by Nikita Thorn
“Great,” muttered Yamura. “Now Seiki wants to do kindergarten painting, too.”
Kentaro chuckled. “For what I just did, it’s Level 29. But you can start doing some more basic stuff with traditional art elements as early as… I think that was Level 8, if I remember correctly.”
“Oh, nice,” said Seiki. “That’s soon. I mean, the colors...” The sudden interest surprised even himself, as he just realized he had only recently started to notice the subtle different shades of light at different angles. “Wouldn’t mind doing something with those.”
“Oh.” Mairin looked at him. “I bet. I’m sure that’ll be amazing.”
“Okay, you know what?” said Yamura impatiently. “What would be amazing is getting to see the Red Headband right now. Geez, man, get to it already.”
Perhaps having decided that he had tormented them long enough, Kentaro chuckled and retrieved an item from his inventory. “It’s not what you expect, though, so be warned.” The houshi carefully reached over to place it in the middle of the table.
Seiki had expected a headband, and it turned out to be one. Dyed dark red, it was made from a single piece of cloth folded onto itself and sewn with the seam hidden on the bottom edge.
Red Headband. Head Slot. +1 defense. Crafted by Kentaro of the Crafters’ Guild.
“That’s just a normal Red Headband, by the way,” said the houshi.
“Kentaro!” cried Mairin.
Laughing, Kentaro produced another cloth item from his inventory. “I wanted to show them to you side-by-side for comparison. Okay, here’s the real thing.” The houshi straightened it out next to the first.
To the naked eye, it was identical to the common Red Headband. The label, however, confirmed otherwise:
Red Headband Master Pattern. Made by Kentaro of the Crafters’ Guild.
Somehow, Seiki had secretly expected it to be laden with special effects like the unique dagger had been. He squinted, hoping for some more explanation, but that was the only information available.
A brief moment of silence fell as the group tried to make sense of the item. Mairin quickly transformed from human to fox and back to check for something unusual her superior senses could pick up, but then shook her head and looked at Kentaro for clues.
The houshi nodded toward the Master Pattern. “What do you see?”
Seiki forced himself to be objective as he studied the item again. Beyond the single label, there was no extra information, no indication of the equipment slot it was meant for, nor stat numbers of any kind. “Oh… it’s not a piece of gear.”
“You’re right. And it’s not a treasure. It’s not… anything,” said Yamura in disappointment. “Okay, are you sure you made it correctly? Don’t you think you lost the other half of the descriptions somewhere?”
“Okay, look closer.” Kentaro pointed to the middle of the fabric.
Seiki focused his attention once more on the indicated location. To his surprise, a phantom circular icon faded into view, dim white, overlaying the top of the headband, very much like the mental guides for his Slide or the mental commands for his troop abilities. It was labeled:
[Insignia Slot]
Not sure what to make of it, Seiki looked up at the houshi.
“What’s an Insignia Slot?” said Mairin.
“So, you can see it.” Kentaro sounded a little surprised. “Well, that’s an interesting question, because I don’t know.” He looked around the room, and then specifically at Ippei.
The samurai shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“What do you think it is?” Seiki asked.
Kentaro drew a deep breath and mused for a moment. “Well, crafted gear can proc extra slots. You know, like how Leathersmithing sometimes procs inventory slots. Those are the most common procs.”
Seiki nodded. “Like this armguard.” Renshiro’s Lone Archer’s Kote he was wearing had one such slot that would take any item that physically fit in it.
“Yes. Your armguard was most likely a quest item, but it works the same way,” said Kentaro, before turning back to the group. “Cloth gear crafted with Tailoring can proc slots, too. After you unlock Fabric Harmony at Level 25 Tailoring, you can start adding stat-boosting hems and threads, and sometimes proc real Charm Slots.”
“Okay, that sounds better.” Yamura let out a sigh of relief. “So the headband itself does nothing, but you can put a badass charm in it and it’s suddenly god-tier?”
Ippei shook his head. “That probably won’t work. Charms are meant to give you a little boost here and there. There’s no way that a Level 1 headband will ever be able to compete with a proper helmet with actual stats.”
Yamura shrugged. “Maybe it becomes a Level 300 piece once you put in the Insignia charm.”
Mairin had picked up the master pattern and was looking at it intently, running her finger around the lit-up circular guide on the item. “So you mean this is kind of a Charm Slot, then?” said Mairin.
“Nope,” said Kentaro.
“What? I thought you just said it was a Charm Slot.”
The houshi let out a deep breath. “All right, what do you guys know about Charms?”
Ippei grinned. “The best one drops from a rare named Demon Captain who can spawn anywhere from Nenshou onward, which automatically turns all your weapons into light-infused weapons so you’re no longer stuck with standard Shogun-issues. Now, that one was really hard to give up at the end of Beta.”
From Ippei’s wistful tone, Seiki guessed the Demon Captain must have indeed been very rare.
“War addict,” said Mairin.
Kentaro look amused but shook his head. “I mean crafted ones.”
“For crafted ones,” said Seiki. “Twelve gold apiece, thirty for three, no further discounts?”
The houshi sighed. “Okay, I shouldn’t have bothered asking. So when you craft any cloth gear, there’s a chance you’ll get a Slot with it. There are two types of Slots. For a real proper Charm Slot you’ll get a physical pocket there and you can stick any Charm in that would physically fit. Like how Seiki’s armguard has a hidden Inventory Slot that will take things small enough to go in.”
They all nodded at this. The usefulness of that little Inventory Slot was legendary.
“Then there’s another Tailoring-specific Charm Slot that only high-level Tailors can see,” Kentaro continued. “These Slots are named after the kind of fabric they can take, like, say, for a Karakusa Slot, you need a Charm made with karakusa-patterned cloth to go into it, and karakusa gives you speed, so that slot is basically a speed slot. Of course, there’s some color harmonization, too, so you can usually get speed plus something else. These Tailoring-specific Slots can only be handled by Tailors, so if you’re not one, you can’t do it yourself. And from what I know, there’s nothing that is called an Insignia.”
Seiki’s quick glance around the table confirmed he was not the only one who was lost.
“I hope you didn’t expect anyone to actually understand that,” said Ippei.
Kentaro sighed. “Okay, let me start over. Look at your cloth gear I added the special Hems to last night in the Shussebora Cave.”
Seiki glanced down at his piece:
Superior Black Cotton Shitagi. +24 defense. +2% max energy. Outer body slot. [Hem Slot]: Blue-Gray Seigaiha Hem. +8 defense
“You can now see a Hem Slot there, which wasn’t there before I sewed in the Hem,” said Kentaro. “Right?”
“Yeah,” said Ippei.
“Yeah,” said Seiki.
“Yep,” said Yamura.
“No,” said Mairin.
“Except you. Since you cut it off, so, of course, it disappeared forever.”
Mairin stared at the houshi, blinked, then a moment later she burst into a white fox and curled up on the table, chin on fluffy tail, looking dejected.
“I’ll add it for you again later,” said Kentaro. The kitsune perked up at that and wagged
her tail once.
Shaking his head and turning his attention back to the rest of the group, the houshi continued. “Here’s how it works for high-level Tailors. Once you unlock Fabric Harmony, you can see the true potential of a piece of cloth gear. So, for me, the Slots have always been there, like, now, I can see that Ippei’s hakama has a Thread Slot, and also I saw earlier one of you had a Kinran Slot on your socks.”
“So invisible Slots only high-level Tailors can see?” said Seiki.
Kentaro nodded. “Yes, and these Slots look exactly like this Insignia Slot over here.” He pointed to the middle of the Red Headband Master Pattern. “You know, like, a shape, a circle, a line of faint light that pops up when you concentrate on it.”
Seiki pondered the implication. “Okay, but since we can all see this Insignia Slot even when we’re not Tailors, maybe the source of the Insignia is something outside Tailoring? Going by how this Master Pattern works, maybe there’s another treasure poem that leads to another Trade Skill scroll, and an Insignia is a Level 1 item in that other Trade Skill that requires Level 32 to craft?”
Kentaro thought about it. “The only problem with that theory is that a Red Headband is an actual item, and a very common one. An Insignia doesn’t exist in crafting, as far as I know.”
Considering Kentaro had unlocked nearly every Trade Skill available, Seiki believed he would know something like that.
“So, if this Insignia is not a Charm, or any known thing, how do we go about finding it, then?” said Yamura. “Like, shouldn’t this Master Pattern give you a quest?”
“If that’s the case it would be labeled ‘quest item’,” Ippei pointed out. “Which it isn’t.”
Mairin turned toward Yamura. “You know, maybe we can ask your clan and see if the Black Market knows something about it.”
“Why would my clan know about the Black…Oh, you mean the bandits? No! That’s not my clan and it’s never going to be.”
“Or we can ask the Society?” suggested Kentaro.
“No,” said Ippei. “That should be our last resort. There’s nothing stopping them from putting it in their next Newsletter once they find out. But if we’re talking rare goods....”
Seiki found Ippei looking at him, and his jaw dropped. “What? No!” he cried. “Even if Ichikeya knows, we’re not going to talk to her.”
“You’re all gonna end up in the Kano Castle’s dungeon for real this time,” said Mairin.
“But, dude, she’s going to give you the super rare luck potion,” said Yamura. “Drink that and you walk outside, and, boom, Insignia drops from the sky.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” said Mairin. “If you think about it, this is not the first time we’ve found a weird item that no one has ever heard of.”
“Oh, you mean this?” Seiki reached into his inventory and produced a small black tubular item, which he quickly set on the table before it could send a mild Fear through him.
“Yes, exactly!” said the kitsune. “But why do you carry it around?”
“I just started,” said Seiki. “To see if it’s… haunted.”
Mairin blinked, but then decided against chasing the tangent. “Okay, so the Society calls this a Shadow Stamp or something, right?”
“Shadow Seal,” said Seiki.
“Right, Shadow Seal.” Mairin looked at the rest of the group. “And Seals are supposed to stamp something onto something else…”
Yamura frowned. “Okay, so you’re just gonna stamp a freakin’ Insignia onto the headband? Like, how is that supposed to work?”
Mairin shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it’s just evil Demonic Clan stuff. Here, give it to me.”
She moved the Red Headband Master Pattern to the middle of the table and pressed the unlabeled Shadow Seal on the middle of the circle guide. Considering that the Seal was slightly smaller than the circular guide for the Slot, it was most likely not the solution to the puzzle, but they all held their breath as they waited for something to happen.
Nothing did, and Mairin frowned. “So that’s not it, huh.” Then she let out a yelp and let go of the item. It hit the table with a glass-like clack and started rolling. “Okay, I forgot this evil thing hits you with Fear once in a while.”
Seiki caught the Seal as it dropped off the table and returned it to his inventory.
“Now what?” said Yamura.
“Anyway, there’s something even more interesting I’d like to show you.” Kentaro retrieved several items from his inventory and placed them on the table: a pile of cotton cloth cut into even rectangular strips, plus seven or eight ceramic bottles, most of which were raw materials for the Red Headband Master Pattern.
“I was planning to make more than one,” the houshi explained. “Since it’s not like you can come up with an excuse to borrow the Needle every day. But I couldn’t. After I made the first one, I couldn’t even select the recipe. It was grayed out. At first I thought it was a glitch, so I closed the menu and started over, but it still wouldn’t let me do it. After a few tries, I, well, unmade it, and then I could suddenly select it again.”
“How did you unmake it?” said Yamura.
“With this,” said Kentaro, placing another ceramic bottle in front of the pile of materials. The stopper was dark gray and the item was labeled: Shuusei Potion of Regrets [Level 8 Potion].
“It’s an undo potion,” said Ippei.
Kentaro nodded. “It removes the last step on your crafting piece. It costs a lot of expensive herbs to make, but luckily the Master Pattern only had one step, so one potion unraveled it complete.”
“You… destroyed the Master Pattern?” said Mairin.
“Wait. Wasn’t that risky?” cried Yamura. “What if it had been a one-off? What if you only had one chance to make it?”
Kentaro shrugged. “Well, after I unmade it, I could craft it again. That proved something, right?” He cast a meaningful look around the table at his friends.
“It means you can craft only one of these at a time,” said Ippei.
Seiki’s eyes shot back toward the beguilingly simple item in the middle of the table. “You mean it’s… unique?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute!” cried Yamura. “You’re telling me that if we find this Insignia thing to put in, we’ll get a unique piece of gear?” He grabbed the item and started flipping it around to look for clues.
“Uh, actually,” Kentaro interjected in a quiet voice. “Every piece of crafted gear at high levels is unique in some way, because there are so many stat combinations.”
“Oh, come on,” said Mairin. “This is, like, unique unique. Okay, Yamura, can you equip it?”
The ryoushi tried, then shook his head. “Nope.”
“Can you Pickpocket it?” said Mairin. “Here, give it to me and you try, since you have Pickpocketing, right?”
“You have to try that outside,” said Kentaro. “Our seal-enforced room panels prevent Pickpocketing.”
“Oh,” said Mairin, before leaping to her feet and nodding to Yamura. “All right. Test outside real quick? Come on. You’re the only one with Pickpocketing. Okay, we’ll be right back.”
“Hey, don’t… Never mind.” Kentaro sighed as the two disappeared out of sight.
“Another mystery, then.” Ippei leaned over to slide the door shut. “Just when we think we’ve solved one, it turns out we’ve solved only half.”
“At least I think we can safely say this is what the Kano Castle was really after,” said Seiki. “This Red Headband Master Pattern recipe came from a named scroll. The Pottery Scroll at the White Crane Hall was also a named scroll. If they all turn out to give you recipes for unique items…”
“So maybe that ninja who invaded the White Crane Hall learned the recipe, then crafted the unique item, and then deleted his character?” said Kentaro. “I’ve always wondered who would level their Trade Skill all the way to the highest level and then throw it away like that. Maybe he already achieved what
he set out to do.”
“That’s possible. If we’re talking unique items here, I’m not surprised by the amount of dedication and the resources people are putting into it,” said Ippei.
Seiki nodded. “And two times out of two, when there are named scrolls involved, the Kano Castle shows up.”
Ippei chuckled. “I hate to say this, but the exact same thing can be said about you.”
Seiki stared at his friend, and then let out a soft curse. “And now everyone’s going to be convinced we know something.” He looked uneasily at Kentaro as another thought occurred to him. “This is bad, isn’t it? Now you’ve got the very thing they want.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not worried,” said the houshi. “Even the most powerful clan needs to buy and commission things, and, well, to put it bluntly, they can’t afford to touch Crafters’ Guild members.”
That, undeniably, made Seiki slightly more relieved. He knew it was true. After Kentaro had joined the Guild, everyone, including the Rogami Clan, had pretty much left their charm-selling spot in the kakigouri shop alone.
“Well, if you want to join…” Kentaro began, and both Seiki and Ippei burst out laughing.
“Yeah, with my Level Zero Woodcrafting,” said Seiki.
Ippei shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but, going by the fact that Kano Castle originally split from the Shinshioka Nobles, I don’t think they’re going to directly come after us. It’s just not their style.”
“What do you mean?” said Seiki.
“There’s no use spilling blood when there’s no benefit for them,” said Ippei. “I think we’re going to get… a message.”
“Like an offer-you-can’t-refuse kind of message?”
Ippei nodded, and he fell into silent musing again, with the same expression he had worn all that afternoon. “But if we can get ourselves into a stronger position, we might be able to ignore the offer.”
“You mean if we manage to convince the West Defenders this Tuesday, they might leave us alone to avoid dragging the West Defenders into this.” Seiki interpreted his friend’s unspoken thought.