“Great,” Dean had said, demoralized at the thought. Maybe I should just try to get in touch with Customer Support? Tell them there’s been a glitch?
But something in him made him stop before he even tried. He had agreed to go on this story with Crusher, who was becoming a sort of friend – even if he didn’t have any idea what he really looked like in real life. He didn’t want to let Crusher down, and I don’t want to give up. To admit I’m too weak. Again. His current entire physical life was all about him being weak, being futile and helpless. Couldn’t he just be a hero for once, in his virtual life?
“I guess I should try and find out what Grum has in here about crystals, then…” Dean murmured to himself after Crusher had logged out for the night, leaving the mage to rummage through the workshop and accompanying rooms.
Dean found a lot of lore books and even a few grimoires, all with lots of information about the different sorts of materials, rocks, and metals that were common in the world. There were journals of armory, which, when he pulled them from the bookcase, would open up small insert parchment pages, with drawings of different weapons and their effects.
Rapier, + 3 damage. Can buy optional Specialism: pinpoint attack + damage total.
Sabre, + 5 damage.
Broadsword, + 7 damage….
Alongside the general information lists on weapons and armor, there was also the many different types of materials useful for an artificer.
Gold (standard)
Ogre Gold (Rare)
Dragon Gold (Rare)
Wraith Gold (Very Rare)…
And finally, a book on the different sorts of crystals there were in the world.
Quartz
Sea Quartz
Tree Quartz
Ruby
Emerald
Diamond
Elvish Amethyst
Faerie Crystals…
“Come on, come on!” Dean flicked through the entries hurriedly, not bothering to scan them all until he came to the one he was interested in.
The Ouroborax Crystals
Rumored to be created at the dawn of the Aldaron world by a group of ancient sorcerers, distilling the powers of the gods and of creation itself. However, conflicting accounts claim it was the gods themselves who created the Ouroborax Crystals as a part of whatever process created the world in its original, undivided form. They placed them at power-places throughout the world, before the Realms were later split into the Near, Outer, and Far Realms.
Some claim that the Ourorborax themselves are responsible for this split, and that it was their power that released the sorcery required to open the portals in the Far Realms to the Darkling Realms, and also split the Near from the Outer, and from the Far.
Whatever the truth is, there are rumored to be five such crystals in existence (purely for the fact no one knows if they can be destroyed at all):
Red Ouroborax: controls heat, fire, and light.
Blue Ouroborax: controls water and cold.
Green Ouroborax: controls all plant life.
Yellow Ouroborax: controls all inanimate life, stone, and rock.
White Ouroborax: controls spirits, shades, and magical entities.
Black Ouroborax: controls darkness, and death.
“This is it!” Dean said as soon as he read it, his eyes scanning the passage hungrily, before his grin slowly faded. Apart from telling him different stories of where the crystals might have come from, it didn’t really say much about where they might be now. At all. Not even a clue!
“Useless.” Nevertheless, he copied and saved the information before returning the book to the shelves. He was sure that wasn’t what the Ambassador of the Iron Halls had in mind when she said “find out what Grum knew about the crystals.”
And I haven’t had any XP for finding that, so it can’t be the challenge for this story, Dean told himself, resorting to searching the rest of the books and then the workshop beyond it.
The only mildly useful find for him, apart from the ever-wandering Hephaestus, was the notes in the Artificer’s Manual, another insert parchment that told him how to use the workshop’s controls.
Use a workshop to repair, design, and create any item in the game-world. Set templates are available when you start to work, supplying the workshop with the bare requirement materials. Each item will need its own specialist materials which you will have to procure. Or, if you prefer, you can design and edit your own unique items using the workshop image editor.
Every time a workshop task is attempted, it is either a Success or a Fail. A Success means you have created your desired item, and you will receive XP for it.
Aha… So I can make my XP, and level-up just by playing about in the workshop? Dean thought, clapping his hands together, as he had been itching to try his hands (quite literally) at what he had come here to do. To be the best smith in Aldaron.
And now I have an interesting material I don’t think anyone has used for jewelry before, Dean thought. One thing he knew about in his real-world business was that it was all about novelty. If you did something no one else was doing, then that was the way you got noticed.
And how you made money. And XP, he thought as he set the tools down and turned back to the storerooms to find the large tomes of lore Grum had left. Dean found the entry.
Dragon iron.
A very tough sort of iron, that, when properly forged, can be as tough as dragon hide. Notoriously hard to work. Helps against fire.
“I wonder if that means it will have a magical effect?” Dean wondered, selecting from the storerooms a set of Grum’s own tongs and hammer to take back to the furnace.
Of the three furnaces in the yard, only one was lit – and it was the smallest of all of them. Dean had done a little smelting and melting when in art college, and he knew you needed heat, and lots of it, in order to work the tougher metals.
“Well, in that case…” he muttered to himself, taking the dragon iron out of the lit furnace and transferring it to the largest one, before shoveling some of the burning coal from one to the other and chucking more in besides. Then, it was time to pump the bellows, just as Grum himself had taught him.
-1 Health his status bar read, not that it mattered to him, as he was already on full health and could afford to spend almost as much as he had until he got it right. He pushed and pulled at the bellows for a few more turns, until the coals inside started to radiate a dry heat. And then with a whoosh the whole pile started to glow.
“Here we go!” Dean grinned, placing the dragon iron on the special bed to get them heated up. Nothing happened at first – and then, very slowly, they started to glow.
Now for the next part… Dean turned quickly back to the anvil where he had already made up some of his forms from the rough clay. He had cut a few rough template patterns already and now, sitting down as he waited for the metal to melt, he fitted on Grum’s own visor helmet and picked up the dwarf’s miniature tool set.
Using a scalpel, a steel point, and a sharpened steel spatula, he cut away the irregular parts of the claw and smoothed the insides of the form. In the visor’s magnified view, he could see an enlarged mapped image of what he wanted to create, and, by selecting the various tool options, he could shade out some areas or rework others. It was a bit like using an image manipulation program on a computer, but this time he was using his own skills and knowledge from his real life to direct the process.
The game simulation had wanted him to just upload an image of the sort of item he wanted to create – and then it would run an algorithm based on his current specialization and a random number generator, and he would get the result, or not… But then Dean had discovered it also had an image editor, and he could make a template image which he could change to get a truly unique design.
They’ll never see this coming, he thought, finishing up with the editor and moving to see how the dragon iron was doing. Good. It was now a shining, red and black material.
“Good, but not exactly…” Dean moved to the store room to pick from the ingots of ingredients already provisioned. “What do I have … let me see now…” He passed over strange chemicals and lumps of different colored rocks, before coming to small shards of crystal that were a purple and blue color.
Sea Quartz.
No magical properties. Pretty, though!
“Yes, you are – and just what I need.” He selected a cup of the strange mineral.
-1 Unit of Sea Quartz.
“I wonder if this stuff can be crushed?” he thought, taking it to the anvil to select from the different hammers to start pounding at the material. He was in luck. It did crush, leaving a fine, purple-blue dust that shimmered.
With a grin, Dean took the dust to the now molten dragon iron, poured it onto the mixture, and used the tongs to swirl it around until he had a glittering purple-blue sheen running right though the metal. Very carefully, he tipped this into the “in” funnel of his clay form and watched as it ran in a white-hot line to fill all of the separate compartments.
“Now we cast and cool…” He waited for the metal to change color (a much quicker process here in virtual space than it was in the real world, he was grateful to notice) before dropping the whole lot into a vat of cold water for steam to boil in a great cloud.
He was left with a purple-over-black sort of tree skeleton, which he would now have to shape. He began carefully clipping each of the items he had made out of their form, and cleaning them up with delicate tools before he could begin carving and scoring into the material.
You have made ten dragon iron rings! 250 XP!
Name your item: Winter Rings.
Bonus: +3 against fire to all wearers.
Dean smiled as he worked each one, adding slight details to make them unique. They weren’t closed rings but instead curls of the glassy-smoothed dragon iron, shimmering with blue and purple lights. Thankfully he didn’t have to worry about sizing here in Aldaron, as “one size fit all” here.
This is so easy! he thought, compared to the limitations of real life.
And 250 XP – doesn’t that mean I’ve levelled up already…? He checked his character progression path.
Level 2: 50 XP
Level 3: 100 XP
Level 4: 150 XP
Level 5: 200 XP
“How much XP do I already have, after the Kobold, Grum’s task, and Jodo Canyons?” Dean muttered. He would need 300 XP to get up to Level 4, and 500 XP to get up to Level 5.
And I’ve got, in total with these rings, 375. Not enough.
But still – he had enough to get all the way to Level 4, and then he could spend his spare XP on extra specialisms, couldn’t he? Looking back through his acolyte mage’s path, he selected the Path of the Sorcerer, earning all of the Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 spells instantly, as well as +25 to his Mana, +10 to his WIS, +3 to his CON, +2 to his DEX, and only +1 STR. It seemed every time you levelled up you got stat bonuses as well – meaning that he was a lot better off now than he had been at the start of the game!
But I’ve still got 75 XP to spend… he thought, going back through magical charts and skill trees.
Specialism +1: 10 XP
Spell not from your Path: 15 XP
He chose another +4 to his Artificer skill, meaning that, with his previous bonuses and with Grum’s workshop, tools, and gloves, he now had a +13 to the skill, when using this workshop, anyway. For his remaining 35 XP he decided to buy two rather low-level spells for 30 XP and leave 5 to store for his next upgrade.
Path of the Forest Friend
Create familiar. Cost: 5 Mana. By selecting a nearby animal, that can become your chosen familiar, capable of leveling up, and storing your Mana.
Path of Pain
Bone armor. Cost: 6 Mana. +5 CON until end of day.
“So, I’ve got a bit more protection, as well as better stats, and I’m a whole lot better at smithing,” Dean said happily. He had only added the create familiar because of that rat in the Duma’s dungeons, figuring that if he ever got stuck like that again, or the Duma wanted to try and imprison him again, then he would have a way out. Maybe.
And besides, it’s cool to have a familiar, he thought wryly, turning back to his work to make small carvings on each of the rings.
“And now – all I got to do is sell them!” Dean said, whistling to Alphonse in his corner.
*
The Dockside Markets were a riot of color and noise as Dean led his mule through the crowds of marketers, customers, performers, and sailors. There was almost every type of item on offer around him – from food to furniture, armor to clothes. Dean wandered around until he found a section of the market that appeared a little quieter than the other areas, a few turns away from the actual harbor, and underneath large, overhanging trees with silver-green leaves. Floating lanterns bobbed this way and that on gentle breezes, glowing orange and purple over tented stalls where people did business in the deep shadows.
It was quieter out here, which Dean liked – but it was also where magic was happening. He saw one man in long red-and-gold robes striding proudly through the concourse with a giant, flaming bird slowly flapping just above his head. There were barrows and carts that moved all by themselves.
“What are you looking for, sire?” said a voice, and Dean turned in alarm to see that he was regarding a white-skinned elf with long, platinum white hair wearing a tight-fitting jerkin and trousers. In his hand he twirled a cane with a golden knob upon the top. “I am the Guide to the Magical Markets, and perhaps I can be of assistance? Is it a weapon, or an enchantment? A spell perhaps, or a fortune?”
“Neither,” Dean said proudly. “I’ve come to sell.”
The elf narrowed his eyes briefly, but then nodded. “Very well. There are some empty stalls down here, sire.” He led Dean further away from the main concourse, to where there were indeed empty stalls stretching down the alleyway. “I am afraid the magical community is not what it once was,” the elf sighed. “The humans can be so mistrustful of magic, you know…” With a wave of his white hands he indicated that Dean could take any stall. “And should you need me, my name is the Guide Lathar. Just ask the Shrine for me.”
Dean nodded his thanks, walking behind the counter.
Stall Opened! +15 XP
Name: Winters’ Gifts.
Colors: Black.
Items for sale: 10 dragon iron rings.
Price Each: 25 gold pieces.
Dean could feel his heart racing as he struggled to control his nerves. I had a shop before, and look what happened there… He thought for a moment, his breathing starting to pick up speed in time with his panic.
Just breathe in and out. Normal breath in, slow breath out… he thought as he watched the street outside. Not many customers passed by outside the stall, and Dean began to wonder if this might be a replay of his real-life experience – or whether Lathar had secretly been making fun of the human mage by putting him in the least desirable spot.
“Er, hello?” said a voice, and the mage looked up to find that someone had poked their head under his tent awning. The man was large and round bellied, with a very small moustache, and sitting upon his head was a ridiculous hat that looked like a collapsed pie.
“Good afternoon, sir, can I interest you in some magic rings?” Dean said politely, waving his hands over the display.
“As long as none of them were made by Sauron,” the large man remarked, and Dean laughed out loud, realizing he was a fellow player character.
“No. I can assure you not – they were made by me,” Dean said, picking one up and turning it in the light.
“Hmm.” The man nodded, taking a look at it. “Very fine workmanship, if I may say so…”
“Thank you, sir.” Dean felt a shiver of that same old pride he had felt whenever he got a compliment in his real life.
The man tapped one of the rings on the counter, before squinting a
t it again. “Magic, you say?”
“Resistance to fire.” Dean nodded, sending the player character over the stats.
“Hmph…”
Dean was sure the man was going to pass, before he reached to his belt to pull out a handful of large golden doubloons. “I’ll take five.”
“Five!?” Dean spluttered. “Why, yes, of course, I mean, of course. Are you sure you’re not intending to throw yourself into Mount Doom?” he said, and the large man smirked.
“No. The Aeturnum has got a captive fire drake. I can give these to the acolytes so we won’t lose the whole class all in one training session!” he sighed, handing over the money.
5 Winter Rings sold! +125 GP +125 XP.
125 XP? Dean suddenly realized: I earn XP for every sale as well as every creation of an artefact! Should I change the price?
Price Set. Unable to complete.
“Ha, well, at least I’ll know for later…” Dean shook his head, already happy. I’ve already got 20 XP, and I’ve just made 125. So, he had a grand total of 140 XP, and he needed sixty more in order to make it to Level 5. That was, what, three more rings?
There’s no guarantee that will happen though, Dean thought, still happy despite this revelation. He wondered what he could make next, and whether he should make more dragon iron rings, or whether he could try something else – like a breastplate, or a helmet?
“Excuse me?” said a voice – it was a small woman, just a little bit bigger than the counter. A gnome, Dean saw. She wore a short red cloak, white linen shirt, and colorful dress.
“Winter Rings, ma’am, to keep you safe from the summer’s heat,” Dean said, remembering some of his old flair with the customers.
“Ha. Well, I don’t think I need protection from the sun – but I was told by the Secretary of the Aeturnum that you are selling resistance to fire?” the gnome lady said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact…” Dean said.
2 Winter Rings sold! +50 GP +50 XP
By the time Dean started to feel hungry — really hungry — he had managed to sell two more rings to various acolytes of the magical college; a mad-eyed dwarf and a human sorcerer wearing typical black. The sorcerer would have bought his last one as well, but Dean decided, in the spur of the moment, that it wasn’t for sale.
Tales of the Gemsmith Page 13
