Legacy of the Fallen

by Luke Chmilenko

  “Doesn’t mean we’re all eager to experience it,” I said, motioning for him to follow me towards all the armor that I had crafted, picking up the helmet that I’d just finished. “Anyway, want to see what I have for you?”

  “Very much,” Ritt said, a note of excitement entering his voice as he looked down at the helmet I was carrying. “Are you looking to sell all of this?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” I replied, shaking my head at the man and seeing his expression fall. “The majority of this armor is for Virtus members. Considering that they all helped us kill the snakes yesterday, it’s the least I can do to make sure that they have a share in the spoils. Plus, I’ve already handed out a few sets to Cerril and our newest recruits, they all desperately need new equipment.”

  “Are you sure, Lyrian?” Ritt asked as we arrived at the first table, his hand going out to stroke an emerald scaled tunic. “There is a lot of demand for your work in the town…”

  “The guild has to come first, Ritt,” I said, watching him reach out to pick up the piece that he had just touched. “The new recruits aren’t wearing anything much better than rags, making sure that they’re protected and outfitted is more important than making a fistful of coin.”

  “I guess,” Ritt agreed half-heartedly, his attention largely focused on the armor in his hands. “Is this bone?”

  “Snake bone,” I confirmed as I brought up the item description of the set that Ritt was holding. “We recovered quite a bit of it from the snakes, and I didn’t know what else to do with it at first. But after some thought, I figured I could use some of the ribs for bracing and the heavier pieces to protect the wearer’s spine, shins and forearms.”

  Serpentine Striker Armor Set

  Slots: Arm, Chest, Feet, Hands, Legs, Head, Shoulders

  Item Class: Magical

  Item Quality: Mastercraft (+20%)

  Armor: 245

  Set Bonus: (7/7)

  Strength: +7 Agility: +7

  Armor Type: Light

  Weight: 9 kg

  Favored Class: Any Martial

  Mana-Infused: +15% Resistance against Arcane spells and abilities.

  Level: 13

  “It’s somewhat similar to that spider armor that you made before,” Ritt observed as he carefully inspected the various pieces of armor on the table. “Though the craftsmanship of your work is nothing short of amazing…”

  “No reason to change a successful formula,” I replied, dismissing the item’s description from my vision. “Though there’s only so much I can do with only leather at hand, I used up all of the chainmail we recovered from the Tower making armor for my group and Freya’s group. But I’m sure you’ll be happy to know I’ve finally used up all of that glowing spider blood that was lying around.”

  “Thank the gods for that!” Ritt exclaimed as he set the armor back down on the table and walked over to the one beside it. “The number of times that I opened the wrong crate and caught sight of that eerie blood with all fangs and claws packed away with it…I can rummage without fear now.”

  “Well, the claws and fangs are still in the crate,” I cautioned, despite smiling wide at Ritt’s statement. “So, don’t let your guard down too much.”

  “Noted,” Ritt said with a nod before looking over at the armor stacked on the second table. “This next set here looks thinner than the other one; I take it this set is intended for the spellcasters?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed, checking over the item description one more time as Ritt inspected the pile.

  Serpentine Adept Armor Set

  Slots: Arm, Chest, Feet, Hands, Legs, Head, Shoulders

  Item Class: Magical

  Item Quality: Mastercraft (+20%)

  Armor: 185

  Set Bonus: (7/7)

  Intelligence: +7 Willpower: +7

  Armor Type: Light

  Weight: 6 kg

  Favored Class: Any Arcane or Divine

  Mana-Infused: +15% Resistance against Arcane spells and abilities.

  Level: 13

  “Flawless quality too, though I never doubted otherwise,” Ritt commented while looking over the second set. “I doubt I’ll have to try very hard to sell this armor once word gets out. If anything, I’ll likely end up breaking up fights between Adventurers as they fight over your stuff. How many of the sets are you putting up for sale and how much?”

  “Three of each set,” I replied, motioning for Ritt to take a look at the last and final armor set, which was notably heavier and substantially reinforced when compared to the other two. Taking a moment to consider Ritt’s second question, I brought up the last set’s description, reading it over carefully before making a decision.

  Serpentine Defender Armor Set

  Slots: Arm, Chest, Feet, Hands, Legs, Head, Shoulders

  Item Class: Magical

  Item Quality: Mastercraft (+20%)

  Armor: 370

  Set Bonus: (7/7)

  Strength: +7 Constitution +7

  Armor Type: Medium

  Weight: 18 kg

  Favored Class: Any Martial

  Mana-Infused: +15% Resistance against Arcane spells and abilities.

  Level: 13

  “I want it run as an auction, starting at ten gold with a thirty-gold buyout for each armor set,” I told the merchant, clearing the item’s information from my vision. “I have no idea what the demand will be like, but you can adjust the buyout if it’s not high enough.”

  “I think that is reasonable,” Ritt replied turning away from the tables and giving me a thoughtful look. “Some of the new Adventurers have a fair bit of coin on them, especially those that have been taking odd jobs with Jenkins, Ragna or Léandre. The least we can do is try to make money back off them.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to improve on the guild coffers either,” I added, knowing that Virtus collectively had a little less than two-hundred gold pieces to its name. “If the guild keeps growing as it has been, it won’t take long before we need a guildhall of our own and that labor will certainly cost us.”

  “Just keep making pieces like these and money will be the least of your problems,” Ritt told me, inclining his head at the armor on the table. “Mind if I start carting some of the stuff away now? It’s still early evening and most of the Adventurers will start coming back to Aldford when the sun sets, I’d like to get these armor sets set up in the shop before they arrive, in case any of them feel like shopping.”

  “Works for me,” I told Ritt just as the Crafting Hall door opened once more, letting Constantine, Thorne and Marlin into the room.

  “Yo, Lyr!” Constantine greeted with a wave as the three of them approached me. “Figured this would be where you were hiding all day today.”

  “Armor doesn’t craft itself,” I answered dryly, returning the wave to the trio. “What’s up?”

  “We’ve just about finished setting up Marlin’s lab,” Thorne said. “But we’ve run into a bit of a problem that we were hoping that you could help us with. Crafting help specifically.”

  “Oh?” I asked curious about what the three may need. “What’s the problem?”

  “There are a series of val—” Marlin began to explain before Constantine cut him off.

  “Fiddly-bits,” he stated, lifting what looked to be a broken length of copper metal that had ruptured violently. “We need a bunch of fiddly-bits like this pipe made so we can finish assembling the alembics. Apparently, it controls the pressure of the system…along with a bunch of other stuff that I really wasn’t paying attention about.”

  “It allows the solu—” Marlin tried to add before Constantine cut him off a second time.

  “Lyrian doesn’t need to know all the details, Marlin,” the rogue said, putting a hand on the alchemist’s arm. “He just needs to copy this, but make it so it doesn’t explode under pressure.”

  “Uh, I may need to know a bit more than that…” I replied uneasily, motioning for Constantine to give me the pipe that he held. “You said something abou
t valves?”

  “To control the flow of the solution in the alembics,” Marlin blurted out, clearly expecting Constantine to interrupt him a third time. “This valve system couldn’t withstand the pressure and exploded.”

  “It looks to be made poorly,” Thorne added as Constantine gave me the pipe he was holding. “Whoever made this was likely half-blind or drunk, possibly both. We didn’t think to check it compared to the rest of the equipment. Zethus is giving it a look over right now in fact.”

  “Well, I can give it my best shot,” I said, trying to sound confident as I inspected the broken pipe. “I haven’t made anything like this before though.”

  “If it helps with your motivation, once the alchemy lab is set up, Marlin thinks he can use some of the mushrooms we found, along with our stash of Yellowthorn to create a healing potion of some sort,” Constantine told me excitedly. “I can’t tell you how useful that would be to have.”

  “No kidding!” I exclaimed, looking down at the broken mass of metal in my hands and giving it a more detailed look. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do to fix this.”

  “Hang on,” Ritt called out while lumbering over towards us while carrying a small mountain of leather armor in his hands, his head barely visible from behind the pile. “Did I hear something about turning mushrooms into healing potions?”

  “You did,” Thorne affirmed, looking at the overburdened merchant warily. “Assuming Lyrian can fix the valve though.”

  “Lyrian will fix it,” Ritt affirmed as he turned sideways and turned his head, allowing his greedy eye to land on me. “Right, Lyrian? We can sell healing potions to the Adventurers by the dozen for fistfuls of coin, and they’ll always come back wanting for more.”

  “Uh, I’ll try,” I said, taken aback slightly by Ritt’s sudden enthusiasm.

  “Reagents would be a limiting factor in how much I could produce…” Marlin cautioned. “The mushrooms can be quite difficult to find in bulk.”

  “Nonsense! Why would we go looking for them?” Ritt exclaimed, turning himself around once more to look at the alchemist. “Have you never heard of a mushroom garden?”

  “I-I can’t say I have,” Marlin replied nervously.

  “Oh, that may work!” Constantine said with excitement. “That way we could have a steady supply of everything we need to keep brewing more potions.”

  “Steady supply of horse…poop too,” Thorne added dryly.

  “Exactly!” Ritt said enthusiastically while motioning towards Marlin with his chin. “Say, while Lyrian fixes that fiddly-thing for you, why don’t we take a walk together, Marlin? I’m curious to hear what other things you’d be able to brew for Aldford once your lab is up and running.”

  “Uh, I suppose,” the alchemist said nervously, casting a look at Constantine and Thorne who both waved him on.

  “Ritt’s going to have to make a few trips,” Thorne told the Alchemist. “Can’t hurt to hear him out. We’ll be here sorting out what exactly we need from Lyrian to fix the valves.”

  “Okay,” Marlin replied, clearly once again overwhelmed at just how in demand his services were. “I’ll be right back then.

  The three of us watched Ritt and Marlin leave, the young merchant wasting no time in starting to fire questions at the alchemist, oblivious to the heavy load of armor in his hands.

  “Good guy, that Marlin,” Constantine said. “But if you give him an inch to talk, he’ll wear you down with the minutiae of his craft. I tried to be polite once and lost an hour of my day listening to him talk about differences of shade-grown Dustweed verses sun grown…thankfully a weird looking rope-snake interrupted him and gave me an excuse to leave.”

  “Oh, you found Noodles?” I asked, taking my eyes off the shattered piece of metal in my hands. “I overheard that one of the new Adventurers lost a snake few days ago.”

  “Noodles?” Constantine repeated, giving me a confused look before shaking his head in negation. “You know what, never mind. That must have been why Bax was so willing to take it off my hands.”

  “He is a pretty big help,” I said. “Though I really haven’t seen him around the last couple days or had a chance to talk to him.”

  “He’s always on the move and hard to pin down,” Thorne agreed. “Last I heard, he and Natasha were helping a group of settlers’ stake out boundaries for farms to the west of Aldford. Given how many creatures we have running around the area, that’s not exactly an easy thing to do.”

  “They’d certainly have their work cut out for them,” I said, hearing the doors to the Crafting Hall open once more as Drace’s dust-covered form walked inside.

  “Lyrian! There you are!” the man exclaimed with a dry cough, trailing a small cloud of dirt behind him as he walked towards us. “I need a favor.”

  “Shit Drace, what the hell happened to you?” Constantine asked before I could reply. “You look like you’ve been swimming through dirt!”

  “Ha, very funny,” Drace growled with annoyance. “This is how real work looks, in case you were wondering.”

  “Is that what it is?” Constantine sniffed before letting out a mock sneeze. “No wonder my allergies are coming on.”

  “What do you need, Drace?” I asked, joining Thorne in shaking my head at Constantine’s antics. “Is everything okay? You spend the whole day digging out that passage?”

  “Yeah, me and a couple of other volunteers,” Drace replied, the cloud of dirt and dust around him settling as he stopped moving. “But the going is slow, and we’ve already shattered practically all the picks that I made. I need you to make more for me, preferably a dozen, maybe two. With how the tunnel collapsed, we’re digging through massive pieces of solid rock.”

  “Damn, okay, but why do you need me to make them?” I asked, not opposed to helping out, but concerned of how much time the crafting would take. “Was there something wrong with the ones you made?”

  “Durability and item quality,” Drace told me. “I’m not skilled enough in blacksmithing to hit ‘Mastercraft’ quality yet, even making the lower leveled bronze picks, but you are. The mastercraft pick I had this morning lasted about four times longer than a regular quality pick.”

  “Oh damn,” I noted with surprise. “That’s a pretty huge difference.”

  “No kidding,” Drace replied. “Since we have no idea how far we need to dig…I rather us try and conserve as much metal as possible, because once it’s gone…we’re kinda screwed.”

  “I understand now,” I said, thinking more about how item quality played into the overall lifespan of an item. “Though our metal problems may not be so bad anymore. I managed to smelt that mystery metal from the Tower, turns out it’s something called ‘Æthertouched Iron’ and gives bonuses to anything involving magic.”

  “Sweet!” Drace exclaimed, his weary face breaking into a smile. “That’ll be perfect for you and the other casters!”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” I replied nodding enthusiastically. “It’s a bit of a pain to work with, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out in time. I was hoping to put a few wagons together and take the guild out to try and bring back one of the big pieces, though that may take a couple days until we’re ready though.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Drace said. “Though you’ll have to count me and a few others out of that unless you want to put the excavation on hold.”

  “That’s not a problem,” I answered. “The metal will be useful to have, but I don’t think it’s worth delaying the dig for a day. I was thinking to grind our way through the plains to break up the boredom, since, after our fight with the snakes, I’m only a stone’s throw away from level fourteen now.”

  “I’m pretty sure that Helix and the others will be excited to come,” Thorne added. “They’ve been working hard on bringing the new recruits up to speed.”

  “Then I think we’re—” I started to say before a muffled shout from outside the room caused me to stop and turn towards the door.

  “I did it!” Jenkin
’s excited voice called out. “Lyrian, I did it! I cut that stupid branch!”

  “What is it with everyone needing you today, Lyr?” Constantine commented just as the door to the room slammed open, swinging wide on its hinges as it revealed an exuberant Jenkins, holding a long azure branch in hand.

  “Lyrian! Your axe worked! It cut through the wood like an axe should have!” The man shouted with near maniacal laughter as he crossed the room, waving the still glowing length of crystalline wood in the air. “I should have used the stupid thing first! But I waited until I’d blunted all of my other tools…”

  “That’s great news, Jenkins!” I exclaimed, my eyes focusing on the Ætherwarped branch that he held. “That can’t be all of it though…”

  “No, no, it isn’t,” Jenkins shook his head as he handed me the branch. “I gave the axe to one of my assistants to cut the rest of the branch down. Now that we know we can cut it. We’re going to have to bring it down in a more controlled manner.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, accepting the branch, surprised to find that it was cool and very smooth to the touch. “This branch is almost cold.”

  “I noticed that too,” Jenkins acknowledged. “It was warm when I first cut it but cooled quickly on the way over here. Though, oddly enough, it is glowing brighter now.”

  “Strange,” I commented, looking at the Ætherwarped length wood and seeing a tag appear in my vision. “But what isn’t lately?”

  [Ætherwarped Oak Branch]

  “Tell us about it,” Constantine grunted, similar sounds of agreements coming from both Drace and Thorne.