He smiled at it and gratefully ate it, feeling rather ravenous after his labors. A prompt flashed across his vision.
[Finalization Stage]
Layering Complete.
Grade 5: Recall V
Recall Distance: 3 miles
Provide a name for your weapon to complete the item’s creation.
Hal thought about that for a moment. He tried to think of what a proper sounding sword would be. Nothing like Excalibur or something like that. He wanted a single word to describe the weapon.
Just as he was about to give up, the name came to him. Grinning stupidly at the double meaning of the word given the context, he completed the process by mentally inscribing the weapon’s name.
Bringing up the finalized inspection showed him a few pleasant surprises.
Emissary (Fabled)
Design Process: Stage IV (Finalization)
Damage: 37 - 48
Crystal Lightning Damage: 13 - 18
Bonus Points: +12 MND
Enchantments: Mana Condenser
Durability: 750/750
Details:
Empyreal Shardite Edge
Compressed Bone
Aspected Core (Crystal Manashard)
Most of the caravan was packing up, ready for another day of travel. Within a day or two they should be out of the Mirrorlands. And then everybody would be able to breathe a little easier.
The Mirrorlands were great for minerals and ore if the nightly hauls of the miners were any measure. But they were quickly eating into their stores of food and water. Hunting or gathering anything edible was almost impossible in the Mirrorlands.
And the still ponds of strange water didn’t engender any trust with their strange prismatic reflections and odd viscosity.
Luckily, the trip along the way there was bountiful with the Rangers constantly on alert to replenish and stock up on fresh meat and foraged food. It was through their efforts alone that each of the meals for the eighty-plus members of the Bravers Guild was as rich and delicious as it was.
Sheathing [Emissary] at his hip, Hal got up to help get his wagon ready for the road. Likely, everybody was already done with anything necessary and they were all sitting around enjoying a pot of tea.
I really miss coffee, Hal thought to himself.
It wasn’t that coffee was unknown on Aldim, but it was expensive and difficult to get ahold of. Tea, on the other hand, kept well over long distances. And as an Herbalist, Ashera was exceptionally skilled at both making it and brewing up unique blends.
As Hal trudged into the wagon, he was greeted by the warm scene that was becoming their morning ritual. He may have missed breakfast but he was glad he was still in time for morning tea.
Even if he would have preferred coffee.
“Ho, there you are, Hal!” Angram said, settling down into his seat. “When Ashera said not to disturb you I thought you were sick. What were you doing all by your lonesome? You looked like you were completely checked out.”
Instead of answering with words, Hal grinned and pulled out [Emissary]. Placing it on the table for them all to see, he took several steps back as each of them looked over the crystallized weapon. It was barely discernible from its simple boney origins.
Komachi slid on her belly towards the blade and sniffed it intently, her nose twitching. She looked up toward Hal and said, “I too study the way of the blade.” The pobul stared at him with the most profound, unfathomable gaze as she waited for him to get the joke.
Mira snickered first, but Hal wasn’t far behind as he smiled and shook his head at the strange little pobul.
He still needed to get a leather wrapping for the handle, something thin and form-fit to the grooves already present. Maybe one of the dwarves could help him with that. Somebody had to be a Leatherworker.
As everybody was studying the strange crystalline curved blade, Hal couldn’t help but test out the Recall ability. Focusing on his connection to the sword, he shut his eyes and called to it.
In a flash of light, it disappeared from the table, causing a brief disturbance that rattled their mugs and stirred a slight wind. The stunned expressions looked at the table then questioningly at Hal, only to stare agape at the weapon in his hand.
“You have got to teach me how you do that!” Mira cried excitedly as the pobul drummed her paws on the table in chorusing agreement.
52
The rest of the day and the one following, Hal spent all his free time working out new potential recipes and the limits of his Blades of Bone ability.
With the caravan settling into a comfortable pace as they retraced their path out of the Mirrorlands, Hal had a lot of time to himself.
Much of that time, he chose to spend in the wagon with Vorax nearby watching him. Whenever she wasn’t busy, Mira was at his side asking questions and in general, showing a surprising interest in something that wasn’t battle-related.
Sitting in front of the campfire nearest to Hal’s wagon had become a nightly ritual. One that was noticed by whoever it was that took care of the campfires. Hal made a mental note to find out who it was and thank them. They had clearly stoked his fire before he came out sometime in the dark of early morning when any normal person was asleep.
The dwarves, of course, were out in force. They had found a vein of [Empyreal Shardite] and were working overtime to get as much of it as they could. They even went as far as to request a delay in order to fully explore the vein.
A request Durvin had declined, but one that Hal was giving serious thought about. The yellow-blue shifting crystal was highly versatile and that made it valuable.
Despite its monetary value, Hal desired it for what it could do when combined with bone. By infusing bone with [Empyreal Shardite], he could dramatically strengthen the resulting item and give it a magical capacity.
Which begged the question: What if he focused on simply creating a piece of bone whose only purpose was to be filled with [Empyreal Shardite]? A goldsmith could easily carve a chunk of the stuff but more often than not it didn’t come in a large enough piece.
[Shardite] and its empyreal version were both surrounded by [Unrefined Crystal], useful on its own according to the miners but it made the resulting [Shardite] fractured. Most pieces were no larger than his thumb.
But when he placed them within the bone, the [Shardite] seemed to fuse together, using the ossified material to connect the disparate pieces.
The problem was Blades of Bone was oriented toward battle. Its main use was to fashion a weapon that could be used mid-battle or near enough.
Every design Hal could come up with to improve upon the ability felt like he was stepping further and further from its original intention. And as a result, he felt limited.
Making a mana battery was effectively impossible if he was tied specifically to only a weapon he knew of. Making a bone spear for Mira was also out of the question. The first few attempts were pathetically weak despite dumping over 800 MP into the “blank” of the item.
He lacked the skill - any skill really - with polearms or spears and Blades of Bone produced the appropriate result.
As he tried to come up with ways to make other items that were neither armor nor weapons, he kept running into a wall. A wall he was growing increasingly, frustratingly, familiar with as he worked to find any sort of loophole.
It was a good thing paper was in relatively abundant supply and was packed into the caravan in large amounts, because Hal was burning through it like mad. Every design he made would be tweaked and altered only to be further annotated when the design failed in its creation.
“Kweh?” Boco, the blue lead karak of the Kweh Gang inquired. He took one large clawed foot and flatted out one of Hal’s rough sketches of a charm or necklace he might be able to make.
Hal couldn’t understand the chirping tune of the karaks but he could guess by context easily enough. Motioning to the drawing on the flattened, shimmering purple grass, Hal said, “I’m trying to come up with a way to mak
e trinkets and items that aren’t weapons but I can’t. Every time I try, it disintegrates or is so brittle a stiff wind cracks the bone.”
Boco let out a low whistling chirrup that sounded surprisingly sympathetic. The large karak bent down and used its beak to poke around the papers, flattening them out and looking them over as Hal continued to scribble.
After a while, Boco made a series of trilling noises that drew Hal from his current task. The karak had taken two of his drawings, one of a simple shortsword and another of a necklace.
Only, the karak had overlaid them atop each other and stabbed a hole through the necklace drawing so that it had the appearance of a trinket dangling from the end of the shortsword.
Tilting his head at Hal, the blue karak let out another, “Kweh?”
Furrowing his brow, Hal bent over and picked up the two pieces of paper. He redrew a simple version of each, wondering if the karak had figured out a loophole that had felt insurmountable. In his drawing at the end of the sword’s hilt was a chain that looped through the pommel and ended in a pendant.
Boco turned to him, gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek, and abruptly left.
Shaking his head, Hal almost bunched up the drawing wondering if the karak was just playing around with the papers.
The karak never once looked back at him to see what he was doing. Refusing to let a potentially good idea go to waste just because he thought he might have been reading too much into things, Hal went to work.
Shortswords were fairly easy for him to do now that he had some days of practice in. Rather than invest a large amount of mana, he chose to use a relatively small quantity, about a third of his total for its creation.
The result was understandably decent. Not impressive by any means, but serviceable.
What was interesting was the chain at the end with the pendant. Usually, anything that was deemed non-weaponry was brittle or disintegrated soon after it was made.
Hal gave the ossified chain a good tug and it held with surprising resolve. Inspecting it, he could find a few imperfections but nothing that jumped out as inherently catastrophic. The issues he found were well in line with what he would expect from using such a small amount of mana to create it.
Since it was still in the refinement stage, Hal could mold the bone like clay if he suffused his mana into the material and willed it to move.
The necklace was fully formed, but it was still looped through the pommel ring of the sword. With a small thread of mana feeding into the weapon, Hal broke open the ring of the pommel.
Gently as he could, fully expecting the necklace to crumble, Hal removed the thin chains of the necklace from the sword. He stared curiously at each.
Resting in his lap was the shortsword, and in his hand was a necklace made out of bone. Neither seemed damaged or weakened by the separation and yet clearly the necklace should not be possible as it was neither weapon nor armor.
When Hal sealed up the ring on the sword’s pommel a golden light swirled around him. Any papers he hadn’t weighed down flew everywhere. Several of his guildmates that were awake turned to gawk at the spectacle but Hal didn’t notice. He was staring at the prompt before his eyes.
New Craft Discovered: Bonecraft
In ages long past, people used to fashion items out of bones as the only ready-made material that was strong enough for their purposes. But procuring bones was a difficult task and one that required a great deal of preparation. As soon as proper woodworking and most of all smithing came into play, the craft was forgotten about.
But there is power in bones. The once-living material has found new life within your hands. As the re-discoverer of a lost art, you now have the ability to teach it to others. More than mere bones can be molded into usable materials. Claws, horns, and even the fabled dragon scales can be used to create wondrous works imbued with the power of their former owner.
As the discoverer, you gain the following benefits:
+10% Profession Experience Points | +10% Crafting Speed | +10% High-Quality Rate
As the Guildmaster of the Bravers, your Guild has received a permanent +10% Reputation bonus for this discovery.
New Trait: Dwarven Craftsman
Dwarves, no strangers to Crafting, always take notice when somebody blazes a new trail into the unknown. For reviving the long-forgotten Bonecrafting Profession, you have gained a level of fame and renown among all dwarf-kind. It is no small feat to revitalize a forgotten Craft and every dwarf will soon know your name.
Whenever you deal with a dwarf, regardless of your reputation with them or their clan, you are treated as somebody 2 reputation Levels higher than your current standing.
You have gained 800 Guild Experience.
The Bravers Guild has reached Level 1.
Guild Perks Available: 1.
You have now unlocked Guild Points.
Guild Points
Guilds generate a number of Guild Points per day, up to a given cap. Both the Guild Point generation and the cap are reliant upon the current Guild Level, the number of members, and any associated perks. Guild Points are used to execute various boons to the entire Guild within the Guild's Territory.
Current Guild Point Generation: 10/day
Current Guild Point Capacity: 200
You have unlocked Guild Territory.
Every guild possesses an area they claim as their own. Guild Skills function solely within their territory or within influence areas supported by sufficiently upgraded Guild Towers. Guild Territory is influenced by Guild Level, alliances or oppositions, any active perks, the number of members, and control of the territory around the guild’s base.
As a guild without a base, your territory radius is significantly reduced and centered upon the Guildmaster.
Current Guild Territory Radius: 2,112 feet (-60% from Caravan Type).
Guild Skill Unlocked: Regeneration
All guild members within the guild’s territory (or their influence area) have their HP regeneration rates increased by 50%.
Guild Point Cost: 10
Duration: 24hrs
Hal looked down at his palms. They were slightly glowing. “That is awesome.”
53
Hands still giving off a subtle glow, Hal brought up his Guild Menu and focused on his Guild Perks.
[Guild Perks]
Awarded every Guild Level, Guild Perks allow you, as the Guildmaster, to give direction and purpose to your guild. There are 4 base forms of Guild Archetypes to choose from: Mercantile, Adventure, Authority, and Settlement. As you presently lack an outpost, camp, or stationary base of operations along with the missing presence of a Manatree, the Settlement Archetype is unavailable to you.
Mercantile Archetype
Mercantile Guilds focus on the creation and acquiring of wealth or rare items. They are often specifically focused on one or two types of generation within a given skill set. Many Mercantile Guilds are formed around a singular discipline such as the Goldsmith's Guild, or the Alchemist's Guild.
The Perks associated with a Mercantile Guild revolve around increasing generation of goods or the acquirement of raw materials within the Guild Territory, as well as various boons to crafting quality.
Each Mercantile Guild Tier requires a certain amount of stored wealth in a Vault - which must be constructed prior to advancement - as well as rare items created or discovered.
Adventure Archetype
Focused on fighting and braving the wilds, an Adventure Guild is one of the most common types of Guilds because of its ease of expansion and requirements. All that is required for an Adventure Guild is a Guild Hall, and those willing to go out into the wilds and fight monsters.
Perks of the Adventure Guild Archetype involve boosts to damage, defense, exploration, and general capacity to improve the combat ability of its members within the Guild Territory.
Guild Tiers require a number of monsters slain, rare monsters slain, and in some cases, rare ingredients harvested from monsters or dungeons clea
red.
Authority Archetype
The management and improvement of the Guild as a whole is achieved through the Authority Archetype. As an agnostic type, Authority allows for the Guild to grow without being constrained to the various requirements imposed upon by the specific Archetypes. As a result, its improvements are often more utilitarian in nature.
A cool night breeze swept in around Hal, ruffling hair as he thought about his options. He focused on the Authority Archetype. As he discussed it with his companions, that seemed the most likely choice for a starter perk.
[Authority Archetype]
Statistics 0/1
Statistics provide in-depth information to a guild's operations, providing insight to its current rate of production, settlement type, and stores.
Without statistics, none of the aforementioned information will be available through the Guild Status menu.
Expands the Guild Bank to 300 storage units and allows up to 2 Guild Chests that can draw items from the Guild Bank so long as they are within 1,000 feet of each other.
Production Rates: The current accumulation rate of various items per day. With the exception of rare items and food, all resources are calculated in tonnage. Food is calculated at a rate of enough food and water for a single person in a given day. Rare items are variable. Consumption values are included, providing a net positive or negative number.
Settlement Type: Settlements come in many shapes and sizes, from camps to outposts to metropolitan regions and everything in between. Each settlement type provides a unique set of bonuses and maluses. This view mode shows the attributes of the current settlement type, all values are on a per-day basis.
Beastborne Page 32