Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)
Page 26
Or at least trying to in some cases, the two of us encountering a handful of difficulties along the way that we hadn’t accounted for.
Regardless, however, we pressed on stubbornly, making sure to take notes as we went, time gradually ticking by until it was late into the night. Yet despite the lateness of the hour, neither of us wanted to stop until we finished the first prototype, slowly tackling the problems that we encountered one by one until none remained. Then, no sooner did we finish fixing the last problem and fit the last piece in did we both hear a soft chime of success in our ear, followed by an array of notifications flashing through our vision.
You have created a [Ballista]!
You have gained Schema Experience!
[Design: Ballista] – 35% Learned
You have gained Crafting Experience!
Your skill in Carpentry has increased to level 25!
Your skill in Blacksmithing has increased to level 25!
“And we are finished,” Léandre announced with relief as the echoes of a loud crack faded from the air, the man having just tested the siege weapon’s firing mechanism. “Or at least we are as much as we can be here in the workshop. I would like to perhaps find a place to test this contraption with a bolt or two before I am truly happy, but I suppose that could wait for tomorrow once the sun rises once more.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” I replied, giving the ballista an affectionate pat as I spoke, the time spent building it having given me an appreciation for the weapon. Getting a chance to fire a bolt from it, even as a test, was something that I absolutely wanted to do the first chance I got. “First thing in the morning then? I’m sure we can find a place to set up a range easily enough.”
“I will be there,” the Tul’Shar replied with a smile. “It is my hope that we can master this ballista design, and perhaps a second siege engine tomorrow, and then we can send what blueprints we have for the others to begin working on. We will need far more than a handful if we are to make an impression on the orcs.”
“Without a doubt,” I agreed, wondering how the others were doing for the day in their attempt to meet and begin harassing the orcs. With my focus having been entirely on crafting for the day, I’d found myself completely out of the loop on anything that the offline chats might have otherwise had. “Hopefully, we can get at least a dozen churned out, if not more depending on how much time we have.”
“I think that is more than manageable,” Léandre replied in an optimistic tone before going on to motion towards the ballista between us. “Now, before we call an end to our efforts for the night, help me push this out of the workshop and into the storage room next door. We can store it there for the night and then tidy the place.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said as I reached down to grab a handle on the side of the machine designed just for that purpose, the two of us then walking the ballista to its temporary destination. As we did so, I took the opportunity to call up its description, having been intently curious about its capabilities from the moment we’d started building it.
Ballista
Slot: Siege Weapon
Item Class: Common
Item Quality: Prototype (-10%)
Damage: Wooden Bolt: 875-1350 (Piercing)
Iron Bolt: 1125-2250 (Piercing)
Durability: 1000/1000
Weight: 320 kg
Whew! I thought to myself as I looked at the description, my eyes widening at the incredible damage ranges on the two ammo types that we’d designed it for. Even with this being a prototype and taking a hit to item quality, it still packs a hell of a punch! A solid hit from one of these bolts would practically one-shot a player if they were unlucky enough to be in the way. Hell, I doubt that even the guardians would be able to stand up to these if we managed to hit them in the skull or body.
Shaking my head at that thought, I made a firm mental note to always pay attention if we were ever up against an active siege weapon, promptly dismissing the ballista’s description from my vision as I continued to push it along. Guiding the machine out of the room, it took a couple minutes for Léandre and me to roll it into the nearby storage room, finding it to be mostly empty, save for a handful of crates containing supplies. Pushing it all the way to the back, we parked the machine and set its brake, making sure that it would stay in place. The last thing that either of us wanted was to have the siege engine decide to go on its own journey, uncaring of what it might hit in the process.
“Well, now that we have our first build out of the way, we can talk more about how to improve the next,” Léandre said as we turned away from the machine and began to walk out of the room. “I think that instead of using a rope as part of the firing mechanism, we could look at using a twisted iron cable—the durability would be much higher, and the whole thing would be more reliable in harsh weather as well.”
“It would be,” I replied as I considered the man’s point. “But making the cable isn’t exactly easy. It takes time to draw out all the strands and wind them together.”
“So?” the man shot back with a shrug as we left the storage room and started to make our way back to the workshop. “Isn’t that what apprentices are for? We can pass the task to a handful of them to manage.”
“I suppose,” I said with a slow nod, my mind starting to work ahead at the new possibilities the improvement would allow. “I guess if we had the cable supporting things, we could also increase the draw strength by quite a bit.”
“Yes, I believe we could,” Léandre mused as we picked up our pace. “Come, I must make a new sketch of this while it’s fresh in my mind. I think I have a way to improve the frame as well…”
Talking with growing excitement, we ended up rushing back to the workshop, any thoughts of logging off for the night fading away in light of our new ideas and improvements that we could make to the ballista’s design.
Or at least they did until we finished building our second ballista and the sun started to rise.
Chapter 20
Sunday, April 14th, 2047 – 9:51 p.m.
“Come on, Amaranth, stand up,” I found myself saying to my familiar impatiently for what had to be the fifth time, looking over his limp body in front of me with my work only half done.
Amaranth grumbled in a sulking tone.
“No, it isn’t,” I stated with a sigh, adjusting my grip on the item in my hand so I could glare down at the cat, his defeated eyes staring off into the distance. “Trust me, it’s going to help you.”
“What you are…” I started to say with frustration, subtlety shifting my weight to one leg as I spoke, “…is protected. So that if I do something—”
I suddenly lashed out with a sharp kick mid-sentence, directing my foot right into Amaranth’s side, a loud clang of metal sounding out an instant later.
“—you’ll barely even feel it,” I finished, seeing the azure-furred puma react belatedly, his head twisting to look back at me with an angry hiss, teeth bared. Having had enough of cat’s attitude, I didn’t back down from his display, instead thrusting a finger directly into his face. “Or, more specifically, the next time we find ourselves fighting some sort of nightmarish horror, a gentle caress from a claw won’t see you completely disemboweled and bleeding out.”
“And that is exactly why you need this,” I stated, waving the piece of armor that I was holding in my other hand. “Because when you do actually get hit by something like that again, you’ll be able to walk away from it with barely a scratch.”
out sigh as he slowly pushed himself up and off the ground, the sound of metal jingling.
“That’s the spirit! Just bear with me a bit longer,” I said with barely concealed relief, giving my familiar a reassuring scratch on his neck. “Once this is all on and tightened properly, you’ll barely feel like you’re wearing anything.”
Hearing another resigned croak from Amaranth, I began to readjust a series of straps that had shifted out of place when he’d fallen to the ground in protest. Working quickly, I managed to get everything in order and continued onwards with my previous efforts, threading another length of leather around the cat’s midsection and attaching the piece of armor that I’d been holding. Fighting back a wave of exhaustion as I worked, I was forced to pause on a few occasions to yawn and rub away the growing sleep that was accumulating in my eyes—my body’s way of telling me that it desperately needed rest.
Flying by in a blur of endless labor, the weekend had felt like a single exceptionally long day, the hours spent within the crafting hall stitching themselves together without pause. But despite being exhausted nearly to the point of falling down, that time had been well spent, allowing both myself and the other crafters to churn out everything we could possibly need for the days ahead—which was where the night found me as I finally decided that it was time to tackle a project that had been lingering at the back of mind for the last few weeks.
That project in question being armor for Amaranth.
Expressing no interest in ever having a set made for himself and exhibiting the typical cat-like reaction when it came to having anything covering him, I’d put off the idea of armoring my familiar, thinking it an exercise in futility. However, in light of his mauling by one of the corrupted guardians—and the battles I knew were coming in the days ahead—I no longer felt like it was something that I was able to ignore. To that end, I decided to finally go about making a set of armor for Amaranth, the end result turning out even better than I had ever hoped.
“There!” I exclaimed, tightening a final strap on the cat’s forearm and taking a step back from the creature. “How does that feel?”
“That’s the enchantment working then,” I said to my familiar, breaking into a smile as he tested his range of motion with a series of pounces. “It’ll help you fight better, while also keeping you safe.”
“I sure hope so!” I replied, watching my familiar’s movements carefully as he continued to move, trying to see if anything needed any further adjusting.
Clad completely from head to hindquarters, I’d taken special care to make sure that none of the armor interfered with Amaranth’s movements. Starting with his head, I’d created a helmet for the cat, the metal stretching far enough to offer protection to his nose, face, and jaw, yet not too far to hinder his ability to bite. From there, I created a seamless collar that fit snugly at the base of the helmet, protecting both his neck and throat while also remaining as flexible as I could make it.
On each leg, I included an articulated layer of armor that would protect the limbs from any stray attacks but still allowing Amaranth free use of his claws. Then, finally, came the body armor that covered the remainder of my familiar, the segmented pieces of metal giving a thick layer of protection to his back and sides. There was no doubt in my mind that if anything wanted to harm the cat from here on out, they would certainly have to work hard for it.
Seems like it’s all fitting pretty well, I thought happily as I watched Amaranth pick up speed in his rush around the room, any earlier reservations fading away with every step that he took.
“So,” I said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room as the puma finally came to a stop and trotted over towards me. “What do you think?”
“Yeah,” I replied, nodding at my familiar. “Unfortunately, almost all armor has that problem one way or another. Now let me take a look at your straps and see how they held up after your little run. I want to make sure that everything is fitting properly.”
Standing up without complaint, Amaranth allowed me to look over his armor, finding nothing that stood out to my critical eye. Finishing up with my inspection, I took a second to glance over the armor’s description one more time, seeing its tag appear in my vision.
Iron Warcat Armor Set
Slots: Arms, Body, Legs, Head, Neck
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Good (+15%)
Armor: 400
Set Bonus: (5/5)
Strength: +18 Agility: +18
Armor Type: Light
Weight: 23 kg
Favored Class: Any Martial
Level: 24
I think this’ll do great for the next little while, I thought with an excited smile as I looked over the armor’s description and dismissed it from my vision. It was a bit tricky coming up with a design for Amaranth, and I think I have a few ideas for things I could do better next time. This should keep him safe until then, though.
But for all of my excitement of seeing the newly made armor for Amaranth, there was one more thing that I’d been looking forward to checking out once I managed to outfit my familiar—something I’d only ever glanced at in passing without too much focus: his character sheet.
Not having had much reason over the last two months to dive into my familiar’s statistics or attributes, since they auto leveled themselves without my intervention, I was long overdue in reading it over and seeing the impact that the new armor made. With an excited thought, I called up Amaranth’s character sheet for the first time in ages, taking the time to refamiliarize myself with it.
Amaranth – Level 24 Familiar
Male Puma (Ætherwarped)
Statistics:
HP: 1448/1448
Stamina: 1448/1448
Mana: 744/744
Attributes:
Strength: 113 (131)
Agility: 107 (125)
Constitution: 88
Intelligence: 24
Willpower: 24
Abilities:
Sneak Attack III (Passive) – Attacks made before the target is aware of you automatically deal Natural Weapon Damage +75.
Ambush III (Active: 60 Stamina) – You ambush your target, striking them in a vulnerable location. Deals Natural Weapon Damage +300. This ability can only be used on a target unaware of you.
Power Attack III (Active: 50 Stamina) – You viciously attack your target putting extra strength behind the blow. Deal Natural Weapon Damage +55.
Pounce & Rake (Active: 60) – You leap upon your target, potentially knocking it down, where you then brutally rake it with your hind claws. Deal Natural Weapon Damage +120.
Primal Mastery III (Passive) – All Natural Weapon attack damage is increased by 85.
Skills:
Martial:
Primal Combat – Level 24 – 64%
Other:
Stealth – Level 24 – 93%
Perception – Level 24 – 71%
Racial Trait:
Primal Predator – Built for the hunt, you are without peer when it comes to tracking prey by either sound, smell, or sight.
Looks like he’s keeping himself trained up naturally, I noted as I finished skimming over the sheet, stopping early before the trait section, which contained a nearly identical version of the ætherwarped traits that I had, save for the mana draining portions of it. And his attributes seem to be pretty favorably developed towards melee. Then once Léandre and I can figu
re out how to finally put a third attribute onto a piece of armor, we can add onto his Constitution a bit more.
“Ho! Where’s the loot?” Constantine’s shouting voice suddenly boomed through the air, just barely a second ahead of a loud thump marking the door to the room being thrown open. “Léandre promised me that there would be some new threads and sharp—ah! Wait, i-is that Amaranth under that armor?”
“That it is!” I said, patting the armored puma’s side as he trotted towards Constantine, Halcyon, Drace, and Léandre as they all entered the room. “What do you guys think?”
“He looks great!” Halcyon exclaimed as he pushed past the rogue and bent down to inspect Amaranth, reaching out to scratch his chin in the process. “How’d you manage to convince him to even wear this?”
“Oh, that was easy,” I replied with a shrug. “I told him it’d make him faster for chasing Constantine around the town. He practically put it on himself after that.”
“Lyr, please no,” Constantine said, prompting a snort of laughter from Halcyon and a croak of amusement from Amaranth. “I could barely keep ahead of him when he was still naked. I doubt I even have a chance now.”
“Can animals even be naked?” Halcyon asked thoughtfully before shaking his head. “Actually, you know what, on second thought, never mind that question. That’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I replied with a chuckle as I motioned for everyone’s attention to shift towards several stands of freshly crafted armor and weapons lined up against the far wall. “And speaking of new gear, we have it all set up for you guys over there.”
“Sweet!” Drace exclaimed as both he and the others promptly made a straight line for the equipment. “Any chance that you guys managed to figure out that damage reduction thing with the æthertouched iron?”
“We did,” I replied, following the group as we all walked across the room. “It took a bit of doing, but we got it all sorted out. Plus we even managed to craft a new set of armor for everyone with the iron that we’ve been bringing up from the Twilight Grove. With all the fighting going on over the last couple weeks, we’ve been long due a gear update.”