“We’ll make this quick,” Kaiden assured her as he began looting. Dead mobs were piled everywhere, and among them, wardens. Dozens and dozens of them.
DimReaper **Deceased**
Power Warden
Faction: Warden Corps
Level: 47
LorenThyme **Deceased**
Shield Warden
Faction: Warden Corps
Level: 48
On and on, corpse after corpse. All of them had been real players, but not true players, Kaiden knew. Most of them were Party employees who’d been ordered to power-level accounts. Not that it mattered now. They were out of game for a week. Could come back on new accounts, no doubt, but that’d start them all over at level one.
“Here.” Kaiden stepped up to the corpse of what had been a level fifty blast warden. “This’ll do,” he said as a ‘loot corpse?’ prompt appeared.
Unsurprisingly, the corpse didn’t have many items on it. No need to when it’d spent all of its time in-game stuck in the Grinder. It did have two things that drew Kaiden’s attention, though: its armor and weapon.
He focused on the armor first. The armor Kaiden was wearing now – and had been wearing since the battle against the grachnids on Zeross – was sleek and matte gray, with tubing flowing over its frame like tendons attached to muscles. In contrast, this armor was a whole different beast. There were no tubes around it, no joints between pieces. There weren’t even pieces to it. The whole thing was slim, sleek, and looked like it was completely made out of one solid piece of metal. Like a second skin, really. Some areas – particularly around the chest, thighs, and neck – were thicker. Reinforced, no doubt. Looking closer, Kaiden noticed there was small lines flowing through the otherwise matte-gray metal skin. Almost like veins. They flowed out from the chest of the suit and down the arms, across the torso toward the legs, and to every other extremity.
For carrying charge, he realized. Their current armor had tubing to do that, but this new set – this almost max-level warden armor – had miniaturized that technology and integrated it even more holistically into the suit.
I wonder how that affects the charge capacity?
Warden Bombardier Power Suit
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 55%
+5% charge gained from Atmospheric Charge
+5% AOE damage resistance
+15% melee damage resistance
+30% charge capacity
Stimulant Cooling Slots: 3
Based on these stats, this thing’s made for a blast warden. No surprise, considering it was on the corpse of a blast warden. Kaiden smirked to himself. Zelda’s going to love this.
He looted the armor set and the corpse on the ground was suddenly wearing only a thin undersuit. Gotta love game logic, he thought with a chuckle, then turned his attention to the corpse’s weapon.
Warden Hammer-Rifle, Heavy Hitter Edition
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 85%
+15% damage to ranged targets within twenty feet
+5% damage on attacks that target a single enemy
Your first critical hit of each combat deals double damage to its target.
Is this better than Zelda’s current weapon? It’s once-daily ability to make an attack hit three targets is pretty useful. Probably best to let Zelda decide.
Kaiden snapped a screenshot of the armor and weapon and sent it to the group.
“Oh dang,” Titus said. “That makes what we’re wearing now look like scrap.”
“Yes please!” Zelda said through comms a moment later.
“Just found a set for you, Titus,” Thorne said. “‘Warden Guardian Power Suit.’ Same thirty percent increase in charge capacity, some damage resistance, but mainly it buffs your shield. On first equip it lets you pick a type of damage to reduce by thirty percent until you die.”
“Don’t even play. You’re serious?” The big man hurried over to her, then looted the armor set immediately.
Gotta find armor for myself, too. Titus’ exclamations over his new armor continued as Kaiden turned his attention to the rest of the corpses, searching for an enhanced warden among them.
Harrolde02 **Deceased**
Shield Warden
Faction: Warden Corps
Level: 48
Titus is already covered.
Kaiden looted the armor and hammer anyway. Could probably be sold for a nice profit. There was a limit to how much each of them could carry in their inventory, but as long as they looted what they wanted first, then they could use the rest of their inventory spots to just loot valuable gear.
Daudilus05 **Deceased**
Power Warden
Faction: Warden Corps
Level: 52
“There’s one for you,” Kaiden said, pointing Thorne toward the corpse. He took a quick glance at the armor’s stats before moving on.
Warden Berserker Power Suit
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 62%
+15% ranged attack damage resistance
+5% AOE damage resistance
+5% melee damage resistance
+5% stun resistance
+30% charge capacity
Stimulant Cooling Slots: 3
Not bad, not bad at all. Stun resistance is cool, too. Haven’t seen that before. Makes sense, though. Power wardens are all about attack. Stuns can throw a big wrench in that plan.
The armor, though, like all of the others Kaiden saw, was damaged and had a lowered durability. No doubt from the lethal fight they all had just been involved in.
We’ll need to repair any of these we want to keep.
“Think I found the only enhanced warden armor in the room,” Thorne laughed, then waved to Kaiden. He rushed over, tripping on corpses of wardens and mobs alike in his haste.
Jeez. Really thought there wasn’t going to be any. The idea of being stuck with low-level armor while everyone else got upgrades wasn’t exactly a pleasant one.
Warden Blitzer Power Suit
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 81%
+8% dodge chance on ranged attacks
+8% dodge chance on melee attacks
+10% chance of critical hits when attacking from behind
+30% charge capacity
Stimulant Cooling Slots: 3
All right, all right, Kaiden thought, looking over the stats. We can work with this. Good boosts to dodge chance, but most importantly, a thirty percent increase to my charge. That’ll be a big one. Means my shield can take more hits before overloading and I can attack back with more abilities.
“There’s a weapon, too,” Thorne said. She was right.
Chrono Sledge
Rarity: Rare
Durability: 95%
+5% damage dealt on critical hits
+5% damage when attacking from behind
On critical hit, target is target is slowed by 30% for 2 seconds (does not stack).
Whoa. Hello there! Kaiden thought, looting the hammer as quickly as he could. Looking closer at
