Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  With the sound of industry continuing to build with every step that I took, it didn’t take me long to reach the workshop, finding it as busy and noisy as ever. Striding into the place without slowing my pace, I let the cacophony wash over me as I entered into the room, finding it packed to the brim with crafters, each of them working on a variety of projects. On one side of me, I saw three separate groups of adventurers efficiently assembling a row of ballistae, the crafters seamlessly interchanging with one another between projects as they were needed. On the other, my eye landed on those working to supply the parts the various groups needed, a sharp-eyed foreman calling out to them on what was needed where.

  Moving carefully as not to disrupt their flow, I navigated a path through their section and proceeded onto the next, finding myself among another set of industrious crafters. These, I saw, were all working on a variety of smaller projects, churning out a collection of what I knew would be much-needed equipment once our reinforcements arrived. Ranging from items such as spare tools and replacement parts to larger ones such as tent poles, chairs, and tables, they were busily crafting everything that could be possibly needed by a new crop of settlers.

  Especially when a good portion of those settlers are going to be arriving with only the clothes on their back and whatever else they were lucky enough to grab on the way out, I thought while passing through the second section, slowing to wave at the few crafters that looked up from their work as I went by. Hopefully, in the next day or so we’ll be able to get a good accounting of what exactly they need the most. That way we won’t end up burning effort and supplies on stuff they won’t end up needing.

  Making a mental note to follow up with that train of thought later once I had a chance to hear Kilgore and Berwyn’s report, I pressed even farther into the workshop, finally spotting the man I’d come looking for. Standing in a group with four of his apprentices, I arrived just in time to hear Léandre in his trademark form as he collectively gave them a running series of tasks to sort out.

  “…will need at least forty of those brackets if we are to meet our demand for the next few days, as well as have a few spares,” he said thoughtfully as he looked down at a length of paper in his hand, simultaneously speaking to each and yet no apprentice in particular at the same time. “Beyond that, we will need two—eh, perhaps better three score spare parts for our current crop of ballistae just in case they suffer battle damage. I would rather have parts sitting idle than not have them at all. In addition, we will also need sixteen standard lengths of iron cabling, six hundred feet of rope, and at least two hundred burlap sheets, but if any of you can get me double that, I will sing your praises to all who listen.”

  The craftsman looked up from his paper as he finished speaking, scanning between the assembled group of men and women, a single eyebrow rising upwards. “Are there any questions?”

  Receiving an immediate chorus of grunts or shaking heads in response, Léandre bobbed his head once in approval, giving the group a toothy smile as he did so. “Excellent. Then I bid you all good luck with your respective battles. Come find myself or Lyrian should you find yourself in need of more work.”

  Tasks assigned, the apprentices then all promptly scattered without so much as a word in departure, each of them moving to head in a different direction. As they did, Léandre calmly folded up the paper he’d been holding and slid it into a pocket, his attention turning towards me.

  “Good, you actually look rested for once,” he said by way of greeting, his head cocking itself to the side as he continued to speak. “Now tell me, what is this I heard about some sort of magic orb destroying our mages’ lair? I was told there was an…incident of some sort, but none have been able to explain what exactly happened. Only that I must now find the time and the space to build them a new workshop.”

  “Oh, geez,” I replied, unable to help but laugh and shake my head at the craftsman’s question. “I was there, and I still have trouble piecing together everything that had happened.”

  “Was it truly that bad?” Léandre asked, his curiously growing quickly at my words. “Perhaps I should be thankful there wasn’t a fire to deal with.”

  “Oh, there was,” I said as I thought back to the rapid sequence of events that had followed Garr’s and my arrival at the arcane lab. “But thankfully it was put it out before it could spread.”

  “You…are serious, aren’t you?” Léandre queried back, his eyes focusing intently on mine in an attempt to determine if I were joking.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” I replied before going on to signal for us to start walking, knowing full well that the man had already mapped an agenda for our afternoon. “Come on. I’ll tell you about it on the way to whatever’s first on our list.”

  “That would be to the warehouse to check stock,” the man said, the both of us turning to head out of the carpentry workshop and through a set of doors that led into the massive storage room that dominated the rear of the crafting hall.

  “…so, before I could do anything, Halcyon and Donovan both took a swipe at the thing, causing it to dodge downward to avoid them both,” I explained as we walked, pausing just long enough at one point to allow a pair of carpenters to wheel a cart stacked with lumber past us. “Which was about the worst thing that could have happened because that distracted Caius enough for Amaranth to finally get around him and leap at the orb. But, of course, as soon as the cat did that, the thing took off again, this time hitting Halcyon in the chest and knocking him off the chair as it tried to escape.”

  “Oof, that must have left a mark if it was capable of breaking the cabin,” Léandre commented, visibly wincing at that mental picture.

  “Oh, it did,” I assured as the cart finished passing by us, allowing us to resume our journey. “After that though, Amaranth gave up playing the easy game and simply used Blink Strike to catch it, which he immediately did. The only problem was that he caught it while the orb was flying directly over the lab.”

  “Over?” he queried, his face glancing over at me at first in confusion which promptly morphed into sudden realization. “Oh. I think I see. The lab had a thatched roof, did it not?”

  “It did,” I replied, still remembering Amaranth’s shocked expression and mental cry when it had given way under him after his landing. “And it had no chance of standing up to an eight-hundred-plus pound puma in full armor landing on it.”

  “No, that it would certainly not,” Léandre agreed with a shake of his head. “Then I’m to assume that the thatching is what caught fire?”

  “You are, yeah,” I answered with a nod. “He broke a lamp on landing, which thankfully, Stanton, who was still in the building at the time, managed to quickly put out.”

  “Lucky for us then. To lose all those notes and artifacts…” he said with yet another shake of his head. “And what of this orb after all this chaos?”

  “Oh, it was turned off easily and put in a locked box it shouldn’t be able to escape from. Or we hope so, at least,” I replied, remembering the mages explanation about how the whole disaster had even started. “Apparently, Halcyon was trying to tinker with it after bringing it up from the ruin but accidentally reactivated it and set it into some sort of mode, which—don’t ask me why—includes evasive flying for some reason.”

  “So I see,” Léandre replied, completely at a loss for other words. “Well, I suppose it is a good thing we’ve finished building the palisade. At least now I have workers available to me for other projects. Perhaps we can rebuild the place somewhere far away from where it would cause harm if something should go wrong like we have with the foundry.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” I agreed, having considered the exact same thing. “Is there anywhere reasonably close to the crafting hall that we can put it? I’m not sure if you ever had a chance to see the lab in person, but space was at a premium.”

  “As it is everywhere in the town now,” the architect mused in a dry tone as he turned to glance at me. “And that is before w
e try to find room for a thousand more souls. I may be good, exceptional even, at my craft, but I am afraid I have yet to find a way to create more space where there is none to be had.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I replied with a nod. “What are our options?”

  “For which problem?” Léandre queried, an eyebrow raising as he posed the question. “For the mages, our simplest solution is to carve a piece of this warehouse off for them. It will be temporary and ill-suited, but that is simply the best we can manage until you all can convince these orcs to leave us be.

  “As for the settlers,” he continued. “We do what every settlement has done when it has reached its limit. We sprawl. Likely westward and south on the far side of the river. There is much land there that has been completely untouched and is unsuited for farming. The water too gives us a natural barrier to work with which will aid our growth. It should last us for a long while until we are forced to sprawl again.”

  Léandre paused for a moment to let out a sigh, his tone changing as he resumed speaking. “Of course, though, much like the other case, this depends all on the orcs that hound us. It would not do to burn effort building anything outside the walls if there is risk that they would be torn down in mere days.”

  “Absolutely not,” I agreed as we finally came to a stop, having reached our destination inside the warehouse, which was just before a large row of meticulously organized crates, larger storage boxes, and a variety of burlap sacks. “Which is why I was thinking to settle them farther away from Aldford, if at least for the time being. Do you remember the lake to the south of us? I was looking over a few maps before I came over here, and I think that might be a decent enough spot to put the non-combatants for a while. Especially if we don’t want them to fall prey to the orcs.”

  “I only recall it vaguely,” Léandre replied, a hand coming up to scratch his chin in thought. “Wasn’t it filled full of those wolverine creatures on the plains beside it?”

  “It used to be,” I said with a nod. “But those have been thinned out for the most part by all the adventurers here. Same with the creatures in the forest nearby. I figure between the fish in the lake, the animals that remain, and the forest itself, they’d have enough resources to be reasonably self-sufficient. Long enough for us to win or lose against the orcs at least.”

  “Hrm, then perhaps that would work well indeed,” Léandre said, his head slowly bobbing up and down in thought as he looked over all of the supplies in front of us. “We will lean once again on tents to give them the shelter they need, and I have already ordered more tools and other supplies to allow them to make whatever else they lack. Though I understand they are coming with their own wagons and mounts, yes? They will not be completely dependent on us if they’ve made it this far.”

  “Far as I know, they shouldn’t be,” I replied. “But I’m waiting for a report from the people we’ve sent to meet them to be sure. We should, hopefully, get a sense of what their needs are within the next day or so.”

  “Good, though the sooner the better,” the craftsman answered as he motioned for me to follow him into the row of supplies. “Because we only have so much available to us to spare, and what we do have must suit our needs first. Else we will not be prepared properly for when the orcs come calling on us.”

  Léandre paused to look over at me once again in question.

  “Actually, this is a good time to ask. Do we know yet if they are still coming to call on us at all? Or have your efforts caused their horde to turn around?”

  “It’s still too early to know,” I replied with a shake of my head. “We sent scouts out earlier this morning, and they’re likely still traveling. Hopefully, we’ll get word of what the orcs are doing either late tonight or tomorrow morning.

  “If you were to ask me though,” I continued, but in a softer tone, “I’d bet they’re still coming. Slower maybe than they originally planned. But I’d be surprised if they’ve turned around. We bloodied their noses hard on our raid, and everything that I know about orcs tells me that they’ll be wanting revenge. Over and above what they did to Valor’s Point.”

  “That is what I thought as well,” Léandre replied, his expression narrowing somewhat as he spoke. “Which means that a siege is likely in our future. For I cannot see how else we would be able to meet such a force on open terms. Not without even more adventurers than those promised to arrive.”

  “I’m thinking the same too,” I said, coming to a stop as Léandre spotted the crate he’d been looking for, waving for me to grab hold of the rope handle on its end while he took hold of the other. “We’ll need to make our stand here and hope that we can break them before they break us.”

  “Then it is a good thing that I have been blessed with a handful of ideas that I hope will make our efforts easier,” he replied as we lifted the large wooden crate, its contents rustling loudly within. “Come, help me take this back to my workshop. I have a design that I must show you, and a handful of other ideas that would value your thoughts on as well.”

  “Oh? What sort of ideas?” I asked, suddenly curious as to what could possibly be in the crate we were carrying. With how much the war had consumed me over the last few weeks and with how much flux there typically was in the warehouse, I had little idea of what resources and supplies we even had, let alone what was stored where.

  “Ones that may hopefully allow us to finally crack the mystery of forging æthertouched iron,” he explained. “And another that I hope will give us the ability to put fear into the hearts of the orcs when they see it.”

  “Well, that certainly sounds promising!” I replied, my curiosity only growing at the man’s statement.

  “I certainly hope so,” Léandre said, flashing me a wry smile as we maneuvered the crate out from its spot from among the others around it and began the process of carrying it to his workshop.

  Fortunately, though, the place wasn’t too far away from the warehouse, the journey taking us a few minutes before we finally arrived, the two of us passing the time by outlining all the other various tasks that we had to attend to.

  “Good, we are here,” the architect said with evident relief, sounding a little winded from both talking and carrying his half of the crate at the same time. “We can place the box in the corner for the time being. Depending on how our planning goes, we won’t need it until tomorrow, but I would rather have it on hand early so we don’t need to hunt for it later.”

  “If you say so,” I replied as we set the container down and slid it out of the way, my curiosity finally getting the better of me. “What exactly is in here, anyway? It’s heavy.”

  “It is everything that we could conceivably need to make this,” Léandre answered as he dusted off his hands, then waved me over towards his desk, which was currently occupied by a large drafting board. “Or perhaps most of everything, there are a few things still missing that we would need in order to finish it.”

  “And what exactly is this?” I said, more to myself than to Léandre as my eyes landed on the drawing currently pinned to the board, recognizing it vaguely as a ballista, but one unlike any that we’d crafted before.

  “My masterpiece,” he replied, letting me go first as we reached the desk. “And perhaps yours too, if your skills are sufficient enough by the time we attempt this.”

  “Your ‘masterpiece’?” I repeated, taking my eyes off the design to look back at the man, at first confused by what he was saying. But no sooner were the words out of my mouth, did I suddenly realize what he meant, my attention snapping back towards the design with wide eyes. “You mean so you can break into level thirty in blacksmithing and carpentry and enter the next tier of crafting.”

  “So I do,” Léandre replied with a nod as he indicated the design. “And I believe that this should serve enough to propel the both of us through that barrier and beyond with a single craft. I’m not sure where you might be in your skills, but the difficulty for creating a ‘mastercraft’ quality item that is also level twen
ty-nine is rather high, even more so than it has already been the last few levels. I believe it is intended to be quite the trial for any aspiring crafter.”

  “As we figured it would be,” I said as I turned to inspect the design, the two of us having spoken often about the final crafting challenge that awaited us after reaching level twenty-nine in a tradeskill.

  Following a similar route as the adventuring progression with regards to gaining an advanced class, reaching level twenty-nine in a particular craft was then followed by a crafting challenge in order to be able to continue onwards to level thirty. The challenge was to create a single item of “mastercraft” quality with an item level of twenty-nine, after which the crafter would automatically progress straight to level thirty and enter the journeyman tier of a tradeskill.

  Unfortunately, though, one of the things that we’d noticed the closer that we approached the end of our current tradeskill tier was that it became much more difficult to achieve a high item quality in the things we crafted. Becoming especially noticeable after passing the early twenties in a trade, the difficultly in successfully crafting a mastercraft quality item at an equal level went up drastically. The only option that we found was to be substantially over-leveled tradeskill wise with regards to the item level of what was being crafted. In my case, it had only been because of those levels during my last round of equipment upgrades that I’d been able to even hit the “good” item quality level while crafting my armor, anything higher being far out of reach. The only exception to that difficulty spike had been my upgrading of Splinter, which thanks to previous mastercraft status had managed to stay at the same quality level—though whether that had been just because of skill or luck was anyone’s guess.

  “Indeed,” Léandre agreed as he allowed me several seconds to scan over his design. “But with enough preparation and planning, any trial can be overcome, which is what I have begun to lay the groundwork for here. We would use our finest materials, our best tools, ensure that our bodies and minds are rested before we tackle the task—and every other thing that we can think of to give us the edge we need to be prepared. If we should fail after all that, it wouldn’t be for a lack of trying.”