The search interface window chirped open, letting me know they'd finished their checks and confirmed my access status. Thank God for digital technologies! In real life, I'd have had to deal with a cartoon storage officer and his own inner greedy pig, their combined combat skills enough to defeat any quantity of Phantom Dragons.
Right. First things first. Let's check out their vehicle facilities. Where did they keep their bear gear? A haphazard search offered me over four hundred available items, a bit over the top. I sorted them by price, the highest offerings stopping at just over twenty grand per item. Their names didn't say anything to me. I needed to consult an expert.
Any bear-savvy persons around? Apart from Animal Rescue, I could only think of Eric. I PM'd him describing my problem and asking his advice regarding some gear for my Hummungus. I remembered the love and care Eric had invested into kitting out his own LAV mount. Now it was my time to hear out the expert.
He promptly replied, stuck in the guardhouse as part of the reinforcement group and dying for some entertainment.
Super. Will help you, no question. Which storage have you got access to?
That got me thinking. What did he mean, which one? Do you have several? I've got Lieutenant's access.
I see. It gives you access to all classes of items and gear up to rare. Epics and artifacts are locked in the classified vault. Not much but not bad, either. I don't have even that. Ah! Think you could look something up for my LAVvie? I need a Veil of True Vision. It allows a mount to detect a stealthed enemy even farther than a player with an identical buff can. And, please, also Pegasus Horseshoes. They add 15% to speed. And could you also look up-
Hey, wait up! my inner greedy pig and myself replied in unison. We could use this sort of goodies ourselves! Back to the subject. Once we equip Hummungus, you might be able run wild for a bit, depending on the result.
What's your money situation?
Not a problem.
Then you should take Winnypore's set, everything you can find —there're six items in total and you've got the Claws already. That's the coolest of the affordables. The rest is a bit out of your league. Besides, they're mainly no-drop, anyway.
Very well. I typed in Winnypore. The search returned nine items. When I got rid of the doubles, I was left with four: the helmet, the pauldrons, a cuirass and something that looked like a pair of steel boots. I dreaded to think what the Moon Winnypore was and what it looked like. Price per item: three to six grand. I opened an auction in another window and compared the prices. Oh well, the Vets' had it all at least ten percent cheaper. Would be nice to buy up a million's worth of their stuff and auction it all off. One or two hundred grand easy profit, no sweat. But that would be a total loss of face and reputation, a ripoff to end all ripoffs. We didn't need that, did we?
I gave my inner greedy pig a clip round the ear to stop him looking at me with those imploring puppy eyes. Then I scanned the stats, envying my own bear, and began buying up. I also needed to get him a pair of armored pants, four earrings, two gold chains and something to fit on his teeth a bit like those horror fangs they sell in joke shops for overaged teenagers.
I ended up brainstorming it with Eric, after which we found all the items we needed—apart from the set of teeth which I had to buy from an auction for no less than eighteen grand. But the teeth were worth it, from the first incisor to the last canine.
Mithril Fangs of the Flesh Eater
Item class: Epic
Weapon type: for combat mount only
Damage 96-117, Speed 2.9, Durability 230\230
Effect 1: Hole Puncher. Gives 20% damage probability completely overriding enemy armor.
Effect 2: Flesh Eater. When mount deals a deadly blow, part of the slain creature is devoured, restoring 25% life to the item owner.
There you are, Teddy—not a cute and cuddly toy any more but a carnivorous flesh-eater. I just hoped the effect was purely virtual and that he wouldn't have to chomp on all sorts of unsavory things.
I didn't forget Eric's requests, either. Unfortunately, they had only one Veil so I was forced to give it to him, even though my inner greedy pig kept making suggestive faces. But they had two sets of Pegasus Horseshoes which, beside a speed bonus which wasn't anything in itself, also offered an impressive +170 to hits. I took both hoping that the storage officer wouldn't start wondering about how many legs my bear had.
Now! Hummungus was fully equipped, tenfold more impressive than his owner. His stats looked more than respectable:
Riding Mount: Hummungus (Red Bear)
Leveclass="underline" 26
Strength: 185
Armor: 140
Constitution: 95
Claw power: 77-91
Maul power: 127-162
Speed: 10 mph
Rider: 2
Weight-carrying capacity: 9250
Special abilities: Armor Bearer, Arms Carrier, Mule II, Transporter
My Teddy had become a force to be reckoned with. Not that it hadn't cost anything. Even in real life, seven thousand bucks was more than enough to turn any wuss into a rather dangerous dude complete with bulletproof vest, a shotgun and two handguns under his belt. Add to it a couple dozen tactics and shooting classes, and our bullied-up nerd turned into a potential wonder waffle. That's a wuss, but here I had a combat mount initially created to eliminate everything that moved.
Now I could finally think about myself. Having said that, I had a whole kindergarten to take care of. I opened my guild settings. Cryl was level 13. Lena was a level-11 ranger. I rummaged through my bag and found a whip I'd won in that personal dungeon ages ago. That had been a brilliant find: good job I hadn't given it to Bug as promised. Not because I was too tight or something—no, I'd just had too many things on my plate to remember about it.
Then I made a mental note of setting ten grand aside for each of my new clan members' equipment. Wiping my sobbing greedy pig's face, I assured him that the gear was a loan that later had to be returned to the clan storage. To bring the sniveling creature back to its senses, I set up a clan tax of 10% off all loot and on every sale. Having said that, I seemed to be the only person to suffer from it for the time being. There isn't much in the way of loot when you're level 10. Having said that, I was the only one with access to the clan treasury.
That was it. Now it was well and truly my turn. First of all, I wanted some of the thickest and richest elixirs they had. Even there, my appetite met with dire reality: the Vets kept their vials in a separate Alchemy vault that had nothing to do with their regular storage. And I didn't want to push my luck asking for yet another access. I really didn't need to add any more stones to the already hefty weight of my obligations to somebody else's—albeit admittedly friendly—clan.
So I switched over to the auctions. They offered a decent choice even though I couldn't see anything truly rare, like Unknown Skill Elixir. After giving it some thought, I finally bought four skill elixirs and twenty characteristic-boosting ones. That should last me three weeks, considering the cooldown. I was eighteen grand down but didn't regret a single penny of it. With a clinking of coins, the fluttering of the bag confirmed the receipt of my purchases. I drank two vials on the spot: the mint and the lime-and-honey ones.