Chapter 116: Crafts (2/2)

```

[ Stormpiercer Skyrend Set (Mythic / Tier-4) ]

> Set Bonus: Tempest Cadence (Passive)

> Stormpiercer Skyrend Mantle (Armor)

+400 Attack | +400 Speed

> Stormpiercer Skyrend Striders (Boots)

+500 Speed | +300 Constitution

> Stormpiercer Skyrend Grips (Gloves)

+500 Attack | +300 Arcane

> Stormpiercer Skyrend Diadem (Helm)

+400 Arcane | +400 Attack

```

```

[ Tempest Cadence ]

> For every 100 stacks of any Attack Speed effect you currently hold, gain +100 Attack.

```

Alice did not say anything for a moment.

Then she did the arithmetic out loud, because she could not help herself.

"Six hundred stacks of Starfall Cadence is six hundred Attack." She looked up. "On top of thirteen hundred from the set. On top of the twelve points I just put in."

"And Cadence has no ceiling," Logan said.

"Cadence has no ceiling." Alice was already pulling her old gear off. "So the longer a fight goes, the harder I hit, on two separate systems at once."

She put the new set on and stood there with her eyes closed for a second.

```

[ Stormpiercer Skyrend Set equipped. ]

[ Total set bonus: +1,300 Attack | +900 Speed | +300 Constitution | +700 Arcane ]

```

"Three hundred Constitution," she noted. "That is not much."

"It is three hundred more than you had this morning." Logan shrugged. "And your boots gave you five hundred Speed. You wanted to stop needing rescues. There it is."

The weapon came last.

```

[ Skyrend Sinew Bowstring ]

[ Rank: Mythic ]

> Draw weight adapts to the user’s Attack stat.

> Arrows released gain increased velocity. Effect scales with the user’s current Attack Speed.

```

"Sinew from the wing that Alice ruined," Maren said. "I did not know how far you take that number. Xairon said to build for the top of it."

"Xairon." Alice looked over. "I currently top out somewhere around six hundred stacks."

"Then it will scale to six hundred," Xairon said. "And then past it."

Alice strung it right there on the plaza. The bow made a sound when she drew it that Logan had not heard from a bowstring before.

There was more. Emberglass arrowheads by the hundred from Vulkarn and Maren working together. Restoratives from Thessaris, brewed out of the Verdant Heartsap.

Draventh had enchanted every Aegis Bastion Turret a second time using dragon blood as the medium, and refused to explain what it had done.

"You will see when something attacks us," it said.

---

That left the stat points.

They sat down on the plaza steps to do it, because it was the kind of decision that deserved sitting down.

```

[ Unassigned Stat Points: 20 ]

```

"Twenty each." Alice turned the panel toward herself. "Floor One fruits gave five. I remember Logan complaining about it."

"I complained because I fought a Treasure Guardian for five points." Logan pulled his panel up. "Floor Four gives twenty. Whatever the fruit is measuring, it scales with the floor."

"So Floor Ten fruits would be worth."

"Do not." He held up a hand. "I am not ready to think about Floor Ten."

He looked at his four stat lines and already knew where the points were going.

Attack. Speed. Constitution. Arcane.

’Speed is the obvious one.’ He turned the thought over and rejected it. ’It is also the wrong one.’

Because speed was not his problem. Speed had never been his problem. Reaper’s Stride handed him more speed than he could use, and it would keep handing it to him forever, because the stack had no ceiling.

The ceiling was somewhere else.

’Two thousand stacks. That is not the skill’s limit. That is my limit.’

He thought about a mountainside with Rishin standing over him. He thought about his shoulder cracking against a living wall in the Hive.

He thought about the fortieth wave, holding the number at two thousand on purpose, knowing exactly what was on the other side of it.

"All twenty into Constitution," he said.

Alice looked up sharply.

"Not Attack?"

"My damage comes from Sword Intent and it comes from the lance." Logan pushed the points across. "Neither of those cares about my Attack stat much. But every single time this match has nearly killed me, it was my own speed doing it."

```

[ Constitution +20. ]

```

He felt it settle in. It was not dramatic. His arms just felt a little more like they belonged to him.

’Not enough to break the cap yet.’ He closed the panel. ’But the cap moved. That is the first time it has ever moved.’

---

Alice took longer.

She sat with the panel open and her chin on her hand and did not touch it for a while.

"The dragon’s Constitution was two thousand seven hundred," she said eventually. "My Attack is not close to that. The only reason my arrow went through was that you levered the plates open and Death Star tripled it on a fatal point."

"Sounds like an argument for Attack."

"It is." She still did not touch the panel. "But that is not what happened out there, is it."

Logan waited.

"What happened is that the dragon crossed the shelf in one movement and Sonic had to body-check me out of the way." Alice’s voice stayed level, but she was not looking at him. "That is twice now. The Behemoth at the start, and then that."

’She has been carrying that since the shelf.’ Logan kept his mouth shut and let her get there.

"I do not want to be the person who has to be saved," she said. "I want to be the person who does not need to be."

She split it.

```

[ Attack +12. ]

[ Speed +8. ]

```

"Twelve into what kills things," she said. "Eight into not dying."

"That is a good split."

"It is a compromise." She closed the panel and stood up. "I do not love compromises. But I am not going to pretend I do not have a hole in my build just because Attack is more fun."

Logan stood up with her.

"For what it is worth." He stopped and looked at her. "You killed a Mythic dragon with one shot. You awakened the Talent that did it only a handful of portals ago."

"I know." Alice slung the new bow across her back and grinned at him. "And I still nearly got eaten. Both things are true."

---

They walked back toward the plaza together, and Logan pulled up one more panel on the way.

```

[ Players remaining: 219 / 500 ]

```

He stopped walking.

"Two nineteen," Alice said, reading over his shoulder. "It was two twenty-seven when we left the tower event."

"Eight players gone while we were running around in portals." Logan closed it. "Somebody out there is working."

"Or several somebodies."

"Yeah."

He looked out across the terraces at the island. Turrets on every wall. Fourteen new Mythics finding jobs. Terry walking his patrol with plating that had not existed before the siege.

Sonic was somewhere overhead doing loops he did not need to do.

’Four dogs left. One fruit left. Two hundred and nineteen players still in this thing.’

"Alice."

"Mm."

"Tomorrow we take dog seven." He started walking again. "I want to be finished with those markers before somebody else finds a reason to come here."

"And if one of the last four is the fruit?"

Logan thought about the match announcement that had gone out to every player still alive.

"Then we are going to have company," he said. "So let us get there first."