Opening a System chest has never fucked anyone over. What gets you proper fucked is when you think you’re opening a System chest and then it eats your buddy’s face. Train up your Identify, really grind that shit, cause Mimics are no joke and neither are monsters smart enough to use Illusion spells. Did you know that there are at least 31 types of monsters that can pass as a chest with a little help from a half-assed Illusion or just a few shitty pieces of wood? Well, now you do.
- Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 8.1 – “Making Identify suck less”
Inside the chest I found a helm. I picked it up, frowning at the unusual design. It was lighter than I expected, with a hard dark grey exterior that didn’t seem to be metal or leather. It was well-padded on the inside with something firm and slightly squishy covered by a layer of material that seemed to match my baselayer. I used Identify, and as I examined the information the empty chest shimmered slightly and vanished.
Item: Composite Combat Helmet
Level: 1
Type: Medium-Light
Condition: Excellent
I don’t know what composite means, but it’s probably this strange material. It doesn’t really matter though, this is going to help keep my head safe!
As I looked it over I finally figured out what the design was supposed to be. Most of the helms I’d seen on the town guard or the Gleason’s dungeon-jacks were pretty simple, made of leather or metal and covering pretty much the whole head except for the face. Sometimes they had a piece coming down in the front to cover the nose.
A few times I’d seen caravan guards with full helms that covered their faces and just had slits to see out of. I’m sure a few of the guards had those too, but they didn’t usually wear them around town. I wouldn’t want to either, with how hot it normally was in Sunland.
This ‘combat helmet’ looked like it would cover the top, back, and left side of my head, but the right side was more open. I tried to put it on, only to realize there was no way it was going to fit properly with my hair up. Shaking my hair free, I slipped the helmet on and found that it fit well, though it felt a bit unbalanced with the extra weight on the left side. Once I picked up my gun, the helmet’s design suddenly made more sense.
The left side, opposite my gun, was like a regular helm with a cheek piece that swept forward nearly to the side of my mouth, and the bottom reaching down past my ear almost to my neck. On the right side, the helmet just covered the bottom of my ear. It was a perfect fit when I brought my gun up to aim and pressed my cheek against it to look down the sights.
It was a perfect fit, that is, except for the hair spilling out everywhere. I couldn’t tie it up tight with the helmet on and it was obviously more important to wear my new helmet than anything else. I tried gathering my hair up and stuffing it down the back of my baselayer, but as soon as I started moving it pulled right out again. Frustrated, I sat down on the floor and tried to come up with ideas.
None of the goblins had knives… their claws were pretty Wasted sharp though. Ugh, I guess… I could try walking back down the cave, hoping the bodies are still there, and then, what? I can’t imagine how to get a claw off without a knife, so I’d have to hold its cold dead fingers and saw my hair off on those claws?
That sounded really, really awful. I got up and started pacing around the room. As I walked by the doorway, I looked out and saw the scorp’s ugly body still laying in the sand. Something sharp… I recalled the powerful pincers coming at me as the scorp charged.
Oh Waste it, this is going to really suck! But hey, at least I don’t have to walk that far…
I took off my new helmet and set it down, but I kept my gun with me just in case. I forced myself to leave the safe room and walk back out onto the sand towards the dead monster. I circled carefully around it, thankful that it didn’t stink anything like the dead goblins. There was a just slight acidic smell mixed with the leftover scent of the shots I’d fired.
I made sure there was no blood flowing from the gaping wounds I’d blasted into its side earlier – I felt like an idiot, I knew it was dead – but the Wasted thing was scary when it was alive and it wasn’t any prettier now. Although it had looked a lot bigger when it was moving…
I gathered my courage and walked up to the corpse, kneeling down to get a good look at the pincer while trying to avoid seeing the ruined eyes and disgusting mouth parts. Its pincer was huge, longer than my forearm and probably three times thicker at its base. The outer parts were rounded, but on the inside there was a very sharp-looking edge, not a straight line but curved in places. Steeling myself, I set my gun down carefully and leaned forward, letting my hair fall in front of my face and, eww, onto the giant pincer and into the gap between the top and bottom ‘fingers’.
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Carefully, I reached over to the other side of the pincer, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled it up, against the inner edge of the upper piece. To my horrified relief, the blade-like face of the pincer sliced right through my hair. Fuck, this thing probably could have cut my leg right off!
I continued feeding my hair through and slicing it off, giving myself possibly the worst haircut of all time. After I’d gotten what I could, I sat up and ran my hands through it. I could feel that it was a ragged mess, but it was definitely shorter. Especially in the front. The sides were a lot longer though, because I’d been looking at the pincer the whole time, so the front of my head had been closer to the blade.
The front’s fine, most of the back should be ok, and I guess the left side doesn’t really need to be that short. But the right side is still too long, it will get in the way when I’m shooting. I laughed as I thought about the shape of my new helmet. I guess I can try to copy the style… At least my hair and my helmet will match! I just won’t take the helmet off. Maybe ever.
I considered how exactly I was going to get the right side as short as I wanted it.
I have to get the side of my head right up as close to the blade as possible, which means… I am going to have to rest my fucking cheek on it while I reach around and pull the hair against the blade… Just take it slow, Az! This is all going to be worth it when I finish the Tutorial and get out of Sunland forever!
My hand had brushed against the pincer several times so far, but it was a completely different experience to put my cheek on it like the world’s worst pillow. The hard, cold armor of the dead scorp made my skin crawl, but I was brave and definitely did not shed a few tears as I very carefully finished my ‘haircut’. I had never been so relieved to be done with something in my life.
I would rather muck the stables a hundred times over than do this again. Well, maybe ten times. Yeah, I think this is ten times worse than cleaning the stables.
I practically leapt away from the body when I’d finished, snatching up my gun and running my fingers through my hair as I walked quickly back to the safe room. I grabbed my new helmet and put it on, happy to see that it now fit well and I didn’t have too much hair sticking out of the bottom anywhere. I smiled in relief as I checked my resources again, seeing that I’d gotten back to full mana and was now only missing one health.
Take your time Az, I reminded myself, you’d feel really stupid if you died because of that missing one health. There’s no time limit.
I recalled my earlier plan to practice reloading and spent the next half hour or so making up drills for myself. At first I just ejected the shells from my magazine by pumping the action, but after the second time I almost lost one into the pool of water I decided to be more careful and extract them through the loading port, putting my Skill-based knowledge to work.
Step 1, empty the shotgun and put the shells somewhere safe on the ground. Step 2, load four shells from my bandolier into the magazine as quickly as possible, keeping the gun vaguely pointed towards the bad guys. Step 3, pump a shell into the chamber. Step 4, load one more shell into the magazine so the gun is full. Step 5, repeat.
I got into a nice flow for a while, and eventually I was rewarded by a notification from PAST.
[CONGRATULATIONS, GUNNER! YOU HAVE LEARNED THE CLASS SKILL SPEED LOAD: SHOTGUNS! WELL DONE!]
PAST might be a huge asshole with volume control issues, but it still felt good to have my effort rewarded. I tried the drill a few more times after gaining the Skill, and found that it went a bit faster, a bit more smoothly. Between the practice and the Skill, I felt like I was loading much faster. I’m sure my increased Dexterity was helping too.
OK, my health is full, mana is full, everything is ready to go. Just one problem.
“PAST, how do I move on to the next part of the Tutorial?”
[FIRST YOU MUST ATTACH YOUR NEW HELMET TO YOUR ARMOR! THEN I WILL OPEN THE DOOR FOR YOU!]
“I thought you just put on armor parts over your baselayer and it magically attached?” I asked in confusion.
[THAT IS FINE FOR COMPONENTS THAT ARE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO YOUR BASELAYER, BUT YOUR HELMET IS NOT TOUCHING YOUR BASELAYER! TO ATTACH IT, YOU NEED TO FIRMLY PRESS IT AGAINST YOUR BASELAYER!]
Feeling foolish, I removed my helmet and pressed it against my sleeve. After a moment, a message appeared like I’d used Inspect.
Attach the Composite Combat Helmet to the Gunner Class Armor baselayer?
“Yes.”
Nothing seemed to happen immediately, so I tried putting the helmet back on. I could feel a difference right away as the helmet seemed to almost lock into place on my head. Before it would shift slightly as I looked around, but now it moved with me like it was tied in place.
[WELL DONE, CITIZEN! OPENING THE DOOR TO THE NEXT STAGE OF THE TUTORIAL!]
People were asking in the comments about what she looks like with the new helmet. This is the least-crappy version I could make after a lot of AI+Photoshop. And I'm still not super happy with it, but I'll share it so you can at least picture what the helmet kinda looks like.
I know it's not from this scene but don't even get me started on trying to get the freaking helmet to look right from anything other than straight on and such. Ugh.
