Chapter 61: New Loadout

William Oh literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

• Jason Salazar

Pocket sand

A small pocket that can be sewn onto any fabric. Will blend in immediately afterwards, concealing it’s presence from outside observers.

1 Charge: fill the pocket with irritating sand.

“Well, that’s definitely a rogue item,” Will muttered. It didn’t fill a slot, so it didn’t have stat boosts, but it could in theory be useful for a quick escape.

Will looked at the tag and whistled at the price, but didn’t balk. Not after the cost of everything else.

What Else? Will thought turning back to the selection the giant bug-lady had laid out for him.

In the ‘Interesting Amulet’ section was a strange amulet made of interconnected rings of brass, seemingly connected at odd angles, yet connected with a bolt that ran through all of them.

When Will’s hand touched it, the inner circles began to spin lazily.

Gyroscopic Stabilizer

-7 focus

+3 Kinesthetics

Passive: User has more direct control over their inertia, orientation, and to a much lesser extent, gravity.

“What does this mean?” Will asked.

“Try it on,” The Xeju said.

Will took off the Homefield Advantage and put on the Gyroscopic Stabilizer

The bug lady reached out with the back of a single massive talon and gave Will a brutal shove.

Normally that amount of force should’ve sent Will flying, but instead his body seemed to resist being shoved before immediately righting itself.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Will mused, trying the ‘gravity’ portion of the amulet, orienting his desired direction ‘up’. He got what felt like twenty or thirty pounds lighter, but did not fly, which was a shame.

Although in the Phantom hand…No, 40-60 isn’t enough.

“Try running up the wall,” The bug woman said motionlessly.

Will ran up the side of the wall, able to seamlessly sprint upwards by controlling his momentum and getting that extra ~20 pounds of force keeping him pushed against the wall instead of just dropping him to the ground.

So. Very, very good for an acrobatic build. I imagine it could stabilize your attacks as well, making physical strikes hit harder than they might’ve otherwise based on a more stable inertia.

Will liked it a lot, but he didn’t really need it for anything specific, so he put it back, pulling a pair of Boots out of the Rogue selection.

Getaway Boots

+4 Kinesthetics

1 Charge: Double movement speed for (Kin) seconds, before suffering -50% movement speed for (180-Kin) seconds.

I should be able to wear them with no downsides at level 60. Hah.

If Will didn’t have more powerful boots by level sixty, he would quit Climbing. Still, Will did have pretty strong Kinesthetics, so he’d tolerate the downside much better than most. It wasn’t as much of a boost as the Boots of Outflanking, but they lasted a lot longer, and the requirement to trigger them wasn’t nearly as finicky.

Will didn’t really need speed boosts, though. Not when he had the mask and terminal velocity on his side, and with the sixth floor coming up, will was hoping to find some boots with ranger boosts that could make him able to actually walk on water.

Technically Will had been walking on pond-scum and the occasional piece of grass.

While that was impressive, Will wanted to hit unaided water-walking by the time they reached the Ocean floor…for obvious reasons.

“I’m looking for ranger boots that boost the effectiveness of Ranger Abilities and footing at the same time,” Will said.

“Speed boost?” She asked.

“Not necessary.” Will said, shaking his head.

“I’ll see what I have.” She said before flickering into action, opening drawer after drawer behind the countertop until she came back with a pair of familiar boots.

Electric Eelskin Swamp Stompers*

+3 Kinesthetics

+5 resistance

Increased movement speed on swampy terrain, increased footing in watery, slimy, mucky or muddy terrain. Scales with Resistance.

+25% Ranger Archetype Ability potency

Lightning Pulse:

5 Charges: The wearer releases a pulse of lightning into the ground, which may paralyze enemies touching the ground within (Res/10) Feet

“A mutated Relic from a mutated eel on the 4^th floor. Is this the sort of thing you’re looking for?” She asked.

“Where have these boots been my whole life?” Will asked before glancing back up at the insectoid shopkeep. They were an upgrade in every stat over the Swamp Stompers they’d farmed on the previous floor, and they added an Ability as well.

“Do you have somewhere I could test these?”

Five minutes later, Will was bobbing on the surface of a giant tub of crystal clear water.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

From what he could see, the water around him was stabilized out over two feet in every direction, bowing slightly down under his feet, but supporting him. As if he were walking on a puddle of congealed syrup.

“That’s gotta be over a thousand pounds of water you’re stabilizing,”

“Eh?” Will glanced up at Loth.

“Do you have a tape measure?” She asked the shopkeep, getting one in a matter of seconds as the other patrons of the shop gathered around to watch Will stand on water.

“Looks like someone’s gonna have an easy time on the Sixth Floor.” Someone joked.

“Okay, let’s see, the radius is…twenty eight and three quarters inches…” Loth’s eyes flickered as she calculated.

“Seventeen hundred and ninety-eight pounds…and a bit extra, assuming a perfect hemisphere. No wonder you can stand on water.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, what’s happening with you isn’t exactly the same as buoyancy, but it’s close, so I’ll use buoyancy as a stand-in.”

“What’s buoyancy?” Will asked.

“It’s the amount of water weight an object displaces in the water. If the object’s weight is less than that of the displaced water, it floats.”

“So if I displace more than my own weight of water, I float?” Will asked.

“Yes, but you’re not displacing it, you’re stabilizing it,” Loth said, pointing at his feet, which had been ever-so gradually sinking, stretching the surface of the water, which bowed underneath him. As if on command, the surface tension broke, and Will jerked for an instant as he fell straight down into the water, soaking himself up to his knees.

“Did anyone get a time on that?” Loth asked. The surrounding patrons shook their heads.

“We have a couple more things we need to test,” Loth said, a crazed look in her eyes as she pulled out a small hourglass.

Will knew he was doomed.

Loth ran him through exhaustive testing to make sure the boots were a viable purchase, and as it turned out, Will could only stand in place for just under a minute without falling through the surface of water, but if he paced in a small circle in the center of the tub, there was no limit.

Something about the magical synergy between his Class Abilities and the boots refreshed itself every step he took.

I’ll take it.

Rarely if ever did he expect to need to stand still on the surface of water for extended periods of time. The point of walking on water was to walk.

“I’ll take it,” Will said, climbing out of the tub and taking the boots off, handing them back to the shopkeep. “How much?”

“Well, originally, they were sixty tenpieces.” The shopkeep said.

Will coughed.