Chapter 266: Newest Newbies

The newbies who hadn’t gotten their starter pack yet were all pushed forward to meet Kalli, who was nearly a mythical figure to many of them, who had come up from the Arks.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Coordinator. I have the Mage Class. Is there special gear for mages? I don’t think that we use swords or rifles. At least, I don’t know how to use either," a teen boy asked, his voice cracking halfway through.

"In fact there are. The staves all give bonuses to mana regeneration, or spell power. I never know what one you’ll get until you get it.

That’s why I don’t give out magical items most of the time, too much random chance involved. Giving out magical items that aren’t what people actually need just wastes resources, so I give out the basics, and let people work for their magical items.

After a few runs, you’ll have gotten something that’s better than what I give out, for sure."

Mostly because if a mage item dropped in the Rat Demon Dungeon, he was likely to be the only one in the group who needed it. Anyone who had done more than a handful of trips in what Marimgar considered their basic resource dungeon had already gotten all the Common Grade items they needed.

Uncommon Grade items were just that, uncommon. But once you moved to the Goblin Dungeon, they became much easier to obtain, and you just had to tough it out until you could do the level seven Swineherd Demon dungeon, which also dropped Rare items sometimes, though it was primarily chosen for the meat.

"Anyone get anything good this morning?" Kalli asked, as she handed over the set of starter gear.

With the 50 percent discount on weapons and armour she had chosen at level 5, the starter boxes were actually pretty affordable, buying multiple items at once, so it didn’t round the 1 point items up and negate her discount.

A sword, shield and light composite battle armour suit came to 4 points now. Slightly less than just the armour had cost before the discount.

Even if there were a dozen new heroes here, it wasn’t a big deal to get them kitted.

Their first day’s missions would give Kalli enough points to replace the spending, and they wouldn’t be eager to buy more gear right away. They needed the points to get the basic skills to get started on their class, and the more experienced members had begun making guides to keep newbies from falling into blunders.

There were some skills that simply didn’t live up to their points cost, so they were better to skip at the start, and then only pick later when you needed a skill that could only be unlocked if you had them active.

It was good to see them looking out for each other.

She was nearly back home when she noticed the sky getting dark. She hadn’t really been looking up as she walked, but as she did, she noticed that heavy black clouds were rolling in from the ocean.

They were in for a major storm.

The real question was whether it was just a tropical storm, with heavy winds and lots of rain, or if it was going to be something much more extreme, like the ones they’d seen during the trial.

They had no idea what the natural weather of this place was supposed to be like, though they guessed that it should be similarly subtropical and sunny, as that was what they had mostly been seeing.

If it was going to rain all the time, they would have seen more of it during the trials for certain.

Anything that would increase the difficulty was likely to happen.

She should likely prepare to sell a lot of umbrellas today, unless someone in town was making them. They had the materials, they could waterproof tuber plant cloth easily enough.

But she suspected that people were either going to stay in the indoor walkways, or simply put their helmets on.

That was the sort of thing that most people did anyhow, they just looked to spend as little time in the rain as possible, and then went about their day.

However, if the storm was as bad as it looked, umbrellas wouldn’t do them any good at all.

That thought was backed up an hour later when the wind began to howl, and the light drizzle turned to pouring rain.

The satellites showed a large storm front, but not cyclonic, so it wasn’t a Typhoon or Hurricane.

That was a relief.

But the rain was coming down hard, beating down on the Hall of Heroes in an ever-increasing staccato.

By noon, she would call it a full on deluge, the rain pouring so hard that the streets of Marimgar were ankle deep in water, and the flow rate was increasing towards the drains.

Oddly, the chickens seemed quite happy with this development, and they were using the opportunity to change out the bedding in their cages, simply dragging the old out and stuffing it through holes in the wire to be washed away.

Then, they returned with more, confident that they would be fine inside the coop, which was lifted slightly off the ground with multiple rows of nesting areas.

Not much seemed to bother the chickens.

However, the rain wasn’t slowing, and the city’s drainage plan, which Kalli had thought was fairly well-designed, was struggling to keep up.

Sanchez stepped through the sliding door and shook himself off.

"Well, I think that’s a new Marimgar record. According to our unofficial weather station, we’re currently getting ten centimetres of rain an hour. The drainage should be alright for a little while, we designed in some ponds, but they’re already full.

But on the bright side, we’ve got more than enough fresh water.

I didn’t come here for that, though. Or perhaps I did. The Ark residents want us to open the restrictions on coming to the surface. Water is still rationed underground, even though there is apparently a large cistern for daily use.

They want to come up and make the most of the rain."

Kalli shrugged. "I don’t see why not. As long as they’re not going to get washed away.

Actually, that’s a real danger, isn’t it? Tell them that when the rain slows, they can come up. The current is high right now, so the water is all muddy. Though, if they’re looking to frolic in the water, I can add some water features to the city."

Sanchez chuckled at the word frolic.

"I think that they’re more interested in simply being outdoors in the rain. Though, if they all came up, they’d be standing shoulder to shoulder like it was a concert venue."

Kalli shrugged. "Then we keep the rotation as it is for now, and warn them that the floodwaters are too dirty to use for washing right now. That should slow them for a bit."