down on her expensive desk and rose, then stalked out. I realized I was breathing hard and forced myself to slow down. Ten slow breaths helped – in the sense that my anger had faded into a cold, hard burn.

That scumbag! He owes me an expensive one-shot! I'm gonna get my item out of that bastard one way or another!

Determined and angry, I had to calm down. It was time for lunch, followed by some time at the range with my Squad as we practiced more with our pistols. I got my Pistol Skill to Level 2, Raylan reached Level 1, and the rest were still at 0. After that, it was back to the Wasted pit for another go against Trite. At least this time I managed to get a Level in Tactical Reposition in exchange for what seemed like half the blood in my body.

The only other Level I’d gotten during the week was one in Concentration. Again I felt like my progress was slowed by not getting in any real fights, but when I brought it up to Wolf he informed me that my perspective was “all fucked up.” Apparently my experience of going through one dungeon had warped my view, because I felt that I was ready to tackle another one.

“Az, you’ll be learning more details about the dungeon here soon, but I can tell you that the lowest Level we can get it to safely is around 4. If we drop it any lower than that, there’s a risk of it closing permanently and we can’t have that. The dungeon you went into was Level 2, right?”

“That’s what it said when I Identified it, but Hassan said it was something like 2.3, which didn’t make sense to me since I thought Levels were always whole numbers.”

Wolf grunted, then quickly explained that a dungeon’s Level was roughly the average of the monsters inside. If you had the right equipment or a very good Identify Skill and Acuity, you could tell if it was closer to one Level or another.

“That aside, think about what it means for Level 4 to be the average,” he told me.

“Well, in the Level 2 dungeon the monsters went from 0 all the way up to 5, so I guess in a Level 4 dungeon they could go up to… 7?”

“Yes, roughly speaking. And the Level of your Squad is? The average, I mean.”

I needed some time to do the math. Raylan and Zaire were the next highest at 5, the orcs, Jayce and Arlo were 4, and Tara was still only Level 3.

“Uh, more than 4 but less than 4.5, I guess.” I responded after counting everything up and dividing by eight.

“In an ideal situation, your Squad’s average Level is at least two Levels higher than the dungeon’s. Going into a same-Level dungeon is only recommended if really necessary, and going into a dungeon two Levels above you is considered highly risky.”

I frowned at the Ranger. “That seems… I don’t know, a bit surprising. When we went into the last dungeon, our average Level was the same as the dungeon, and we made it out fine, even without much training.”

“Did you make it out fine, or did you just make it out?” he challenged me.

I had to admit we could have died on several different occasions in the dungeon. That prompted him to try to explain probabilities to me, which was a bit of a disaster.

Supposedly, if you did something dangerous enough that you had a 10% chance of dying, and then you did it again nine more times, you only had a 35% chance of surviving all ten of them. That sounded a bit low to me, but Wolf insisted it was true. I gave in after he tried to show me the math for a second time.

“Look Az, if you won’t take my word on it, take the Guild’s. This is official Guild policy for a reason. Do this job long enough, and you’ll run into situations where you have to go into a dungeon at or even slightly above your Level. Do it too often, and the math will catch up to you. Remember, we’re training you to do a highly dangerous job here, not to be heroes. Never forget that.”