by Aleron Kong
“Looks like you had a good time,” Richter said with a smile. “How’s Nexus?”
“Not a fan of yers, milord! Har har har!” The dwarf extended his hand and the two men clasped wrists.
“When I heard that you were back and that you were yelling, I thought it might be bad news.”
“Bad news?” Krom echoed.
“That you might not have passed your Trial.”
“Hmph,” Krom scoffed. “Smithing be in me blood. There were no doubt in me mind, and there shouldna been any in yers.” The dwarf fixed Richter with a baleful eye, not a small feat seeing as how the dwarf was about two feet shorter.
Richter raised his hands in mock surrender, “Well, have you gotten any cool Talents?”
“Oh ay,” Krom replied with a twinkle in his eye. “Ye might say that. Listen…” and Krom began to describe the first of his new Talents. “The first thing ay bought was Increased Potential. It cost me five Talent Points, but it will also increase the enchantment slots for any weapon ay make by 10%.” Seeing Richter’s smile, he commented, “Ay were thinking ye’d like that.”
The dwarf was right. Richter hadn’t even considered the fact that Krom’s Profession might be complementary to his own. Now that he was thinking about it though, it more than made sense. His Enchanter Profession was kind of an umbrella including Smithing, Crafting, Construction and, most likely, other skills and Professions that he didn’t even know about yet.
“Thanks for thinking of me, man,” Richter told him with a smile. “What else did you buy?”
“To be quite honest, yer lordship, ay was torn. The portal from me Trial let out here in the smithy, and,” the dwarf raised his voice dangerously, “I was confronted with the horrible state of me gods-damned Core building!” All the other smiths paused for a moment, but when they saw none of them were the direct target of the dwarf’s ire, they just got back to work with a bit more urgency than before. Krom glared at his subordinates a while longer before turning back to Richter with a quick wink. The dwarf truly did love yelling.
“After ay got finished with me short ‘motivational speech’ for these jackalopes, ay was tempted to go the traditional route. Most Smiths pour their TPs into increasing the defense or attack of their weapons and armor. Any noble or chief will pay serious gold for a Smith that can increase the power of their armies. But,” and his voice grew serious as he looked Richter straight in the eyes, “Ay swore ye fealty and ay meant it. Ay be with ye til death, milord. When ay first came back Bowdin showed me the darkstone blade ye two made. It be truly marvelous. Ay have never seen the metal before, and yer enchantments be powerful as always.”
Krom walked over to the elementum chest in the middle of the forge. The smooth block of green metal developed a seam at his mental command and the lid swung upward. He reached in and withdrew two items. One was the darkstone blade and the other was the broken hilt that had been found in the cave of the dark aberration.
“I was meaning to ask you about that,” Richter said. “Why are you keeping some of that junk?”
“The junk of one man is the treasure of another,” Krom replied enigmatically. “Ay had a feeling that this hilt was worth something, but couldn’t be sure until now. Ay need to buy two more Talents. Magical Repair ta preserve the magic in the hilt while it is fixed and Combine Fragments ta merge. All ay was waiting for was yew, yer lordship.” Richter watched the in surprise as Krom bought the Talents in front of him. The dwarf concentrated for a moment as he made the purchases. When he was done, he looked at the hilt in his hand, and a globe of white light appeared centered on his fist and reaching halfway up his forearm. As soon as the light winked out, Richter’s Identification Talent triggered.
You have found:
Tqlor’s Hilt of Reclamation (Broken)
Created from the dimensional bones of a Greater Shadow Demon, this hilt and the blade that was once attached were wielded by the Dark Paladin Tqlor. A piece of the demon’s soul is still bound to this item. Using this hilt will shroud the wielder in shadows, greatly increasing their base Concealment stat. Whoever holds this weapon also benefits from some of the demon’s powers. The more lives this weapon claims, the greater the powers it can unlock.
Durability: 5/147
Item Class: Rare
Quality: Masterwork
Weight: 0.8
Traits:
+5 to base Concealment
+3 Strength
+2 Endurance
Level: 1
Your weapon hungers. Feed it to increase its powers.
Current Bonus: +3 Dark Damage per Dark magic skill Rank
“Holy… fuck.” Richter spoke slowly as if he was afraid that he’d scare the status window away. This thing was incredible. When The Land had just been a game, finding items that gave four or five different magic perks could be expected on any day that ended in “day.” The reality of enspelled items in The Land was that they were exceedingly difficult to create.
It required an enchantment be known and that powdered crystal, an expensive resource, be on hand; a smith who could make higher quality weapons, as low-quality items lacked the integrity to hold an enchantment; materials to make the base unenchanted weapon; and captured souls to power the enchantment. Getting the various people, skills and materials together in one place was an extremely difficult and even more expensive proposition. In a very real way, his village was almost an enchantment factory, and it required hundreds of people working in conjunction to operate. It also cost Richter hundreds of gold a month just in salaries, not even including the high cost of materials.
His village had several unique advantages that let him create enchanted weapons quickly. Namely, the presence of the Forge of Heavens. That by itself was a massive boon. There was also the fact that Richter had stumbled upon a large amount of wealth and the Mist Village itself early on. If he had just spawned in a city, or in some other random place, the only access he would have had to enchanted items would have been what he could find or steal. Making his own would have been a pipedream.
Even after all that was factored in, he had only recently gained the ability to place two different enchantments on the same item. As far as he knew, only a Professed Enchanter that gained more than ten levels’ worth of Talent Points could purchase the Talent that made it possible. Even becoming an Enchanter meant reaching a personal level of ten and a skill level of forty-five in the skill, something that most commoners never accomplished.
Defying everything that he had learned, this item gave multiple buffs to his primary attributes. How could this thing have so many bonuses? Attribute boosts were especially rare, and this thing increased several at once. How? Richter started at the hilt consideringly, then it hit him. He was observing the true power of Crafting. The perks hadn’t been added, they were natural to the bones of the Shadow Demon it had been made from. Richter was more excited than ever to explore his new skill!
He clapped Krom on the shoulder and held the hilt while rereading the prompt. In addition to the primary attribute boosts, it also increased his base Concealment. The fourteen levels he had achieved in his Stealth skill gave a 28% bonus to his inherent ability to hide himself. That capability was based both on the person and on the environment. An easy way to think of it would be that a black bear could easily hide in a cave, but would be fucked after a snowfall. Its effective Concealment would plummet.
Richter’s own base Concealment was currently seven. Apparently, most humans were born with a base Concealment of one. Other races had bonuses that changed the value based on the situation. One of the wood sprites’ racial abilities was Woodcraft. Among other things, it increased their base Concealment to a crazy high level if they were in a forest. He had literally seen the small men and women disappear in front of his eyes when they were only twenty feet away. Outside of the shelter of trees though, the sprites lost the bonus and were just as easy to spot as anyone else. Richter wasn’t sure if hill sprites shared the ability or had something analogous
. Forest sprites seemed to have an even stronger bond with the trees than Hisako’s people. While the ability made the sprites more than dangerous, it also seemed to hamper their skill growth in certain areas as few of the wood sprites ever learned the Stealth skill.
When Richter had learned the skill, his base Concealment had immediately been boosted by +1. Each successive rank he gained in Stealth increased it by another five. With his skill level bonuses, he currently had a personal Concealment value of +9. His allies had further helped him with armor that increased his base capability to move silently by +15. Even better, the rare item he had been gifted, his Cloak of Concealment, increased his base Concealment by +13 in every terrain, not just the forest. It was his gear that kept him hidden more than his skills, but that didn’t make a difference to the enemies that died before they even knew he was there.
All things being equal, he should be able to keep himself hidden from anything and anyone with a Perception value less than his Concealment. As was always the case in real life, many other factors came into play however: how quickly he moved, how much noise he made, how effective his enemy’s sense of smell was, the terrain, and other details. These could all mean the difference between being hidden or being seen which, in turn, could mean the difference between life and death.
In addition to the awesome boost to his stats, the shadow demon hilt effectively boosted him from novice to apprentice in Stealth. If he used the weapon, his base value would increase to over twelve. It would effectively increase his ability to hide by 50%!
While all that was cool, the bond it had to Dark magic was perhaps the most exciting. The +3 to damage was awesome, but more importantly, the weapon was scalable! As he killed with it, the hilt might level up! It even looked like reaching higher ranks in his skill might unlock more properties in the weapon. The lack of charges in the description also seemed to indicate that the bonus powers the hilt provided were passive not active. It meant that the stat boosts and extra damage wouldn’t run out in the middle of a fight. Krom had been so right; what Richter had taken for trash had actually been treasure!
“And you can attach this to the darkstone blade?” Richter asked excitedly.
A broad grin made its way onto Krom’s face, “Ay can now. Being a Professed Smith has been a dream since ay were a wee nipper. I want to give ye a gift.”
“Attaching this hilt will be so amazing, man. I couldn’t do this without you!” Richer told him magnanimously. If the dwarf needed a little ego stroking, he’d spit on his hand if it meant getting this weapon.
“Bah,” Krom shook his head. “This here be my Job as the village Smith. Ay woulda dun this for any clan chief ay pledged myself to. What ay mean is a real gift. Ay have more Talent Points to distribute, and me old master told me about a fourth-tier Talent that could help ye greatly, yer lordship. Ay dinna want to tell ye what it be yet. Ay dinna want to ruin the surprise, but ay promise yew will love it.”
“Are you sure?” Richter asked, raising his eyebrows. Talents radiated out from the central sphere of a Profession like planets around a sun. In this particular solar system though, each planetary radius had several spheres on it. The number of rings you were out from the “sun” was the Talent tier , and the only way to reach a higher tier was to purchase a Talent from a lower sphere that linked to it. That meant Krom would have to buy up Talents that he might not want. Each tier was also more expensive than the one before.
Richter now understood why Krom was acting as if he was offering something of great value. It was because he was. The dwarf was offering to spend perhaps all of his Talent Points on a gift for Richter. He was touched. Though the chaos seed didn’t know it, Krom received a prompt that his relationship with Richter had leveled from Interested to Admiring.
The dwarf’s smile grew even wider, “Couldna be more sure of anything. Now that I’m back, I’ll also be ready to finally finish yer skeeling armor. I assume ye have the soul stones to power the enchantments now?” As hallmarky as the moment between the two of them had been, Krom’s voice was all business now. There was also a touch of exasperation, which Richter knew was fair. The chaos seed had received The Spirit of Defense quest more than forty days ago from the Smith. To fulfill it, he needed to obtain enough high-level souls to properly enchant the six pieces of armor Krom would make. As if to confirm that Richter was dragging ass, a prompt appeared.
Quest Update: The Spirit of Defense
Krom has asked if you have enough captured souls to finally finish your new armor. He is growing impatient, as you seem to have time to do everything else except let him help you. While this quest will not expire, you just might not get his best work if you continue to spend more time swinging your sword, in and out of bed, than letting your Professed Smith save your life with a new and powerful set of armor.
Do you have the souls required at this time? Yes or No?
Your answer may determine how Krom spends his Talent Points.
What the fuck, man, Richter thought to himself. He had thought he was done with the snarky comments in his prompts. When he had first gotten to The Land, every other notification had seemed to insult him. Over time they had become polished and formulaic though. This was the first time in a while that he’d gotten one like that. It was a bit annoying, even if it was perfectly valid.
Richter quickly accessed his inventory, looking specifically at the soul stones he had amassed.
Stone Level
Soul Level
Amount
Soul Point Value
Resplendent
Resplendent
1
300
Resplendent
Empty
3
---
Special
Special
3
100
Special
Empty
9
---
Brilliant
Brilliant
3
45
Brilliant
Empty
17
---
Luminous
Luminous
16
17
Luminous
Empty
38
---
Common
Common
42
10
Common
Basic
12
6
Common
Weak
14
3
Common
Poor
3
1
Common
Empty
50
---
Even if he hadn’t fulfilled the quest yet, he hadn’t been a slouch. Months of battle and stealing of loot had added up. The maximum enchantment slots on each piece of armor would depend on the quality of Krom’s work, but Richter felt confident that everything would be top notch. If each piece were superb, two luminous and one weak soul stone would be needed for each piece of armor. The lower level souls were easy enough to come by but spending the luminous souls would be a real scrot pluck. Still, it would be worth it. He hadn’t reached high ranks in any of his defensive enchantments, but now that he could put two enchantments on one item, he might actually be able to fill all the slots. A worthy goal, he decided.
“I got your damn souls,” Richter told the dwarf with an easy smile. “I want to see if I can advance my enchantments before we finally do it though. Can you prepare the armor except for the final steps? So we can enchant it all at once?”
“That be a good idea,” Krom responded, nodding his head. “It will take several days to finish the skeeling scales, along with… other projects.” The dwarf glanced up at Alma, making eye contact with the dragonling. Her eyes widened slightly, but she nodded her draconian head. He turned his gaze back towards Richter, “Ay have another question for ye though, yer lordship. These here scales are tough and ye brought me many. Ye need to make a decision. Do ye want a set of
light or medium armor?” As he asked the question, Krom handed over a scroll.
When Richter unrolled it, his eyes widened in surprise. It was a detailed drawing of two sets of armor, one medium and one light. They were both made of skeeling scales. Underneath was a comparison of the projected defense values of each piece, assuming a quality of superb. Krom had even added in the stats from Richter’s current gear, Enhanced Sprite Armor. Richter could have done without the little note Krom had added in the margin about it only being good for “wee sprites and wee lasses,” but the numbers didn’t lie. Krom was basing the different armor sets on leather and scale armor respectively. Apparently, the dwarf thought that the skeeling scales were equivalent to quicksilver armor, giving +5 to the base defense of each piece.
Current Armor
Leather (base)
Light
Scale (base)
Medium
Helmet
7
5
18-19
12
31-32
Chestplate
12
7
22
14
35
Bracers
10
3
15
10
28
Gauntlets
7
3
15
10
28
Greaves
9
4
16-17
11
29-30
Boots
8
4
16-17
11
29-30
Penalties
1) Casting Penalty
2) 25% faster Stamina depletion
3) Movement and Attack speed decreased by 3% per piece