Puffy was a DPS type familiar with damage over time as its focus. As it was a familiar, its damage wasn’t exactly extraordinary, but it still thoroughly added to Arthur’s strengths. Arthur was, of course, a tank type. While he could hit things harder than normally possible for his kind, he was nowhere near as powerful in terms of damage compared to someone like Mira or Aurora. A familiar like Puffy helped circumvent this weakness, while also adding something like utility at the same time.
Puffy’s first skill was rather basic. He would puff himself up, and then tackle the enemy. If there were multiple enemies, he would bounce between them, delivering a payload of toxins with each strike.
[Puffy Pow]: Puffy puffs up and strikes an enemy with a spiked tackle. Can ricochet between multiple enemies. Enemies successfully struck by [Puffy Pow] accrue [Puffy’s Poison] for each time they are struck. Low cooldown.
Puffy’s Poison was a stackable debuff that sapped the opponent’s health while impairing their nervous system. As a neurotoxin, if the opponent built up enough stacks of Puffy’s Poison, it would cause complete paralysis.
[Puffy’s Poison]: Causes damage over time. Slows the enemy and causes difficulty breathing. More stacks causes mounting damage, and after a certain amount, causes complete paralysis.
Another use for the toxin was that it would slow the opponent further and further for every stack accrued, which was very effective for Arthur. Although he was an Audacity Knight, he was still of the Knight class tree, and a universal weakness they shared was speed. While it was a weakness he’d avoided so far thanks to his bloated stats and specific match ups, it was still something he would eventually face. Thanks to Puffy, however, that weakness was now slightly less concerning.
[Bad Breath]: Puffy spits out a cloud of smoke, obscuring the area and inflicting [Puffy’s Poison] to any enemies within the cloud every seven seconds.
Aside from maybe Aegis Arts’ 4th Method, this was the first dedicated AOE damage skill he’d received… which was funny because it wasn’t even his. He didn’t know exactly how big the cloud would be, but he could feel that it’d be around 5-6 meters. While having a poison cloud skill was nice, there was more utility to it than met the eye. Being a cloud of poison smoke was something that people and monsters would want to avoid, so Arthur could use it as a sort of trap. As Puffy was bound to him, their skills were essentially an extension of his own, so he would take no damage from the cloud. Therefore, he could fight within it, while all of his opponents would suffer the damage over time effects.
[Spike Pop]: Puffy pushes their spines out with force, shooting spines all around them in a burst. Enemies struck by the spines are inflicted with [Puffy’s Poison].
Another AOE skill. This one was as simple as they came; Puffy’s spines would burst out and inject anyone they hit with his toxin. Other than being useful in some choice situations, Arthur couldn’t think of why it’d be better than Puffy’s first skill. Being unsure of its usefulness was not something the next skill shared, however.
Affinity Skill:
[Perforating Palisade]: Puffy trusts you with their life. Puffy is absorbed into your spirit, becoming one with your very will. Your armor gains enhanced damage reduction. Your shield gains enhanced damage reduction. Both your shield and armor gain spines that excrete [Puffy’s Poison]. Able to use Puffy’s [Spike Pop].
[Perforating Palisade] is a limited buff skill. It lasts for one-hundred and eighty seconds. Certain conditions can enhance or decrease the time.
Affinity Skills were rare things to gain. Normally, an individual would have to spend years with their familiar, and even then, they may not unlock the Affinity Skill. Affinity was the metric the System used to measure how much a familiar liked their partner. Maxing out a familiar’s Affinity wasn’t easy; both parties would not only need to share truths and ideals but also be of compatible personalities. The options for familiars were vast, and although everyone was allowed to have 2 familiars, it was still rare to unlock an Affinity Skill for even one.
Familiars weren’t restricted to animals or monsters. While animals had their own way of growing with the System, even humanoids could become familiars for others. It was something that was practiced more often than one new to the System would think, with especially powerful beasts usually being the ones to employ such. Sometimes, powerful humanoids would familiarize their family or close friends that had stagnated, allowing them to continue to fight at their loved one’s side.
This wasn’t something that one could just do with no consequences, however. Making anyone who has access to the System a familiar has its upsides and downsides. Familiars couldn’t level up normally, and would have to follow their contractor around everywhere they went. Not only this, but they would have to take orders from their contractor as well. They would be intrinsically tied to each other until either the familiar contract was broken, or until one or both parties died.
The familiar bond wasn’t all bad. They were familiars, not slaves, and therefore had benefits that would come for taking on a familiar contract. First of all, once their familiar contract was completed, they would be granted rewards commensurate to their services. Different familiar contracts had different terms to them, with only the rules mentioned previously being true for every familiar contract made. Arthur and Puffy’s familiar contract was rare in that it wasn’t necessarily a “contract”, and more like a bonding of souls. Without Arthur as an anchor for him, Puffy could not materialize, causing the pufferfish to be stuck in a single bone piece until the end of time. The morality of the fact that Arthur’s actions effectively took the freedom of death from Puffy didn’t cross his mind, as this was information he didn’t have when he’d revived him.
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As rare as Affinity Skills were, they were not unheard of, and it was known that they often molded themselves to what the contractor did best. It would always appear as a marriage of the two’s powers, and in many cases, would increase the potency of both. Such was also the case for Puffy and Arthur, and as they’d spent years around each other before the System, they had unlocked the Affinity Skill immediately with max Affinity.
After discussing their new addition to the team, the group moved their talks to the chest they’d taken from the Marauding Cyclopes’ body.
“You three can have it,” Arthur said, waving it off. “I’ve already gotten plenty of rewards from… from the raider. It didn’t count any of you for that fight, so it’s only fair you three get this chest to yourselves.”
After a bit of pushback, the three eventually relented to Arthur’s stalwart refusal.
Rewards received!
[Gideon Omari]:
x1 [Skill Bolus]
x1 [Free Point Allocation Bolus]
500K Credits
x1 [Shooting Star]
[Sasaki Ema]:
x2 [Skill Bolus]
x1 [Free Point Allocation Bolus]
1M Credits
x1 [Glove of the Tender Touch]
[Aurora Diné]
x1 [Skill Bolus]
x1 [Free Point Allocation Bolus]
500K Credits
x1 [Earrings of Focused Mana Depth]
Right off the bat, they’d noticed that Ema gained more rewards for her contribution. While it wasn’t by much, it was noticeable.
“What were you expecting?” Arthur said. “We would’ve failed without you. Your final play gave us the chance we needed.”
“You were the one who almost died for that chance.”
“So? That just means I suck. Besides and again, that chance wouldn’t have existed without you.” He smiled. “You’ve earned this.”
Puffy gave an affirmative chirp, although he wasn’t even there. Afterwards, the others in the room nodded, especially Aurora. Looking down slightly, Ema showed a rare moment of bashfulness as she accepted her rewards.
Since Gideon was the first one to show up on the rewards screen, they decided to look at his new gear first.
[Shooting Star] (Scarce): A Morningstar mace fashioned out of a fallen star. Its jagged edges are especially effective against rock-like enemies.
Potency: 40
Charm Capacity: Medium
- [Size Change]: Able to grow or shrink according to the wielder’s desire. Limits apply.
- [Earth Bane]: Deals extra damage to Earth attuned enemies.
It was a good upgrade, especially considering Gideon’s current weapon. It looked like a purple and black Morningstar mace; the haft looked like a rod of purple and black rock, the spikes on its head looking like jagged bits of geode crystals. He’d been using completely normal items of the old world as weapons, so gaining a System recognized weapon was a huge boost to his power. Gideon had considered ditching his knife and simply two-handing the mace, but thought twice about it after remembering one thing. His South Polarity skills didn’t only rely on him using a light weapon; it also required that weapon to specifically be a dagger or dagger-like. If he made the decision to use the mace alone, he’d be forfeiting his South Polarity almost entirely, which was not something he was remotely willing to do.
Although it was out of order, because of Ema’s nagging, they reviewed Aurora's new equipment next.
[Earrings of Focused Mana Depth] (Scarce): Earrings made to help focus mana in one’s body. The gems they’re made from are coveted by jewelers everywhere.
- [Mana Focus]: Grants the user greater mana cost efficiency.
- [Mana Depth]: Allows the user to spend more or less mana to strengthen an attack or weaken it.
The earrings looked like twin moons, with stars made of stunning blue gems. The effects the earrings gave were effective for someone like Aurora. Her class was inherently mana hungry, trading mana by the gallon for raw power. These earrings would help her not only have better mana efficiency, but they would also boost her class’ core purpose of spending more mana for more power. It was a powerful dichotomy, as since she’d have more mana to spend, she could spend all the more mana for more potency.
Aurora put the earrings on, then turned to the rest of the group, wordlessly asking how they looked on her. Ema’s mouth was open for so long, one would be amazed if her mouth wasn’t dry by the time she spoke.
“You look… so damn good.”
Aurora’s taciturn eyes didn’t change, but for her biting her lips slightly. She looked down and fiddled with one earring, as though polishing it with her finger. Her light Native American skin reddening by such a slight amount that the others hadn’t noticed.
“Thanks.” Her emotion-barren tone didn’t betray the deafening pounding in her chest.
After some discussion about what to do next, the group decided to use their Skill Bolus’ now, as there was time yet before they needed to leave. Gideon was the one to go first, as the other two didn’t want to risk tasting the mystery medicine’s flavor. The look on Gideon’s face afterwards made them curious, however.
[Crushing Weight]: Create a space within your area of influence where gravity is either 10x heavier or lighter.
-[North]: Created space has 10x increased gravity.
- [South]: Created space has 10x decreased gravity.
The skill he unlocked was secondary to the taste of the medicine. Somehow, it tasted like a matcha cake-pop, his favorite flavor. After telling the others, Ema renewed her hesitance, as she loudly proclaimed matcha tasted like grass milk. After some loud bickering between the two, she recklessly shoved both Bolus’ in her mouth at once, attempting to get the experience over with.
[Overcharge]: Passive – When you heal an entity, if their health would’ve filled by less of the amount you healed, you grant them a shield of the extra health you would have granted them with diminishing returns. Does not apply to entities whose HP was already full.
[Spirit of Wood]: Passive – Healing skills become more effective when in a wooded area. Buffing skills become slightly more effective when in a wooded area. Grants the ability to slightly influence plant growth. Limits apply. No loopholes.
After chewing for a while with a surprised face, Ema yelled at Gideon, calling him an idiot. The Bolus’ tasted like lemon cake-pops, which were her favorite. The two descended into bickering again, with Gideon insisting that he was actually quite smart when he wanted to be. Arthur posited that since the Bolus’ tasted like strawberry to him, the Bolus’ changed their flavor depending on the person who ate it. He’d turned to tell Aurora to see what hers tasted like, but she’d already beaten him to the punch. Her eyes were closed in bliss as she chewed on the warm blueberry muffin goodness.
[Lightning Dash]: Turn into a bolt of lightning to reposition. The further the skill is used, the greater the mana cost. If used to travel through an enemy, inflict [Shocked].
While all the skills the group learned were good, this one was the most impactful for Aurora’s build. Previously, she’d had no way to retreat from particularly quick enemies or attacks, but now she had a movement skill. The skill also seemed like it’d be fast, which was even better for her.
After a while of discussing their new skills, and with everyone being glad that Aurora gained a skill that’d let her retreat from a dangerous situation, they decided it was about time to begin heading out. As Gideon left to gather the survivors, he stopped suddenly. Turning to look back into the room, he asked a very important question.
“So… does anyone know which way we’re supposed to go?”