Chapter 23: What is That? (Patreon)

Of course, getting the chest open was once more made difficult with paws instead of hands. Still Dominic was determined; a mere lock would not stymie him for long.

Eventually, he managed to delicately use a single claw to flip the latch and then the rest was just a matter of time. With anticipation, he pushed the lid open and stared at the bounty revealed within.

Immediately, confusion took over the anticipation. What is that? Dominic hooked out the strangely-shaped piece of leather with one paw and laid it on the floor. Looking at it from all angles, he still found himself mystified.

It was vaguely circular, that was for sure. Placed on the floor, he could see that there was a circular gap in the middle of the leather. It wasn’t a bracelet, though – it was much too big. And it would have been an oddly-shaped bracelet anyway.

The actual thickness of the fabric was the same from the interior of the circle to the exterior all the way around – about a centimetre thick. The other dimensions, however, were very different. The narrowest parts of the leather were to the sides, the band only a couple of inches wide. From those narrow bits, the leather quickly expanded in both directions.

Prodding the device, Dominic pushed it so that the circle was closed and it was lying on one of the bigger pieces. From this angle, he could see more of the shape of the other pieces of the plain-looking dark-brown material.

The biggest piece was an irregular pentagon. The leather extended downwards at right angles to the band at the top, then narrowed to a point. The other piece was a similar shape but about half the size. Dominic would have imagined the whole thing to be a band with two other pieces of leather sewn on, but closer inspection revealed no hint of stitching – it looked as if the leather had just grown that way. Impossible, right?

Mystified, Dominic wondered if there was some way of getting the System to tell him about the item. Surely there is – what’s the point of giving this to me as loot if I have no idea about what it can do? Or even what it’s for. Prodding the item, he tried various different commands.

Status. His own status was brought up instead; he dismissed it.

Um, stats? Nope.

Inspect? No good either.

Um...information? This time, his attempt was rewarded.

[Leather gorget (non-standard, Beast, T1)]

[This is a poorly-worked leather gorget which has traded off protection for the capacity to be worn by a Beast. The craftsman has also added in an extra-dimensional pocket (non-stasis, 6m²) which renders the item unable to be enchanted. Offers +12to Piercing/Tearing/Slicing damage reduction and +6to Crushing damage reduction to attacks to the neck.]

Dominic stared at the description, excitement rising. Was he reading that correctly? Was this thing a sort of bag of holding? Or maybe not a bag exactly…. A gorget...isn’t that some sort of neck protection?

Compared to what he would have been willing to take – a ridiculous fanny pack – in exchange for having some storage capacity, something that would also offer protection for his vulnerable throat was very welcome. Dominic didn’t even care if it was apparently ‘poor’ quality – it was perfect. Too perfect, perhaps. Has this dungeon been reading my mind in order to choose the best loot for me?

His attention was caught by something else in the description, though. Are beasts not supposed to be able to wear equipment, then?Certainly the requirement for the craftsman to ‘trade off’ damage reduction for him to be able to wear it seemed a bit of a nerf. Or was that just because it was ‘poorly-worked’? And how am I supposed to get it on?

It was a good question. There was no indication of a catch or fastening. Though maybe that’s a good thing, Dominic told himself – considering how complicated he had found it to unlatch the chest, trying to do up some sort of fastening on something around his neck would have probably been beyond his capabilities.

That didn’t solve his issue, though. Nosing at the band, Dominic tried to hook his claws onto it and drag it over his head. Although leather wasn’t usually known for being particularly elastic, he was hoping that there would be a system assist somehow.

His hopes seemed to be in vain, and he resorted to mentally swearing at the gorget. Bloody thing! Why isn’t there some sort of ‘equip’ option? Suddenly the gorget vanished and Dominic felt a weight settle around his throat. Wait...was it really that simple? Unequip.

The gorget vanished once more from his throat, appearing before his nose. Apparently it is. Equip, he mentally commanded again as he touched the gorget with his nose.

He took a moment to feel what the new piece of equipment was like on his body. He’d thought at first that having something around his neck would feel confining, but in fact it was very comfortable. The leather didn’t bite at his skin. Instead, it flexed with his movements no matter how much he turned and twisted.

It was a little warm underneath the layer of leather, but not too bad. He’d have to see what it was like in the sun, though. Now on him, he could feel where the different pieces sat. The largest piece was on the underside of his throat, the sides extending downwards, the tip of the pentagon actually between his front two legs. The band of the gorget was wide enough to cover the majority of his vulnerable area at the base of his skull, and then the smaller piece covered the back of his neck with the point extending a little between his shoulder blades.

Ultimately, it wasn’t a suit of armour, but it did offer a bit more protection to the area he felt most protective about. Best of all, Dominic felt a bit more confident in using his most effective weapon with this on: his teeth. The problem with that before had always been that by biting at something, he put his own throat within reach. Now, with this bit of extra protection, he wasn’t so worried.

Wanting to test the limits of this command, he tried several different combinations – touching the gorget at the moment of the mental command, not touching it, equipping it and then moving, unequipping while moving…. In the end, he discovered a number of things.

First, he had to be touching the gorget to equip it. It didn’t have to be with his nose; he could equip it when touching with his paw. Heck, he’d even tried with his tail once – it worked. However, some part of his body had to be in contact at the moment of the command.

Second, when the gorget was unequipped, it would always appear wherever it had been at the moment of being equipped. So, when he had equipped it with his tail, it had reappeared at the tip of his tail. If the limb was in the air at the time, the gorget would fall on the floor.

He could unequip when running, but the gorget was immediately left behind – it appeared beside the paw which had previously equipped it, and then was left on the floor as his paw kept moving.

Interesting…. Having exhausted the possibilities which came to mind when it came to equipping and unequipping, Dominic next turned his attention to working out how the extra-dimensional space functioned.

Activating it was easy enough – he merely had to think ‘inventory’ and he suddenly had a sense of what was inside the space. Which was to say nothing at that time. Wanting to test with something, Dominic looked around the room. His gaze settling on the altar, he was hit with a wave of inspiration.

Padding over to the altar, he huffed out a breath towards the still-burning candle stub. He wasn’t able to direct his breath in same way he would have with a human mouth, but force offered an alternative to finesse.

The candle-flame winked out and he immediately knocked it over so it fell out of its holder with a small clattering sound.

Testing the inventory feature proved he had to be touching the item and needed to focus on it going into his inventory. He didn’t need to lift it off the ground, but he assumed that an item too big for the space wouldn’t be accepted.

Once the candle was in the extra-dimensional space, Dominic found he had a ‘sense’ of it when accessing his inventory. It wasn’t as simple as seeing the item in a grid, or even seeing the item in an area. Instead, it was like he just...knew it was there. He didn’t know anything more about it – not whether it was made of wax or tallow, not whether it was classed as a weapon or something else, not how long it would continue to burn for. He just knew that he had a candle in his inventory.

Weird, he said to himself finally. I don’t care – I have a way of storing things, finally! Pulling the candle out of his inventory was just as easy; like the gorget, it appeared beside whatever had put it inside in the first place.Out of curiosity, he went and grabbed one of the torches, nudging it out of its holder and then putting it in his inventory.

It was only after doing that that he suddenly wondered if it had been a good idea. What if the lack of light made the statue move? Fortunately, he’d chosen one above a swordsman – he didn’t want to have to deal with the archers again.

Watching the statue warily, he was relieved when it stayed still. Phew. Perhaps this trap doesn’t reset? Pulling to torch back out, he noted that it had continued to burn. The description did say something about ‘non-stasis’…. Does that mean that if I left it burning It would burn away? And what happens if I put other flammable things in there? Would they catch light too?

With the limited materials he had to hand, he couldn’t answer his questions. In the end, he decided to leave, satisfied with his exploration. He decided not to take the torch, but he did take the candle. He also tried to take the chest, figuring that could be useful later, but he couldn’t get the thing to enter his inventory. Maybe it was part of the dungeon in some way?

One last glance around the room to verify that he hadn’t missed anything – including tapping his claws against all the blocks in reach in case there was a hidden door – he headed back towards the passageway.

If the altar wasn’t along this corridor, it must be through the other door. Bad luck to have chosen the wrong room first, but he got a nice piece of equipment out of it so it wasn’t the end of the world either.

*****

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