“I can see your Stats and upgrade them if you have the necessary Experience,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“I don’t know what that means,” she said, looking from me to the sword, but I had a feeling she knew more than she claimed. “Say can I see that?”
“Um… I don’t really think—”
“I won’t steal it,” she said, making a grab for it that put her well within my personal space. As her hands closed around the hilt, I tried to push her away, but soon found she was way, way stronger than me. “If you resist, it will just get harder.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said as she pulled Clarent from my grip and held it in front of her. As soon as she did, the glow clinging to the symbols died away. Even still, she looked at it closely before her long black tongue snaked out and wrapped around the blade like a giraffe teasing leaves off a branch.
“What are you doing?” I cried, making a grab for the weapon, but she turned her back to me.
“Checking the sword,” she said, smacking her lips. “Do I taste gun oil?” She shook her head. “Don’t you know that messing with antiques ruins the value?”
“It’s my sword.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I knew that it did which was why Merle hadn’t cleaned it, but at the same time, it had been really dirty, and I hadn’t done anything that’d leave a mark…
“That it is, Builder,” she replied, offering me the weapon. “Thanks for letting me look at it.” She almost sounded sincere.
“Did that hurt?” I asked, taking the weapon from her. Once again it began to glow, and this time a green orb appeared above Sam’s head.
“What?” she asked before glaring at me. “What do you mean, ‘did that hurt?’” Her eyes began to burn and black-feathered wings sprouted from her back, rippling out from her flesh to stand out against the shop. “If this is where you say ‘when you fell from Heaven,’ I will set you on fire.”
I raised a hand defensively. “Oh, is that funny because you’re a demon?” I asked realizing that I needed to explain myself before things got out of hand. Shaking my head, I quickly followed up, “No, I was gonna make a snide remark about you saying thank you, but that’s way better. I’m gonna totally use that.”
“I wouldn’t. It’s sort of a sore subject around here,” Gwen quipped.
Sam ran a hand through her hair and elaborated with a strained voice, “None of us even knows how we got here. The war that split Heaven and Hell was before our time. That makes it even more annoying to be put upon about it.”
“Point taken,” I said as her wings flapped. “Now put those away.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” she said, but she complied, furling her wings back into her flesh.
“He is, actually,” Gwen said, coming out of the building. “I suppose, technically I am, but since he’s the Builder, I’ve abdicated my power to him so he can help us.”
“So, what does that mean for us? That you handed us off to him?” Her voice colored with irritation, almost anger. “You should have asked me how I felt about that before selling me like a common whore,” Sam said, glaring at Gwen.
The succubus wiped some soot from her shoulder. “Oh, I was unaware this was a democracy.” She pulled out an invisible stack of papers and began looking through it. “Hmm, that’s strange. In the contract, it just says I’m the boss, and I can do what I want. Odd.” She held out the invisible papers. “You want to look, Sam? Maybe you can find the clause where I give two handfuls of warm shit what you think?”
If looks could kill, Sam would have murdered Gwen, but instead, the blacksmith just sighed. “I’ll be in my shop,” she muttered before stomping off like a chastised school girl.
“So, as I was saying, we have a ton to work with.” Gwen gestured at the retreating blacksmith. “Lots of potential.”
8
“Okay, well, I guess the first thing is to go through all the Stained and see if any of them have any useful Skills,” I said to Gwen as Sam stormed off and slammed the door to her shop even though it was still smoky as Hell inside.
“Makes sense,” Gwen replied with a shrug. “I survey them all when they come in, and I don’t recall anything of mention.” She touched my shoulder with one slender finger. “But maybe you can see something I can’t.”
“Here’s to hoping,” I said, nodding to her. “Then we need to look at these buildings and go on a recruitment drive.” I sighed as I glanced back at the smithy. “Damn, I forgot to scope out Sam while we were talking. We should probably do that first.” I shot a glance at Gwen and winked. “I trust your assessment of the Stained for now.”
“Aww thanks,” she said, nodding to me. “Tell you what, you go bother Sam and I’ll round up the Stained and bring them here. That way we can be more efficient.” She smacked her hands together. “You know, the relentless elimination of waste and all that.”
I shook my head at her. “You sound like my old boss. He was way into that Kaizen crap, made me read a whole bunch of books on the subject by Taiichi Ohno on how to make stuff more efficient by following the Toyota Way.” I rubbed my chin. “Maybe that would actually work…”
“I have no idea what you mean by that.” Gwen stared at me for a few moments. “Well, while you noodle on that, I’ll go do my thing. Papers to push, Stained to round up and all that.” She turned on her heel and strode away, giving me a spectacular view of her ass, but I was way too much of a gentleman to look… for long.
When I did finally tear my eyes away from the succubus, I wiped my face with my hand. I couldn’t think about her like that. For one, she was a succubus, and if I knew anything, sleeping with a succubus was probably a bad idea.
“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together and moving toward the shop. “Let’s tame a shrew.”
A loud crash echoed from inside as I knocked on the door of Sam’s shop. When there was no response, probably because of the crash, I grabbed the tarnished bronze handle and twisted it. The door opened, hinges screeching in a way that let me know they’d probably never been oiled.
The inside of the shop was barely more than a large square covered in soot. Black stained every inch of the wood and stone interior. Several of the beams looked like they’d been chewed through with flames. It was a marvel that the whole structure hadn’t just come tumbling down.
Sam stood in the corner, a huge, iron sledgehammer-looking thing over one shoulder. She was staring at what looked like a black iron forge, only unlike the ones I’d seen in movies and the renaissance faire, this one looked like it’d been beaten to shit. Dings and cracks covered the exterior of the structure, and even though it wasn’t lit, I could see what had happened. There was a large crack along one side toward the bed where the fire sat. If it was lit, that flame would penetrate outward through the stone buffer into the wooden wall just a few feet away.
It wouldn’t have been a problem if the insulation for the forge was intact, but since it wasn’t, the heat would flow outward until, well, I’d seen the results of that.
“I know you’re there,” Sam said, not looking at me. “Do you need something else, Arthur?”
“Yeah, actually,” I said, moving closer. If my hunches were right, Sam was probably one of the most talented and crucial elements to this outpost. She was where I needed to start if I thought I could actually do anything helpful here. “I wanted to chat with you if you had time.” I moved next to her and stared down at the forge. “I cannot believe you even work with this thing. You must be supremely talented to get anything done.”
She looked sidelong at me. “I see what you’re doing, but it won’t work.” Sam was friendlier away from Gwen, not quite a ball of fur, but friendlier.
“I’m not joshing you,” I replied, gesturing at the forge. “This is cracked, which means heat will spill out. That means the forge won’t get to proper temperature, so the metal inside won’t get to the right temperature. Assuming you could even work with the metal like that, all sorts of imperfections will be introduced. That
the stuff you make still works is a testament to your Skill.”
“Oh.” She stared at me for a moment. Thoughts swirled in her intelligent pink eyes as she looked me up and down. “Well, you’re right. You want a prize or something?” She was more facetious than sarcastic. My presence must have had a softening influence on her. That’s what I was going to tell myself anyway.
“Look,” I said, holding up Clarent. “We both know this thing is jacked up beyond all repair, but it at least lets me see your Skill sheet. I just wanted to take a gander at it. Then maybe we can work on making this place awesome.”
“You just asked if you could look at me in one of the most intimate ways possible.” She pointed at me with her hammer. “It probably doesn’t seem like it, but you’re reducing me to ones and zeroes.” She touched her hand to her chest. “I am more than the sum of my Stats.”
“Oh, totally,” I said, nodding to her. Sam definitely knew more than she had let on earlier. “But I still want to look. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but it has to happen.” I smiled at her. “Afterward, I’d love to chat with you about the state of things. Gwen seems great, but I’m willing to bet you might have some ideas on what’s wrong with this, uh, place.”
“I could see you about to say dump,” she scoffed before rolling her eyes so hard I was surprised they didn’t pop out of her skull. “Fiiiine.” She nodded at me and spread her arms. “You can look, but you can’t touch.”
I nodded to her. “Thanks, I’ll try to be quick.”
Name: Samantha
Experience: 6,762
Health: 80/80
Mana: 149/149
Primary Power: Smithing
Secondary Power: None selected
Strength: 54/100
Agility: 26/100
Charisma: 20/100
Intelligence: 76/100
Special: 73/100
Perk: Rank 3 Blacksmith (Officially reduced to Rank 5)
“Whoa, you have a ton of unspent Experience,” I said, shaking my head. “You must work really hard.”
“I do work really hard. No one makes third Rank by being lazy. It’s complete horseshit they reduced my Rank,” Sam grumbled. “Besides, if I didn’t work hard, we’d be totally screwed. For the last thousand years, Gwen has barely done anything to keep up the place. It’s why we’re in such a sad state now. Everyone who could afford to leave did as soon as the front lines fell. Now, it’s so dangerous, it’s impossible to leave. A few tried to make it, but most were slaughtered along the way and forced to return. So, for better or worse, I’m stuck here.”
“So why were you here to begin with? Does it have something to do with why you got demoted?” I asked, taking in what she’d said. Gwen had said the town was poor, but maybe that’s because she hadn’t been doing a good job? Sam had also seemed to imply being here was a punishment, which was also interesting.
“Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath. “As I said, I don’t want to talk about it, but that’s why I was forced to take a contract with Gwen. If I hadn’t, it’d be some other border town. Hopefully, if I work a few more terms with Gwen, I’ll be able to get back to my old rank and make some real money.” As she spoke, I noticed that the Perk section of her menu was highlighted in red. I selected it and an additional dialog box opened.
Rank 3 Blacksmith: Able to use Skills and Abilities based on Rank 3 Skill. This will allow the blacksmith to produce Rank 3 items 70% of the time. There is a 15% chance of crafting a Rank 2 item. There is a 10% chance of crafting a Rank 4 item. There is a 5% chance of crafting a Rank 5 item.
Note: Demotion present. Items will be considered by official channels to have a maximum Rank of five. This does not affect their quality, only their resale and acceptance values.
“That demotion sucks,” I said, looking up at Sam. “It says that you can make Rank three items, but some ass hat has made it so you can only sell them like they are Rank five.”
“I’m aware. As I said, that’s the only reason I’m still here,” she said, shaking her head. “Why if I ever get my hands on Guildmistress Nina, I’ll…” she trailed off into mumbling as I opened her Primary Power window.
Smithing: User has the Ability to learn smithing related trees. None have currently been selected.
Like with Sheila, Sam already had an Ability Tree that displayed a bunch of Skills. Some, like Weapon Repair, were already known.
Below the known Abilities were a list of Unknown Abilities, which included everything from smelting to engineering. I clicked on the smelting one for fun, and it opened into a huge Skill Tree with basic ore at the top and flowed through, allowing the user to craft different ores. None of them were particularly expensive, costing between fifty and a hundred Experience points each, but the cost of the tree itself was over a thousand.
“I think I have to purchase the Skill Tree itself, and then I’m allowed to buy the individual Skills inside.” I looked up at Sam who was giving me a blank look.
“I don’t really have any idea what you’re talking about,” Sam replied, staring intently at me. “Can you explain in words?”
“Oh, um, okay. Like, you have a bunch of accumulated Experience points, over six thousand actually. I can spend your Experience to buy Skill Trees. Like I just looked, and you don’t know Smelting. So, I could spend some of your Experience and cause you to learn the Ability. Then I could spend more Experience to have you learn how to use different ores and make different metals.” I shrugged weakly. “Does that make any sense?”
“Sort of,” she replied and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “What about things I already know how to do?”
“I’m not sure, let me look,” I said, and I selected weapon repair. As I did, it opened a new window.
Weapon Repair
Skill: 7/10.
User can repair items with a maximum Skill requirement of 7. The quality of repair will depend on the Rank of the item being repaired as well as the time spent on the repair.
Below that was an upgrade tab, and when I looked at it, another message appeared.
Do you want to upgrade Weapon Repair to Skill level 8? Base cost 4,000 Experience. This price can be reduced by attaining an overall Rank of 2 in Smithing.
“Um, yes, but it’s expensive. I guess if you were Rank two, it’d cost less. How do you increase your Rank with the guild?” I asked, looking at her.
“Normally?” She blew out an exasperated breath. “You take a smithing test. The guild will give you a bunch of tasks, and you have to complete it by crafting Rank two items at least seventy percent of the time. Only, I'm not allowed to take the test because I’ve been demoted, so I have to retake the Rank four and three tests. I could pass them, but I don’t have the cash for that.” She sighed again. “It’s why I signed on with a regiment to come out here. I get a fifty percent bonus by being out in the waystations because no one likes to be in them. It almost makes up for my pay as a Rank five smith.”
“What’s it cost to take the test?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “Actually, how’s money work here, anyway?”
“You really are fresh off the turnip truck, aren’t you?” She laughed. “Our primary form of money is Blood Coin. Each test costs a thousand Blood Coins times the level, so the level four test will cost four thousand coins. To put that in perspective, I make fifty coins a month here.”
“Wait,” I said, making a time out gesture, “I don’t even understand why you need money here. And Gwen talked about it too. There’s a giant void of death coming toward us right now. You’d think there’d be more people here to fight.”
“Hell hasn’t worked that way since our queen left nearly ten millennia ago. Before, she was able to command everyone to do things that made sense, but when she suddenly left, there was a power vacuum to fill...” Sam shook her head.
“She left? To where? Wait. Who’s in charge?” I asked, interrupting her.
Sam continued on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Everything fell to the bureaucrats w
orking for her, the guild leaders. They’ve done little more than consolidate their power under the guise of protecting us.” Sam clenched her fists in frustration. “Now, you can’t get anything done without chasing signatures from fifty people who don’t want to help you. Stupid bureaucratic paperwork and red tape.”
Hell seemed a lot like home. Maybe there was some truth to the whole hell on earth bit. “Sure, it sounds like a pain, but I’m still not clear why there aren’t more demons fighting the Darkness on the frontlines, especially if the pay is better,” I added sheepishly.
“Right, let me lay it out for you,” Sam said, a little bit of annoyance directed toward me. “I took a contract to come here. My Guildmistress gets a certain percentage of the profit for my contract since I am part of her guild.” She paused and stared at me until I nodded my understanding.
“My Guildmistress uses that profit to buy more contracts. As one of the original guild leaders from when the queen left, she’s had some assistance from the other original guild leaders disbanding competing guilds. If you are a blacksmith, you work for her. Period. It’s that simple.” Anger at the system leaked into her voice as she spoke. “Since she owns almost all the blacksmiths, it’s almost impossible for the regiments to secure a contract for a blacksmith without paying her ridiculous price and she has no reason to lower the price. It’s a whole thing where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”
“But there’s an all-consuming Darkness out there. I get people wanting to be rich, but it could eat them.” I pointed toward the horizon. “They should be helping.”
“Part of it is denial. The Royal Centre doesn’t think it will get to them anytime soon. After all, the front lines just fell, and they stood for millennia. They think towns like this one will last just as long, but they’re wrong.” She sighed and rubbed her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “But then again, someone seems to understand how dire the situation is. Outposts like this are the last barrier holding the Darkness away from the Royal Centre. If we fall, it’ll only be a matter of time before the Darkness surrounds the Centre, wears down its walls, and consumes every last one of them.” She furrowed her eyebrows and wrinkled her forehead in thought. “Besides, imagine their perspective. If they sent troops here, and those troops died, they wouldn’t have people to protect them when the time comes. Everyone’s largely treading water and trying not to think about it.”
The Builder's Sword (The Legendary Builder Book 1) Page 5