HC: Handyman | Ch. 50 - Vases (Patreon)

After the gang left, a string of customers arrived, leading to half an hour of nonstop cooking. Although Jack was getting tired of serving so many customers when all he wanted to do was craft coiled vases, he soldiered on. He sorely needed the income of gold.

“Tell your friends!” Jack said, waving as his last customers left the clearing. Jack closed his eyes and heard no footsteps, no laughter, no chatter. No one else was coming. Rubbing his hands, he ran towards his workstation and took out one of the torches gifted by Horace. He wedged a lump of clay, molded into a flat disk, and laid it on the makeshift table. Before adding a coil, Jack brought the torch near to the disk of clay. If his hunch was right, this was the secret to making coiled pottery. 

A small bar appeared over the disk. Jack grinned. He had finally figured it out. By bringing the pottery close to a flame, he could override the system, allowing the clay to start drying before he finished molding it. The disk hardened a little, slightly changing color. Jack nodded approvingly. A harder base would add stability to the tall vase. He grabbed a fresh lump of clay, rolled it into a coil, and placed it over the flat ceramic disk, easily joining them. 

He brought the torch up to the vase again. The coil hardened a little. By removing the excess moisture from the coil and the disk, he could ensure that the vase wouldn’t deform under the weight of additional coils. Happy that his plan was working, Jack kept adding coil after coil. He only brought the torch up to the vase for a few seconds at a time. In the real world, this would have taken much longer, but it was one of the benefits of crafting in the game. All the boring parts could be expedited. 

By the time Jack reached the 20th coil and formed the rim of the vase, he stepped back and received the notification he was hoping for: 

You’ve molded a [Large Earthenware Vase]. 

+60 xp in [Pottery].

 Jack straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest. Crossing his arms, he walked around the tall vase, admiring the fruits of his work. "Now, all I have to do is let it dry, and then..." Jack blinked a few times. "Wait a moment. How do I fire this thing?" Jack looked at the nearby bonfire and then at the tall pot. There was no way such a small fire could heat the whole pot. 

Jack scratched his head, at a loss over how to fire a human-sized vase. He went online to find out how this was done in real life. After reading a couple of articles, and watching a video, he concluded he would require a large kiln. He was in the bush! There was no kiln here! As far as he knew, not even the kilns at the communal workshop at the Pottery Association could fit these tall vases. 

He looked around at what he had on hand, wondering. The only thing that came to his mind was setting the whole forest on fire, but that would quickly get out of control. He didn’t even know if he could start such a large fire. Starting just a small bonfire was already troublesome. The system might not allow him to do it. Even doing something simple like grabbing a stick from the fire and using it as a torch, was impossible in the game. The burning stick was immediately put out. The game was so realistic, and so stupid at the same time.

Jack left the big vase to dry and decided to give up. Once he got back to the city or Felix came back online, he could ask him how it was done. There was no point in making such tall vases if he could make smaller ones.

Jack made two pinch pots, scoring the rims, and adding slip as if it were glue. He mushed both pots together, and used water to hide the seam. Then, he cut a hole in the top to form the rim of the vase. He split another lump of clay into two, rolled it into two cylinders, scored them and vases where he would attach them, and brought everything together. 

You’ve molded a [Small Earthenware Vase]. 

+30 pottery xp.

It was half the experience compared to the tall vase, but it was worth it. In the time it took him to coil a large one, he could make several pinched vases. His goal was to grind for levels, and this seemed like the fastest way to do it. Jack set the pinched vase aside to dry and got started on a new one.

*

"Are you sure this is the best way of doing it?" Horace complained as he swung his hammer to finish off one of the three prehistoric bees they had allowed into the little cave.

"What other choice do we have? We can only handle three of these at a time. Four if we push it," Amari replied.

Marie grabbed a pouch of dust and blew it toward a nearby bee, stunning it for a moment and allowing Amari to hit it with his spear.

"I know, it's just that there are still at least 50 of them outside. And then we still have to chase the queen. Are you even sure we can kill them faster than they can spawn?"

"Come on, Horace, when have I ever let you down?"

"Guys," Marie said with a pale look.

"What is it, Marie? Is everything okay?"

"The respawn… I forgot to factor that into my calculations. I underestimated how long it would take us to capture the bee queen."

"What are you saying?"

"There's a chance that some of the insects back at the camp will wake up before we leave this place."

"What, Marie?" Horace hissed.

"It's okay, it's okay. I just need to get back to the camp, replace the herb bags, and in 90 minutes, I can come back here."

“How are you going to leave, Marie?! We boxed ourselves in here! There are a gazillion bees between here and the camp,” Horace roared.

Amari stepped in to ease the tension. "Calm down, you two. We’ll just have to push it. Horace, we’ll start letting one more bee in at a time. We need to speed up the process, or Jack is going to be dead."

“Should I warn him?” Marie asked, worried.

Amari’s mind raced. All it took to wake up all the bugs was for one of them to awaken and start a ruckus. There was no way Jack could handle that many bugs at once. Not only would Jack probably die, but they’d have to start this process all over.

“Not yet. I don’t want him to panic. We can still do this. If in 30 minutes we find we can’t do it, we’ll message him then.”

*

After making a few identical vases, Jack decided to mix things up a little. A vase could be short or tall, fat or slim, elegant with elaborate curves and patterns, or simple and unassuming. To keep himself entertained, Jack started experimenting. In some, he tried to make the walls as thin as he could. In others, he left thick walls to carve spiraling whirls on them. Eventually, he got bored of it, too, and stopped after he’d molded a collection of 20 vases.

He had just finished glazing them with slip. If he had known he would spend so much time doing pottery out here in the bush, he would have brought turmeric and flint to make different glazes. Sadly, he didn’t have any. Maybe he should ask the next customer to pay him in flint. He doubted there was someone out there with turmeric in hand. The only ones that would, would be chefs, and they wouldn’t come to his camp to eat a [Survival Stew] when they could cook something better themselves.

After molding so many vases, his experience bar had only climbed by 3%. The largest chunk of XP from pottery came when the piece was finished. Hopefully, these twenty pots would let him break through to 10% of level 9. He wanted to get to level 10 tonight. He put on his mittens and started putting vase after vase into the bed of hot coals.

You’ve glaze-fired [Small Earthenware Vase].

+30xp in [Pottery]

Congratulations! You’ve crafted [Small Earthenware Vase].

+50xp in [Pottery]

Small Earthenware Vase (Uncommon)

Crafting grade: C-

Description: A beautiful piece of ceramics that has been beautifully carved and worked by an experienced potter. 

Effect: When performing any activity that boosts experience while near this vase, you can gain 5% more experience points at the expense of its durability.

Durability: 14

Artistry: 3

"Say what?" Jack couldn’t help but shout. He stared wide-eyed at the effects of the vase. These things granted me more experience! In the meantime, other vases that he had set in the fire had finished firing and were flashing red, awakening him from his stupor.

Jack hurriedly pulled them out of the fire before they broke. 

You’ve glaze-fired [Small Earthenware Vase].

+30xp in [Pottery]

+2xp in [Pottery]. One of your vases’ durability has dropped.

Congratulations! You’ve crafted [Small Earthenware Vase].

+230xp in [Pottery]

+12xp in [Pottery]. One of your vases’ durability has dropped.

The vase was boosting his XP! Moreover, the effect was cumulative! The more vases he pulled out of the fire, the more experience he gained. It got to the point that he was making 50% more experience points per firing.

You’ve glaze-fired [Small Earthenware Vase].

+30xp in [Pottery]

+15xp in [Pottery]. Several of your vases lose durability.

Congratulations! You’ve crafted [Small Earthenware Vase].

+230xp in [Pottery]

+115xp in [Pottery]. Several of your vases lose durability. One of your vases breaks.

When he fired the tenth vase, the first one had already broken into pieces. But he kept going, excited with the unexpected boost in XP. By the time he finished, only ten vases were left, with varying degrees of durability. They had helped him gain 15% of the bar, much more than he had expected.

“What an awesome item!” There had to be a market for these. He could totally imagine some spoiled, rich brat using his daddy’s fortune to clean the market off these vases and gain experience faster than poorer blokes. They could then go hunt dinosaurs or hammer an anvil surrounded by a pile of vases, watching them break in exchange for free XP. 

True, most of the vases he made only granted a 5% bonus experience. But some of the better vases he made gave much more! He had lucked out and actually gotten a B in one of the vases.

Small Earthenware Vase (Uncommon)

Crafting grade: B

Description: A beautiful piece of ceramics that has been beautifully carved and worked by an experienced potter. 

Effect: When performing any activity that boosts experience while near this vase, you can gain 5% more experience points at the expense of its durability.

B-grade bonus: +5% bonus experience.

Durability: 16

Artistry: 6

Jack looked at the large vase he’d left in the corner. Just how much bonus XP would such a tall vase grant him? It wasn’t important, though. He only needed to make a few more batches of these vases, and he would finally reach level 10 in pottery. He saved all the surviving vases in his inventory. He didn’t want to use their XP boost until the very last stage of the process, which granted the most experience. He also wanted to get his hands on a better glaze to make sure every vase was the best it could be. 

He bit his lip at the deviousness of the developers. This recipe was only going to help him reach from level 9 to level 10. If he could have unlocked it earlier, it would have been so much faster to get here. Jack immersed himself in making a new batch of vases. 

Nearby, inside the tent, one of the jade mantises did something it hadn’t done in the many hours it had been resting inside its cage in the camp. One of its legs twitched.

Ch. 49 - Allosaurus' Dump

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