Discount Dan

Between my hammer, the demolition screwdriver, and my newly enhanced Athleticism, I made short work of the lab-coated shithead.

I didn’t try to sneak around any of the other Techs, though. I’d learned my lesson and had no plans to make that mistake again.

Instead, I followed in the wake of Croc’s murderous rampage, staying a few aisles over as the mimic drew the Techs out. Firebombs flew from the shadows as the disgruntled Dwellers tried to murder the dog-bear—not that they could. The mimic was a friggin’ tank who could brush off damage like water rolling off a duck’s back. But, their fixation on Croc did leave them susceptible to my stealth attacks. I kept my distance and clung to the shadows, then launched Bleach Bolts with sniper-like precision.

The corrosive orbs melted through their fluttering lab coats and chewed through any exposed skin, killing the Techs in the span of thirty seconds or less. The triple damage bonus certainly helped get the job done in record time. For those few who survived the initial Bleach Bolt blast, I quickly followed up with either a Mana-enforced hammer blow to the head or a demolition screwdriver to the kidney. The screwdriver’s bloodletting effect was devastatingly effective, and my hammer’s Gavel ability turned those with low Health into red smears on the linoleum.

Did I feel a little cowardly, stabbing them while they had their backs turned?

No. Not even a little. Screw these assholes.

I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone, and this wasn’t some kind of game, no matter that there were stats and floating, eight-bit prompt boxes. This was life and death. This was war, and I’d use every tool at my disposal.

It took me and Croc about fifteen minutes to dispatch the rest of the Techs and another fifteen minutes for me to make the rounds and mark the legion of traps with spray paint.

We still weren’t done yet, though.

We hadn’t run across any Dweller over level 10, nor had we received any sort of achievement notice for completing the job board posting—and I was sure my douchebag Localized Administrator wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like that.

Besides, there was still one section of the store we hadn’t even touched yet.

The pharmacy itself.

I suspected there would be more of the pyromaniac Techs hidden away behind the plexiglass-encased counter along with the Store Manager who called the shots around here.

But I wasn’t prepared to charge headlong into the final boss battle just yet. We were close to the finish line, and I saw no reason to rush things, since we had the time to catch our breath and recuperate.

Croc and I took the brief reprieve to systematically clear the rest of the store, giving the pharmacy a wide berth. Whatever was hiding away back there seemed content to leave us be, so long as we stayed away from its lair. My Mana and Stamina were both low from the initial push and Croc had taken some nasty physical damage, including a few burns that turned its blue, rubbery body into a mass of charred flesh and writhing tentacles.

It seemed there was a limit to the amount of damage the mimic could absorb before it started to affect the creature’s shapeshifting ability.

Croc had a much higher Health-regeneration factor than I did, but even taking that into consideration, there was no way the dog would be fully healed in time to take on the Store Manager. So, even though I was reluctant to part with it, I cracked the Lesser Healing Zima and forced the mimic to drink the restorative elixir. Croc protested, of course, but when I told it that friends didn’t let friends suffer from catastrophic internal hemorrhaging, the dog’s googly eyes teared up and it reluctantly drank.

“I would literally die for you,” Croc declared solemnly once it had emptied the Zima.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I grunted, though I was begrudgingly glad to have the dog around. It was nice not being alone.

While my Mana slowly ticked back to full, I took a little extra time to loot the dead Dwellers for anything that might come in handy for the battle against MediocreMart’s big bad.

Like maybe some of those firebombs the Techs had been hurling at us.

Erlenmeyer’s Molotov Cocktail

Uncommon Relic - Level 1

Range: Line of Sight

Duration: 5 minutes

Cost: 8 Mana

Marrying the principles of basic high school chemistry with the arcane powers of bored pharmacy techs, Erlenmeyer’s Molotov Cocktail is a one-way ticket to Arsonville, population you! All targets take 15 points of Fire Damage on contact, plus 5 points of additional Burn Damage per minute while within the Area of Effect. Just remember, fire is an equal opportunity force of devastation. You’re just as likely to accidentally burn down your detached two-car garage as you are to kill your enemies.

Not only was it an Uncommon Relic, but it was quick, dirty, and dealt out a metric butt-load of damage for the amount of Mana it consumed. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to control the effects with any kind of precision. It was… well, the magical equivalent of a Molotov Cocktail. It’d be great in an open area like the main floor of the mall, but inside the tight confines of the pharmacy? It was possible that I could end up accidentally killing myself if I wasn’t extremely careful.

I still planned on using it, because only a moron or a jackass passes up a potential weapon like that, even if it was incredibly reckless and more than a little suicidal.

But it turned out, I didn’t need to worry at all.

The Molotov Cocktail had synergistic compatibility with my Bleach Bolt Relic. Under normal circumstances, I never would’ve forged the two techniques into one. Bleach Bolt was my best spell by a landslide, and there was no telling what the end product would be. Except, I had Researcher’s Codex, so I knew exactly what I’d end up with. Bleach Blaze. It had all the same effects as the original Bleach Bolt Relic, but with new-and-improved, melt-your-face-off Fire Damage!

Upgrading the Relic transformed it from an Uncommon ability into a Rare one and added 5 points of Fire Damage per minute while simultaneously draining Stamina by 10 points a minute for five minutes. There were a couple of drawbacks, though. The biggest of which was that the Relic level dropped from 4 to 2, which gutted the overall Corrosive Damage. Still, I was sure I’d get that extra DoT—Damage Over Time—back once I leveled up the ability a little more. It also doubled the Mana cost from 5 to 10, which hurt more than I wanted to admit.

We’d picked up five more of the Erlenmeyer’s Molotov Cocktail Relics—as well as a mix of Common and Uncommon Shards—and I briefly considered sacrificing the whole lot of ’em to bump Bleach Blaze up to level 3, but ultimately decided against it. The added level boost might give me a few more extra points of damage output, but I had a feeling that the Uncommon Fireball Relics would fetch a premium from new Delvers once I got my storefront up and running.

Besides, even without the extra levels, Bleach Blaze still dished out 58 total points of combined elemental damage, which was more than enough to take out most of the Dwellers we’d tangled with so far—though I doubted it would be enough to kill the Store Manager in charge of the MediocreMart.

But I had a few other plans brewing on that front.

The nightmarish Photophage, who’d nearly devoured me like a hungry anaconda, also had a Relic called Sleep Paralysis Demon, which resembled the hunched form of a palm-sized stone gargoyle. It was a hypnotic, psionic attack that did exactly what it sounded like—paralyzed onlookers for a short period of time. I’d experienced the full force of that Relic firsthand, so I knew how powerful it could be.

I wasn’t at all surprised to find that it had a synergistic resonance with my Psychedelic Light Show of Minor Distraction, though I was surprised to see that it also resonated with my Tinfoil Hat of Mind Shielding. The three items together pulsed and vibrated, but there was something subtly off-key about the frequency of that discordant hum.

Upon closer examination, I started to figure out why.

Researcher’s Codex Compatibility Analysis

Based on historic data sets and extensive Forging models, Sleep Paralysis Demon (Common – Level 1) and Tinfoil Hat of Mind Shielding (Common – Level 1) have an estimated 69% resonance compatibility, meaning the number of possible Relic Iterations is Low to Medium. The most probable outcome is the Colander of Mind Shielding (Common), or a closely adjacent derivative.

Sleep Paralysis Demon (Common – Level 1) and Psychedelic Light Show of Minor Distraction (Uncommon – Level 1) have an estimated 83% resonance compatibility, meaning the number of possible Relic Iterations is Low. The most probable outcome is Bad Trip (Uncommon), or a closely adjacent derivative.

Sleep Paralysis Demon (Common – Level 1), Tinfoil Hat of Mind Shielding (Common – Level 1), and Psychedelic Light Show of Minor Distraction (Uncommon – Level 1) have an estimated 17% resonance compatibility, meaning the number of possible Relic Iterations is High. With such a low resonance compatibility, creating a predictive Forging model is not possible at this time and the end result will likely be unfavorable.

Would you like to view additional report records for Colander of Mind Shielding or Bad Trip? Yes/No?

As I read over the detail reports for both Relics, I immediately saw the problem with trying to combine all three. The Colander offered passive psionic resistance while Bad Trip was an offensive spell. The Sleep Paralysis Demon could, apparently, augment either of my other two Relics, but smashing them all together would create a bipolar Relic that didn’t know what it was supposed to do. Which meant I’d wind up with something worthless like so many of the Relics I’d already stumbled across in the mall.

After a little careful consideration, I decided that the offensive Relic would be more likely to help me to survive the next few hours, so that’s what I went with.

Bad Trip

Uncommon Relic – Level 1

Range: Line of Sight

Cost: 5 - 40 Mana

Duration: 15 Seconds

Bad Trip allows you to conjure between 1 and 8 illusionary blacklight wisps that will swirl through the air in a whirlwind of psychedelic brilliance. But not all trips down the rabbit hole are good ones… Any creature with a Perception lower than yours will see their worst fears manifested inside the blacklight wisps. Those afflicted have a 10% chance of suffering from Paralyzing Fear, immobilizing them on the spot for twenty seconds. The chance of triggering Paralyzing Fear increases by 10% for each additional blacklight wisp you summon.

With my two new Relics equipped to my Spatial Core, the traps all spray-painted and marked on my map, and my Mana and Stamina topped off, it was time to venture into the pharmacy and put this mission to rest.

“You ready?” I asked Croc stoically, checking my tool belt, then examining the handful of other items I’d created in preparation for this fight.

“You’ll tell me all about water parks once this is done?” the dog asked hopefully.

“Everything you could possibly want to know,” I agreed, “and probably a few things you didn’t. Like how people routinely pee in the pool.”

Croc didn’t seem deterred in the least. “I’ve never been more ready in my life.”

Metal roll-away screens had been pulled down, and a dark gray Employees Only door separated the pharmacy from the rest of the store.

The last time I’d gone through a door like that, I’d ended up in a fight for my life against the Janitorial Stairwell Guardian, and I had a feeling this was going to be no different. Taking one more deep breath, I kicked open the door with a booted foot and rushed in with Croc close on my heels.