Ted wiped his brow as he set up the spotlight system. The past few days had been productive, for sure: he had split his time between ramping up the defenses and setting up the spotlight system. With the Gorgon nesting at the school, he had been given carte blache to raid the home improvement store, assembling a massive cache of solar panels, generators, wiring, and other useful materials, like plywood and concrete.

The first thing he had done was set up some improved defenses: several trap pits around the fence. Razor-wire on the top. Concrete barriers here and there. He had even managed to make the electricity use of the fence more efficient.

In the process, he had improved a variety of skills: construction, trap-making, wiring, and so forth. And with those skill improvements, he had also risen his scrounger level: a nice, tasty eight.

"I should probably spend the perk points from that," He mused, before shrugging. Eh, he'd do it after he was finished here. Stepping away from the spotlight, Ted pressed a button, causing the spotlight to flare to life, which in turn made Ted grin. "Jackpot!"

Wiring rank up! Now Rank 7!

Scrounger level up! Gain perk A Can of Beans! +2 Perk Points!

Well, speak of the devil. Ted furrowed his eyebrows at the perk name. Wonder what that did. Actually, probably a good time to review the perks he had gained and improved. He had been so busy that he hadn't really...had time, to do all that.

A Can of Beans Rank 1 Its not much, but its food. You've been blessed by a spirit of hunger: once a month, you will find somewhere in your home an excess can of beans. Looter Rank 4 You're a master at lucky finds, to the point where some might think you can smell treasure, which you TOTALLY can. At this rank, much better chance of finding much better items and resources, and all treasure caches have much more loot. Further, gain moderate Treasuresense. Haggler Rank 2 You are very adept at getting good prices. +7 CHA, +3 INT when doing business. DIY Rank 3 You're the crafty sort, literally. Items you make are just plain BETTER than they reasonably should be, to a strange extent, and even home improvements are better than they should be. At this rank, items and structures you create will start with a bonus enchantment and are of higher quality. Further, you gain the ability to see the status of items and structures you create.

Okay. That was...nifty. Very much so. Strange, very strange, but nifty: a single can of beans a month might not seem like much, but it was nothing to sneeze at: it effectively meant that as long as he had surplus food, he also had a slowly increasing stock of emergency rations, and that he was garunteed at least one meal a month regardless of the success of his scavenging and his planned garden.

The Spirit of Hunger bit was a tad confusing. Were those a thing? If so, why was it giving him food: wouldn't it be more on-brand to take it away? Whatever, something to ponder later.

The rest of the things varied in usefulness: Haggling still required other people available to conduct business with, for instance, while DIY and Looter were still useful, but the latter didn't directly contribute to his current goal, and the former was nifty, but not exactly a game changer: as far as he knew, it didn't really apply to complex creations like what he was intending to make: just jury-rigged tools. Maybe that would change once he hit a certain point, but he had bigger fish to fry.

Well. He had about...eight points, if he remembered correctly. He already knew two perks that had priority: Machine Empathy and Educated, but he had enough to divert into other perks. "Well, no time like the present!" He cheerily stated, before spending his accumulated points.

Machine Empathy Rank 4 Through defeating the Server-Head, your connection to machines of all stripes has been strengthened: through cultivating this perk, you've transformed your soul, giving you an even stronger connection and some degree of authority over machines. At this rank, +15 INT, +5 WIS when working with Electronics and Machinery. Further, gain +5 SPRT when utilizing Technomantic spells. Education Rank 4 You’re an academic master. At this rank, skills rank up faster, you gain +10 INT, +5 WIS, and +2 SPRT in Academic settings, and you have +3 Blue Mana affinity, as well as an eidetic memory. Travellers Blessing Rank 3 Guided by Hermes and Protected by Ganesha, you travel in safety, and bless those who travel with you. At this rank, when traveling or exploring, you gain moderate resistance to negative enviromental effects such as cold and heat and +5 LUK: further, those who travel with you gain +2 LUK and very minor enviromental resistance. A Can of Beans Rank 3 Its not good, but its food. You've been blessed by a major spirit of hunger: once a month, you will find somewhere in your home five can of beans.

Right. A good result, all around. Education was a bit lackluster, but it only cost one perk point. Otherwise, Travellers Blessing would probably be an invaluable tool once he reconnected with any survivors, a can of beans actually gave him a decent boost to his emergency rations, and the bonuses from Machine Empathy were...

Well, he still didn't know how magic worked, but the bonus to INT and WIS was absurd. Almost a straight doubling of the former, and plus five was nothing to sneeze at.

It'll be very useful for when I start on the car project. Or the radio one. Either or, really.

Yawning, Ted looked into the sky. Right. Almost night. Time to hit the hay. Walking away, he exited the roof, heading to his nice, soft bed he had stolen to sleep on. Tommorow, he'd get to work on doing more stealing.

Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Dread-Rat slain! 10 XP! Ghoul-Rat slain! 20 XP! Ghoul-Rat slain! 20 XP! Ghoul-Rat slain! 20 XP! Level up! +3 AGI, +3 PER, +3 Stat Points, Trapping Rank Up, Lone Survivor Rank Up, +1 Perk Point. Trapping Rank Up! Trapping Rank Up!

Ted opened his eyes blearily at the sight of an onslought of messages, and the smell of charred meat. What in the world?

Well. At least I found a good way to level up, Ted grimly mused at the multitude of giant rat corpses impaled, electrocuted, staked through, or tangled in the razor-wire. Turns out, the spotlight had another function! It attracted monsters when left on at night!

"God, this is a mess." He was lucky he had improved the defenses: there were numerous spots where it looked like the things had ALMOST gotten in. As it was, he'd have to repair several sections of the fence, rewire some parts, and remove the many, many corpses, many of which were still smoking, plumes of grey to black air rising from their bodies.

"Right: lesson learned: strategic use of the spotlight." He muttered. The "because you'll have to spend the next day working on the fence again" went unspoken. Ted sighed. Right, he'd have to push finding a car back until tommorow. First, he had to work on fixing...this whole mess.

The heck was he even going to DO with that many giant rat corpses?