World Of Karik: A Game Of Villains 30 Success And Failures

"Calm down, Cat," said redhead's conciliatory voice. "It was, believe it or not, Vadim's choice. You maybe don't know, but working as a zombie is allowed, though not very honorable."

"Working as a zombie?" The new information, to be honest, shocked me a little, although I thought I had seen and heard everything already.

"In the distant woods," Alex joined the conversation, "the monsters are much tougher than the local ones. And people aren't any more enthusiastic to die than we are here. So, one guy found a solution… One of you Russians, by the way. All we know about him are his nationality and the flag under which his troops go—a red apple on black background."

"So what was his idea?" Information about my cool compatriot was, of course, interesting, but had nothing to do with the current issue.

"A special method of processing blood of the "creatures of the abyss". A person drinks this potion and becomes a zombie for a day: no brains, but strength and other indicators grow significantly. For those who enter the distant forest, but are not strong enough, don't have enough money, or are completely broke, the only way out is to work as a zombie for a month or two. During the attacks on the settlement the drovers send a bunch of zombies to fight against the monsters. There are seas of blood, but they manage to defend the place. Your friend, of course, won't be hired for such work, as his level is too low. But he'll be pulling the cart."

"It's a mutually beneficial deal," Petrovich calmed down and a.s.sumed the air of importance. "The respected traders will get a spare traction force, and Vadim will get to Erzy-town for free and, most importantly, safely, and may even level up along the way.

The desire to understand the situation immediately disappeared. It was simple enough. The man sold his time to get to the right place. I didn't know what he was going to do in this mysterious Erzy-town; maybe he would find a more peaceful occupation, or maybe he would earn his living working as a Zombie. I wondered if their brain became damaged after such transitions. After all, while you are in an altered state, you are not self-conscious. I would not be surprised if some Zombies never woke up once the potion's effect wore off. Although, the last night's fight showed that these creatures were very, very strong.

I waved my hand and went to have breakfast and then to get some sleep. After a night of adventures I could use some a good rest. A recent idea to find out what's going on with the girls was gone due to what happened to Vadim.

I woke up late in the afternoon. Everyone were either training or hunting, so I slipped out of the base and went back to the swamp. After I learned that the usual magical protection amulets didn't work here, the security rating of this place raised significantly in my eyes. I couldn't imagine that someone might prefer this foul-smelling and monster-infested bog to a normal dry and clean home.

The next three days I again devoted to improving my stats, accelerating the process with curses. Strength, dexterity and endurance were gradually rising, increasing my chances of survival. But all good things end sooner or later. To be honest, last night I noticed that the endurance stopped increasing, but I paid no attention to it. It stubbornly remained at fifty and refused to budge, despite the fact that other attributes were closer to sixty. At the beginning, I thought that I needed to do something differently. To be honest, there was only one answer I could think of, and I didn't like it at all. Initially I had ten points of endurance and after the training I was able to raise it by forty points, and then the process stopped. Was it because I had exchanged these points for the amulet?

After a while, the rest of the attributes stopped growing as well. Strength froze at sixty, dexterity at sixty-five, and it became clear that my hypothesis had been confirmed. I could gain only fifty points, no more. It was equal to the number of points I could get by buying stats from someone. On one hand, I saved up a bit by spending that I had received through training; on the other hand, I might have screwed myself over a bit since I wasn't sure whether or not I would be able to buy them back at some point. The only thing that consoled me were the achievements received for leveling up myself and my stats.

Combinator

Level 2

You can combine abilities or blows in a combo. Each subsequent blow is 30% stronger.

Length of the combo: 3blows/abilities

Skill available: Super-Combo

Doubles the available combo length.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Now I could do six blows at a time, and the latter would be almost three times stronger than the usual one. And if I invest dexterity into this combo, I could chain ten attacks. Oh, if only I had at least one special skill to complete the set, it would've been perfect.

Fortress

Level 2

Attacks that deal up to 150 points of damage do not knock you down.

Skill available: Super-fortress

Ignores any physical damage for 10 seconds. You cannot move.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Well, deep down I had antic.i.p.ated something like this and bought the cheapest amulet, so I had enough points to unlock the second level.

Rage

Level 2

Increases the power of abilities by 50% of your strength amount.

Skill available: Super-rage

Increases strength by 200% for 10 seconds.

Cooldown: 1 hour

I received the last ability for gaining fifty strength points, and I considered it the most grandiose mockery possible. What else would you call the possibility to improve abilities that you didn't have? And yet, carefully considering the opportunities that could potentially open up to an owner of a good weapon and perks like these, I had to admit that I was not as invincible as I would have liked to think. However, if I improved my intelligence to fifty, that might change; but I had to survive until I could reach that point.

I returned to the base before sunset for the first time this week and was able to please everyone with my gloomy appearance. I actually finished raising my attributes, so I could level up. I could either to go deeper into the swamp tomorrow, as no one could get there before me, or go directly to the "Forbidden City"; or I could have fun and pave a route through both places. I hated that idea, though. I couldn't quite figure out what it was; fear of the unknown or intuition.