With the question of how they would make critters dead sorted out, all that was left was to answer the question of how to prevent critters to make them dead.


    The problem with armor wasn''t the sheer quantity they could choose from but said the collection almost exclusively came in Greenskin-sizes – Goblin, Hobgoblin, Orc, and Ogre. For example, Bianca was short for a Human, and was outright diminutive in comparison to Orcs and Ogres, but was still larger than any Goblin. Even Hobgoblin armor was too large for her, with wrong proportions: Hobs were obviously stockier with longer arms and shorter legs.


    She settled for a Bluesteel chainmail coif that came even with a veil, a pair of leather vambraces, and a pair of greaves made of layered and lacquered paper. The last one wasn''t exactly well-fitting but was the closest she could find. Prof was surprised that armor could be made from paper but was informed that yes, it was a widespread custom, and it made a surprisingly durable and lightweight alternative to more expensive leather and metal. Actually, the paper greaves had almost the same armor rating as Prof''s decomposed original leather ones!


    Of course, Bianca’s new gear was magical, but still.


    Sharpclaw was the easiest to outfit: she didn’t want any gear, she said, it was detrimental to sneaking around and stabbing folks in the back.


    Wolfgang just took a horned, open-faced metal helmet, the other possible gear wasn''t to his liking.


    As for Prof… He was somewhere between a Hobgoblin and an Orc in stature, so most pieces were either too large or too small. Those with approximately the right size were mostly metal – considered as heavy armor, which wasn''t beneficial to Prof. For example, there was a matching set of full plate that made him salivate. Even without it being magical – which it was – it probably cost more than the GDP of smaller countries on Earth. An A380 as a private jet, the Queen Mary 2 (or any of those boringly ugly cruise ships) as his yacht, and a luxury car for every day of the year? He could probably buy all of those for the price of that one set, and would still have enough pocket change for his great-grandkids never to have to work.


    It was a nice fantasy.


    The reality was, however, that he wouldn''t make it out of the Valley alive because of his lacking Skill, and even if he made it out, he would have been robbed as soon as he entered civilized society.


    Bianca was right, an under-leveled nobody should not have such obviously over-leveled and priceless artifacts in their possession.


    Especially, when they couldn’t utilize the properties correctly.


    The only Mythrill shirt around was sized for smaller folks, Goblins, most likely, but he couldn’t rule out that a Hobbit left it there. There were rings around aplenty…


    That left him to mix and match sub-par trash.


    <u>Brigand’s Brigandine</u>


    Material: Swift Thief hide on the outside, Shadowsteel inlays, panther fur inside


    Quality: Rare


    Properties: Gives the wearer the Perks Roadside Tax Collector (+20% money from extorting merchants) and Raider Chief (+10% to all fighting Skills for up to 12 subordinates when fighting against mercenaries, militia, or law enforcement). Durable.


    Armour Rate: 62 (on upper body and waist)


    <u>Elvish Floaties</u>


    Material: Sheatfish hide


    Quality: Uncommon


    Properties: Let the wearer float as long as his and his equipment’s weight is less than 150 kilograms. +10% to [Swimming]. Marginally Durable.


    Armour Rate: 20 (on forearms)


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    <u>Champion’s Shinguards</u>


    Material: Gazelle hide


    Quality: rare


    Properties: Gives the wearer +25% running speed (+50% when running for less than 100 meters), +25% to [Sports: Bloodball]. +25% to [Evade]. Unbreakable.


    Armour Rate: 35 (on lower legs)


    <u>Warrior Crown</u>


    Material: Rim and six bands orichalcum alloy, green lunir spikes


    Quality: Rare


    Properties: 50% chance of not falling unconscious from hits to the head, -15% Critical Chance against the wearer''s head, -25% Critical Damage against the wearer''s head. Major Durability.


    Armour Rate: 45 (on the head)


    That was underwhelming. Either the properties were useless or the gear looked ridiculous. Prof didn''t exactly care about the knowledge the shinguards gave him either. Bloodball was obviously a widespread sport West of the Valley, played by both Humans and Greenskins. A ball had to be thrown, carried, kicked, smuggled, or brought in any other way to the opposite goal, while the teams could attack each other in any unarmed way.


    Prof was absolutely certain, he was never going to play it, and most likely wouldn’t watch it either.


    Useless knowledge.


    With all the eclectic gear they put on themselves they looked like casual noobs in an MMORPG – unfortunately, there only a few people laughed about you, in the real world practically everyone. Even Prof wanted to laugh if he wasn''t so embarrassed. Mini, on the other hand, had another laughing fit – while wearing one of her usual outfits. Why was it fashionable to wear some impractical getup, but laughable to dress in highly valuable legitimate salvage?


    No male will ever understand fashion anyway.


    When Mini was finished laughing, Wolfgang approached them with a piece of metal in hand.


    “Me friend, me found something. Look!" He presented the item. It looked like the part of an arc, heavily inscribed in an unknown alphabet. It was pretty and probably valuable.


    “It part of teleportation array!” Wolfgang clarified noticing their empty gazes. That was good. Probably. Would they be able to beam up to the ship? Did they need a tricorder for scanning the place? They were surrounded by tons of funny metal, would the transporter even work?


    “We find other pieces, me maybe get it work. It maybe lead to border of Valley." Indeed, that was good. If they could teleport out of the Valley, they could take much more loot with them, maybe even everything! Prof''s endless quest to get rich would be over! Four months or so on Arkadia (and thirty-five on Earth) was an almost endless amount of time.


    “That would be fantastic! How many pieces are we talking about?”


    “This look like standard Greenskin mobile array, eight other pieces, maybe nine. Six or seven look like this, one is short pillar, one large crystal.”


    “All right, everyone, this is our priority! We have to find these pieces, and hopefully, we would be finally able to leave the Valley as rich people! Go, go, go!" Prof asserted his resolve, motivating his party members. The reaction wasn''t exactly overwhelming bliss. Maybe he shouldn''t have sent everyone looking through the piles again late in the afternoon, even before they had dinner.


    Mini got more reaction from everyone when she presented her hunting spoils, namely a turkey-like bird. It was much better than the food she was able to acquire in the previous days. At least in quantity. With how bad everyone''s [Cooking] was, and without any spices, the meat was barely edible. The very first thing Prof wanted to do as soon as they re-joined civilization was to have a true medieval (or, more likely, a true Roman) feast. If anyone tried to feed him porridge or dried goods, he would physically abuse even his neighbor''s dog. And he would pledge self-defense.


    The second thing was to commission a cook who would follow him and make edible and filling food, no matter the place or time.


    The next day, finding most of the pieces was actually easy. The Hags collected everything that was marginally magical or made out of precious metals, but didn''t do anything with the collection, just placed it into random piles. The array''s missing parts were mostly around two meters high and arm-thick pieces of metal and as such quite conspicuous. It took them more time to dig the pieces out of the piles than to actually find them – actually, they moved more than half in the previous days and had an idea, of where to look for them.


    The only problematic piece was the crystal that functioned as a battery, conductor, distributor, or whatever. They had to literally dig through the whole hoard again to find one specific, fist-sized crystal. By the time they finally found it – surprisingly it was in the very last pile they looked through – Wolfgang already assembled the array itself in a room in the Mayor''s Office. If Prof expected some kind of occult masterpiece of high-fantasy magickness, he was sorely disappointed. There were no vessels for blood sacrifice, no colorful candles, burning incense clouding the air, amazing visual effects, just two concentric metal circles with a chest-high pillar in the middle.


    It looked a bit crappy.


    Prof wasn''t really familiar – or at all – with how Greenskin magical teleportation arrays should look and work, but was almost certain, the pieces should result in concentric circles, not concentric ovals or potato shapes. The central pillar was visibly leaning to one side too, with a slight bend in the middle. When looking at the pieces separately, the bends weren''t all that obvious, as in the final product. Wolfgang looked concerned when the party arrived with the crystal.


    “Me friend, we have problem. Array is barely functioning.” It didn’t just look crappy, it was truly crap.