Chapter 112: Ghost Reef Standard Issue (Patreon)

Coop tapped his fingers on the counter while he waited for the hammering in the back of the blacksmith’s workshop to cease. The smith had already been alerted to a customer when Coop entered the shop’s front door, but he was obviously in the middle of something that Coop didn’t want to interrupt. When the clanging finally stopped, it was only a few more seconds before the blacksmith himself burst into the public area of the shop from his private work area behind the counter. His oversized eyes lit up when he realized it was Coop who had come to see him.

“Oy! The Champion pays us another visit! Ya’ here to check your army’s new armor sets?” Garod barked as he wiped black soot onto his apron, leaving streaks against the rough brown surface. “I gotta say, they were more fun to work on than I would ever expect for somethin’ meant to be standard issue. Me and the Armorer had a blast.” He revealed while adjusting his oversized goggles out of the way, settling them onto the top of his head with a snap of their elastic band.

“Actually, I was going to ask you about rare materials and what I might find inside of a mana well… but I’d like to see them anyway.” Coop decided to compromise with his curiosity mid sentence. He hadn’t been a part of the planning of the army’s equipment, leaving that primarily to Shane and whoever he deemed would be able to contribute.

“Come on then, I have a fresh pair in the back. The rest are already in your shiny new armory.” Garod gestured for Coop to follow him into his private work area.

Coop rounded the counter, avoiding the assortment of foreign tools and odd metals on display, bypassing the raised shelves filled with similar miscellanea, and followed the alien into the back room. Two empty sets of armor stood in the rear, glistening in the flickering light of the smith’s flames like a casual pair of motorcycle body armors. Coop couldn’t help himself, oohing when he took the sets of equipment in. The armor looked cool.

They managed to be sleek and low profile, thanks to the magic involved in assembly, despite the metals, cloths, and leathers clearly being made in actual traditional ways. They were armored with charcoal gray plates of perfectly smooth, curved metal that seemed flexible enough to be molded for the individual wearer, a bit like Coop’s own form fitting ethereal breastplate, and had a matte finish which absorbed light rather than reflecting it.

Beneath the metal armor, flexible black leather connected the plates, contrasting with the charcoal gray, making the setup look like it was made for some kind of futuristic cyberpunk assassin. The leather was surprisingly soft when Coop felt it between his fingers and had an additional layer of tough woven cross sections of what he recognized as Erasimus’s manaweave. He wondered if someone had given the idea to recreate kevlar to the clothier.

“The angry elderly human had plenty o’ requests for the armor.” Garod explained as Coop touched the armor, describing the veteran that had consulted on the phantoms’ training. “Claimed he wanted it bulletproof and had to explain to us some of your ignition based pre-mana weapons.” Garod shook his head. “Scary stuff.” Coop was just glad they had experts to consult with the crafters. Outside of sports wear, he had no personal experience with any type of equipment that might be useful to protect against magical enemy assailants.

“What are these?” Coop wondered as he ran his fingertips along ghostly turquoise highlights that formed diamond shaped slivers that were situated almost like subtle racing stripes and decorative flourishes along the metal plates. The same greenish chips imitated the vertebrae of a spine down the back plate and seemed to barely undulate between different shades of the ghostly green he associated with spectral affinity.

Garod continued explaining while Coop explored the armor. “Mana siphons. Designed to help with magic defense and provide some minor advantages for the wearer’s resources. They’ll work best on your home territory thanks to your settlement upgrades.”

Coop nodded as he checked out the other pieces. A solid matte black helmet matched the rest of the armor and formed a perfect seal with the breastplate, almost as if it would be ready for a spacewalk. One of the armor sets had the opaque visor open and the other closed. A scarf-like layer of cloth rested on the shoulders and around the neck, reducing the profile of the padded shoulders giving the whole getup a post-apocalyptic ranger feel.

Garod reached up and did something underneath the edge of the waist. The armor transformed with the brief rustling of fabrics, so that the metals shrank or disappeared underneath and the helmet was reduced to something between a neck brace and a torc. He was suddenly staring at a reasonably fashionable leather vest with light cloth sleeves and leather pants with black combat boots.

“Huh.” Coop found himself surprised at the dynamic transformation. Instead of combat armor, he thought the gear could easily be worn casually. Maybe it would look out of place at a fancy restaurant, but a pre-mana bar, or a tavern? It would fit right in.

“Ya’ don’t need your soldiers lookin’ like shock troops unless they want to be intimidating, so there is a standard mode. Your human demands were extensive, so we had to use four times as many materials than would normally be necessary. Most would call it excessive…” Garod didn’t seem particularly bothered by the demands, rather a bit impressed by the willingness to spend so much for what would become basic gear. “Good thing you left so many magic materials, or else it couldn’t be done for such a large order. These are better, and more expensive, than most would be willing to equip on their first-class elites.”

Garod fumbled with some kind of scanning tool that was resting on his work table and raised it up for Coop to look through. Coop suddenly viewed a status screen that described the armor.

[Ghost Reef Standard Issue Armor]

(Rare)

+1139 Physical Defense

+608 Magic Defense

+23% Mana Regeneration

+50% Affliction Resistance

Active Climate Control

Durability 100/100

Requires Level: 75

Requires Affiliation: Ghost Reef

Lead Crafter: Garod Harod Etherforge

“Pretty good, huh?” Garod boasted. “The affliction resistance and extra physical defense came from those materials you threw in. It even went up a rarity thanks to my expertise and the quality of the excess materials. Nearly unheard of for that to happen.” The smith stated proudly.

Garod tapped the helmet of the battle ready armor set. “The extra features include air filtration and temperature control. Your advisors seemed worried about gas attacks and mist in particular.” Garod paused, shaking his head subtly. “I dunno what your planet went through, but ya’ got some strange phobias.”

Coop was happy to hear that his advisors had been thoughtful enough to plan some contingencies. He wondered if the troops would be able to fight inside Fog of War with this armor. Maybe he could tone the skill’s density down for them and find a level that still worked on most enemies.

“Are you going to have to make a higher level version in the future?” Coop wondered how frequently they would require upgrades, noting the level requirement was exactly at the phantoms’ current maximum. After the settlement upgraded, they would be able to continue leveling. Even Coop couldn’t provide enough materials for them to make new sets of armor every time the phantoms leveled.

“No, no, once the equipment is assigned to someone they will be able to have it enhanced whenever they feel it's necessary for a much cheaper price than the original crafting.” Garod chuckled to himself conspiratorially. “The thing is, it would be really challenging for a different crafter to get the job done properly, so it’s best to return to the original crafter when it’s time for enhancements.”

“Is that the real reason you enjoyed working on this stuff? Banking that your customer base is gonna come crawling back for enhancements?” Coop joked, seeing exactly the business model these crafters were angling for.

“Hoho, that’s not a small part of it! I’m happy to tie myself to a settlement that could survive the challenges of that first event! Keep on progressing this settlement, Champion. We’ll all benefit together.” Garod beamed, feeling good about his position in Ghost Reef. “Ya’ wanna see the weapon prototypes too?” Garod asked with a twinkle in his eye, happy to present his completed works.

“I won’t say no…” Coop agreed while he went back to making sense of the display. It was the first time he had seen defenses represented numerically, so he couldn’t be sure if they were high or low. He had to take the master blacksmith’s pride and enthusiasm as proof they were good totals.

He summoned his own set of armor to gauge relative values. He sincerely doubted it would ever be a good idea for him to use anything other than his own skills to equip himself, but it would work as a point of comparison. Maybe if the stats on crafted gear were hundreds of times better than his own, he could consider using it for specific situations, but losing his ability to mistjump alone was enough to have him pass on switching anything up. His mobility was the primary reason he didn’t really consider the result of the build he put together as a pure tank.

[Ethereal Gladiator Armor]

(Summoned)

+1540 Physical Defense

+1540 Magic Defense

Mind Lucky Bonus

Magic Critical Immunity

Regenerative Durability

Durability 100/100

Requires Class: Revenant

Requires Race: Human

Haunted

Coop blew air out of his nose as he smiled at his reliable armor, the flat defenses seemed to be scaling with his Mind stat directly, though there were a few additional lines he didn’t understand.

“Garod? How much physical defense does a point of Body give?”

“Well, the final numbers depend on a whole series of unknowable variables. A general rule is one defense for one stat, as a baseline. Remember that physical defense itself is also just representing more variables that the system uses when determining damage in a numerical sense.” Garod flipped his ears behind his shoulders as he explained. “As far as we mere individuals are concerned, bigger numbers are better and that’s it. Let the Maker sort everything else out.” He warned, like Coop was close to asking about knowledge that was too advanced for them to decipher. Based on what Coop knew about the relationship between mana and the system, he figured the system was merely assigning values to real phenomena and not actually determining them.

He looked back at the display and shook his head at the values, keeping in mind that the armor was providing additional stats that applied on top of his already enormous personal attributes. His armor was basically doubling his default magic defense and tripling his default physical defense. And, it was already higher than Garod’s armor thanks to his huge stacks of stats. It was insane. Revenant was definitely inclined toward a tank class, at least how he had built it.

Garod glanced at the reading for Coop’s armor and his already huge eyes widened even further. He spluttered in surprise for a moment before recovering enough to pay his respect. “Now that’s some propa’ gear, kid. Magic Defense like that is absurd. Crit Immunity and a Lucky Bonus on top? Completely unfair. Regenerative durability is a unique attribute that would put many smiths out of business if it wasn’t extraordinarily rare. Kinda wasted on summoned armor though…” He scratched his chin. “What is Haunted?”

“A title.” Coop explained simply.

“Well, ain’t that somethin’. Titles on equipment is essentially a myth. Could be that those rumors started from some conjured gear instead of crafted…”

“What about Regenerative Durability?” Coop prompted, taking note of durability now that one of his skills had recently brought it to his attention.

“Right. So, normally, when gear loses durability it needs to be manually repaired, most of the time by an actual smith or at least with a kit created by one. That’s the main way we make our living. Outside of newcomers, most people ain’t constantly crafting new items and updating’ them as much as maintaining what they got. Once some durability is lost, it won’t come back no matter how nice ya’ treat the piece of gear, so it needs to be brought to an expert to fix it up, using materials in the process.” He jabbed at Coop’s armor. “Regenerative Durability means that the particular piece is more flexible with its mana, capable of passively regaining some of what was lost, whether it be by erosion or damage. Thankfully, it really is rare.”

“What happens when the durability reaches zero?” Coop continued, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer thanks to his past experiences in combat.

“The equipment will be broken beyond repair. Sometimes catastrophic failures can even happen, where the mana will escape explosively!”

Coop had some of his equipment break in the past. Mostly his shield, but his spear hadn’t fared very well when he put it through the Primal Construct’s main weapons. He supposed the system was more particular than just saying it broke, actually calculating the durability as it was diminished.

Garod took Coop’s easy acceptance of destroyed gear and grew a bit agitated. “None of your people better let any of my equipment get to that point. Gah! Now you make me want to put anyone using these through a course on satisfactory maintenance!” Garod continued, grumbling about the difference between life-saving equipment and toys, worried about his efforts being neglected by the phantoms.

“What’s a Lucky Bonus?” Coop asked before the smith distracted himself any further.

“Means all the calculations are done twice and the better result is the one that goes through.” When Coop continued to look unsure, Garod explained further. “This is simplified to an unreasonable degree, but imagine a weapon has a damage range of 1-100 and a skill has a 1x to 10x multiplier. It can do anywhere from 1 to 1,000 damage, but the lucky defense bonus makes it roll twice and chooses the lower value... It’s not that simple in reality, but ya’ get the idea.”

Coop nodded, understanding that it was good and freely ignoring anything that complicated it further. First hand experience told him it wasn’t so simple, or the details that went into a regular strike wouldn’t matter, but he knew he could swing harder, faster, or from a different angle, and get different results depending on where he struck and how accurate the blow was. It seemed like the system was applying numerical values to everything without interfering with most of the real physical considerations of combat. Figuring out how to survive the assimilation would have been a mess with how limited the user interface had been from the beginning if even the most basic interactions were being manipulated in a way that required understanding what was going on under the hood.

Coop used the scanner to look at the crafted sword Garod had brought over while using Retribution to summon his own sword. There was no chance of replacing his weapons now that he upgraded the skill and added the Legacy of the Mists, but he was curious to compare them anyway.

[Ghost Reef Standard Issue Sword]

(Rare)

+960-1280 Physical Damage

+5 to All Attributes

+13% Chance to apply Additional Bleeding Affliction

Durability 100/100

Requires Level: 75

Requires Affiliation: Ghost Reef

Lead Crafter: Garod Harod Etherforge

The sword sure looked cool, matching the armor sets perfectly, and the additional attributes seemed awesome, but how would it compare to Coop’s weapon? He turned the scanner to his sword.

[Ethereal Shortsword]

(Summoned)

+1,540 Physical Damage

Regenerative Durability

Durability 100/100

Haunted

Requires Class: Revenant

Requires Race: Human

Coop looked at his sword and shook his head in satisfaction. Once again, his equipment matched his Mind stat. Even his weapons exceeded what Garod claimed to be the best weapons crafted on Earth. That meant gear wouldn’t be the great equalizer for anyone standing against Coop’s stats until even better equipment became available, and it wasn’t like his equipment would stop scaling in the meantime, as long as he kept chasing stats.

It was a bit curious that the damage on his short sword matched up with his Mind stat exactly, though. He summoned his spear to also compare, expecting different values since they were completely different types of weapon.

[Ethereal Spear]

(Summoned)

+1,540 Physical Damage

Regenerative Durability

Durability 100/100

Haunted

Requires Class: Revenant

Requires Race: Human

“Garod? Why do these two different weapon types have the exact same damage?” He asked.

“Like I said, the calculations aren’t so simple. Somewhere in the damage formula there are surely variables for weapon types, among a thousand other things. Just remember bigger is better and leave it at that.” The smith glanced at the scanner and paused as he looked at Coop suspiciously, looked back at the scanner, then back at Coop. “Are you really level 100?”

Coop chuckled. “For now.”