Your HP regenerates at x2 speed outside of combat. If you have recently killed an enemy, you regain x4 HP for 1 hour per slain enemy.
Dust to Dust
If you kill someone using stealth, your enemy will turn into dust, leaving no trace of a corpse to find.
After agonizing over my choices, I decided on Dust to Dust. While the Dark Vitality skill had its advantages, I had cheap Green Moss-based potions that could do the same thing. Dust to Dust was unique, and I could think of at least ten times it could have been useful… assuming I played Dark Lancer as a stealth class. That raised an interesting question. Why hadn’t I been?
Our next stop after levelling was Litvy, where Rin was waiting for us. The Mercurion had the shabby look of someone who had been working from home for too long. While she didn’t eat or drink food, her hair was a muss and her clothing was smeared in everything from powdered metal to machine grease and amalgam.
“Hi guys!” she called to us chirpily as Karalti shifted down beside me. She was not yet a mature dragon – that happened at Level 30 – but she was starting to fill out a little more in the hips and chest when in human form. When Rin saw her, she blushed a brilliant sapphire-blue and pressed her lips together, staring fixedly at her feet. “My gosh, Karalti! I swear you get more gorgeous with every level.”
Karalti’s eyes lidded. “Why, thank you.”
“Maybe put some clothes on before Soma realizes we’re here and comes rushing out with a bouquet of chicken legs for you?” I cleared my throat as a flash of sympathetic heat prickled through my skin. Karalti was starting to get hormonal again, and she wasn’t the only one.
“Why not? I thought you’d want him to have a stroke.” Karalti laughed, obligingly equipping her daily monk-in-training wear. She had started braiding her hair: now that she was officially Vash’s protégée, he had given her a row of small onyx beads that I had woven onto several of her thin flat braids.
“Come with me, guys! I’ve been working all through the morning. I’ve got some stuff for both of you.” Before we could answer, Rin bounced off toward the college buildings.
“Hookshots?” I asked hopefully.
“No, sorry. I wasn’t able to figure them out in time… I’m having some trouble with building a gassing system that can be properly mounted to a small crossbow or pistol AND support the weight of a person while it winches them in AND carry enough cable to like, actually be useful. A rifle might work better for firing grapples, but then you’re going to have to haul a rifle underground and that’s an extra twenty pounds you really don’t need…”
“Don’t worry about it. If we can’t Batman around the place, we’ll figure out a good old Tyrolean Traverse if we need one.” I said, offering Karalti a hand. She smiled prettily, linking her fingers with mine as we followed Rin into the shade. “I didn’t think making a grappling hook gun would be so difficult.”
“Me either. It’s all a bit silly, to be honest with you, but we were still working some of the physics rules out when HEX hit America,” Rin replied absently. “The game was still in beta. There’s actually a lot of gear and balancing issues that were left to fix, and not just in Crafterland. At least, that’s what I was told before I was uploaded.”
“I’m glad we all made it,” I said. “The game relatively seems stable so far, at least.”
“It is. But it’s a closed system, and after that message you got… I dunno.” She trailed off. “Let’s not talk about that now, though. I made you something super useful, and want to see if I can improve your Raven Suit before you leave. I might be able to make it better. Karalti’s armor, too.”
‘Super useful’ sounded good. “What did you make?”
“You’ll see!” Rin wagged her head from side to side. “It’s a surprise.”
“Thanks for making all this stuff. I really needed new armor.” Karalti sniffed curiously as we passed by displays of Artifacts behind glass. The inside of the college had the rough interior of a country garage, and smelt strongly of linseed oil, turpentine, and grease. “The Naziri Set is pretty old, and it’s not good for martial arts.”
“Haha, funny you mention that.” Rin giggled. “I might have been working on something for you?”
“If it’s as good as Suri’s set, I can’t wait to see it,” I said.
“In black?” Karalti perked up. “I’ve got a color theme going.”
“Some of it! You’ll see.”
Rin led us to her workshop. In contrast to her disheveled appearance, the Mercurion’s two-room workshop was orderly to the point of obsessiveness. Everything was neatly in its place, the tools on the counters arranged by color and function. The only messy thing in the quarters was her small loft bed, which was as unmade and rumpled as she was. Her turrets scuttled over to us like a pair of metal dogs. They even had wagging tails, kind of: antennas that whipped back and forth. I noticed that the crossbows they’d used to carry had been replaced by what looked like the unholy and completely unrealistic marriage of a revolver and a tommy gun.
“Hi Hopper! Hi Lovelace!” Rin beamed at the pair of insectoid machines as they marched around into position on either side of her. “Find a seat while I grab everything out of the counters, okay? Sorry, I don’t have anything to drink, or, ummm…”
“Don’t sweat it,” I replied. “We’ve got plenty.”
Karalti bent down to sniff over a rack of different-colored vials, while I bobbed down somewhere out of the way and watched Rin scurry from place to place and Inventory to Inventory, collecting the gear she’d been working on. She came back with her arms full of rope.
“Okay, so…” she dumped the coils onto the ground. “These are the different grades you asked for. Here’s the steel cable, harnesses, carabiners…”
One by one, Rin unloaded and arranged all of the gear she’d made. Climbing hooks, pitons, pulleys, carabiners, and harnesses. When she had half the inventory of REI set out on the ground, she pulled out a small box and handed it to me. I took it with a smile and opened it to reveal an odd-looking, mana-powered device shaped like a human heart. Arteries pumped greenish-blue mana around the core: a chunk of ruby mana the size of a baby’s fist.
“This looks… assassiny?” I looked up at her. “What does it do?”
“That is your new Heart of Memory!” Rin chirped. “I know that you get awful amnesia when you die. That device will let you store your most essential memories onto it for quick retrieval. Ebisa donated that big piece of ruby mana before she left.”
“Oh, shiiit.” Suddenly, I saw the device in a whole new light. “That’s amazing! And really fucking useful, because the last time I died, I forgot my own name.”
“Thanks! I’m glad you like it. Just be aware that it doesn’t have much storage… only fifty terabytes or so. That’s enough for SOME memories, but not a huge amount. I might be able to expand it as I get better at crafting that kind of stuff.”
“Even fifty TB will make a huge difference.”
“Yay!” Rin danced over to a sheet-covered mannequin. She gestured, and then dramatically whipped the sheet from the armor underneath. “And this is for Karalti!”
The top half of the outfit was a flexible, metal-reinforced vest with asymmetric pauldrons, the right side being heavier than the left. A dyed sash, starting purple and fading to black, crossed over the vest and tucked through a broad rope belt, falling just over the knees. The pants were loose enough to move in, braced up along the sides by well-fitted metal plates. The helmet that went with the set reminded me strongly of a Japanese-style fox mask. Rin had honored the tradition of Baru wearing leather mountaineering boots, with lots of grip and zero heel. Karalti’s new boots had gaiters that came up to mid-calf, worn under greaves. The greaves weren’t just protective: they had a nasty, sharp beveled edge scalloped along the center line, perfect for breaking unprotected arms.
“I didn’t make any gauntlets, because I know Baru use special weapons,” she said. “I, um, actually started making this while you
guys were in Dakhdir because I remember how excited Karalti was to start training… What do you think?”
Karalti went to her, pulled her into a hug, and kissed her several times on the cheek. “It’s gorgeous! I love it!”
Rin’s legs wobbled a little as Karalti pulled back and unselfconsciously unequipped everything she was wearing so she could put the new [Fox Striker Armor] set on. The Mercurion went the color of blue curacao and screwed her eyes shut. “I-I’m glad you like it! I-It was a lot of fun to make, um, Hector! Give me your armor! Please?”
Laughing, I did the same thing, but kept my underwear on and traded my Raven Suit leggings for some plain pants. Rin took the gear over to her workbench and laid it out there, humming to herself.
“How do I look?” Karalti set the fox mask visor on top of her head and struck a pose.
“Like a million bucks,” I said. “I’d chase that through the castle grounds any day.”
Karalti bared her teeth at me. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I have three-digit Dex now.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re really good at limbo?”
Karalti gave me a cool, aloof look, and pulled her leg up until her ankle was pressed against her ear. “Yep.”
“Well, there’s my old contortionist fetish, come back to haunt me.” I sighed, and mimed unzipping my pants.
“Speaking of that.” Her eyes darkened. “Have you talked to Suri yet? I felt the two of you having a lot of fun doing… things… last night.”
I bristled a little. “Do you have to tune in while we’re doing that? It’s private.”
“I don’t HAVE to…” She let go of her leg and tested out the movement of the armor with a few different kinds of kick: axe, side, and roundhouse. “But I enjoy it when you feel good. It’s warm and nice, and feels happy and kind of… I dunno. Squishy-cuddly?”
“Squishy-cuddly is… actually a pretty good way to describe what takes place.” I cleared my throat, glancing at Rin. She was oblivious, muttering to herself as she sketched notes.
“You didn’t answer my question about Suri.”
I winced. “No. I haven’t told her yet. I figured I’d wait until we finished our dungeon crawl fun time.”
Karalti squinted at me, her mouth drawing into a disapproving pout.
“Alright, alright… I’ll tell her when we get home.” I leaned back to slide down the wall and sit. “It just wasn’t the right time last night, okay?”
“I believe you.” Karalti squatted down and began to tooth-groom her cuticles, just like she would have with her claws.
“Okay!” Rin said. “The design on this suit is really good. I’m still only a Journeyman Crafter, so I can’t really improve on the basic design much, but I can reinforce it and probably boost the damage reduction enchantments a bit. Not by a lot, unfortunately… I can probably jack up the basic defense by about forty points and increase the Fire damage reduction by two percent. Per item, that is.”
“That’s four percent damage I don’t have to take,” I said. “Go ahead.”
“Okay! You’ll have to wait for about thirty minutes, alright?”
“No worries. I’ve got books.” Books, and trinkets. I took out the things that I’d looted from Davri and tried to manually read the item descriptions:
Davri’s Dagger
An exquisitely crafted dagger made out of a strange, flat gray metal. You must attune the dagger with your own blood to activate the magic. Once attuned, whenever you sneak attack an enemy, you deal +200 bonus necrotic damage and regain 100 HP from living enemies. If the afflicted enemy does not treat the necrosis within 5 hours, they may develop Gangrene.
“Lovely.” I gave the strange weapon the side-eye before drawing it and pulling the edge down the side of my thumb. It was so sharp that the small 1HP cut was painless. I squeezed to draw a little blood, and when I scraped it onto the blade, it sizzled before absorbing into the matte-gray metal. The dagger hilt pulsed and turned chilly and cold before slowly warming again.
Bangle of the Master Thief
A beautifully worked bangle of gold and bluecrystal mana under glass. +5 Dexterity, +15 to Lockpicking and Safecracking skills. Grants Darkvision when charged. Activating Darkvision consumes one mana slot, and lasts for 1 hour. (Mana slots: 4/5. Fuel Type: 60%+ Liquid Bluecrystal.)
Just as well I hadn’t taken that Darkvision ability. I slid the bangle on and thought I felt a little lighter and quicker. The last item was the Mother’s Coin.
Mother’s Coin
A coin that, once attuned, you will always be able to track. Attune the coin by speaking or thinking the activating Words of Power: “Has, Thra’t, Mor’hem.”
“Hmm.” That was an interesting one. I experimentally flipped it over my knuckles, thinking about what potential uses it had. The obvious one was as a tracking device, something to plant on people or vehicles, but I was betting there’d be other applications. “Has, Thra’t, Mor’hem.”
The golden coin flared with a small, intricate green design that slowly dwindled away.
“Here, Karalti: catch.” I flicked the coin to her.
She looked up from her nails and caught it out of the air. “What’s this?”
“Something for you to hold onto,” I said. “In case you ever get lost and I need to find you. Hide it somewhere no one will find it.”
“In case I ever get lost?” She smiled, but obligingly tucked the coin into her Inventory. “Dragons don’t get lost, silly.”
“I thought I was going to lose you at Davri’s.”
Karalti looked down. “Yeah. Explosion bad.”
While Rin banged away on metal, I pulled out War and Rulership, one of the books I’d borrowed from the Vulkan Keep Library. I was barely two pages into it when Rin got up, twirled my armor around, and held it up to me. “Okay! Here you go, Hector. See how this feels.”
Ruefully, I stashed the book and got to my feet. Rin turned while I changed back into my adventuring clothes. The Raven Suit now had a bit less leather and a bit more metal, and sure enough, +120 armor and 4% more fire resistance between the helmet and the suit, which was inclusive of boots and gloves. “Fits great. Feels like it weighs a bit more, but that’s to be expected.”
“Yep!” Rin beamed at me. “I think it looks cooler with more steel plating. That hammer you gave me is great. Do you think that’s all you need?”
“I think we’re as good as we’re going to get,” I said, bending down to pick up all of the climbing gear. “It’s occurred to me that this quest is probably way over our heads. I don’t know if three sub-level-thirty players really qualify to own an awe-inspiring super weapon like Withering Rose.”
“Well, think of it this way.” Rin planted her hands on her hips. “Let’s say you go to Dakhdir and find Withering Rose, but you can’t use her yet… then we know where to go when you can! It’ll be good motivation to use to level up. Grinding always goes faster when you know why you’re doing it.”
“It’s true.” I offered her a one-armed hug. She stepped into the embrace on her tip-toes, and gave me a friendly squeeze around the waist.
“Take care, guys,” she said. “And make sure to keep me company, alright? I’m worried about Ebisa… and Revala.”
“Have you heard anything?” I asked, reaching for Karalti as she padded over to me.
“Only a little.” Rin’s mouth turned down. “All I can say is… I really hope there’s a Warsinger that still works, and I really hope you find it before Baldr tries to invade Vlachia.”
Chapter 46
We planned to leave at night to avoid the worst of the desert heat, which meant I did get a short time to speak with Suri. My feet felt like lead as I shuffled to her room in the barracks. The rhythmic sound of a whetstone could be heard through the keyhole, so I knocked and waited.
“Hey, lover boy.” Suri opened the door inward, leaning against the frame. She was ready to leave: laced into her freshly polished black armor, her hair pinned back in readi
ness for the helmet resting on top of her bed. “Nice threads.”
“Same threads, but better.” I smiled. “Can I talk with you about something?”
Suri’s lips quirked, and she stepped aside to let me in. “What’s the matter?”
“Uhh…” I waited until she’d shut the door. She was still standing in front of it, which made me feel maybe a little trapped. “I need to get something off my chest about Karalti.”
She arched an eyebrow, and went back to sit back down. She was at her desk-turned-worktable, sharpening and repairing her weapons. “Is she alright?”
“Yeah. That’s the problem. She’s… growing up,” I said. “And I know you’ve assured me repeatedly that you’re fine with how close she and I have to be, but I’m struggling. Not just because I worry about you, and your feelings. I feel… I feel so fucking WEIRD around her, Suri. I don’t know what to do.”
“Something in particular bring this up?” Suri took up her whetstone, but didn’t start to use it just yet.
“The other night, when we got back from Litvy… she went into her first heat.” I began to pace. “And I… I got caught up.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “So what you’re saying is that you finally banged your dragon?”
Finally?! I flinched. “Not quite. I mean, yeah, it was headed that way until ‘surprise assassin!’.” I let out a tense laugh, not really feeling the humor. “I couldn’t help being drawn into it. I mean… maybe I could have, but it was like this feedback loop of fuck that kept cycling faster and faster, and I just… I wanted to own up to it, even if you’re okay with it. Because I’m not sure I am.”
Suri sighed, looked away, and after a moment, she set the stone down and leaned back in her chair. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you not okay with it?” she asked. “Because everyone else knew it was gonna happen.”
I looked over at her dumbly. “They… did?”
She swallowed a laugh, and cleared her throat instead. “Yeah. There was almost a betting pool on it. Me. Vash. Istvan. Fuckin’ Rin knew it, and she’s got the sex drive of a river rock – which is to say, none at all. I knew it was gonna happen from the day I met you and Karalti, and she was still just our little Tidbit and barely came up to our knees. When I say I went in knowin’ what to expect, I meant it.”
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