The Legend of William Oh

William Oh literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

• Jason Salazar

Pocket sand

A small pocket that can be sewn onto any fabric. Will blend in immediately afterwards, concealing it’s presence from outside observers.

1 Charge: fill the pocket with irritating sand.

“Well, that’s definitely a rogue item,” Will muttered. It didn’t fill a slot, so it didn’t have stat boosts, but it could in theory be useful for a quick escape.

Will looked at the tag and whistled at the price, but didn’t balk. Not after the cost of everything else.

What Else? Will thought turning back to the selection the giant bug-lady had laid out for him.

In the ‘Interesting Amulet’ section was a strange amulet made of interconnected rings of brass, seemingly connected at odd angles, yet connected with a bolt that ran through all of them.

Gyroscopic Stabilizer

-7 focus

+3 Kinesthetics

Passive: User has more direct control over their inertia, orientation, and to a much lesser extent, gravity.

“What does this mean?” Will asked.

“Try it on,” The Xeju said.

Will took off the Homefield Advantage and put on the Gyroscopic Stabilizer

The bug lady reached out with the back of a single massive talon and gave Will a brutal shove.

Normally that amount of force should’ve sent Will flying, but instead his body seemed to resist being shoved before immediately righting itself.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Will mused, trying the ‘gravity’ portion of the amulet, orienting his desired direction ‘up’. He got what felt like twenty or thirty pounds lighter, but did not fly, which was a shame.

Although in the Phantom hand…No, 40-60 isn’t enough.

“Try running up the wall,” The bug woman said motionlessly.

Will ran up the side of the wall, able to seamlessly sprint upwards by controlling his momentum and getting that extra ~20 pounds of force keeping him pushed against the wall instead of just dropping him to the ground.

So. Very, very good for an acrobatic build. I imagine it could stabilize your attacks as well, making physical strikes hit harder than they might’ve otherwise based on a more stable inertia.

Will liked it a lot, but he didn’t really need it for anything specific, so he put it back, pulling a pair of Boots out of the Rogue selection.

Getaway Boots

+4 Kinesthetics

1 Charge: Double movement speed for (Kin) seconds, before suffering -50% movement speed for (180-Kin) seconds.

I should be able to wear them with no downsides at level 60. Hah.

If Will didn’t have more powerful boots by level sixty, he would quit Climbing. Still, Will did have pretty strong Kinesthetics, so he’d tolerate the downside much better than most. It wasn’t as much of a boost as the Boots of Outflanking, but they lasted a lot longer, and the requirement to trigger them wasn’t nearly as finicky.

Will didn’t really need speed boosts, though. Not when he had the mask and terminal velocity on his side, and with the sixth floor coming up, will was hoping to find some boots with ranger boosts that could make him able to actually walk on water.

Technically Will had been walking on pond-scum and the occasional piece of grass.

While that was impressive, Will wanted to hit unaided water-walking by the time they reached the Ocean floor…for obvious reasons.

“I’m looking for ranger boots that boost the effectiveness of Ranger Abilities and footing at the same time,” Will said.

“Speed boost?” She asked.

“Not necessary.” Will said, shaking his head.

“I’ll see what I have.” She said before flickering into action, opening drawer after drawer behind the countertop until she came back with a pair of familiar boots.

Electric Eelskin Swamp Stompers*

+3 Kinesthetics

+5 resistance

Increased movement speed on swampy terrain, increased footing in watery, slimy, mucky or muddy terrain. Scales with Resistance.

+25% Ranger Archetype Ability potency

Lightning Pulse:

5 Charges: The wearer releases a pulse of lightning into the ground, which may paralyze enemies touching the ground within (Res/10) Feet

“A mutated Relic from a mutated eel on the 4th floor. Is this the sort of thing you’re looking for?” She asked.

“Where have these boots been my whole life?” Will asked before glancing back up at the insectoid shopkeep. They were an upgrade in every stat over the Swamp Stompers they’d farmed on the previous floor, and they added an Ability as well.

“Do you have somewhere I could test these?”

Five minutes later, Will was bobbing on the surface of a giant tub of crystal clear water.

Stolen story; please report.

From what he could see, the water around him was stabilized out over two feet in every direction, bowing slightly down under his feet, but supporting him. As if he were walking on a puddle of congealed syrup.

“That’s gotta be over a thousand pounds of water you’re stabilizing,”

“Eh?” Will glanced up at Loth.

“Do you have a tape measure?” She asked the shopkeep, getting one in a matter of seconds as the other patrons of the shop gathered around to watch Will stand on water.

“Looks like someone’s gonna have an easy time on the Sixth Floor.” Someone joked.

“Okay, let’s see, the radius is…twenty eight and three quarters inches…” Loth’s eyes flickered as she calculated.

“Seventeen hundred and ninety-eight pounds…and a bit extra, assuming a perfect hemisphere. No wonder you can stand on water.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, what’s happening with you isn’t exactly the same as buoyancy, but it’s close, so I’ll use buoyancy as a stand-in.”

“What’s buoyancy?” Will asked.

“It’s the amount of water weight an object displaces in the water. If the object’s weight is less than that of the displaced water, it floats.”

“So if I displace more than my own weight of water, I float?” Will asked.

“Yes, but you’re not displacing it, you’re stabilizing it,” Loth said, pointing at his feet, which had been ever-so gradually sinking, stretching the surface of the water, which bowed underneath him. As if on command, the surface tension broke, and Will jerked for an instant as he fell straight down into the water, soaking himself up to his knees.

“Did anyone get a time on that?” Loth asked. The surrounding patrons shook their heads.

“We have a couple more things we need to test,” Loth said, a crazed look in her eyes as she pulled out a small hourglass.

Will knew he was doomed.

Loth ran him through exhaustive testing to make sure the boots were a viable purchase, and as it turned out, Will could only stand in place for just under a minute without falling through the surface of water, but if he paced in a small circle in the center of the tub, there was no limit.

Something about the magical synergy between his Class Abilities and the boots refreshed itself every step he took.

I’ll take it.

Rarely if ever did he expect to need to stand still on the surface of water for extended periods of time. The point of walking on water was to walk.

“I’ll take it,” Will said, climbing out of the tub and taking the boots off, handing them back to the shopkeep. “How much?”

“Well, originally, they were sixty tenpieces.” The shopkeep said.

Will coughed.

“But your water-walking tests sold every other swamp stomper I have, so let’s call it one ten-piece in gratitude for the free advertising.”

Will sighed in relief.

“…I’m thinking about commissioning a brand logo with a goat boy walking on water.” The Xeju said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” Will said, shaking his head. “But I appreciate the discount.”

“My pleasure, William Oh,” The xeju said.

Will froze.

“Either you’re William Oh, or you’re emulating him. We shall see.”

Will nodded and kept going through the rogue items, finding a hood that raised the potency of his rogue abilities. He didn’t want to give up the mask, so he passed.

I will eventually have to give up the mask when I find something drastically better.

There was a forestry hat that gave half a dozen passives to navigating the wilderness and boosted his Ranger Abilities, but…same issue as the rogue hood. It would boost his water-walking and trim half a week off the time it took for a Sourdough’d item to regenerate, but Will wasn’t willing to give up flight just yet.

There was a ring that stored notes from everyone who’d worn it before, which popped up where they became relevant, but it didn’t provide much in the way of combat bonuses.

OOH! Will thought, his gaze landing on a single glove made of thick leather that seemed to extend to the elbow.

Glove of the Aetherhawk

+4 acuity

+4 Resistance

+25% Potency to Ranger Archetype Abilities

-7 Focus

The wearer of this falconry glove gains a single ethereal hawk familiar, which can mark targets, distract enemies, and perform rudimentary reconnaissance. Has the ability to shed light, empower projectiles, and a near-human intellect, along with the ability to understand the wearer’s language.

The summon cannot be damaged by physical means, but can be dispelled, disrupted or dismissed, and may be resummoned a short time later.

“Is the hawk an eidolon?” Will asked, pointing at the glove.

“…I’m not sure.” the Xeju said.

“…Can I test it?” Will asked.

A few minutes later the glove was on the ‘keep’ pile, along with a bow they’d discovered that June would like, and a couple extra gold to cover the scratches the hawk had made on the shopkeep’s counter.

“All of these, please,” Will said, pulling out bearer bonds from his breast pocket and thumbing through them.

A few minutes later, the bonds were authenticated, and Will geared up:

Will switched out his Greater Sting Ring with the Ring of the Eidolon, then changed his armguard of Tracers with the Glove of the Aetherhawk, then he upgraded his boots.

He swapped the Holdout Dagger for the Wand of Trespassing, then fed the Wand of the Undead Retainer and Stormfists to his Phantom Hand, passing off the Dagger of Eternal Servitude to Loth to experiment on her insects with.

Once everything was where it was supposed to be, Will checked his Status.

William Oh

Resourceful Climber Level 22

23+ 29 Strength

66 +10 Kinesthetics

69 +14 Resistance

44 -3 Focus

84 +15 Acuity

Charges: 41/41

Free Points: 0

Item Abilities: Manhunter, 11 degree correction. 35% eidolon potency, 45% rogue Archetype potency, 50% Ranger archetype potency, Aetherhawk, Lightning Pulse, Wet footing, Homefield Advantage(Ice), Gravity Charge 30% Trespass A/V dampening.

Phantom Hand Slots: -(Ring of Accuracy*)- (Sickle of Cold Harvest) (Wand of the Undead Retainer) (Stormfists) (-)

Primary Abilities: Aspect of the Goat, Phantom Hand**

Secondary Abilities: Sourdough

Primary Ability Upgrade Available! (x2)

Secondary Ability Upgrade Available!

Wait a second…Will thought as he reviewed his stats on the way back to their Inn.

Why is my strength that high?

The boost from his regular items was ten Strength from his pants, which left nineteen attributed to the Ring of Accuracy in the Phantom Hand slot.

Will’s current Acuity was 99, which, when multiplied by 1.45, had to be somewhere close to 143% add 1 for the base amount…

2.43 x 7 = 17…

So where did the extra 2 points of strength come from…The ring?

Will took the ring off and his Strength dropped by 2.

That means that the Phantom Hand Ability counts as an Eidolon, so the ring is boosting it by 35%…

And that means…

Will put the ring back on and reached out with the Phantom Hand and flicked a pebble on the ground in front of him, focusing on using the ring to make it interact with the physical world.

The pebble jumped, rocketing off into the distance.

Holy….crap. I can touch things!

That…was unfair.

Well, unfair is kind of my specialty.

And of course, it used up his ring slot, which had an opportunity cost, but Will was more than happy to pay.

Maybe I could put the hand into a glove and re-attach it to my wrist and it would work just like a regular hand. if the glove was tied to my wrist I could even pull on things like it was a real hand, hang from one hand while climbing, that sort of thing.

…wait.

Can I pull on myself?

It didn’t make sense to his gut, because no part of anyone’s body could be used to exert force on themselves, because it was all part of the same closed system, but Phantom Hand wasn’t actually connected to him, so…maybe it could?

Will concentrated on the sensation of physicality the ring granted, and shoved himself from behind.

Loth spat out a scrap of turkey leg as Will suddenly flew forward, tumbling violently in midair, plowing through the crowd before landing in a tangle of limbs.

“Will, are you okay!?” She demanded, dragging him off of a stunned citizen. “What happened? Where are they!?” she scanned the gawking crowd and the rooftops, looking for the mysterious attacker.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Will said, reaching out and grabbing the Phantom Hand, pulling himself to his feet. “I was testing an Ability. It has a little more zip than I thought it did.”

Loth frowned, watching him rise in an unnatural way, putting his weight on nothing at all.

“It’s the Ring of the Eidolon interacting with the Phantom Hand, isn’t it?”

“…Maybe?”

Will was always a little impressed/intimidated at how quickly Loth picked things up.

“We need to run some tests,” Loth said before glancing around at the angry passerby Will had knocked over like bowling pins. “But not here.”

2 more weeks until the tournament, and I got everything I wanted. Now all I need to do is wait for the Phantom Thief to take the bait and lead me back to my tomahawk.