by Ember Lane
“Well, with the right ingredients and the necessary crafting, you can make health potions, potions that top up your mana, boost your strength—that kind of thing. But…”
“But?” I didn’t like but at all. I liked able, not but.
“But you need herbalism to be able to track down the ingredients. Sure, your perception will tell you what plants are, and may even give you a hint of what they’re about, but herbalism will give you the lot.”
“And alchemy?”
He smiled. “Ah, that, well… Alchemy is the cheat. Say you need a sprig of bragger bane—it’s a chubby, walnut-colored root, and say you need bragger bane for making a mana infusion.”
“Then I pop bragger bane in one of my navigation passive target slots, and off I go,” I said, all proud.
“What if it comes up blank?”
“Then I’m scre—”
“Not quite. With alchemy you’d be able to query bragger bane, and it would tell you that a two-to-one mixture of oak bark and shill mushrooms would give you a mixture with all the same properties.”
“All righty,” I said, getting quite excited about this newly to-be acquired knowledge. “So, where do I get herbalism?”
“From someone adept at it… Really, for someone who’s in the thick of things, you can be a little…ignorant, yes that’s the word, ignorant of what’s going on.”
“I got put in the thick of it fairly quickly. So, can you show me how to make them, and then I’ll sort out the herbalism and alchemy later?”
The door opened, and Robert walked in, teas in hand. He dumped them down in front of us, huffed and stomped out, presumably to get another.
“He hates crafting,” Jack said. “I’m sure of it. Did you see the way he just spun around and left? Any excuse, Alexa, any excuse at all. The problem is, the forge is next door—the brand new level 8 forge. I’ll be honest with you, making swords and double-headed axes interests a child far more than crafting a tunic.”
I couldn’t imagine why. “Really?”
Jack gave me a long stare.
“So, to the benches.” He picked up his mug of tea.
Sitting next to him, I watched as he took down a bunch of jars and pots from the shelves above, slid over a mixing bowl and jug of water. “Now,” he said. “First things first. Sacks of holding are a fantastic invention, and saves you hauling stuff all around the place, but imagine this: you're down to your last 10 health, your energy’s running low, and your…I dunno…hanging from a cliff?”
“Then I really would be screwed.”
He cleared his throat. “Whatever that means, but yes, let’s say that. How are you supposed to take out your sack, hover your hand over it, grab hold of a vial, unstopper it, then drink it?”
I didn’t answer—I doubted he needed one, as the scenario was too well thought out. He waited patiently, so I relented.
“You can’t,” I muttered.
“No!” he shouted, snapping his fingers. “That’s where my cane tubes come it.”
“Cane tubes?”
He reached under the bench and brought out a bullet belt—at least that’s what it looked like—except the bullets were five-inch cane tubes stoppered and nestled in their looped cloth.
“Now,” he said, “imagine that scenario again.” He winked at me.
I was impressed, no doubt about it. The strange crafting man had my interest. He laid the belt out on the table.
“This is a forty-eight-potion belt. I would suggest you spread the potions out between health, energy, strength, wisdom—for mana regen, and intelligence for your mana pool. I would have a number of pure mana blends, for instant refills, and that gives you eight of each, but I would suggest seven, and use the eighth slot for an anti-potion.”
“An anti-potion?”
“A strength-draining potion, energy-draining one, and so on, and so forth. Then, if someone steals it, they’ll have a few surprises in store.”
“Or poison,” I said. “We could put six tubes of poison in it and just kill them.”
Jack shook his head. “No experience in the land—none at all,” he sighed. “There’s no such thing as a universal poison. What might kill a paladin may well enhance the eyesight of a dwarf. So you see, you might inadvertently give your enemy an advantage. Nope, you need to attack their attributes to be sure of success.”
“Good to know.”
I slid out one of the tubes. It resembled a piece of bamboo. Its bottom was plugged with a tan-colored resin that looked like the bamboo had been crafted over, and the top had a small rubber-like bung with its top colored green.
“Green?” I appeared to be limiting my words to the bare minimum, but Jack seemed to like talking, so I didn’t attempt to show any more interest. I did want one of the belts though…
“My coding. Green is for health, blue is energy, yellow for mana. Black is mana regen, silver is to increase its pool, and brown is for strength. Now, let’s make a potion.”
He took the tube back from me and slid it into its loop on the belt. “There,” he said, and set it aside.
“Let’s make a quick mana solution. What do you think you’d need?”
Assuming a mana plant wasn’t the correct answer, I chose…nope that was all I had. “A plant with loads of mana in it?”
His laughter told me I wasn’t even close. “Nope, you need something that can absorb mana. Now, if you had your herbalism skill leveled up, you’d wonder what plant you were looking for, and it would list a number: papyrus grass, aralia leaf, certain types of seaweed or coconut husks, and if you had your alchemy, well, it would tell you three-to-one licorice root to butter heather would give you the same qualities. I have some aralia leaf—let’s use that.”
He opened a jar, pinched some dry, brown leaf out and popped it into the jug.
“So, the leaf attracts the mana, once we pop it in there, and we need…” He swept his finger along the jars… “Rogue heather to keep the suspension from degrading.”
He added a bit of water, then told me to stir it all together while reducing it to its basest parts with the desperification method. Soon, I had a thin, olive green mixture.
“Now, add your mana like you did with the tunic.” He coughed again. “I’m not quite sure how it’ll work with…the you know…”
“Shadow mana,” I said, but he ignored it.
Focusing, I began to stir the mixture, imagining my mana infusing it. I felt a tingling at the back of my mind—a hint of power that glided out of me like a wisp of silver smoke—and I somehow knew that both manas were working in harmony, that the shadow mana and the ordinary mana now had some kind of understanding. I knew my magic was gray, and I’d read about that before.
“I was mesmerized with Sakina’s eyes, so innocent in learning yet distant in time. I admit I fell in love with the gray—the divided color. Steel in one instant that then altered to an enchanting blue in the next. It came as little surprise to me that her magic was of those colors as though it was destined her talent could be turned either way.”
My magic was gray—the same as Sakina’s. It poured into the mixture until the liquid became like quicksilver. Jack lofted his eyebrows.
Congratulations! You show great promise. You have crafted your first mana-infused potion. You have leveled up. You are now crafting, level 4.
One level to go until I’m done with it, I thought, but was secretly pleased by the skill advancement. I also noticed that my poultice and potions skill had jumped a load of progress percent points—that had leveled last night too—when I’d made Krakus’s healing potions.
Jack poured the potion into a half-dozen tubes, colored the top half silver and half black and replaced one of the yellow-topped ones.
“Your one is…more suited to you than my mixture, shall we say.” He slid the belt away again. “There’s one more thing that I can teach you and that concerns metals and...weapons? There are a number of things you can do to enhance simple weapons. Have you got any? Your sword c
ertainly can’t be classed as normal, nor your staff. Do you have anything else?”
I thought about bringing out the Black Knight’s dagger, but decided it wasn’t worth the dirty look that was bound to follow.
“Nope, they all seem to have their own…uniqueness.”
Jack appeared to accept that and reached across me picking up a dull copper knife. “Have this,” he said. “I used it to mold a knife holster in your boot.”
Neat, I thought. He handed me the knife, and I turned it over and over. It was dull, lifeless, and had no stats of any kind. “So, what can we do with it?”
“You? Alas, not a vast amount. You’d need crafting level 10 to be able to imbue any kind of stat into the metal, but you can manipulate it. So...” And he took the knife back, drawing it across the wooden countertop. “See? See how blunt it is. Now, let’s say you’re…”
“Hanging off my cliff?”
He laughed, and I knew that was a rare thing.
I took a sip of my cool honeyed tea. “No cliff?”
“No cliff, but this is important. Say you’re in some sticky situation and all you have with you is this blunt knife. How can crafting help you?” He ran two fingers along the knife’s blade. “Remember I told you that you could manipulate certain types of metal at level 3. Well, that was a simplification. You can manipulate copper or lead, gold or silver quite a lot—because they’re soft metals. Titanium and scarletite…hardly at all—too tough. A little bit more with every level, though.”
“So how does it help me?”
He handed the knife back to me. “Run your fingers along the blade and imagine it becoming sharp, imagine a fine edge running all the way to its point.”
I did just that, staring at it, willing it like he’d taught.
“Ouch!” I said, as I felt it slice into my thumb. Looking down, I saw my scarlet blood run along its edge. I cursed, and ran my bloodied thumb back along the blade, trying to clean it off, but the blood appeared to leach into the metal forming blackened veins that ran like cracks of ice throughout the knife. The blade twinkled in the light that spilled through the front windows, and I saw it was as sharp as a razor. “Like that?” I said.
Congratulations! You have mixed the iron in your blood and copper to produce a master alloy. You have opened the skill Alchemy. You are a level 1 Alchemist.
Congratulations! You have reached your limit in the skill Crafting. You are level 5.
Congratulations! You have reached your potential in one skill. The land awards you 500 XP.
“Well, that’s one way to open the skill up,” said Jack, looking clearly uncomfortable. “Now, I have your clothes and boots all ready, and I want you to have the belt.”
“No, I couldn’t… I haven’t the gold for—”
He raised his hand and cut off my protestations. “Nonsense. You received no payment for the scarletite and asked for none—unlike that man who tried to sell me all the silver bars for an exorbitant price, I might add. No, you can have it all, and some spare tubes too. Consider us even.”
I wondered if he wasn’t just a little scared of me but accepted the tubes as he gave them to me, stashed my repaired and modified tunic and boots in my sack and thanked him for helping me. Just as I’d reached the door and was about to leave, he called me back.
“Alexa, just because you’re only level 5 and because crafting can’t move mountains, doesn’t go off with a bang, and isn’t a two-handled ax, don’t discount it in your hour of need—sometimes it’s the insignificant things that count, and sometimes they’ll get overlooked by your enemy.”
I bit my lip, let his words sink in and then left.
Robert was in the forge with Thumptwist. There was no doubt about it; it was a much more interesting place to be. His little face was beaming as Thumptwist poured molten scarletite into an ingot mold. Thumptwist grinned a big fat dwarven grin when he saw me.
“Ho Alexa! Hold there, I have something for you.”
I didn’t need a second invitation to go in. The heat from the huge open hearth spread a glow across my cheeks, its orange glare making me narrow my eyes. Not surprisingly, it smelled of burnt metal, of iron shavings, of sweat and toil. Thumptwist was wearing a heavy-looking leather apron, with leather gauntlets that covered his bare arms up to his elbows. The ladle he was holding looked tiny in proportion, like a soup spoon.
“I’ve smelted it all—this is the last, though how, while all the chaos was going on, I’ll never know. Nearly melted down those copper bots. I despise having little things underfoot—tiny crafters are okay though.” He grinned down at Robert.
I doubted I would ever get used to dwarves, they were so powerful—like a bunch of pounding fists packed into a body. They could be grumpy, cheery, lazy, and relentless. It struck me that I hadn’t seen a dwarven woman—not once. Not in the underground city, and now, not here. Weird, I thought, and elected to ask Lincoln about it later.
“That amount of scarletite you handed over was worth about four thousand gold—you should get Lincoln to write you a note, if he can’t afford it.”
“Four? Really? That much?” Not that I would take Lincoln’s money, but four thousand…
“Did Jack repair your boots and tunic?”
I nodded, looking around. For a newly upgraded place, it was already a mess. A huge iron anvil took pride of place in its center. It resembled a blunted bull’s head, and I dumped myself down on it. Then I saw his workbench, all pitted, singed, and scarred. Among the chaos, a long leather belt, about three feet long and a foot high was laid out. I could see the tips of a half-dozen silvery-pink tools sticking out, much like a surgeon’s instrument pouch.
Robert picked up the ingot mold that Thumptwist had filled, with a huge pair of tongs, and carefully walked over to the bench, setting it down without spilling a drop. He glanced at me, a look of victory crossing his expression.
“I can’t see why I can’t be a smith and a crafter,” he said, and Thumptwist laughed with obvious derision.
“You can be whatever you want to be,” I told him, and the boy smiled from ear to ear and ran out.
Thumptwist turned and faced me. “You shouldn’t fill the boy’s head with dreams. He’ll be a crafter, his father’s a crafter, and so he’ll be one too.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why can’t he be both? I keep getting told you can only be good at one thing, but why not both?”
Thumptwist grinned and looked like he was about to give me a lecture about it, when his brow suddenly furrowed. He shrugged. “Because you can’t,” he said, and turned to the leather belt.
“This is for you. Now, I know it’s no magical sword, like the one yer wearin’, and I know it is no dwarven, fiberstone staff, but it could be more useful than both.”
He waved me over, and as soon as I was standing beside him, he pulled the first item out of its pocket.
“Scarletite grapple hook,” he proudly stated, and pulled each of the first hooks out from its main shaft and locked them into position with a click. Flipping it around, he pointed to the ring on the other end. “You need to up yer rope law as it’s only as good as the knot.”
“I need to up a few things,” I muttered. He clicked it all back flat and tucked it back into its pouch bringing out the meanest-looking serrated knife I’d ever seen.
“This one’s not fer stabbin’. It’ll chop up most everythin’, it’ll fell a small tree—but I got something more suited to that if yer’ll just hold on.” He huffed, I wondered what I’d done. Dwarves were odd. Thumptwist cleared his throat and carried on. “It’ll cut most things. Use it fer skinning and stuff, not throwing or sparrin’. Got it?”
“Knife, not stabby, stabby, more saw and skin,” I replied.
He tucked the knife back in.
“Now this little fella is a saw.” He slipped out the smallest saw I’d ever seen—like a little hacksaw without the hollow bit. “It’ll cut metal, wood at a push, but not really suit
ed to it. Reckon that bloke that sold me the silver bars has got one, but not as good as this one.” He winked and smiled at me.
“Picklocks,” he said, drawing out a smaller pouch. “Strong enough to open the largest of locks, although you’ll need…”
“The skill,” I sighed. He nodded.
“And last but not least, these pair of beauties—these are my favorite. Never underestimate the uses of the hatchet. These are a pair of hunters' axes. I won’t need to tell you what they’re used for, you’ll find many a use yerself, but if you ever need to clear a path through thick undergrowth.” He winked. “Don’t ever use that pretty sword of yours.”
He rolled the roll up and presented it to me. “Rope law and lock-picking.”
I didn’t even protest. I wanted them all, especially the axes.
“Thank you,” I said.
“My pleasure,” Thumptwist said, beaming.
I jumped up off the anvil, stowing the pouch in my sack, and planted a big kiss on his sweaty cheek. Just as I left, I shouted, “What’s steel made of?”
“Iron and carbon,” he called back.
“Two things combining to make something better, something stronger. You sure about Robert?”
I glanced around to see him deep in thought, then skipped out. So far, the day had gone well. That worried me a bit. The quiet mornings were usually a prelude to mayhem, and I was still tired after last night. There were times when I’d thought the night wouldn’t ever end.
After my encounter with Jin, I’d run back to Lincoln’s cabin and woken Krakus who’d fallen asleep on the stoop. I’d helped him in and onto the bed and then mixed up the healing potions like I had the night before, and applied them exactly as Glenwyth had shown me.
The shaman had been quite quiet throughout, only gasping and grimacing with the pain of the treatment. It was as I’d applied the last potion—the sour pea and jaspur leaf—that he started to become incoherent and muttered one name over and over. It was a name I’d never heard before—Draylane. It was like he was trying to resist something, like he was having some kind of mental battle, and he just moaned and moaned. Then his eyes burst open, and he barked, “The Thief is in danger!” Then they snapped back shut, and he appeared to sink into unconsciousness.