Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Upon receiving the warning from the mysterious stranger, Zane awoke to find that Elena had already run off to make breakfast, leaving Zane with a variety of thoughts on his mind. At the current rate of progress, it was likely that the undead would attack in full force before he could properly equip himself, let alone the girls.

After all, every warning this stranger had made to Zane in the past was one of about imminent danger. Knowing that the equipment from the grim forge was currently worth more to him than one measly level, Zane stared at his inventory and the stockpile of Tier I Blood Crystals he currently had.

He and the girls had effectively killed 20,000 of the 58,000 or so undead that roamed the streets of Carson, at least over the past few months. And though the drop rate had improved as the undead began to evolve, he still only had about 6,000 Tier I blood crystals on him, that the inventory system auto looted. That is what remained after spending 500 on the recipe for his vambraces.

Zane had to make a hard choice. Between using these 6,000 blood crystals to help him and the girls level up, or to spend it on equipment for him and a few of the girls.

At the current rate of xp, 6,000 blood crystals was 60,000 XP for him, but less for any other member of his party. Currently, Zane needed 30,000 XP to level up one level, and now that all of his girls were level 10 or above, they required a similar amount.

Meaning at the maximum he could get two, maybe three levels out of these blood crystals, and that was assuming that he spent them on Madison and Angelica, who were level 10 each.

The increase in stats from one or two levels was so minor, especially when compared to the equipment he could get from the gold, that Zane made a bold decision to immediately invest all of his blood crystals by selling them in the store for gold.

Immediately Zane's gold skyrocketed by 60,000 gold, which was more than enough to buy the remainder of his gear set, or should I say the recipes for them. Not only did this include the five-piece armor set, but the two recipes he needed to craft his weapons as well.

Zane immediately dropped 25,000 of the 60,000 gold on himself, acquiring the recipes he needed to complete his gear set. Though he had enough crafting materials for the entire set, he would need to visit New Reno to hunt stalkers and abominations for the materials required for anyone else's equipment.

Zane instantly thought about who he should buy gear for next with the remaining 35,000 gold. Only to come to a sudden realization, while he had begun to develop a fighting style of his own, relying on his superior speed, perception, and stealth based abilities to ambush hostiles. He had no idea how any of his other party members would fight without firearms.

After all, these weapons clearly had significant advantages when dealing with higher tier undead. It was clear to Zane that the more powerful an undead, the more resistant they were to conventional pre-apocalyptic weapons.

If he and the girls wanted to survive long term, hell if the settlement of Gravestone wanted to do the same, they would have to adapt to the new world, and the items produced by the grim forge were a prime example of this.

Because of this, Zane spent some time drafting new battle plans and archetypes, which he figured would be useful as he scrolled through the items in the store. Getting an idea of how they could be appropriately used by him and his team.

Elena was purely DPS, a DPS warrior building, to be exact. There was no doubt about that, her skill which allowed her to temporarily freeze time, and her favor of bladed weapons like the Katana made her perfectly able to control and eliminate enemies with instantaneous damage.

As for Olivia, she was an archetypical mage. Her skill allowed her to deal damage from afar, and she also seemed to favor ranged based weaponry such as firearms. Not to mention her skill was quite literally elemental as it cast lightning.

Angelica, on the other hand, was a healer. Her own abilities in combat were extremely lacking. In fact, if Zane was being honest, she had not killed a single undead since joining his party.

But her healing abilities were rare. In the entire Reno/Tahoe area, she was the only awakened survivor whop he had heard about that had healing powers. Making her a powerful addition to any party.

This only left Madison, and it was clear what role she would have to play. Her skill was defensive in nature, a nigh unbreakable force field that could be cast around herself, others, or in an area. It had saved his life, and that of the other girls, more times than he could count.

With this in mind, the archetype that Madison would reasonably fall into was also the most useful for Zane who was himself a rogue/assassin build. She was the Tank of the party, meaning that her role was to aggro enemies, and withstand the damage they dealt, while he and the others eliminated them faster than she could on her own.

It was interesting. Just a few days ago, the girl was begging him for her own set of equipment for her birthday, something Zane thought was an impossibility at the time. But now things were different.

The man found himself chuckling as he thought about this. It was almost a matter of fate. Madison was by far the who would be most useful to him if she were to get a proper set of equipment, at least when he considered his currently limited funds. Not only that, but her birthday was just around the corner as well.

Knowing this, Zane used the remaining 35,000 gold to buy Madison a full set of Level 15 Rare Plate Armor, which had a very generic name "Champion's Plate Set." Zane included the Champion's Bulwark which was a Level 15 Rare Shield as well, and a matching sword to go with it.

It was only after looking at the recipe did Zane realize that this armor set actually made via the use of a mixture of materials that could be found in the ruins of the old world, as well as these new materials scavenged from the undead.

For example, the breastplate was made from something known as Revenant Iron, which was apparently manufactured via melting Stalker Claws with high carbon steel. But this would require the Stygian Iron Works.

Which was another building that Zane would have to build in his settlement and required the recipe. This, of course, could be purchased from the store with more gold, gold that Zane did not have at the moment.

With all of this in mind, Zane sighed heavily, deciding he would finish building his own equipment, before setting his sights on getting the gold necessary to acquire the blueprints for the Haunted Iron Works