Login Re:Coded: A LitRPG Novel (Incipere Online Book 2)

by R J Triveri

  “As nice as that would be, I need something a little more specialized,” River began as she finally cut to the purpose of her visit. “You’re a craftsman, right?”

  Anders rubbed the back of his head as he seemed to try and recall some lost fact wandering around in the ocean of black oily hair he wore. “I dabble.”

  “I need a mage’s focus made using these materials,” she said, opening her window to show off the materials.

  Through clenched teeth, Anders let some air escape into a high-pitched whistle, a mannerism that River had grown to dislike over their dealings. “Glass? Oil? Those alone aren’t easy to work with, and together even worse.” Flipping open his windows with a quick movement, the screens began to glow. “Attributed obsidian? Oh, and there’s a good bit of it too, but even with the bonuses from the rarity, the failure rate is over forty percent per piece.”

  It’s never easy with him, is it? River thought to herself as she put on her best smile. “So does that mean you can or can’t do what I need?”

  Another whistle, and another of River’s nerves were alight. “As much as I’d love to take ownership of your bytes, I can’t do a thing with any of it besides a basic inspecting. The materials are too advanced for a side class to work with, but for a small fee, I can tell you where to go to get it done.”

  Her eyes flared, but she knew better than to argue with the merchant class. “How much.”

  “Just the typical two hundred byte finder’s fee will do,” he said without a hint of a joke.

  Never again, she sneered as a trade window opened. However, River made a point of materializing the disks of light into her hand and dropping them onto the table. “Where do I go?”

  Taking the pile of shimmering data into his inventory, Anders grinned. “Two blocks to the left. She’s at a place called Od’s Ends. Ask for Od.”

  With a slight nod and even scarcer words, she turned her back to him and left the inn behind her.

  Outside of the confines of the inn, the sky blazed to early evening light. Glowing orbs suspended from gray, stone pillars hadn’t been triggered yet by the encroaching darkness. The impressiveness of the city never really seemed to grow old for her despite having grown up in Pittsburgh, one of the largest cities back on Earth that, in her opinion, had been designed by a drunken monkey. Here at least, she could find her way around easy enough.

  Having the wind in her steps, River took to the street with a lust for running she hadn’t experienced in her previous life. Without mud and muck hindering her steps or Wild Ones that might attack at any moment, she was enjoying herself and made short work of the two blocks of gray stones and blue sky. A few more steps and a few odd looks later, River had arrived at her destination.

  True to its name as it came into view, Od’s Ends was at the end of a row of shops in a very unique style. The building wasn’t the same building-stone shale-gray as the rest of the city. The shop, no larger than a small home, was the darkest gray she had seen within in the city. A shade of gray only seen at the arena and within the inner walls that protected the city. If that weren’t enough to confuse the woman’s perceptions of the building, the sign was even odder. It was a piece of glimmering white metal that was inscribed with the picture of a book and rimmed in a combination of glyphs that made her head swim as she tried to decipher them. Not letting the strangeness get the better of her, River went to the door and let herself in. With that simple action, it seemed as though she just wasn’t done being surprised.

  The inner sanctum of stone was nothing special.

  The woman had expected rows of tomes and potions or plants hanging from ceiling-hung planters. She’d even have settled for some strange smells. Weren’t magic types supposed to be a bit eccentric? All that the room held was a small table, an open door to deeper inside, what looked like a pair of scales, and a globe of gel inside a large orb sitting on her table that glowed with all the light of a golden candle in the midnight hours.

  At least that looked a little magical.

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” a voice interrupted her thoughts. A shuffling soon followed from within the bowels of the shop and the melodious sound of glass bottles clicking together. “I’m coming as fast as I can, but could you have at least knocked?”

  Since when was going into a shop during business hours a crime? River thought to herself. “Isn’t this a store?” She reiterated her thoughts just to be sure she wasn’t breaking into someone’s home. “Anders said I could find Od here.”

  “Anders?” the voice tossed from deep within the back room. “That bastard doesn’t know a store from a craft house, let alone his ass from a hole in the ground. Never has, never will.” Emerging from the back was one of the oldest people River had ever seen. Without looking too out of sorts, the woman had a large bun of graying blonde hair pulled back out of reach to reveal a worn, but slightly plump face. It had a few lines showing her advanced age, but what really gave it away was the worn look of her once-brown eyes amplified by the pair of small, rounded glasses that sat on her small, almost stubby nose. It looked like it had been straight once, but hadn’t been set right to heal. Could that even happen on Incipere? Wrapping the entire package of the tall, portly woman up was a long robe of deep purple. Apparently, she had been studying her far too long when she snapped, “Done looking? I’m old. I get it. You should be lucky enough to live this long.”

  Embarrassment flushed her face as she was caught red-handed. “Sorry.”

  “Bah, newcomers are always so impatient. You’d have never lasted pre-integrity,” the woman chided as many elders do when they felt agitated by those better left to their own devices. “Now, I am Od, Grand Alchemical Forge,” Od explained as she took a seat at the other side of the table before beckoning the woman to sit opposite with a movement of her hand. “I’ve done nearly anything you can do to combine and build things for magic and specialized crafting. Now, I assume you know that or you wouldn’t have come here without a reason.” She relaxed a bit further, leaning into the chair and looking River straight in the eyes. “Let’s hear it.”

  She was starting to like Od. And so, River told the story of the dungeon run from start to finish. She left little out, but what she did was quickly prompted for by the older woman. From Blightska’s attack on, Od listened with a rather deep curiosity flickering around those dark, graying eyes. Finally, the story was finished with River arriving at the woman’s door. “That’s why I’m here. Dante needs a new focus, and I want it to be just as good as the sword I got.”

  Od thought for a moment as she tugged the hair in the bun gently enough to undo it into a flowing back-length stream of silver and gold. “You’re a good friend.”

  River smiled at that. “I try.”

  “Now, you said glass, gel, and obsidian, correct?” Od said, reciting the list she had given to Anders in the story. “Water-based glass and spawn gel would be very good for conducting energy-based attack and support spells, but too fragile,” the woman explained sagely, much to River’s crestfallen ego. “Two positives plus your attributed obsidian would be too much for it. I could do it, mind you, but it wouldn’t be worth the durability of the item. His language skill might get good use out of it though.”

  River’s shoulders slumped at that remark. She wanted to argue that so much power couldn’t be bad, but she wasn’t a crafter and never wanted to be. “Then what?”

  Od spoke as if having expected the response from River. “Graystone,” she answered as if the answer should have been obvious. “At his rank and area of focus, an energy-based, dungeon-bound Seeker will want a higher resistance within himself to practice and improve his focus. Graystone will allow the other two elements, the obsidian and the water gel, to direct the power while the graystone itself insulates the rest of the focus and only allows power out through the runes.”

  Graystone? River wished she understood enough to not get fleeced, but she had no reason to really distrust the woman. “As in the same stuff the city is suppo
sed to be built from?”

  “Yes and no. True graystone is actually only used in special places that required a large amount of runic enchantments patched together to make something happen. Once it’s in place, graystone never needs to be enchanted again, and will easily support predetermined effects.”

  “Let me guess,” River began. “The city walls, the arena, and for some unknown reason, your shop?”

  She nodded as a small, knowing grin passed her face. “Yes, and it’s also the basis for the temple plaza under all that marble. Most people aren’t that observant to really notice the hue difference though.”

  It seemed obvious to her, but then again she didn’t really care about why things worked the way they did. There was one real thing she had to learn about though. “What would it cost to get some of it for the focus?”

  Od’s graying eyes took in River as she thought about the request. “Well, I could say it would be a great, difficult task that will take and test everything that makes you who you are, but I’d be lying.” Od’s smile grew just a bit at that. “Since you’ve made it past the door, I’ll just make a simple request.”

  At those words, River let out a sigh of tension she hadn’t realized she had been carrying. “And that would be?”

  A trade window came to life a moment later with the request, and only River’s surprise kept her from ripping the stone from the building around them. “You’re joking.”

  Her eyes grew serious as she shook off anything that might be seen as humor. “I’m dead serious, River. Unless you want to reopen the Gray Warden’s Halls and rip the stone from the golem itself, I’m your best source of the stone.” She paused for a moment, seeing the pure expression of defeat on the woman’s face. “But, I’ve been in your situation before. Why don’t you tell me more about yourself so that maybe we can come to an arrangement.”

  And so, reluctantly, the stories and the negotiations began.

  ***

  Two hours later, River returned to the room she shared with her friend with a look wavering between defeat and victory as she looked at the item that waited in her inventory, a brand new, polished, gray focus.

  Graystone Focus

  Masterwork Quality

  Level 4 Seeker Focus

  Basic Damage Rank 1 - Low

  Attack Speed - Slow - Blunt Damage

  Rare Variant Attributes:

  Thunderstruck - Thunder and energy-based offensive spells are amplified two fold.

  Thunderstruck II - Drunken potions are twice as effective while in a party.

  Amplify - All spells can now be channeled.

  Weakened Support - All support and defensive spells effectiveness is cut in half.

  Language Barrier - This focus cannot be used for a language-ability trigger or sacrifice

  She chuckled a bit at the second-level ability of Thunderstruck but shook it away as she took a seat and looked at her latest funds, as meager as they were at the moment.

  River Hexi - 200 bytes

  Debt - Half of all earnings will be transferred to Od until such time as the payment of 25,000 bytes have been paid in full. Current standing - 4,226 of 25,000.

  There were still plenty to keep her in room and board, and it wasn't such a bad arrangement. Dante would get what he deserved, and he’d never know what she had to do to get it. Damaged as he was, he probably didn’t even get a chance to see that only one orb had dropped for loot. The thought of surprising her friend made everything else in the day seem weak by comparison. For once, she had done everything right. For once, he wouldn’t be the one pulling her back from the fire for what she had done. Besides, it wasn’t the worst thing she had ever done for him. At least this one didn’t involve breaking a bully’s arm in two places and throwing him off the greenhouse’s roof.

  Nope. For her, there was nothing left to do but take a nap, get well-rested, and then convince him that it was her turn to beat the ever-loving shit out of something again…

  Another smile crossed her lips as she got up and leaned out the window. Careening her neck as far as she could as half her body hung out the window like a crazed woman, the thought evolved into not just beating the shit out of something, but beating it out of someone.

  Chapter Six: Warm-Up

  Eight hours passed as quickly as one could expect while an overly excited woman was waiting for something.

  Slow…

  as…

  hell.

  River tried to sleep, she tried to prod her friend into awareness, she tried to use all of her feminine wiles to rouse him, but it was all to no avail. Finally, she settled into sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed and staring. On Earth, she had done much, much worse when he had been sleeping over, but here, where she didn’t need to really blink unless she thought about it and a cup of water couldn’t make someone wet themselves, staring was so much more effective.

  As she was a part of his group, she took the liberty of watching his status tick down. With each second that ticked away, River prepared her eyes for engagement as he began to stir.

  Three…

  Dante’s legs began to rustle the sheets under her.

  Two…

  His whole body began to move as he began to regain motor functions as his stressed mind began to reconnect with the rest of his program.

  One…

  His muscles began to tense as he sent the first command for his body to obey.

  Dante Rior has recovered from mental fatigue!

  Dante sat, or more aptly bolted into a sitting position, and came nose to nose with a staring, smiling River who only had a single word to give him. “Boo.”

  Whether out of respect for her attempt or from genuine surprise at their proximity, Dante’s body flung back into the fortress of sheets, pillows, and programming as a curse flew from his lips. “Damn it, River!” A few moments of melodious laughter from her followed before he was able to speak again. “How’d we get back here?”

  River refused to break eye contact and shrugged. “Well, we won thanks to you, so I used one of the jump disks to get us straight back here. How else would we have gotten back?”

  “You didn’t use the arch?”

  That caught River a bit off guard. She had completely forgotten about the dungeon arches, but she refused to be shaken and continued her perceived visual duel. “Didn’t think about it.”

  From the look that passed over Dante’s face, a thought occurred to him, but for some reason, he just didn’t take the time to vocalize it. What was one wasted jump disk between friends anyways? “You okay?”

  River smiled at his concern as she kept her eyes fixed on him like an unblinking predator or a rather bored house cat. “Aw, I knew you cared enough to ask.”

  He brushed away the comment with a slight, if unnerved, smile. “Always have, but seeing as you’re more than ready to joke, and you’re doing that staring thing again, I’m guessing you’re fine.” River’s pride took a visible hit as she blinked in defeat. Dante simply smiled and continued. “What about the loot?”

  Opening a trade window, River put the focus into it. “This was waiting for you.”

  Dante’s eyes lit up like fireworks as he read the description and the abilities. “Holy shit.” It was rare to hear her friend curse in anything but surprise, so that little bit had been worth it all. “This dropped off a low-level boss?”

  “Yeah, not a bad drop. Right?” River nodded, but she was a bit surprised as her friend only nodded in response and began to work.

  From her view, she could see that Dante opened up the wiki and searched for any reference to the graystone focus dropping from Blightska. When nothing could be found, he grinned wider, updated the Wiki, quickly added his own theory about its connection to Graywall, and continued to radiate good fortune. “That’s putting it about as lightly as a ten-ton boulder to the face.”

  “Only ten?”

  Brushing her comment aside again, Dante smiled. “It couldn’t have been better, River. Well, it could have
, but that’d be me seriously being greedy.” He explained as if the voltage in his brain had been turned up a notch. “Because of this, I can start to specialize my skills, trigger mutations, and get stronger without relying on just learning skills. I might even be able to pick up a guild soon!” His near ranting was enough to assure River she had done the right thing as he materialized it and held the gray stone of power in his left hand. As he did, a pair of graystone gauntlets coated his hands, much to the surprise of River. By the way Dante continued, he seemed to have expected it. “You have no idea how good this is going to be.”

  I think I do, River thought to herself as a smile crossed her face. “I’m happy for you.” A moment later, she materialized her new sword in a soft flash of light, sheath and all appearing at her side in a moment’s notice. “You weren’t the only one that got away with something new, Dante.”

  Looking at the blade, he nodded in appreciation. “Looks like it’s meant to do a lot more than just beat something into submission with its weight.”

  The blue light of the pommel and guard flared for just a moment in the light of the room as they seemed to respond to his words. “More fitting my style, right?” she joked as she unsheathed the weapon and offered it to him to examine. “I’m going to finally be able to cut the competition down.”

  Taking it and opening the window, Dante took a few moments to read its status and nodded in agreement before handing it back to her. “It’s a really nice weapon. I take it you’ve got your style set then?”

  She nodded. “As if I wanted to be a tank my entire life. Speed and accuracy all the way. I’m tired of being smacked around with that hulking blade. I want to move faster, hit harder, and be the champion of the city.”

  Her words carried a dense weight with Dante. He smirked just a bit as he prodded at her with his foot from within his linen cave. “You just want to fight her.”

  River hesitated for a moment before a thought could take root. “A girl can dream,” she replied absently as she moved her feet to dangle off the side of the bed and onto the floor. “You know Sandra’s been my idol ever since the SIFS opened. The way she carries herself, the way she fights… she’s everything I want to be.” She stood up after her words and walked back to the window before she let out a content breath. Sandra Queen was one of those combatants that just had everything. Power, luck, love, great gear… everything and more was at her beck and call. There was nothing Sandra Queen couldn’t do in the city and no one could ignore someone like that. “And I want to do more than fight her, Dante. I want to crush her.”