by R. A. Mejia
“It has only been a week since you left us, and you already need help?” Gujek asked. “I didn’t think you’d return after finishing your secret project, but it’s good to see you again, Repair.”
Atulg nodded and clapped his cousin on the shoulder. “We have not worked with bronze either. Perhaps our uncle will show us something new too.”
A loud booming voice called out from further in the shop, “Who is talking about learning about bronze instead of starting on the next order?” Master Deanly walked out, saw me, and smiled, his protruding lower tusks making even his friendly smile look fierce. “Repair, my boy! How have you been? It feels like a kondley’s year since you were here last.”
I didn’t know what a kondley was but got the gist of the phrase. “Master Deanly, it is good to see you too,” I said with a small bow. “I’ve gotten stuck in a few projects and hoped you could help me learn more so that I could fix them.”
“Good. You did not ask me to fix them for you. It is always better to make a mistake and learn from it than constantly look to another to do work for you to avoid a mistake,” Deanly said. “Come inside and pick up a hammer. You can help us with the next order while you tell me about your projects.”
The four of us went inside the smithy and worked on an order of copper kitchen knives for a new restaurant that was opening. We worked in pairs. Master Deanly drew out the hand-length bar of copper and shaped it with a hammer while I made sure it stayed in the proper heat range to stay malleable. As we worked, he listened to me tell him about my adventures in the dungeon. Unlike with the gnomes, I felt no hesitation describing the success of the rifle I’d made or the portable walls I planned to build. Perhaps it was the many hours working beside him or the trade knowledge he’d shared, but I felt like I could trust Master Deanly with all of the secrets I had when it came to crafting.
“So, while the rifling I added to the Musket gives me an extreme range and power, it's really the paper cartridges that increases its usefulness. The fact that I can reload so much more quickly makes the weapon able to be used more than once or twice a fight before the monsters reach me, and I shift to my Blacksmith Hammer. I’m hoping that the portable walls I described will give me even more time to shoot and provide protection for my team,” I said as we finished our fifth knife blade. Master Deanly had listened to everything I’d told him patiently, only asking a question occasionally to clarify something.
The orc blacksmith put his hammer down as he placed the unsharpened knife blade and exposed tang in a pile with the others we’d finished. We wouldn’t add the handle until we were done with the metal portion of the knife orders. “If you are doing so well, then what is the problem you have?”
“I’m trying to unlock some more class abilities via my class quests. One has asked me to make 1,000 good quality items. But I’m not making good quality items like I should. I tried this morning to make a ‘good quality’ wall but could only get it to ‘fine quality.’ I have my Metalworking skill up to 20 so it shouldn’t be a problem of skill. I thought it might be that I’m working with copper and wanted to try to learn to make bronze as an upgraded material. I’m hoping it will increase the armor class of the walls too if I use bronze.”
Master Deanly nodded. “You seemed to have worked out where your troubles are. That’s good. It’s true that working with copper you won’t often get a quality level above fine unless you have a particularly high skill level. If you want higher quality items, you will need to work with higher quality materials. I’m curious why you want to learn about bronze though. There is plenty of iron ore coming out of the dungeon, and steel can be purchased from the Merchant’s guild if you join them.”
“I ran into a couple of dwarves in the dungeon that reminded me that bronze is just as good if not a better material for weapons and armor as iron. And it’s cheaper than steel. I have some tin from a resource node and copper I brought with me and wanted to experiment with it.”
“I’ll show you, Atulg, and Gujek how to make bronze after we finish the order then. It’ll be good for you all to know how to make it, even if there is little call for goods made from it,” the orc said, picking up another bar of copper from the box on the floor and handing it to me.
With two teams working on it, we finished the order of knives in less than an hour, and then Master Deanly started his lecture on bronze. It was informative for not only myself but his nephew apprentices. Making bronze wasn’t actually that hard. In theory, all you had to do was just melt down copper and tin and mix with a ratio of about 88-90% copper and 10-12% tin. Master Deanly measured out the proportions of each metal by weight and added the metals to a crucible, a thick ceramic bucket that he then put into the furnace. Atulg and Gujek manned the bellows but didn’t need to get the heat up as high as when working with iron. I stirred the melted metals with a long rod while it was still in the fire, and once the mixture looked to be one liquid and no longer two melted metals. I carefully skimmed off the dross, or random impurities that clump together, that rose to the top of the liquid. Then Master Deanly took the red hot crucible out of the fire with a specially fit long-handled holder and poured the fiery liquid into a mold and let it cool. Once it cooled, it had a golden color to the metal.
Master Deanly held up the cooled bronze bar and continued his lecture. “Bronze has several qualities that make it useful: it is corrosion-resistant, which makes it useful to make parts and fittings for boats; it does not spark when struck against an object, which is why alchemists use hammers made from bronze; and if made correctly, it's harder than iron, which makes it better in that regard for armor and weapons, although it doesn’t keep an edge as readily. One thing to keep in mind if you’re making armor out of bronze is that fire and electric attacks do more damage. However, the biggest downside to using bronze is its cost. Copper is readily available from resource nodes in the dungeon, but tin is a much rarer metal which makes bronze more expensive. Iron is abundant from the dungeon after the 10th level, so most smiths use that to make their items as it's the least expensive material to purchase.”
Atulg, Gujek, and myself got to handle the bronze bar and get a feel for how to work it by heating it up and hammering it out. Once Atulg and Gujek were done experimenting with the metal, they lost interest and went back to completing work orders. I made sure to scan the bar of metal so that I could use it the next time I was in the Stasis Program.
I thanked Master Deanly for the help with bronze and was determined to make new armor and weapons for my team soon with the metal. But right then I still needed to work on my other projects. I paid Master Deanly for some copper he had in the shop and started to make a two-inch-thick strip of thin copper. I scanned the sheet of metal once I was done, but it was only listed as a medium item. I kept lengthening the strip until it was five-feet long, and a scan told me it was a large item. It would be the item I spammed at night to complete the Practice Makes Perfect III. Now, I just needed to make a reasonably sized good quality item.
I worked at the smallest item I knew how to make, a nail, with several materials. I already knew copper was out but used the newly created bronze bar, some iron, and some steel. I only needed one good quality nail to scan for a schematic and tool small bits of each material and hammered out nails. It was challenging to even get fine quality as any small imperfections lowered the quality rating. Yet, despite what I’d hoped, neither the bronze nor the iron would create good quality nails either. After many tries, however, I finally made a ‘good quality’ steel nail.
Good Steel Nail. Components: 0.04 lbs steel. Steel Nail schematic recorded and added to schematic database.
It was the most expensive option of the three metals I had access to. It would be costly to make 600 good quality steel nails, but I estimated it would only take a few nights to complete that quest. I did the calculations, and including the material I would lose after deconstructing a batch of nails, it would take about eleven pounds of steel and about eleven hours to make that many nails
. If I bought that much steel from the Merchant’s Guild it would cost over 100 silver. I could mitigate some of that cost if I bought or mined iron ore and made the steel myself, but that would take either time or money from my mechanical Trap Spider project and leveling. With time being the resource I had less of, I decided it was worth it to buy the iron ore I’d need and make the steel.
However, between buying materials for repairs and what I still needed to buy to fabricate the portable walls, I was going to be out of money soon-which meant that it was time to get back to the dungeon and make some more coin. I gave my farewells to Master Deanly and his nephews and ran to meet my goblin team for another day mining and dungeon diving.
Chapter 30 - Troubling Rumors
I met the goblins at the fountain outside the dungeon. They had tired, impatient looks, and I realized they might have been waiting for me.
“Sorry if I’m late. I was working out a couple of ways to complete some class quests and build us some defensive positions in the dungeon.”
The expressions of the goblins changed to one of curiosity-especially the miners, who were the most vulnerable of us.
Innie asked, “What kind of defense?”
I explained my idea to build portable walls that could provide protection and be quickly built. The goblins seemed interested in the idea and started to spitball their own ideas.
“We could build tunnels that we could hide in when the monster’s attack.”
“Tree forts! We build tree forts to fight from.”
“We need a ballista to mount on one of these walls. That’ll show those monsters!”
While I liked their ideas and enthusiasm, I knew that we still needed to get to work if we were going to make any profit today. “Thanks for all the suggestions, guys, but let's get into the dungeon and find ourselves a resource node to mine.”
The group got to their feet and, still chatting about new things I should build for them, started to walk towards the dungeon entrance.
“Hey, Repair! Hold up,” a voice called out. I turned towards the sound and saw Devena and Dannie Diva pushing their way through the crowd of adventures towards us. I paused and waited for the pair to reach me before greeting them, “Hello, ladies. You had a good time last night at the Tipsy Minotaur?”
The two smiled widely and Devena responded, “Yeah, those goblin boys of yours sure know how to show a lady a good time. I can’t tell you how long it's been since someone drank me under the table like that. It was a fine time.”
Dannie nodded in agreement but said, “But that’s the reason we were wanting to speak to you. We wanted to know if you had considered working together more regularly. It seemed we both benefited from yesterday’s work. We’ll give you a share of the raw ore we mine in exchange for your special skills at refining the ore before we sell it.”
I liked the idea of working with the Divas. We’d made a lot more money than we would have otherwise, and it was good to have such capable miners to show ours how to get the most out of their skills.
“I agree. It would be a most beneficial arrangement for everyone. Please join us. We were just heading down into the dungeon. Although, I should warn that we didn’t have a location to mine quite yet.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, Repair. One of our girls can sense the location of a good ore node from over a mile away. We’ll get you to a good location in no time,” Dannie said.
The Divas joined us and together we descended into the sixth level of the dungeon. Sure enough, the tall blonde human miner from the Diva group led us through the forest almost directly to an iron ore node. We only met minor trouble from a few fire foxes along the way, but they were quickly dispatched by the fighters in our group.
When we arrived at the site, I saw that the resource node was hidden in a depression amongst some trees and wasn’t as big as the one from yesterday. Still, it would be enough to keep our miners busy today. Before the mining began, though, I called Dannie and Devena to me. “Before we start, I wanted to build some defenses against the monsters that will come at us. Would you mind helping out?”
The dwarven women thought the idea was a good one and called in their miners to help out. Between them and our goblins, it didn’t take long for our defenses to go up. It actually took me the longest. I had to deconstruct the trees around us and then fabricate each of the walls. Once they were up though, the Divas helped dig trenches to encircle us, laid down wooden spikes, and filled the walls up with the dirt and rocks to weigh them down. It would have taken me hours to do it myself, but the Diva’s miners were strong and capable and got each wall filled in less than half an hour.
Because of the smaller node, I only built three Portable Walls, but they would be enough to protect the miners while they worked. As the goblin miners and the Divas started to use their picks on the protruding rocks that made up the resource node, there was an almost palpable increase in the tension in the air. I already knew that so many people mining at the same time would increase the number of monsters that the dungeon sent against us, but I hoped that our new defenses would help us break them.
The first wave of monsters came about fifteen minutes after the mining started. The walls were positioned in a triangle formation around the miners and they worked like a charm. Wave after wave of monsters came and smashed their heads against the walls and were cut down by our blades and hammers and ranged weapons. The Wind Weasels were quick, but they could not overcome the walls and fell into the spiked pits where they either died or were easy targets for our ranged attacks. The Fire Foxes that came en masse were brought low by arrows fired from the top of the walls. Although their little fireballs burned the wooden walls, I was quick to repair the damage between firing my own rifle. We met the larger beasts, the Razorback Badgers and the Shadow Wolves, on the ground by the better-armored Devena, Manny, and me while the more dexterous members shot the monsters from above. I gave Greebo my extra Flintlock Rifle, and he was a devastating shot with his superior aim, though he could not reload the long-barreled rifle as quickly as I could. The only trouble we had was with the Lightning Condor who soared above our walls and attacked at their leisure. After I fabricated the roof that protected the defenders and miners from their aerial attacks, it was only a matter of whittling the monsters down between their electrical attacks.
Between the two teams of miners and the fact that they could focus on mining and did not have to stop to fight back waves of monsters, the small iron resource node only took half a day to deplete. Even with the late start the teams had, we had collected enough to finish the day’s work. After collecting all the loot drops, refining the iron ore, and selling everything, our gains were even greater than the day before. Even with me reserving a bit of processed iron for my own projects, we gained a gross profit of 282 silver. After splitting it between the miners, our fighters, and Greebo, I was left with a profit of 79 silver which, when added to my previous savings, gave me a grand total of 92 silver. It was a good start towards what I needed to make my mechanical companion.
In addition to the silver, the XP gains weren’t bad either. Despite splitting the XP amongst six fighters, with the earlier start and the new portable walls, the waves of attacking monsters gave me 1,987 XP. I was seriously pleased with the day’s gains. The experience point gain was more than double what I’d earned the day before and though I still needed more than twenty times as much XP, it was a big step in the right direction towards reaching my goal.
To celebrate our good day’s work, Greebo invited everyone to the Tipsy Minotaur for drinks. Though Greebo pulled me a little away from the others to talk while we walked.
“I’ve taken your advice and been working on class quests to build up some of my abilities. I don’t know how you do so many at one time, but I’m only given a single class quest at a time. I’ve already finished several related to how many extra items I can scavenge and applied the class skill points to increasing my carrying capacity, but I need some help working one that I took for comb
at sneak damage. We work in a group, and I don’t often get the chance to sneak up on multiple monsters.”
“What are the terms of the quest?”
He paused for a moment and took up a faraway look then refocused on me and said, “It says that I need to do three-hundred damage using a sneak attack.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too hard. Just sneak up on some low-level Cactucus or squirrels or something.”
He shook his head. “No, I’d only do 5 or 6 damage per kill from them. I wanted to knock it out in a day so that I could take the next class quest.”
“Well, I’d been planning to ask you and the other guys for help too. I need to repair over 1,000 health for a class quest of mine, but I’m not our tank anymore. I was hoping you and the guys would beat me down so that I could repair myself.”
“Wait, like Manny and the guys did when I was cursed and you needed to use your, what did you call it? Suspension Progrium?”
I nodded. “It's the Stasis Program. But, yeah, like then. I don’t feel pain at all, so you guys won’t be hurting me. I mean, I know when I get hurt and can feel sensations. My frame just doesn’t feel pain like you do.”
