Bacca and the Riddle of the Diamond Dragon

by Jerome ASF

  “See?” the woman returned. “Supplicant! I knew it! Yes, I’m the one you’re looking for.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Bacca said. “I’m Bacca.”

  “You’re name’s not important,” the Tinkerer said rudely. “Yap yap yap. All you supplicants ever do is yap. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll see what I can find.”

  Bacca considered his next move carefully. He wanted to test the water, so to speak. Who was this odd woman? Why did she have such a bad attitude? And why did she craft all of these horrible things?

  “I’m not exactly sure what I want yet,” Bacca said deceptively. “I’m still trying to make up my mind.”

  “Typical,” the Tinkerer said. “Supplicants can never decide on something quickly.”

  “Yes,” Bacca said. “Anyway, maybe we could look around? That might help me get some ideas.”

  “Fine,” said the Tinkerer, “but be quick. I haven’t got all day. Do you think all this stuff just crafts itself?”

  “Of course not,” Bacca said.

  He moved through the room to the table nearest to the Tinkerer. She watched him carefully through her many eyepieces. Bacca paused in front of the table and put his hand on his chin, lingering thoughtfully. He was doing his best play-acting, and hoped she didn’t catch on.

  “What can you tell me about this suit of diamond armor?” Bacca asked. “Do you think it would look good on me?”

  “Ha!” scoffed the Tinkerer. “Shows how much you know. That’s horse armor.”

  “Oh,” said Bacca, pretending to blush. “My mistake.”

  “Yes,” the Tinkerer continued. “I made it out of only the finest diamonds.”

  Bacca picked up the horse armor and examined it closely. It was easy to see that the diamonds were not fine at all, but brittle and jagged. If worn by a real horse, the diamonds in the armor would probably stab the beast—and probably the rider too. And they would definitely break on the first hit if ever tested in combat. Bacca said nothing, and put the armor back.

  “Or what about this anvil?” Bacca asked. “Oof. It’s so heavy, I can hardly pick it up. I’ll bet I could use it to fix a lot of broken things, right?”

  “That’s right,” said the Tinkerer. “One of my best creations. A finer anvil, you’ll never find.”

  Except that every anvil Bacca had ever seen was better than this one. The anvil was made of iron blocks that looked intentionally misshapen, and of iron ingots that were cracked and incomplete. This anvil wouldn’t work at all. Anything you put across it and tried to hammer back into shape was just going to end up worse than before. On top of that, the anvil looked ready to fall over. Bacca could imagine it tipping over and crushing a crafter’s foot.

  “A fine anvil,” Bacca said. “Very fine. Tell me, are all the items in your workshop of such high quality?”

  “Absolutely!” the Tinkerer snapped. “Why do you think I get so many supplicants?”

  Bacca nodded as though he believed her. In truth, he was very confused. Why was this person so confused about her creations? More importantly, what did these horrible items have to do with the riddle? What did the creepers want him to do?

  As Bacca looked across the inventory of strange, sad, and dangerous items in the workshop, a plan began to formulate in his mind. Maybe the crafter did not see what she was doing—in every sense of the word. Maybe the many tubes through which she looked didn’t make things clearer at all, but instead made them worse. The more Bacca thought about it, the more it made sense.

  “Hmm,” Bacca sighed, pretending to be an indecisive customer who couldn’t quite find anything he liked. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of great stuff here . . . but nothing that’s absolutely what I had in mind. Do you do custom orders?”

  “A custom order?” the Tinkerer said, her tools clacking together in excitement. “I do . . . but it’ll cost you.”

  “Do you accept gold and diamonds?” Bacca said, giving her just a glimpse into his well-stocked inventory.

  “Oh yes,” the Tinkerer said greedily. “That will do nicely. Just tell me, what do you want crafted?”

  “I warn you, what I have in mind is a bit unusual,” Bacca said.

  “I’ll be able to do it,” the Tinkerer responded quickly, obviously thinking about the money she would make.

  “Okay then,” Bacca said. “Because what I’d really like is a golden sword that deals two hearts of damage.”

  “No problem!” the Tinkerer said brightly. “I could craft that in my sleep.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” Bacca interjected. “I want a golden sword that does two hearts of damage . . . to the person who swings it.”

  The Tinkerer was confused and momentarily speechless. She cocked her head to the side to make sure she was hearing him right.

  “You know,” Bacca continued. “Maybe the handle of the sword could be crooked and pointy, so it would cut your hands when you swung it. And the blade would be uneven and heavy at the point, so you’d always be falling and injuring yourself whenever you tried to give a good whack.”

  Bacca was aware that there were already several swords in the Tinkerer’s workshop that fit this description to a T.

  “But . . . but . . .” the Tinkered began. “Why would you . . . ?”

  “Oh, if you’re not up to the challenge, don’t worry,” Bacca said. “I’m sure there’s somebody around here who could craft me a golden sword like that. I’ve heard that down in the maze there’s a crafting bat called the Wizard. I’ll bet he could do it.”

  “I’m ten times better at crafting than that so-called Wizard!” snapped the Tinkerer, springing into action. “You want a sword that’s going to hurt you every time you swing it? Fine! I’ll make it for you!”

  “Thank you so much,” Bacca said. “And as part of my payment, I’ll be happy to supply the materials.”

  Bacca reached into his inventory and took out two gold ingots. They were ideally formed, perfectly smooth, and they gleamed in the sunbeams that shone through the skylight above. He held them out to the Tinkerer.

  Bacca was secretly nervous. Her reaction would determine whether or not his suspicion about the Tinkerer was right.

  “Ahh,” the Tinkerer said. “Those will do nicely. If you want a golden sword that’s going to hurt its user, then you need corrupted, tarnished, uneven gold. In other words, gold just like this!”

  Bacca knew the ingots were absolutely flawless in every way.

  “Oh, and I suppose you’ll also be needing a stick,” Bacca said. He fished into his inventory and pulled one out. Bacca’s sticks were among the finest in all the Overworld. They were straight and true in every way.

  “That will also do nicely,” said the Tinkerer, peering at the stick through several of her eyepieces. “Crooked and irregular . . . this will make a truly evil, malformed sword.”

  The Tinkerer accepted the stick and took it over to her crafting table.

  “Is it okay if I watch?” Bacca asked deceptively. “I’m so curious to see how crafting is done.”

  “Fine,” barked the Tinkerer. “Just don’t get in the way.”

  “Of course not,” Bacca said with a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  As Bacca looked on, the Tinkerer began to create the golden sword. She combined the gold ingots with the stick, and began forging an impressive blade with blow after blow of her crafting hammer. Periodically, she would stop and examine her progress through the different eyepieces. Then she would go back to hammering. The sword that began to take shape was absolutely stunning. It had a blade that was long and sharp and straight. The tip came to an impressive point, and the handle looked like it would provide an excellent grip. Bacca was a master crafter, but he had crafted few golden swords equal to this one.

  “Here,” the Tinkerer said, carefully handing the finished product to Bacca—almost as though she were afraid of it. “One corrupted golden sword. Just promise me you won’t let anyone else use it. I don’t want people to get hu
rt!”

  Bacca tried not to laugh. Her workshop was filled with items that would only hurt people.

  He also felt excited, believing his hunch about the Tinkerer to be right. He decided that one more piece of evidence would prove it beyond a doubt.

  Accepting the beautiful, perfectly-formed sword, Bacca gave the Tinkerer a handful of diamonds as payment.

  “This sword is wonderful,” Bacca said. “Just what I needed. If only I had a golden helmet to go with it.”

  “I could do that for you,” the Tinkerer said, hungry for more diamonds.

  “Could you?” Bacca asked. “That would be grand! But it would also be a special kind of helmet. Instead of protecting me from damage, I would want it to make me take extra damage!”

  “What?” said the Tinkerer, puttering her hand to her chest in horror.

  “If someone hits me for one heart of damage, this helmet should make me take two,” Bacca explained. “You could make the insides all spiky, so they poked me every time I took a blow. Or make the brim sharp and liable to injure me. Or figure out your own way of doing it. The point is, if I’m wearing this thing, I need to be taking twice as much damage!”

  The Tinkerer rolled her eyes.

  “As they say, the customer is always right,” she said to him, then mumbled, “Even if the customer is apparently crazy.”

  “I expect you’ll need more corrupted gold ingots,” Bacca said. “Here you go.”

  He handed her five of the most perfect ingots ever smelted.

  “Yes,” the Tinkerer said, examining them through her many eyepieces. “These are definitely corrupted. Okay, I’ll make you the helmet now. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

  The Tinkerer returned to her crafting table and began to hammer the gold. As Bacca watched, the Tinkerer formed a fine, gleaming golden helmet. It had a strong, powerful dome that looked impossible to crack. It was seamless and well-balanced. The interior of the helmet was crafted to fit exactly against the contours of the wearer’s head. Bacca guessed that a person putting it on would feel as though they were wearing nothing at all.

  “One golden helmet for wounding . . . the person stupid enough to wear it,” the Tinkerer said, handing her finished product to Bacca. “And whatever you do, don’t put it on in here. I’m not about to get sued. Let me tell you, the creeper legal system is a nightmare! So much red tape. Or, in their case, purple tape. Don’t ask.”

  Bacca quickly put the golden helmet into his inventory and paid the Tinkerer with another handful of diamonds.

  “Speaking of creepers,” Bacca said, “how did such a skilled crafter as yourself come to live in a big scary creeper fortress? I’d think you could set up shop anywhere you liked in this biome.”

  “Despite what I just said about their legal system, the creepers have been very good to me,” said the Tinkerer.

  “They have?” asked Bacca. “I thought creepers were mostly known for being—pardon my frankness—a bunch of jerks.”

  “Oh, not the creepers,” said the Tinkerer. “You must be thinking of something else. Why, when I set up shop here, they became my best customers. They were so supportive! They took great pains—and great expense—to help me to become a better crafter. They supplied me with all the wonderful equipment you see here.”

  “Does that equipment include those long metal tubes you look through?” Bacca asked.

  “Yes, they’re the greatest gift of all,” the Tinkerer said. “They helped me really take my crafting to the next level. I use them for everything now.”

  “Yes, I see that,” Bacca said. “May I take a look? I’m a very curious person.”

  The Tinkerer hesitated. The long metal tubes with their glistening gem lenses were clearly her most-prized possession.

  “I promise to only look, and not touch,” Bacca said. “Pleeeeese?”

  “Fine,” the Tinkerer said. “But no touching.”

  The Tinkerer took off her large round hat with the tubes hanging down from strings on the brim. She held it out so Bacca could take a closer look.

  The tubular eyepieces seemed to have every kind of glistening gem that Bacca knew, and quite a few he hadn’t seen before. Some of the longer tubes were curved so that they must have had a series of gems inside, reflecting the light all around in different ways. Bacca realized that all of the gems—all of them—were clearly enchanted with creeper magic.

  “May I look through one of the tubes?” Bacca asked. “Just once?”

  The Tinkerer hesitated again.

  “I’ll give you a diamond,” Bacca said. “It’ll be the easiest money you ever made.”

  The Tinkerer was tempted.

  “Okay,” she said. “But make it quick.”

  Bacca put his eye up to one of the strange metal tubes. Through it, the world looked blurry and distorted, but also something more. Wrong. It was that same sense of wrongness that had struck him when he first walked into the Tinkerer’s workshop.

  Bacca held up the flawless golden sword that The Tinkerer had made for him. Through the enchanted lenses of the eyepiece, it looked like something a monster might wield—and so broken and unbalanced that it would be dangerous to the user.

  Bacca put away the golden sword and gave the Tinkerer back her hat, who returned it to her head. Then she held out her hand, ready to receive the diamond Bacca had promised.

  “I’m going to give you a diamond,” Bacca said, fishing around in his inventory for one. “But I’m also going to give you something even more valuable: some good advice.”

  “Oh?” said the Tinkerer as Bacca handed over a shiny diamond. “And what makes you think I need advice?”

  “These creepers . . .” Bacca began. “I don’t think they have your best interests in mind. If they’re the ones making you see the world this way, then they have played a very mean trick on you.”

  “What?” said the Tinkerer. “How dare you say that? The creepers have been nothing but kind to me, and they’re my best customers. They love the things I make. My creations are very popular.”

  “Yes,” said Bacca. “Because creepers like to hurt people. And I hate to tell you, but that’s what your items do. They hurt people. If you’d just take a look without using those tubes . . .”

  “Feh,” the Tinkerer replied, dismissing the idea. “These ‘tubes,’ as you call them, give me the ability to see the world like I never was able to before, and to craft things more perfectly than I ever could have dreamt.”

  Bacca walked over to where the Tinkerer had created a furnace out of blocks of cobblestone. Normally, this device would be used to allow a crafter to smelt. But this furnace—as Bacca could easily see from across the room—was set up in a way to splash molten ore everywhere and probably catch the person trying to use it on fire.

  “What do you see here?” Bacca said.

  “Why, that’s one of my signature items—a top-of-the-line crafting furnace,” said the Tinkerer. “That model’s very popular with the creepers. They love to give them as gifts.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Bacca said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said the Tinkerer.

  “You should try looking at the furnace without your eyepieces,” Bacca recommended.

  “What?” said the Tinkerer. “And why would I do that?”

  “Just give it a try,” Bacca said. “Unless you’re afraid . . .”

  “Afraid?” said the Tinkerer angrily. “I’ll show you who’s afraid!”

  The Tinkerer took off her hat and looked at the furnace without using any of her eyepieces. She examined the item in silence for a very long time. Her expression said that something was not quite adding up.

  “Now that I look more closely, there does seem to be a small error in that piece,” she admitted. “That you for pointing it out, I suppose. Congratulations. You found the one mistake I ever made.”

  Bacca tried not to laugh out loud.

  “And now take a look at this,” Bacca said, holding up a bow which w
ould send an arrow careening back into the person who shot it.

  “Ehh,” said the Tinkerer, as though something was amiss. “You did that. You must have! Why did you break that perfectly good bow? That’s going on your tab.”

  “I didn’t break it,” Bacca said. “You made it that way. You made all of the things in your workshop this way. I don’t think you did it because you’re a bad person. I think you did it because when you look through those creeper tubes, it distorts everything. How long has it been since you used your own eyes to look at something you crafted? Years? Decades?”

  “I’ve been here a very long time,” said the Tinkerer. “It’s hard to remember a time before I used them.”

  “I think you’re a very gifted crafter,” Bacca said gently. “I really do. You’ve got tremendous natural talent. You’ve just been held back by those awful creepers. They’ve corrupted your abilities. These tubes make you do the opposite of what you intend. I think if you went back to working without them, you could be truly great again!”

  The Tinkerer thought about this while looking at all of the items on the tables in her workshop. For the first time, she was seeing them as Bacca had when he entered the workshop. She saw the wrongness and hurtfulness of them. She looked stunned. Bacca realized it must be a lot to take in all at once.

  “Oh no,” said the Tinkerer, putting her hand to her mouth in terror. “What have I done?”

  “There, there,” Bacca said comfortingly. “It wasn’t your fault. You were tricked by those creepers. They’re a very tricky bunch, as I’m finding out.”

  “I can’t believe it,” the Tinkerer said. “All this time—all these years—I was never really looking at what I was creating. All of these items . . . they’ll have to be destroyed I suppose, so nobody gets hurt.”

  “You can worry about that another day,” Bacca told her.

  “I wish . . . I just wish . . .” said the Tinkerer, trailing off as she tried to articulate the thought. “I wish I could leave this place for a while. I need a break from crafting. A new career would be nice. One where I don’t do anything that hurts people. Or anything much at all.”

  “Hmm,” said Bacca, thinking. “Do you ever leave your crafting workshop?”