Instead of taking five or more hours to smelt everything, it took three. And as a bonus, once I started smelting bronze out of the finished copper and tin bars, I was able to gain enough Mining experience to reach the level cap.
Most of that time was used refining the copper and tin ore into bars. After that, combining the ingots of copper and tin in the correct three to one ratio was surprisingly fast.
Using all of my current tin collection, I ended up with over eleven hundred bronze bars with about four hundred copper bars left over.
I paid the dwarf his twenty gold and returned the tools before heading to the auction house. The rest of my pending auctions had sold, another two hundred and thirty-seven gold flowing into my accounts.
The price of copper bars had fallen to thirty-four copper a bar, but bronze was going strong at thirteen silver a bar.
I decided to hold on to the copper and use it to make more bronze after my next tin run, and put all the bronze up for auction.
A quick search for laeshhound bits came up blank, so I held onto those as well until I could get a better idea of their worth. It would really suck to miss out on some lucrative sales if I misjudged the price and put them up for a fraction of their value.
My business concluded, I did one final search, just in case, for any records of Statuettes of Dragonkind, but as expected the auction came up blank. I wasn’t surprised. Being able to buy those at the auction house would have been pretty broken considering their power.
I left the auction house and checked in at the Proper Potions to see if there had been any progress on my current investment. Mistress Valynwood wasn’t there, and her assistant was less than helpful, only willing to reveal that the dryad was busy in her private lab. It was a shame, too, because I was sure she would be interested in the laeshhound bits.
The Silver Fish was empty, so I was finally able to collect my reward for clearing out the cave from the innkeeper before settling in to do some crafting.
< Cat’s Eye Key >
An enchanted key that can be used to open any Dungeon Boss Treasure Room or chest. When used, the treasure contained within has a chance to be upgraded for all party members (Soulbound)
I ordered some ale and took a seat at a corner table, ready to get to work.
The Jewelcrafting menu appeared with my current Lapidary options: Rough-cut Malachite.
Setting an uncut malachite before me, I mentally activated the skill and watched as the gemstone morphed in an amorphous blob with a progress bar on top, similar to the way the Dissection skill functioned.
It took about thirty seconds to process the gemstone and produce a result. I was a little disappointed by the simplistic interface, but like Dissection, I figured the process of actually cutting a gem would be way too complex for the developers to effectively implement in a way that was fun.
Unsuccessful. The Uncut Malachite has been destroyed.
You have gained 10 Jewelcrafting XP.
At least even failure gives some XP, I thought, grabbing another uncut gem from my stash and trying again.
Unsuccessful. The Uncut Malachite has been destroyed. You have gained 10 Jewelcrafting XP.
I grimaced. The forums did say Jewelcrafting was one of the harder crafts to improve, so I kept on trying, crossing my fingers and hoping my luck would kick in.
Unsuccessful. The Uncut Malachite has been destroyed.
You have salvaged some Malachite dust from your attempt.
You have gained 15 Jewelcrafting XP.
So it wasn’t a black or white pass/fail kind of check after all. The dust must be some sort of consolation prize so you didn’t always end up empty handed after a failure. I wondered if the gem dust would be useful for anything.
Success! You have created a Rough-cut Malachite.
You have gained 20 Jewelcrafting XP.
Quest update – 1/10 Rough-cut Gems complete.
Finally! I thought. One success out of four so far.
I was glad I’d decided on the mining route and had picked up a pretty big pile of gems to grind through, because with a twenty-five percent success rate it was going to be a long road until I could fully support my soul collection.
With a sigh, I immersed myself in the grind, churning through my gems and watching the messages scroll by.
Success! You have created a Rough-cut Malachite.
You have gained 20 Jewelcrafting XP.
Quest update – 2/10 Rough-cut Gems complete.
Success! You have created a Rough-cut Malachite. You have gained 20 Jewelcrafting XP.
Quest update – 3/10 Rough-cut Gems complete.
Unsuccessful. The Uncut Malachite has been destroyed.
…
I tucked the finished gems and consolation dust into my bag, glad that I didn’t have to deal with the failures which disappeared into the land of dissected bodies and lost socks.
It took another six tries to complete the quest.
Quest update – 10/10 Rough-cut Gems complete.
QUEST COMPLETE – Jewelcrafting I – Lapidary
You have gained 200 Jewelcrafting XP
You have reached Jewelcrafting Rank 2!
QUEST RECEIVED – Jewelcrafting II – Infusion
Infusion charges a gem with mana, preparing it to be used in the creation of magical jewelry.
Criteria: Infuse 10 gemstones using the Lesser Infusion design. (0/10)
Reward: 200 Jewelcrafting XP
The next part of the quest was a little concerning. If infusion was anything like lapidary, I’d probably end up blowing up more gems than I successfully infused, resulting in even more lost materials.
I’d definitely need more than ten cut stones with my current rate of failure, so I took out another handful of uncut stones and got to work, grinding through another forty attempts.
Somewhere during the process I reached rank three in Jewelcrafting, and by the end I had created twenty five finished gems and four more doses of malachite dust.
Now that I had some backup gems, and a higher rank, it was time to try out infusing.
The starting interface was the same as lapidary, but when I selected the design and selected the gemstone a new window popped into my view, floating in midair with a strange layout that I had yet to encounter in the game.
Centered on the top of the window was a timer, currently reading “00:00:20” and below that was a sliding gauge labeled “Mana Infusion Rate” with a small button with a picture of a lock in the unlocked state next to it.
At the bottom of the screen was a small graph of some sort labeled “Infusion” that was currently empty.
The rest of the screen was taken up by a grid with two arrows on the right and bottom edges, with a small circular crosshair lined up between them.
Within the crosshairs was a small sphere, and lastly, there was a small box with a gear on it at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Attention: As this is your first usage of the Infusion interface, the game will provide a demonstration the process. This demo can be accessed at any time via the help menu if you would like to view it again.
Would you like to watch the demo now? (Yes/No) **
Yes, I thought, activating the tutorial and watched as all of the controls on the screen grayed out and faded into the background. A second later, the timer reappeared at the top of the screen, highlighted with a golden glow.
Each infusion design has an associated time limit. This limit is static for the recipe and may not be exceeded. For this demonstration, we will use the “Lesser Infusion” design which has a time limit of 20 seconds.
The timer faded to gray as the golden glow shifted to highlight the Mana Infusion Rate gauge.
This gauge allows the player to set the rate at which mana will be fed into the gem. This rate will directly impact the difficulty of the physical skill portion of this crafting system. Please note that each infusion recipe has a mana requirement, which must be met in order to successfully complete the d
esign. Once the rate has been set, it is locked in for the duration of the crafting attempt.
The indicated gauge filled to half and the lock next to it shifted from the open position to the locked position before the entire widget faded to gray.
In the center of the grid, the sphere started to glow.
This sphere represents the target for the skill-based interface. The object of the game is to keep the sphere within the targeting reticule.
The crosshairs lit up, as well as the two arrow symbols on the bottom and right of the grid.
These arrow symbols control the position of the targeting reticule. The bottom arrow will move the reticule from right to left, while the arrow on the right will move the reticule up and down.
The object is to keep the target sphere fully within the bounds of the reticule. While the sphere is fully within, mana will be added to the “Infusion” meter at the bottom of the screen at the rate locked in.
While partially within the reticule, mana will be added in proportion to the amount of the sphere contained. Reticule size will increase in proportion to Jewelcrafting rank.
In order to successfully Infuse the target object, the player should ensure that the required amount of mana, and no more, is added to the bar.
Adding too much mana may result in a catastrophic failure as the gem is unable to contain the power.
With that, the small sphere began to bounce around the grid, Pong style, while a pair of ghostly hands moved the two sliding arrows on the grid’s sides to move the reticule, keeping the sphere within the circle.
The gauge at the bottom of the screen started to fill up as the timer counted down towards zero, reaching one hundred percent just as the timer completed.
The small gear icon at the lower right of the screen highlighted next, and the messages continued.
Alternatively, the physical skill interface for this crafting skill may be disabled via the options menu. Disabling this interface will result in the game utilizing a random pick based upon the player’s skill level in relation to the difficulty of the infusion.
Forgoing the physical skill interface will result in a lower chance for critical success results for most recipes.
That was interesting. The game provided an option for people who didn’t want to deal with playing a mini-game in order to craft.
At higher levels, or for grinding I could see why you wouldn’t want to have to play through an entire game every time you made something, but with my limited resources I wouldn’t want to automate the process and chance losing more materials.
Now that I knew what to expect, I settled in to try my hand at Infusion. I selected the design and activated the interface. I could set the mana infusion rate between one to fifty, which was a bit counterintuitive.
The infusion required two hundred mana, so setting it to anything less than ten would mean an automatic failure. So why even give that option? Maybe the interface was generic, so another recipe could only require a minimum input.
Setting it to ten would require perfect accuracy, while setting it higher would give me more leeway to mess up, but could require some late game juggling to keep from overcharging. I shrugged and set the rate to the max. How hard could four seconds be?
The ball appeared as I locked in the rate, followed by a three second countdown to let me get my hands in position to move the sliders.
When the timer hit zero the ball took off like a bat out of hell, bouncing around the grid like a five-year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew and Pixie Sticks.
To make matters worse, the reticule looked smaller than the ball which made getting the full infusion per second impossible even with perfect accuracy.
I did my best but by the time the counter reached zero I’d barely filled the infusion bar by thirty percent.
Unsuccessful. The gemstone has been destroyed.
You have gained 20 Jewelcrafting XP.
I tried again, starting at the bare minimum that would allow success to get a better feel of the interface. I could always ramp it up from there once I got the hang of things.
With the lower infusion rate the ball moved much slower, making it easier for me to keep up with the bouncing ball, but the size of my reticule was still too small to allow for any error.
I failed again but managed to get all the way to fifty-five percent and luckily didn’t break the gemstone.
Unsuccessful. You managed to salvage the gemstone.
You have gained 20 Jewelcrafting XP.
I amped up the infusion rate bit by bit until I found a sweet spot where I was able to keep the ball in the target for long enough to reach the full two hundred mana needed. It took four additional attempts, and one more destroyed gem, but I did it.
Success! You have created a Lesser Rough-cut Malachite. You have gained 40 Jewelcrafting XP.
QUEST UPDATE: Infuse 10 gemstones using the Lesser Infusion design. (1/10)
I took things slowly, working my way through the processes again and again, creating the nine more needed for the quest. I lost two more gems overall, one exploding with a small spray of shards when I charged it up too far. Luckily no one was hurt.
My Jewelcrafting gained a rank, which increased the size of the targeting reticule, making it much easier to keep the ball centered.
QUEST UPDATE: Infuse 10 gemstones using the Lesser Infusion design. (10/10)
QUEST COMPLETE – Jewelcrafting II – Infusion
You have received 200 Jewelcrafting XP!
QUEST RECEIVED – Jewelcrafting III – Jeweler
The Jeweler sub-skill allows for the shaping of precious and semiprecious metals and gems into pieces of jewelry that can enhance stats, abilities, and even allow for special skill usage.
For this tutorial, you will create several pieces of finished jewelry
Criteria:
1 – Use the “Copper Ring Blank” design to create 30 Blanks. (0/30)
2 – Use the “Copper Setting” design to create 60 Settings. (0/60)
3 – Use the materials created in steps 1 and 2 in conjunction with your infused gems to create 10 “Ring of
Reward: 500 Jewelcrafting XP
The next step would require a forge, and it was almost time to meet up with my party, so I decided to hold off until after a bit of adventure. In the meantime, I decided to grind out some more gems and then get some lunch before meeting up with the group. That was, of course, if Cedric passed his stats test.
By the time I ran out of Uncut Malachite I had another seventy-two cut and a few gems worth of dust to add to my collection. It was a pretty good supply for collecting potential souls, or to practice infusion on. I’d raised my Jewelcrafting skill to five as well, making the rest of my tasks a bit less daunting.
I tried another infusion and confirmed that the reticule had grown again, making it even easier to complete the infusion. After the dungeon I’d have to find Master Herrington’s shop and get some designs to cut better quality gems. I should have held on to some Uncut Malachite for better cuts too.
My lunchtime alarm flashed across my screen, so I cleaned up my mess and logged out to get something to eat. Hopefully the group would be on when I logged back in and we’d be able to tackle the dungeon. And if not, I was sure I could find some solo quests to occupy my time.
Spring break was almost over, and I needed to get at least one more level before I’d be ready to tackle the iron mines again.
***
51
After a tasty bowl of Kraft Blue Box Mac and Cheese, I logged back into the game. I looked on my friends list and saw all three of them were online and started writing a message to see how things had gone.
While I was still drafting the message, a party invite came in from Leilani, beating me to the punch.
[P] Cedric: I got an A! Wooooohooooo!
[P] Me: Congrats!
[P] Kelikk: Hey Kababala, we are at the auction house. Want to meet us here?
[P] Me: Sure, I’ll be rig
ht over. I’m at the Silver Fish.
The auction house was a brief walk across town, so it didn’t take very long for me to arrive. I checked in with the clerk to see if any of my auctions had sold since this morning and was pleasantly surprised to find half of my bronze listings were gone, netting me slightly over four hundred gold.
Cedric, Kelikk, and Leilani were all gathered around one of the kiosks, finishing up their business when I concluded my business with the clerk and headed over.
Cedric waved as he dashed past me, on the way to collect his latest purchase.
A minute later the paladin rejoined us, a bright white cloak wrapped around his shoulders. The cloak virtually screamed “Hit Me!” to the world. Kelikk patted him on the shoulder with a chuckle.
I flashed a toothy grin. “Nice new threads, Ced. Congrats again on the test.”
“Thanks man,” he replied. “Once I started looking at it all from a gamer perspective, things just started to click. I even used some of the formulas and stuff from class to decide on this cloak. It doesn’t help me with my Strength or hit points, but it does a hell of a job generating threat so I can use my mana to buff myself instead of saving it all for taunts.”
I chuckled. “Awesome. I’m all for that. I only just broke triple digits in hit points at level fourteen, so anything that keeps me from getting hit is a major plus in my book.”
“Really? We just hit thirteen and I’ve already got around fifteen hundred hit points, although that is mostly due to my maxed-out Heartiness skill, but damn. I guess mages are pretty crunchy,” the paladin responded.
Sighing, I replied, “Yeah, well, kobolds have a natural penalty to hit points, so it’s a bit worse than it would be for another race. Luckily, my Dark Shield and minions have been able to keep me from getting squished too often.”
“So, what do you guys say we go and raid a hidden crypt?” I asked and shared the quest with the party, watching their eyes glaze as they read through the notification.
Extra Credit Page 37
