How to Beat Fried Worms
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and we're all thankful for that.
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Chapter 7: Character Creation -End-
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Victor had made his offer on Wednesday and offered to host Alec on Friday night. It didn't leave the Gamer with much time to plan or prepare.
So, he got to work that very night.
With access to the hospital lost, Alec wasn't getting as much experience or cash as he had before. It wasn't a significant loss, really, but he'd been managing about 30 experience a day from trapping the place.
The level he'd gotten from 'Subduing' Lawrence went into Willpower after a quick bit of napkin math had shown Alec that it would cause him to regenerate 4 SP per minute, even though it'd leave him at 200 SP total. If he'd put it into Intelligence, he'd have a higher SP capacity but would only regenerate 3 SP per minute. But the cap there would only matter at times where he couldn't expend it, so pretty much just while he slept. Otherwise, Alec had been empowering one of his four key tools. The multi-tool, either of his guns, and his van.
The multi-tool currently had the highest charge, then Alec was pretty sure his van had the next largest one and the two guns were even. Unfortunately, Alec couldn't fit his van into his inventory to check what kind of charge level it had, so he just had to assume it was lagging behind the multi-tool.
If he wanted to know for sure, he'd need another power. He was fairly sure he could snag Observe by beating Lisa, but...
Beating up children for their powers seemed... petty. Self-defense would be fine, Alec had no problem smacking the stupid out of someone if they thought they could attack him, but going out of his way to beat up children for personal gain was a low he hadn't yet stooped to.
What did all of that mean, however?
Honestly? Very little. He could drop more charges of Empowered Investor faster, which was good, and after quite a few uses it had reached level 6, which was nice.
But it didn't offer a solution to dinner with the Nazis. Nor did it offer an easy answer for Alec to recoup the loss of experience or cash that came from harvesting the rats in the hospital.
Alec... ended up stopping at a hardware store on his way home from the range. He dropped almost three hundred dollars, getting the equipment he wanted. Six panes of plexiglass, each of them a full meter to a side. A significant number of bolts, nuts and similar fasteners. A small electric drill and drill bits. A few springs, a few hinges, one long u-bolt. And, to finish things off, a few different bottles of poison for different kinds of vermin.
Getting home, he'd actually ended up working in the parking garage underneath of his apartment. Apparently, the facility used to be a school dormitory, back when Brockton Bay had a college.
Alec had been shocked to hear that the Brockton Bay University of the Arts had closed its doors more than a decade in the past. Just absolutely shocked to learn that, in the face of parahumans and endbringers, people didn't value the arts over the hard sciences that could hopefully fight the monsters or else feed the people.
...No, actually, Alec hadn't been shocked at all.
After a few hours of time spent measuring, cutting, cussing after dropping something heavy on his foot...
Alec had made a cube out of the plexiglass. The top had a hole cut in the middle with a metal plate over it, connected to a hinge and a spring so that it would drop whatever was placed upon it down into the cube before the spring would push the plate back up and in place. The bottom of the cube was connected to another pair of hinges and held shut by a latch on the opposite side-
~~ ERROR! ~~
~~ Passive Ability: ERROR! has caused ERROR! to ERROR! ~~
Alec paused, staring in confusion at the surprise notification...
Then he opened his inventory and noticed that, on the right side of his grid, mostly untouched so far, a 3x3 block was taken up by a large, plexiglass cube with the number 4 on the bottom right hand corner. Copies of what he'd made.
That... was the effect of Alchemic Bounty. A passive ability he'd mastered which could, at random, increase the yield of crafting. With it just being the perk and not Alec's equipment, the activation rate was low and the increase limited. But...
Alec now had five locking live traps.
The man huffed lowly, almost laughing. He'd bet that Terra-Tan was going to be upset. Which... well, she deserved it. He'd only agreed to look at her work with the Worm realities. Tossing him in...
That just wasn't copacetic.
Next time he saw her, source of his power or not, he was going to shove his boot up her ass.
In the meantime, well...
Alec began to put away the tools he'd bought in the back of his van. He needed to get back upstairs and get cooking.
He had a dinner invitation, after all, and he planned to take a homemade pie for his hosts.
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Alec, bundled up in a long jacket with a nice pair of slacks and shoes instead of boots on, knocked on the door of a nice, quaint little home in the suburbs on the west side of Brockton Bay. It wasn't in the affluent side of the city but it was far enough out that the rot hadn't started to set it, not yet.
There were even cops nearby! Just sitting in their cars, talking over their radios, being seen. But it was still something Alec hadn't seen anywhere else in the city! Not in the north end, where he lived. Not in the east side, where he'd set up his traps in a few out of the way spots in the docks.
That... had been an adventure. The roads were absolute shit over that way and Alec had run into a few dead spots where, for reasons he hadn't been able to discern, cell service just completely cut out. He thought he was near some Tinker leftovers that were screwing with the cell towers but, at the same time, he wasn't willing to bet any money on it.
He'd just marked the spots on a paper map that had come part and parcel with the van.
After a few moments where Alec could hear people moving around inside of the house, the door opened. Rather than Nathan, Alec was met with a young woman. Shorter than him, lithe with longer blond hair that she'd styled so that it covered one eye though he could just make out the edge of a black eye-patch hidden underneath.
What really struck Alec was how young she looked. If she was older than his own body at the moment, he'd have to buy a hat and eat it.
"Mrs.Bauerdick?" Alec asked as he lifted up the pie tin in his left hand. "Your husband invited me over. Is he here or am I early?"
"Alec?" the woman asked. She looked him up and down, obviously checking to make sure he wasn't carrying any weapons, before she backed away from the door. "Come on in. Nate and Justin are watching the game."
...What game?
Football, it seemed. Alec poked his head into the living room where Nathan and another man, tall and well-built with a head of bushy brown hair, were staring at the television in rapt attention. Alec didn't recognize the teams that were playing but some guy wearing a white and blue outfit just ran into the endzone and they both started shouting.
Sports, Alec thought with a sigh as he followed Mrs.Bauerdick into the kitchen. He hated watching sports.
Playing them? Actually pretty fun. Watching it? Especially football, where eighty percent of the time was just wasted as everyone got set back up in between ten or fifteen seconds of action?
Boring in the extreme.
"So, where should I put this?" Alec asked, referencing the pie in his hands.
"Let me make some room on the counter," the woman offered as she began to shove and move a few things. A big glass pan of scalloped potatoes, a green bean casserole, a rack of ribs glazed in barbecue sauce... "You didn't have to bring anything, you know. Nate told me about your job."
"It's hardly that expensive if you bake a pie yourself," Alec disagreed as he set the foil wrapped treat down on the counter. "Besides, I'd feel bad if I turned up empty handed."
And she apparently didn't know that Alec was still being paid while things were under review. He expected he'd get a call soon, telling him that he needed to come and collect his last check, but that hadn't happened yet.
Yay for businesses struggling to figure out what to do when the usual 'Cover Your Ass' methods might result in a lawsuit.
Mrs.Bauerdick spent a moment looking at him, her eye locked on to one of his before the girl shrugged.
"Nate! Justin!" she shouted. "We got a guest! Quit being rude and come set the table!"
"The game's on, 'Ronnie!" Nathan shouted back. "Do it yourself!"
Alec inhaled sharply as 'Ronnie' cursed under her breath and pressed her fingers against her forehead.
"...Where do you keep the plates?" Alec asked.
"Over the sink," Ronnie told him as she jerked open a drawer and began grabbing silverware. "You don't have to..."
Alec said nothing as he pulled a quartet of plates out of the counter, one at a time. They clinked quietly as he stacked them in his arms, and they clinked again as he set them out on a little round table set to one side in the kitchen.
It took time for people to learn how to live together. Nathan and Ronnie... Veronica? Alec wasn't sure and he didn't want to ask. Nathan and Ronnie had been married at the behest of the Herren Clan, a bunch of Nazi-Redneck-Preppers-
Infinitely more annoying than rednecks, whom Alec typically got along with. And at least twice as frustrating as normal preppers, whose neuroses could be used under the appropriate circumstances.
-for the sake of trying to breed more Parahumans. A plan that... wasn't necessarily doomed to failure, given the parameters of the Cycle, but was still gambling with no way to know the stakes or payouts.
Nathan had actually been engaged to Ronnie's cousin, at least until the woman's death. Afterwards, well, Ronnie was offered up to take her place.
"Nate!" Ronnie shouted. "Get off the damn couch and get in here! Food's ready!"
"Fine!" Nathan shouted back. "Geeze, woman! Can't wait 'till halftime?!"
"Food's gettin' cold, Nate," Ronnie told him, a glare in her eye as the two men ambled their way into the kitchen. "An' it's rude to make your guest wait."
"Aw, come on," Justin told the woman with a grin on his face as he tried to defuse the situation. "I'm sure Al here ain't in that big a hurry."
"I'm not," Alec agreed as five eyes turned on him. One glared while the others turned up as their owners grinned. "But I'm sure Ronnie put a lot of work into everything."
"Fine," Nathan said with a put upon sigh as he sat down at the round table. Ronnie wasted no time in bringing the various plates and platters of food over to set in the middle. "Woman knows how to cook, can't complain about that."
Nathan's hand lashed out when Ronnie turned around to land a muffled 'Smack' on her ass before he sent a smug grin in Alec's direction.
Alec, however, was looking at the food.
"So, Al," Justin started as he sat down as well to Nathan's left. "Nate never mentioned it. What was it that you do?"
"I was a janitor at Brockton Memorial," Alec explained as Ronnie sat down to Nate's right and he took a seat directly across from the man. "I'm currently on paid leave while they're running an investigation after my boss had a heart attack while we had some investigator from the Department of Labor doing an audit. I heard he's doing fine, got a text from a nurse I used to work with, but I haven't heard much else yet."
Apparently, everyone was expected to serve themselves in the Bauerdick household. Nate just reached over and used a set of tongs to get a handful of ribs while Justic was helping himself to the casserole.
Alec waited until Ronnie finished up, then scooped up a batch of scalloped potatoes.
"Well, that sounds like they're probably going to try and find some reason to get rid of you," Nathan stated as he continued loading his plate. "Are you planning ahead? Got any leads on a job?"
"Nothing on the job front, yet," Alec admitted. "I've got a few applications in but no bites. I'm thinking about looking for something in Boston."
"What about Medhall?" Justin asked. The man had one hand hovering over a few rib bones, clearly he wanted to take a bite but he was also trying to be polite. "Nate says you're a pretty good shot. I hear they're looking for some more security personnel. I know I wouldn't want to go anywhere without a gun when you've got scum like the Merchants out there, harassing good, honest folks."
"...I didn't see anything on their online job listings," Alec admitted. He had checked, actually, the day before when he'd been visiting the library. He'd used the computers there to apply for a few jobs, downloaded an English romhack of Dragon Quest 3 for the flash cart in his apartment and posted a notice on Parahumans Online that he was looking for a Case 53 named Mantellum. "I did apply for a housekeeping position, though."
"We tend to be more... selective, in hiring for security," Nathan explained. "It'd be a waste of time if we hired someone who didn't know their way around the safety on a gun. Don't want to bring in any of the wrong sort, you know."
Alec supposed he did, in fact, know.
"So, Nate says you're a pretty good shot with a nine," Justin interrupted. "Is that all you work with or do you have anything else you like to shoot?"
"It's all I've got at the moment," Alec explained. "I'm not against expanding what I work with but I can't afford to buy ammo for a dozen different guns. 9mm ammo is pretty cheap and it doesn't beat the hell out of you when you shoot it."
"Hah!" Justin laughed and reached over to punch Nathan in the shoulder. "See? Not everyone likes shooting the biggest gun they can find!"
"It's not about size," Alec agreed with a sage nod. "It's what you do with it."
Ronnie snickered around the rib she was chewing on.
"...Really?" Nathan asked, less than impressed. "Come on, man. We're eating here."
"...Sorry," Alec offered as he shuffled some of the food on his plate around.
"Lighten up, man!" Justin piped in. "We're just jokin', here. Come on, why don't you tell us all about that fifty cal you've been drooling over!"
Dinner continued as Nathan gushed about the Barret .50 caliber gun he supposedly owned. They worked through the main course and the other two men actually seemed excited when Ronnie brought over the apple pie that Alec had brought with him.
He'd gotten a few compliments, though Nathan had thrown in a few scathing comments about the kitchen being the woman's place instead of the man's. Ronnie, apparently happy that someone else had cooked, ended up taking two slices just for herself!
Alec didn't even bother arguing with him.
He'd... expected the little dinner party to carry on longer than it had but, well, the other men wanted to get back to watching the game and it was easy enough to tell that Alec just wasn't interested.
He left, walking off and into the darkness for a good few city blocks before he ducked behind a bush and shoved his fingers down his throat, bringing his dinner back up.
Alec popped a few mints and wiped at his mouth.
Between the cooking skill and the trapping skill?
He hadn't even been able to taste the rat poison in the pie!
Alec was still clutching his stomach as he made his way to the parking lot where he'd left his van.
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Debuff applied!
Poison (Minor)
-Lose 1 HP/Minute
-Duration: 90 Minutes
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For Murdering the Odious Othala...
You have gained: 1000 Experience!
You have become: 2000 USD Richer!
Congratulations! You have reached...
Level 3!
You have gained...
1 Attribute Point!
Power Acquired!
Gift 1/20: You may gift a copy of your own ability to a target equal to half that abilities level (Limit: 1 ability, level 1 for 1 minute) Cost: 10 SP
For Crushing the Cowardly Crusader...
You have gained: 2500 Experience!
You have become: 4000 USD Richer!
Congratulations! You have reached...
Level 5!
You have gained...
2 Attribute Point!
1 Skill Point!
Power Acquired!
Phantom Force 1/20: Create a ghostly duplicate of yourself to perform additional actions! (Limit: 1 duplicate per 5 levels, minimum of 1. Duration: 1 Minute per Level) Cost: 25 SP
For Attaining Victory against the Victor...
You have gained: 1500 Experience!
You have become: 2500 USD Richer!
Congratulations! You have reached...
Level 6!
You have gained...
1 Attribute Point!
Trait Acquired!
On the Shoulders of Giants 1/20: Slowly gain experience in skills and abilities when in the presence of people with higher scores than your own!
Achievement Gained!
Poisoner 1
Poisons you inflict now cause an additional 10% damage per tick!
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Worm Version 0.0.7: Character Sheet
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| Stats | Details |
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Level: 6
HP: 100
SP: 200
-STR: 1/20
-VIT: 1/20
-DEX: 1/20
-AGI: 1/20
-INT: 2/20
-WIL: 2/20 |
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Empowered Investor 6/20: You can invest your energy into an object, repairing it by 6%, empowering it by 6% of its original value and investing 6 points into it. Once that investment value reaches 600, the empowered object will develop a special trait. Another trait will be revealed at 1000 investment, then they will be improved or added to for every 1000 points after that. Cost: 100 SP
Gift 1/20: You may gift a copy of your own ability to a target equal to half that abilities level (Limit: 1 ability, level 1 for 1 minute) Cost: 10 SP
Phantom Force 1/20: Create a ghostly duplicate of yourself to perform additional actions! (Limit: 1 duplicate/5 levels, minimum of 1. Duration: 1 Minute/Level) Cost: 25 SP
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ERROR! Previous skill levels not allocated!
Axe 1/20
Hand to Hand 1/20
Short Blade 1/20
Long Blade 1/20
Pistols 7/20
Rifles 7/20
Cleaning 5/20
Repairs 3/20
Cooking 3/20
First Aid 1/20
Sneaking 2/20
Running 1/20
Driving 4/20
Mechanics 1/20
Metalwork 2/20
Carpentry 2/20
Trapping 6/20
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On the Shoulders of Giants 1/20: Slowly gain experience in skills and abilities when in the presence of people with higher scores than your own!
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Poisoner 1: Poisons you inflict cause an additional 10% damage per tick
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Weapons
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9mm Pistol (+80)
9mm Carbine (+80)
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Equipment
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Multitool (Pliers, knife, screwdriver, can opener, scissors) (+102)
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Miscellaneous
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1990 Chevrolet Step Van (Exceptional) (+93)
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*vows revenge*
