Travis Gardin
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Chapter 27: Recruitment
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 18:00:05 +0000 UTCKailani Haku and Cappy Williams do indeed leave the Pathbreakers. I can't blame them. With their shares of Rutger's Millions, they're both set for life.
Days begin to fly by again. Travel, fight, travel, rest. Travel, fight, travel, rest. It becomes a cycle, a loop.
7/1
9 days until the raid boss.
We have to spend a few off days working, going through possible recruits. The military is still sending us potentials, but so are other forces, and people are applying on their own. That's how we got Quins, Rutger and Cappy.
We open the doors a bit wider this time. We're planning on putting Henry in charge of a third team. I want a dedicated healer on each team from now on, and with Kailani gone that means we need three of them.
I do a lot of Zoom interviews.
Interview #4
Me: So it says here you have experience as a hunter.
Guy: Yeah, and tracker.
Me: Cool, what exactly do you hunt and track?
A Little Bit Off Guy: ...
Me: Uh? Hello? Is the Zoom broken?
Definitely Creepy Guy: Japanese pop stars.
Result: Not hired.
Interview #5
Me: So you have a healing class? Druid? I haven't seen one of those in play yet. How do your powers work exactly?
Hippie Lady: I am but a conduit for nature. I have no powers of my own.
Me: So, like ranged or touch? Fast or slow heals?
Hippie Lady: I rely on the earth to dictate the speed of the restoration of life essence to my allies.
Result: Passed to Henry's team.
Interview #7
Me: I'm looking for a tank and a healer, so you can do both?
Redneck: Can do, just as well as I can spit and piss at the same time!
Me: I assume that means you can? What're your levels at?
Redneck: Now lookie here you [REDACTED] you ain't gettin’ my details cuz you in with the gov'ment!
Result: Banned from Facebook, not hired
Interview #8
Me: Look, are you crazy, you have to tell me if you're crazy!
Seemingly Normal Woman: Well, I'm applying for the most dangerous job in the world so I'm not exactly normal.
Me: Fair. You can heal though?
Normal(?) Woman: I've got a familiar who heals and one who tanks.
Me: No shit! I've got a healer too! What kind of creatures are they?
Not Normal Woman: Both spiders. I just looove spiders.
Result: Passed to Madeline, Madeline declined.
Interview #11
Me: What do you bring to an adventuring party?
Surf Bro: Gnarly waves and killer tunes.
Me: That's how you describe your magic attacks?
Surf Bro: Yeah brah, like, I flood the bad guys and then use these shock waves of sound.
Me: That's actually pretty rad, brah!
Result: Hired to Henry's team.
Interview #12
Me: Be honest, how old are you?
Old Lady: Eh? Is this thing working?
Me: It says you have 31 levels in Cleric.
Old Lady: Hold on young man, let me get my grandson to fix this TV.
Result: Not hired.
Interview #16
Me: (Sigh) Just tell me what's weird about you.
Woman: I hate cops? And pudding. I hate pudding more, to be honest.
Me: (yawns) Okay, so you can heal, right?
Woman: Yeah, at range. Group heals only.
Me: That's part of your Bard class?
Woman: Right. I play music and you dudes who hear get healed and buffed, based on the distance from me.
Me: If you're carrying a lute, swear to god I'll snap it.
Woman: Dude, chill! I just play MP3s with a Bluetooth speaker. Works regardless of how you make the music.
Me: What do you play?
Woman: Fucking metal, dude. You want to hear Celine Dion during a fight? Nah, you need metal to get you amped the fuck up.
Result: Ivy Black (probably not her real name) hired to my team.
Interview #17
Guy: Hey Jun, been a while.
Me: Odysseus! You can talk! Also you're not on my list, but screw it! You want a job?
Odysseus Grant: Yeah, though I've made some changes. Things got rough during the Salem dungeon breaks.
Me: Tell me everything, man! Also, I don't care, you're hired.
Odysseus: Same impatient Jun. I'm a Paladin slash Druid, focusing on over heals and wood barriers for cover.
Me: Go on.
Odysseus: Paladin specializes in a touch heal, Life Palm. But I took the Preventer subclass so I can hit people with it before they get hurt, and it activates when they take damage. The Druid stuff I'm just getting used to, but it's helpful ranged support.
Me: Get your ass to Dallas, dude!
Result: Hell yeah, my Ranger buddy Odysseus is back!
7/4
Independence day!
6 days until the raid boss.
I take the new team, Mercy, Jose, Quins, Odysseus and Ivy, to a 10 floor dungeon. Odysseus is still using a MK 16 SCAR L. Ivy can't shoot for shit, but she's working on training with a chain whip. It lets her be in the center of the group for her music buffs while still being able to deal damage.
We basically leave the entire dungeon in the hands of Odysseus and Ivy, letting them level up and get experience. Okay, so really it's just Ivy getting experience, but Odysseus is playing along so she doesn't feel like she's the worst one of the group. Even though she is. On the upside, she hits level 10 in Bard pretty quickly and moves up to the 3rd Step class Troubadour. Her music now improves regeneration speeds of Ki, Spirit, Faith and Arcana Points.
Bard/Troubadour stuff is a bit more complex than I first thought. As the music plays, she can add more and more effects to it over time. That means at the start of a fight, we get just +10% Agility, but by the end of a fight, we can have +20% Strength, +15% Agility and Toughness, +10% Dexterity and +33% Ki/Spirit/Faith/Arcana recovery. That's nice! The other side of musical magic is that she can end a song with a “crescendo” which is usually a powerful attack or big heal. The longer a song goes before the crescendo, the more powerful it gets. We had a boss fight go for 8 minutes (we weren't really trying) and at the end she exploded the bat monster's ears with a crescendo.
We go see fireworks after the dungeon.
7/5
5 days until the raid boss.
“Jun, we need to talk,” Jose says to me as we get off the plane from Arizona.
“Sure, what's up buddy?”
“We need to find your brother, settle it, and then after the raid boss I'm leaving.” He sounds serious.
“Uh, okay, sure, take a vacation.” I am not sure why he's so serious.
He looks at me seriously. “No, I mean I'm leaving the Pathbreakers. This is going to be my last week.”
We don't have checked bags because we have inventories, so we walk towards the pick up lane in silence.
“But...” I start.
“You have Quins for ranged damage. And I have kids at home. A wife. A life. I'm not a soldier anymore.” He seems like he's already made up his mind. He seems like he's given this a lot of serious thought.
“You've felt this way for a while?” I ask. I'm not going to argue, not going to beg or plead. He's right. He has a family.
“Since the President gave me my calling. To always return home. I knew, right then.”
The callings were tasks that, when completed, gave energy based on the difficulty of the task. You can then spend that energy on temporary buffs to your stats. Like brief moments of super powers. Jose's task was relatively easy, so he'd accomplished it multiple times already, netting him a small amount of calling energy each time he went home.
But also... But also your calling isn't just another stat. It's part of who you are. Who Jose is, what's at his core, is someone who just wants to be home with his family.
Brian, former Get! employee and now current Pathbreakers web designer, pulls up in his minivan, and the side door opens for us. “You guys have a good trip?”
We both get in wordlessly.
“I'll take that as a no,” he says.
