Over the past days, TJ had reached level 17 in Savage and 14 in Neophyte. His level 15 Skill selection in Savage was unimpressive, though Equipment Fabrication, Prehistoric Huntsman, and Stealth had returned as options while Primeval Champion had not. The other two options, Savage Countenance and Lone Survivor, hadn't appealed to him, given that the first would make him even more intimidating while the second gave bonuses focused on him remaining alone. Though TJ'd been minorly betrayed by someone who'd continuously been an asshole to him, he didn't think he'd be alone frequently enough for Lone Survivor to help him.
Speaking of Jeff, he'd taken his exile with about the same level of dignity as TJ'd expected, which was to say with no dignity whatsoever, and by now, on the tenth day after the Integration, Jeff was a social pariah and left to fend for himself. Such desperate measures left the man no choice but to hunt, and since nobody wanted there to be more deaths, he was allowed to take a small portion of whatever he successfully hunted with the team he was forced into that day.
Going back to TJ's Skill selection, he'd been torn between Equipment Fabrication and Prehistoric Huntsman, as while Stealth was useful, it was far from the top of his list of priorities. The two Skills offered him something that, more and more, he realized he would need in the next five days. Up until now, he'd always had the opportunity to take time to rest between hunts, to allow his resources to replenish and for the Divine Transformation total time to tick back down. When questioned, though, the System promised that the defense of the grocery store would take place over the course of 18 hours. That was time that he couldn't simply spend in the form of a coatl and then step back for twice the time he spent engaged with the enemy. Thus, he needed Skills that would enhance his ability to contribute to the fighting effort over a longer period of time.
Equipment Fabrication would, in theory, give him superior weapons, armor, and whatever else he could come up with. More than that, though, was the promise the Skill made, that he would learn "how to craft materials into equipment that grants attributes and other possible boons." The prospect of equipment that gave better bonuses than the very basic armor and weapons he'd made thus far was tempting. But so too was Prehistoric Huntsman, as instead of the possibility of creating very impactful equipment, Huntsman offered a bonus to the damage dealt with the weapons he'd be using in the final siege. When he'd asked the System what the "minor additional damage scaling with the Participant's Wisdom" entailed exactly, its response had been lackluster.
Minor additional damage scaling with the Participant's Wisdom is reflected as a percentage of the Participant's Wisdom being added to the damage dealt by the applicable attack.
And what percentage would that be?
In terms of classification, a minor damage bonus would be anywhere from 0-7% of the attribute it would be drawing from.
Though it was so unspecific what this bonus damage was, TJ felt more inclined to take the Prehistoric Huntsman Skill. In the end, it came down to the reality that he could gain some Skills and do other things adjacent to other Skills with his own abilities. When it came down to it, TJ had every confidence in his own ability to create equipment that granted additional benefits, just like he had with the original Wendigo Blade that he still used. It'd needed to be repaired several times, given his inexperience and generally shoddy workmanship, but it still served him well. The additional insight from Equipment was sure to be valuable and effective, but TJ had some ideas of how he could treat and prepare his materials to create more rugged and beneficial equipment without the Skill.
On the other hand, he didn't have the faintest idea how he would be able to replicate "a 30% bonus to tracking and ambush attacks" or a general addition to all damage dealt with his weapons. His Wisdom, after all these newest levels, was at 53, which, while it was his second lowest attribute, could give up to a 3.5 boost to his damage. What in the hell that meant was an absolute mystery to TJ, but he recognized that while he might be the most impactful member of the siege defense while in his coatl form, he wouldn't be nearly so when limited to his human form. Plus, the damage also applied to his natural weapons while under the influence of Divine Transformation.
Thus, his newest Skill was Prehistoric Huntsman. He was still holding out hope that the Tezcatlipoca-blessed mountain lion hide was special enough to make the cloak he was planning with it. Then, he could prove to himself that his upgraded Primitive Craftsmanship was enough to create noteworthy equipment.
As it was, he'd fully equipped himself over the past days. With the Tutorial speeding up the tanning process, TJ ended up with an Ironhide Javelina leather chestpiece. Though not as impressive as the ever more powerful armors created by the Zealots' Holy Vestments Skill, the chestpiece and its accompanying bracers had saved TJ from serious injury a couple of times. On one of his expeditions, he'd come across a wendigo just as he'd been returning to town because he was running out of time on his Divine Transformation. When he'd been forced to return to his human form, the hide armor had turned the claws enough that he'd been able to escape without truly chancing death.
His body sported a dozen more scars and told a dozen more tales than it had a mere four days ago, much less two weeks ago. The wounds he'd sustained were far from the most severe the town's residents had incurred of the past four days. Of the remaining 167 residents, 35 had died, and 29 of which had died in the past two days. The reasons for those deaths were also the reason why TJ was setting out to hit level 15 now.
The primary reason why TJ only had confidence in reaching level 15 in Neophyte now was because he couldn't find anything above the level 10 threshold until yesterday. He'd never truly experienced the steep decline in fighting and killing creatures from below his watershed level until he'd passed level 10, because immediately after he did, it'd taken him two days to gain a single level. Then, after two days of reckless hunting and culling the numbers of the enemy monsters, he'd returned to town to the enraged shouts of dozens of people.
"How the hell are we supposed to–"
"This is absolute horses–"
"--what was I supposed to do? They appeared and–"
After pushing his way through much of the nearly rioting people, TJ found Charlie, who remained a friend regardless of the remaining air of awkwardness between TJ's and Zig, even as they actively worked to mend fences.
"What happened?"
"A full ambush of level 10 and 11 pukwudgies." He explained curtly. "They massacred all but three of the members of a hunting party in their opening salve, and only Nat managed to escape alive. Sheridan, Rod, and Jordan are the ones in there you knew best. We're trying to calm everyone down."
Though Sheridan remained hostile towards TJ, thinking him responsible for Mary's death, she wasn't a bad girl, and TJ mourned her. Beyond that, Rod and Jordan had been two of the men he accompanied on their first real hunts, and both were good members of the town. That they'd died was another hit to TJ's gut, though he supposed he was grateful that he hadn't had to witness their deaths or dead bodies, as he had with Mary. Even so, there were 23 people who'd died on their hunts that night, 23 people who left their families and friends behind, both those here in Pine and those in their homes. People who'd never know what happened to their loved ones.
That night, about 36 hours before TJ prepared to go on this final hunt, he'd gone on the hunt with the rest of the hunters that had surpassed level 10. Though the pukwudgies gained new titles and descriptors as they passed the level 10 benchmark, the primary differences were two things. The first, that their invisibility was truly invisibility now. Only supernatural senses such as TJ's ability to sense heat as a coatl or any one of a dozen Acolytes' chosen Skills that enhanced their senses. To the eye and the general bystander, however, the pukwudgies were impossible to predict. That, combined with the other difference they'd gained, was deadly.
The other change in pukwudgies was simple but deeply impactful. The monsters, though they'd grown somewhat from the initial levels to those around level 9, remained weak. Their spears, when thrown, could pierce flesh, but they were easily parried or dodged or simply tanked through. The attacks of those that were beyond level 9 were faster, harder, and much deadlier than before. The spear attacks that TJ had become able to entirely ignore as a coatl and easily deal with as a human were now threatening. To the Disciples and Acolytes who hadn't even approached the level 10 watershed, though, one spear was threatening, two were a sure injury, and three meant death.
He hated to even search for the silver lining of nearly two dozen deaths in one night, but TJ did find that he gained much more experience from the monsters as he slaughtered them. He gained a level that night, and two the day after as he grappled with pukwudgie knights mounted on mountain lions, vivisected pukwudgie executioners in the trees, and ripped through pukwudgie infantrymen on the ground. Interestingly enough, the coyotes seemed to have largely been exterminated by now, which the citizens of Pine took as a sign that their efforts to cull the monsters' numbers were showing some results.
That brought him to today. He'd assigned his Free Points to a mixture of Fixation and Intelligence as he'd gained levels. Something told him that bumping Fixation that bit would be hugely beneficial. He thought maybe it was the whispers of the wind and how they became more intelligible the higher his Fixation got. Though Wind Manipulation scaled off Intelligence and Fixation, TJ realized that Fixation had a deeper relationship with the Skill than Intelligence did. Remembering that Fixation was described by the System as "is directly related to the Participant's ability to embody and focus on the effects of the divine, and the greater the quantity of Fixation, the more easily and enduringly will the Participant be able to channel certain divine abilities."
The attribute would be key moving forward, he was sure. Thus, he'd bumped his Intelligence and Fixation at about the same rate, and he could feel that some form of enlightenment was about to come to him. The few times he'd allowed himself to get lost in the Skill, the air had swept him away, promising knowledge, progress, and something just… more. More than he knew or was already. Maybe it would come at level 15. Maybe it required the Copper tier of Divinity, TJ couldn't say. Even so, he knew that he needed that understanding, and when he'd truly allowed himself to be nearly consumed by the Skill, he'd been unable to reach quite there and it remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Regardless of his hopes for elucidation, there were monsters to kill and levels to gain. With Stanton, Charlie, Rebekkah, Sarah, and Connor at his side, TJ left to go on this hunt. They wouldn't return until he gained that fifteenth level and became the first person in the town to cross the level 15 threshold in his Class. After checking to ensure that they were all prepared with the equipment and tools necessary, they set out into the forest. The eerie silence that had replaced the sounds of life and vibrancy was familiar to them at this point, and TJ merely nodded as he led them deeper into the monsters' den.