by R. A. Mejia
Mary snaps her fingers and declares, “Your magical sniper could take them all out,” then sighing she continues, “But I’d need someone to provide cover, or I’ll get skewered by all those arrows.”
I nod my head at Mary’s suggestion, “That is a pretty good plan, but even with Kitsune healing one of us, I don’t think we’d be able to provide Mary with enough cover with just our bodies. It's a shame I can’t make a wall for us to hide behind like I did in the dungeon in Restrian.” Then considering the idea, I show off the rock knuckles that line my hands and add, “Wait, why can’t I make a wall? I made these using the ‘earth’ symbol. Why can’t I make a wall with them?”
I channel mana to my finger preparing to write the arcane symbol for ‘earth’ and gather stones to an area just in front of the entryway. However, the moment I move in front of the room entrance more arrows come flying towards me, and I have to scramble back or become a human pincushion. Well, there goes that idea.
Mary flies up to me and pats me on the head, “Good try. But I don’t think those skeletal archers are going to let you build a wall.”
Vrax paces in the hallway scratching his scaly head with his claw. He points at me with a clawed finger and says, “It too bad you do not have a shield anymore. You could protect Mary from many arrows.”
That’s it! I get up and walk over to Vrax and kiss him on the head.
He looks at me, surprised by the affectionate action. I smile and explain to him, “You just solved our problem buddy.”
I whisper my idea to him. When he’s done listening, he gives me a toothy smile and says, “You right, that is a good plan. Me pretty smart.”
I laugh at his statement, and we start to pull out all the rusty swords and bows we’d collected and lay them down on the ground. I arrange the rusted swords in an overlapping pattern. They’re all single edged weapons, so it looks like I’m just stacking them next to each other. It takes eight sword blades laid next to each other with the curved edge of each overlapping the next before I’m satisfied with the width. Thankfully, none of these blades has a hand guard, or they’d never fit together this well.
Mary flies over and lands on my shoulder to observe what I’m doing. She tilts her head one way, examining the blades laid out on the ground. Then tilts her head the other way as if looking at it from another angle. Then she shrugs and asks, “I don’t get it. It just looks like your stacking a bunch of swords next to each other. How’s that going to help us?”
I smile mischievously at her and carefully lean down to put my forearm across the midsection of the stacked blades. Mary’s eyes widen, and she exclaims, “You’re making a shield out of the blades?”
I shake my head and tell her, “Nope. I’m making two shields. One for each arm. That way I can protect you from both sides.”
She shakes her head in disbelief and pats me on the side of the head, “Well, I guess you're our crafty crafter after all. Please don’t name it something stupid though.”
I scoff in mock indignation and place my hand on my chest, “Me? Name it something stupid? Whatever gave you the idea that I’m a terrible namer? I’ll have you know I’ve named plenty of things wonderfully.” Then looking at her deadpan expression, I amend, “Well, maybe not wonderfully, but at least adequately.”
She laughs out loud and says, “Yeah. What did you call the first spear you made? Your ‘horny spear’?”
I stutter momentarily before admitting, “Well, it was made out of a horn after all. That doesn’t mean...”
Mary doesn’t let me finish. Instead, she points at me like I’m a witness on the stand, and she’s the prosecutor. She asks, “What did you name those things that are covering your knuckles right now?”
I roll my eyes but answer, “Well, they’re like brass knuckles but made out of rock, so rock knuckles.”
Mary waves her hand dismissively while pacing on my shoulder, “Yes, very…descriptive. But hardly an impressive name.”
I tilt my head, scoff, and ask, “Well, what would you have called them then?”
As if she was waiting for just this question she takes a moment to pretend to think before answering, “Oh, I don’t know. How about knuckle busters? Skull crackers? Thing-amajigs? Or if you want a slight double entendre, the thing you use to get your rocks off.”
Damn. Those are better names. Why didn’t I think of those? I sigh in defeat. “Fine, you’re such a great namer. Once I’m done putting this together, you can name it.”
Mary sniffs and flies off, leaving me to my work. Finally, I can see if this is even going to work. Having laid out the swords in the proper places, I spellwrite ‘fire’ in the air above me and add direction symbols that will channel the heat to the area where the second blade overlaps the first. It’s a straight edge that overlaps the curved edge of the one before it. Having a directional symbol placed every two inches along this length, I focus on the spell. I close my eyes and use the same technique I did when creating the knuckle busters. Yeah, that’s what I’m calling them now. Why throw a perfectly good name away? Anyways, instead of imagining drawing in stone instead of dirt. I imagine funneling extreme amounts of heat and fire through the spell. I imagine raging volcanoes, torrents of fire, white-hot furnaces. I can feel the heat gathering, and I break out in a sweat. I focus my mind to funnel all that heat through the directional symbols onto the smallest points possible, maximizing the transfer of energy to just those small points. My heads beginning to throb from the mental effort of channeling the heat but when I open my eyes, I see that all along the straight edge of the second blade where the directional symbols pointed, the two swords are welded together.
I smile broadly at the results and mentally ‘Woo Hoo.' I just created magical spot welding!
Once I’ve created the technique it doesn’t take me much time to repeat the process for the rest of the blades before me. Magical spot welding is an intensive process, and I have to take a break to recover my mana about midway through the swords. By this time, Kitsune has already finished her meditation, and she’s watching me curiously. Apparently, Mary filled her in on what I’m doing, and she’s curious about the process.
While I’m resting, Kitsune questions me about my knowledge of metalworking. She’s never seen anyone try to join metals the way I’m doing it. I laugh and tell her that I’ve only done this type of metal joining a few times before. But where I’m from, there are lots of people that can do this, and they can do it much better than I can. I try to describe welding but realize I can’t unless I give her a rundown of a lot of other processes. So I simplify it by saying they have a particular type of magic they use that creates really hot flames that join the metals together. She seems satisfied by this explanation.
When I’ve recovered my mana, I get back to work on the first ‘sword shield.' Ok, maybe Mary’s right. I do suck at naming stuff. Anyways, I finish the first ‘sword shield’ and take a step back to examine my work. Not bad. I pick up the now solid work by the sword handles on the bottom and flex the welded metal. It reacts like a piece of sheet metal. A little bendy but still a solid piece. Nice.
While I’d been welding the swords together, Vrax disassembled one of the rusty swords for its handle and hands it to me. By welding the blade portion of the sword perpendicular across the back of the shield, I’m able to create enough of a raised area to attach just the handle of the sword. This creates a space for me to grab and lift the shield. I’ll admit, when I try to lift the shield with one arm, it’s a bit cumbersome and unbalanced. But it’ll get the job done.
It takes me another couple of hours to complete the second ‘sword shield, ’ and when I’m done with it, I show off my work to everyone. Vrax is suitably impressed by the pointy creation. Mary and Kitsune, however, give me odd looks when I try to wield both shields at the same time. Mary says that when I hold them both up in front of me, it looks like I’m that neighbor from Home Improvement, Wilson. The reference is lost on Vrax and Kitsune but they get that Mary’s making fu
n of me.
Gesturing to the shields I ask, “So, now that they’re finished. What are you going to name them Mary?”
She smiles at me and declares with a glint in her eye, “I shall name them, ‘The pointy shields of pain’!”
I laugh out loud. The pointy shields of pain? And she says I suck at naming things. I keep laughing until a notification pops up.
You’ve crafted an object, The Pointy Shields of Pain.
Pointy Shields of Pain
These shields are made from materials the amateur crafter had on hand, rusty swords. They’re almost as likely to hurt someone as they are to protect the user. Must be used as a set to receive defense bonus.
Defense: 5 (individual), 11 (set)
Durability: 10/10
You've gained a level in [Craftsmanship]. Novice 5.
My laughter stops as I read the notification declaring that the official name of the shields are now Pointy Shields of Pain. Looking at the item’s defense, I’m glad to get some kind of set bonus at least.
“What’s wrong Armon? You were laughing pretty hard a second ago?” Mary teases.
“Nothing. Let’s just go kill those skeletal archers so we can get to the boss room,” I say in a mildly pouty tone.
With a shield equipped in each hand, I step in front of the entrance to the chamber with the archers and immediately hear a ‘ping’ sound as an arrow strikes the shield in my left hand. The shields are tall enough to cover my upper body and head, but they leave my legs and feet exposed. I realize this little design flaw when an arrow strikes the ground an inch from my right foot. To compensate, I drop to one knee so that the shields protect most of my body now.
“You all set up?” Mary asks from somewhere behind me.
More arrows ping off the Pointy Shields of Pain but none of them cause any damage. One or two fly completely over my head and the shields to strike the stone wall behind me. I advise Mary, “Yeah. Just fly low along the ground until you get to the shield and then fly up along it till you get to the top. From between the points of the swords at the top of the shield you should have a good view of the skeletal archers.”
She snickers and responds, “You got it, Wilson.”
I roll my eyes at the Home Improvement joke, “Yeah, yeah. Hidy-ho, neighbor! Now Get over here and start killing archers. These shields are heavy.”
I hear giggling as Mary flies towards me, around my bent knee, then up the back of the shield. She hovers and inch below the pointy top of the shield and turns around to face me. She’s only a quarter of an inch from my face when she says, “Would you please stop breathing on my wings? It’s making it hard to fly. “
“Oh, god! Really?! Now I have to hold my breath while you aim? Fine.” The shields still taking a constant barrage of arrows, I take a deep breath and hold it. Mary turns around and flies just high enough to peek through the tips of the swords that make up the top of the shield. She spots an enemy, mutters some magical incantation and raises her hands above her head. Three purple arcane bolts fly from her raised hands and shoot towards one of the skeletal archers.
Mary deals damage: 5
Mary deals damage: 3
Mary deals damage: 3
Mary squeals in delight and turns around to face me, “It worked! Told you I could get them from here if I had some protection.”
My lungs feel like they’re going to burst and I can’t hold my breath anymore. I let out all the breath I was holding and gasp in a new lung full of fresh air. After a few seconds panting, I notice that Mary is watching me with a smirk on her face and she doesn’t seem to be having any trouble hovering. I intentionally blow air in her direction, but it only pushes her back a fraction of an inch before she corrects herself.
Suddenly, she bursts out laughing, “I can’t believe you actually held your breath.” Then looking at me with an incredulous expression continues, “You know that I fly against some pretty hard winds all the time, right? Why would you believe that your breath would bother me?” She smiles and pinches her nose, “Though I’ll admit, it’s starting to get a little funky. You really should have packed a toothbrush.”
I scowl and intentionally exhale in her face. She pretends to gag and waves her hand in front in her nose. I can’t help but smile at her antics and say, “Ok. Ok. It’s been fun, but seriously, these shields aren’t getting any lighter. Would you mind killing these skeletons please?”
“Only because you said please,” she says before turning around and resuming her magical sniping. She kills the archer she’d already hit with the next barrage of magical missiles and is able to shoot another four before she starts to run out of mana. We pull back, Mary flying back down to the ground first then off to the side of the entryway back to Kitsune and Vrax. I slowly crouch walk backwards, then pivot so that my back is against the wall beside the entryway. Arrows continue to fly through the room’s entrance for another few seconds before the archers stop firing.
I drop the Pointy Shields of Pain to the ground as I sit down and rest. My stamina is three-fourths drained from holding up those heavy shields and taking all those arrows. When I examine the shields, I see that they’re already down a couple points of durability. They should last long enough for us to finish off the rest of the skeletal archers though.
We go through two more rounds of Mary sniping from behind the duel shields before the last of the skeletal archers falls into a pile of bones. I give the room a quick scan to make sure there are no other surprises before I drop the shields and rest my sweaty back against the wall. It’s a hard workout holding up those shields since each arrow drains a bit of stamina when it hits. However, besides gaining eighty-six XP from killing a dozen archers, I also get a level in [Shield Mastery] putting me at novice level seven.
Oddly, because all the archers were stuck up on platforms attached to the walls, Mary is on loot pickup duty for once. Sure, she moans and complains about picking through the bones, but she does the job. She drops all the bows and leftover arrows onto the ground where Vrax and I pick them up and store them in our inventories. Kitsune collects all the arrows that were launched at us near the entrance. Between the three of us, we collect two hundred and seventy-two arrows. We add those to the ones we’ve already gathered from archers in the other parts of this level of the dungeon. It’s good to know that we have plenty of firewood now if we get cold tonight.
Once the room is cleared of loot and weapons, we gather in front of the dungeon boss door. We take the time to rest and recover our stamina and mana. We decide that since Mary is the one that cleared the room, she should get the honor of opening the double doors that lead to the boss. She graciously accepts the honor with a midair bow and flies to the door handle. However, no matter how hard she tugs the doors just don’t want to open.
Letting go of the door handle, she turns and tells the group, “Something is wrong with the doors.”
I smile at my fairy friend and say, “It’s ok. Your strength stat is probably not high enough to open them. Here, let me do it.” I walk to the doors and firmly grasp the handle with both hands and pull. However, it doesn’t budge.
I hear a giggle behind me and turn to see Mary smirking, “What’s wrong? Is the big strong human’s strength stat not high enough?”
I make a face at her, “Ok, maybe I deserved that. But it’s still weird that the doors aren’t opening. We’ve never had a problem opening any of them before.”
Kitsune purses her lips for a moment before her eyes widen. She points at the doors and says, “There. Look at the corners of the door frame.”
I step back from the doors and see what she’s pointing at. At each corner of the door frame is a jewel. One blue, one green, one yellow, and one red. Of the four gems set into the frame only the one on the bottom right corner, the red one, is glowing faintly. I slap my head in frustration. Of course, those stupid jewels. As we explored the maze-like tunnels on this floor of the dungeon, we came across gems set into some of the walls with brass rings below t
hem. The first one was red, and when we pulled the ring, skeletons dropped from the ceiling. We thought it was just a trap and when we found two other ones, each with a different colored jewel, we left them alone.
“Crap, we have to go back into the tunnels,” I say to everyone, a little exasperation in my voice.
Kitsune already having realized what the jewels in the door mean explains, “Those jewels and rings we found while exploring? They aren’t traps. Well, they are traps since they drop skeletons from the ceiling. But they’re also part of a puzzle to unlock this door.” She points to the red jewel on the door frame, “See, the only one that’s glowing is the one that we pulled the ring for. We have to go back and find the rest of the jewels and pull those rings too.”
I hear a chuckle echo in the room, then a laugh, “ YoHoHoHoHo! You finally figured it out? I was wondering how long it would take you.”
All of us groan. We spent hours going through those tunnels to find this place. Now we have to go back? That’s just cruel.
The dungeon master must sense our frustration because he says, “Oh, don’t groan at me. It’s not my fault you didn’t realize what those jewels were for. Besides, you’ve cleared out most of the skeletons on this level already. So, now all you have to do is find the jewels again and pull all the remaining rings. Good hunting to you.”