Chapter 61 - Cougar and monkeys (1/2)
With Shadow leading the way, the team including their new addition Tetsujin went back to continue their quest. Instead of walking across the path, Shadow led him into the forest to the right. The main objective of the quest was not to just walk along the path but kill the monsters.
The needed to have a significant count of the number of monsters killed, else they would have to deal with a large stream of monsters before they reached the city outskirts. So, they quickly made their way along the path and stopped at a point.
”I will aggro a few monsters here one by one. Tetsujin, what skills do you have?” asked Shadow after stopping at the clearing.
”Choke, Toss and Back Throw are the only skills, I have,” replied Tetsujin.
”So, you already learnt choke. That makes thinks easy. You are the in charge of mainly controlling the monsters.”
”It does have a cooldown, I hope that others also have similar skills,” he said looking at Merlin.
”Use semi-automatic mode. It will help you learn the skills. Then, try using manual mode to repeat the same and then you can have the same effect as the skill without using it. And you don't have any cooldown in the manual mode for skill which require physical movements,” explained Tang. Ever since Shadow had demonstrated the use of manual mode, she had practices every one of the skills she knew in manual mode and at this point is using only manual mode.
”That can be useful. How do magical classes do it?” he asked Merlin.
”Some of the gestures are necessary along with few incantations. In manual mode we don't need to select target first which allows us to guess the targets path and use a skill at the location where he would move to. But we can't do it without cooldowns,” answered Merlin.
”I guess magical classes would have such an obvious drawback when using a technology that allows our thought to make us feel like we are physically interacting,” added Shadow. ”But on continuous usage of skills in manual mode, you tend to feel tired. I think they have a hidden stamina value based on endurance attribute,” he continued as he went into stealth mode.
Balthazar already knew that the manual mode would have this feature and usage of skills without regard to cooldown in manual mode would draw on the stamina value. It is similar to the HP and MP bars but is presently hidden. It would be made visible to the players after the first upgrade which he heard happened a week after the game's launch.
It was done on popular request, so that every player could determine his own stamina. The same would be also done for the magical classes. They also could use the smaller level skills without regard to cooldown by playing the price of stamina. But it was not much popular to depend on it among the magical classes as it required them to put in a sizeable attribute points to endurance.
Shadow quickly found a red fanged cougar, got out of stealth and attacked it with the intention of bringing it back. The cougar was similar to a mountain lion with a thick bushy tail. It had four large fangs, two upwards and two downwards protruding from its jaws giving it a fearsome appearance.
These were relatively isolate monsters that fought anything that the saw including other cougars. Vita-nova always had the monsters and NPC's intellect to be independent and as similar as possible to real-life as is evident from the behavior of the cougars. The monsters also have to eat others to improve their level. They also tend to have similar eating patterns especially those which also exist in real-life.
It was actually considered impossible to find one that wasn't at full health or not injured. It was thus considered easy prey to isolate and attack. With a martial artist using choke on it, it would be easy to make quick work of the cougar.
[Red fanged Cougar] (Elite monster)
Level 8;
HP: 2280/3000;
The red fanged cougar had an attack pattern similar to warg. It also charged quickly at its enemies and attacked either with its claws or by biting into them. Both these attacks result in bleed effects. But unlike the warg, when the cougar bites it would just chomp onto their limbs and toss them away usually towards other monsters to disrupt their co-ordination or just rattle them.
As he came back, he saw that his team had retreated a few metres towards the direction of the village. They were under attack by a troop of monkeys. If he were any late, he might have jumped into the advancing troop of monkeys.
It looked like avoiding the monkey when the go through this area was impossible on the first run. But the number of monkeys that attacked them were lower in number. ”It looks like these first attacks are dependent on the number of players in the team,” though Shadow.
Tetsujin and Merlin seemed to have employed the same trick as he used before. They had a monkey with them and were using it to attract the others. But the monkey they caught seemed to be slow, almost dying and wasn't able to retaliate.
”What did you do to the monkey?” asked Shadow as soon as he saw them. He was already out of stealth so as to allow the cougar to follow him.
”These things came out suddenly a few seconds ago. With no idea, I told what you did when we fought alongside the Sirius Imperials. Tetsujin immediately caught on of the monkey and used toss to send it to us,” began Quiet Fire in an attempt to explain.
”Didn't work. Tetsu used choke and I poured a poison bottle into its mouth,” said Merlin finishing her sentence. Merlin chose the trades of cook and alchemy as they can be used in the middle of quest to replenish stocks if he had the ingredients.
The required apparatus for the skill were little and could be carried in inventor. The other two of his trades were herbalism and foraging which would supplement his other two skills. So, he was the main potion source of the group.
”I hope you didn't get any other monsters here. We are already being pushed back by these,” added Tetsujin who left the poisoned monkey to Blinding white and began waving his tonfas to attack.
The cougar that he pulled to the team would only serve to their detriment in this situation. ”Don't attack it when it comes out. Let it follow me and go back a bit,” shouted Shadow as he ran into the troop of monkeys.
A few seconds later, a 4-foot-tall red furred monster with fangs jumped out of the same place as Shadow. With his team already retreating, the spot where the cougar came out of, was right beside the monkeys.
The red fanged cougar which came out of the trees suddenly got into the midst of the monkey following Shadow. The cougar that bumped into a bunch of monkeys squeaking and throwing stones only saw it as a large buffet to eat and quickly pounced on the nearest monkey changing the nature of a fight.
With one of the monkeys being treated by the cougar as food, the focus of the remaining monkey changed from the players to the new predator in their midst. Chaos immediately ensued as few of the monkeys started attacking the cougar. The cougar being a very aggressive kind of monster retaliated and kept jumping from one monkey to other while swiping its claws and fangs at them.
Shadow already knew that the cougar wouldn't focus on them as the monkeys were better food than them as they were higher leveled and eating them would enable it to increase its level. This behavior of monsters also extended to tamed monsters/pets. His team most of whom were three levels below it wasn't appealing at all compared to the monkeys.
With the cougar taking the attention of the monkey, Shadow's team got the break they needed. Shadow used cheap shot and threw another monkey to his team. But this time instead of using it as bait they directly decided to kill the monster.