Book 2 - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Brin stood to pace, but then realized that the enchanted circle wasn’t big enough for that and sat back down again.

“I don’t even know where to start. How could you miss something like that?”

“Look, I could make excuses. Undead are hard to spot until they start getting hungry, and Neptune was already a loner. The long and the short of it is that he fooled my [Inspect],” said Hogg. “I don’t have the time to [Inspect] everyone every day, but I do make an effort to check out notable citizens pretty often. Neptune has been at the top of my list for a while, and [Inspect] didn’t show me anything until I had already figured it out.”

“How? You told me you have the best [Inspect] in the country,” said Brin.

“It suggests that the person that turned Neptune is higher level than I am,” said Hogg. “Much higher.”

“That’s insane. You’re insanely high-leveled. You’ve got to be at least level fifty. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were level sixty.”

Hogg blinked slowly.

“Fine, but answer me this, because it’s important. Are any of the known [Witches] in Hammon’s Bog higher level than you?”

“No,” said Hogg.

“Then who? A [Witch] from Arcaena? Arcaena herself?”

Hogg folded his arms, leaning back in his chair. “If Arcaena herself were here, I have no idea why she wouldn’t simply walk into town and ask all of us to pledge fealty. We would do it, without question. That’s power on another level. No, more likely it’s one of her students. Keep in mind that until your talk with your dead dad, I didn’t even think Arcaena had students.”

“How much trouble would we be in if a student of Arcaena were hiding in the forest?” asked Brin.

“Too much trouble,” said Hogg. “We’re talking about the direct disciple of a major world power. It would be like if Lumina was out there. Pre-Travin’s Bog Lumina at the least. Why would they bother? We’re working on the assumption that the reason we’re all still alive is because we aren’t worth it. I think it’s more likely that they found another way. I think they found a method of fooling my [Inspect] that I haven’t heard of.”

“Like what?”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t know. Did [Know What’s Real] give you anything off him?”

“No,” said Brin. “It hasn’t been very useful for this. Neptune is there, he just isn’t alive. Maybe if I saw him doing something deceitful to pretend he’s human?”

“Give it some thought.”

“Next question: what are we going to do about it?” asked Brin.

“The [Witches] in town are eager to find out who turned him. They’re preparing a ritual to bring him under their control. Should be ready this week. Until then, we pretend we don’t know. One of the [Witches] has been tasked with keeping an eye on him. No one likes the idea of an undead roaming around unsupervised. But us, the [Witches], and the Prefit are the only ones who know.”

Brin tapped his chin in thought, and then brought out Calisto’s list of ingredients and handed it to Hogg.

“What’s this?”

Brin said, “The ingredients for a potion of Turn Undead. It’ll free an undead from the control of its current master. What if we took Neptune for ourselves? I doubt you really like the idea of turning control of him over to the [Witches], especially since one of them is probably the one who killed and turned him in the first place.”

“They wouldn’t like that.”

“They don’t have to know! All we have to do is get to him first, turn him, and interrogate him ourselves without anyone being the wiser,” said Brin.

“They would know when they complete the ritual,” said Hogg. He held up a hand to forestall Brin’s protests. “But... if we frame it the right way, we could make this look like we’re doing them a favor. After all, if none of them are responsible for his death, they’ll be happy to see we can prove their innocence. In this matter at least.”

“So we’re doing it?”

Hogg nodded. “We’ll leave right after dusk. Don’t wear yourself out before then.”

Brin smiled. Not trusting himself to not say anything stupid, he carefully walked out of the cellar. It wasn’t until he closed the door behind him until he broke into an all-out sprint.

If they were leaving at dusk, that meant that he only had today to prepare, and he didn't have a weapon, not really. Sure, he could borrow something from Hogg, and Hogg would say he didn't need one, but he wanted one. And he wanted it to be made of glass.

He dashed down the street. Townsfolk looked alarmed at first, but relaxed when they saw the look on his face. He laughed and they smiled in response.

Down the street, to the left, across that street, and straight into Toros’ shop. He banged the door open. Simao was at the counter helping a couple of customers. Brin shoved straight past them over to Toros, who held his hammer above his head, paused from striking a horseshoe he was working on.

“G– guh!” said Brin, panting so hard he couldn’t make it out. Was he out of shape? He really needed to put running back into his workout routine.

“What’s this about, lad?” asked Toros. He lifted his steampunk-looking goggles away from his eyes. Brin always thought the town [Smith] looked like a stereotypical dwarf. Muscular and wide, barely taller than Brin. His mouth was covered behind a reddish-brown beard, but his eyes crinkled in concern.

“Glass! Can you make metal into glass?”

“Can I… can I make metal into glass? What’s this about?”

“ I–” How to explain this? “I just learned that some metals, maybe all of them, have a glass state, and that if you can get them into that state they’ll be much stronger than normal and also work really well with my Class.”

“Oh. But what’s the emergency?” asked a perplexed Toros.

“Ah. No emergency.” Brin chuckled in embarrassment. “I just thought about it and got really excited.”

Toros threw his head back and let out gales of ground-shaking laughter. The couple at the counter joined in along with Simao, while Brin awkwardly smiled and scratched the back of his head.

“Sorry.”

“Not to worry! I get excited, too. Metallic glass, eh? Might be worth looking over,” said Toros. “When I’m not in the middle of another job.”

“Why don’t I come back another time?” asked Brin.

“See that you do,” said Toros, shaking his head in good humor.s

Even if Toros could make metallic glass, there was no way that was happening today. He should have figured.

He snapped off [Inspect] on the way out.

Name: Toros the Smith

Class: Smith

Level: 51

Race: Human

Description: Toros is a very high-leveled and respected Smith. He is not a dwarf, simply a very strong, short human. Toros is not using [Hide Status]. Anything hidden from [Inspect] is due to your low level.

Skills: [Shape Metal] is the base Skill of his Class.

He has a Skill that lets him transform matter at a fundamental level into exotic magical elements.

Name: Simao Fonter

Class: Smith

Level: 21

Race: Human

Description: Simao is Toros’ apprentice. His level is a little low for his age, but not by much. There isn’t enough work in this town for Simao to grow very quickly.

Skills: [Shape Metal] is the base Skill of his Class.

[Heat Resistance] is the same as what you have with Glasser.

[Strike Metal] - Simao has a highly empowered swing when striking metal or using the tools of his trade.

Alert! [Inspect] leveled up 17 -> 18

Brin walked at a more sedate pace to Perris’ shop. When they reached the shop, Marksi jumped down from Brin’s shoulders and walked along behind him. Slowly.

Marksi stepped on the tips of his toes, almost daintily, like a horse’s canter. His head was raised up snootily in the air.

“What are you doing?”

Then Brin remembered that Perris had made fun of Marksi’s walk last time. “Hey, don’t listen to him, ok? Walk, slither, or scamper, I think you’re great just the way you are.” He opened the door.

Marksi didn’t listen, and proudly marched into the store.

Perris was behind his desk. He looked up in curiosity, then amusement. “That’s barely better.”

“How’s it going, Perris?”

“Oh, quite terribly,” Perris said with a sigh. “Don’t even ask if I have anything new in. Where would I get it? I can’t even ask Toros to make me anything new, not when I know I won’t have a chance to sell it. The adventurers in town are already as equipped as they’ll ever be.”

“I don’t suppose you have another sword with a glass core? Or any kind of glass weapons would be nice,” said Brin.

“Why are you asking me that?” Perris responded with a sneer. “You’re a crafting Class. I should be buying those from you!”

“I’m a low-leveled crafter,” said Brin. “And I don’t want to wait ten years to have a cool sword.”

Perris rubbed his eyes. “What have I told you about swords?”

“Spears are fine, too,” said Brin.

Perris looked down at his counter, studying the grains for a moment in uncharacteristic silence. Brin waited, but Perris didn’t speak, seemingly deep in thought. He was usually such a bombastic personality that this sudden silence was unsettling.

Has Brin offended him somehow? He didn’t think Perris was that much of a spear-supremacist.

Without looking up, Perris said quietly, “I’ve supported you taking terrible risks in the past, because the rewards were worth those risks. But there’s no good reason for that now. There’s no deadline. Whether you get your levels now or in ten years, it doesn’t matter a whit. I can’t let you leave the walls.”

“No, Perris, that’s not what this is–” Brin stopped himself. He shouldn’t lie to a friend when he didn’t need to. “I promise you, that if I go somewhere, Hogg will be right beside me.”

Perris stuck out his hand. Still looking down. Brin shook it, but Perris didn’t let go. He raised his head, met Brin’s eyes, and then looking satisfied, finally let it drop.

His face broke into a sneering grin. “In that case you don’t need a weapon. Go craft something, crafty boy! You aren’t getting snot from me!”

In the end, Brin got much more than snot from Perris. He walked out of the store with a flash grenade, a few smoke bombs, and a hand-mirror.

Perris threw in the hand-mirror for free. “Every [Glasser] should have one!” It was a surprise, because the crystal-clear glass meant that it had been imported. That item was not cheap in Hammon’s Bog.

After that, he took Perris’ advice and went back to Ademir’s place.

He found the [Crafter] hunched over his worktable, checking the levels on a lidded box about the size of a microwave oven. There were wood shavings and such all over the table, which meant that Ademir had built it just now.

“You’re back! How nice,” said Ademir cheerily. “I know this is smaller than what you described, but I think we should aim for a proof-of-concept, first.”

“Is that wood going to work for the temperatures we need?”

Ademir shrugged. “I can make it work. It won’t last more than once or two tries, but if the concept is sound I can make something more durable.”

“So, I know I said I wouldn’t be working today, but I was wondering about something. If this is a bad time, I can come back,” said Brin.

Ademir slapped his hands together, shaking off the sawdust. “Not at all. What can I help you with?”

“I was just thinking, eventually I’ll want to make all kinds of things from glass. Household objects and the like. I have this cool knife Toros helped me make; it’s probably my favorite possession. I was wondering how I would go about making something like that with glass? I assume it wouldn’t start with blowing it.”

Ademir blinked. “You know, I can’t believe I haven’t taught you this before. I guess I got so focused on getting you the levels to fix my fogginess issue, I never thought about doing more than bottles and windows. You’re right, of course, it’s quite different. Here…”

The [Crafter] went to a storage cabinet and brought out a lumpy, blackened, misshapen blob of cold glass. He dug around and found another. Brin’s [Memory of Glass] showed him in perfect detail that those had been some of his failures with bottle making. You learned a lot from failure, and Brin’s Skill would never let him forget those lessons.

“It won’t be long until you do this with knives, and then with all Skill,” said Ademir. “But for starters, we’re going to take the glass and slowly, slowly file it down.”

He used an iron file and scraped the glass, taking off tiny amounts at a time, over and over.

“Now, I’m going to use my Skills to take a shortcut here, but you need to be patient. Just whittle it down slowly until you have something like this.”

Ademir cracked the glass open like an egg. Inside, the glass that came free was in the rough shape of a small, four-inch long knife.

“When it looks like this, we’ll sharpen it. It’ll be a lot like sharpening a real knife. A whetstone will do fine, as long as it’s not too rough,” said Ademir.

The whetstone he used looked to Brin to be as smooth as polished marble, but Ademir dutifully sharpened away. Not just the blade–he rubbed the stone all across the body of the knife, smoothing away the rough portions and making it shine.

“Last is an abrasive rag,” said Ademir.

He used a woolen rag the same as the whetstone, polishing and then sharpening it.

The demonstration seemed to go on forever, but Brin forced himself to wait without so much as tapping a foot. He had interrupted Ademir on his day off, after all. The least he could do was pay attention.

When Ademir was finally satisfied, he placed the knife on the table, blade up. He plucked a hair from his head, and dropped it. When the hair touched the knife, it split in half.

“Whoa,” said Brin.

“Don’t expect yours to be like that on your first time. Skills, remember. But Glass can be extremely sharp. It dulls quickly, but that won’t be an issue for you. Not for long,” said Ademir.

Brin leapt into work, and just like Ademir said, he didn’t rush it. He scraped the file against the glass, taking off bit by bit and resisted the urge to speed things along by breaking off larger chunks. He couldn’t risk cracking it into pieces that were too small.

He kept scraping, watching it slowly take shape, and watching the sun climb down the sky from the workshop windows. Would he even get done in time? One thing was sure, he wasn’t going to make a knife and a spearhead today. But how would it look if he made a spearhead after Ademir showed him a knife?

“Hey, would you mind if I took this and worked on it at home? I promise I’ll bring your tools back,” said Brin.

“No, that’s no trouble,” said Ademir, attention back on his new prototype oven. “Keep the knife I made, if you wish. I have better ones.”

Back at home, Brin worked quickly. He pumped the file back and forth as quick as he could, working through the burn in his arm until it was too much, and then switching arms. It was dull, tedious, yet strangely nerve-wracking work.

There wasn’t much he could do to speed things up, and it was hard to stay focused on the repetitive motion. He had to pull on his [Meditation] a little to concentrate on what he was doing.

He got the glass into the shape he wanted, and with an hour until dusk, he started sharpening. The sharpening seemed to go even slower. The flat whetstone didn’t seem to alter the glass at all in his hands. It wasn’t until he made twenty careful passes on the same spot that he started to see the shine that Ademir had gotten from just one. But it did shine.

With that little sight of the end goal, he worked with renewed vigor. He didn’t even notice the sun crest the horizon and disappear.

Finally satisfied, he set the glossy, razor-sharp spearhead down on the table.

Alert! [Shape Glass] leveled up! 6 -> 7

It was dark outside.

“Whoa. What time is it?”

“Two hours after dusk,” said Hogg.

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I–”

“Don’t. It’s not like we’re on a deadline. You don’t need a weapon. You know that, right?” asked Hogg.

Brin sighed. “Yeah. But I want one.”

“Fine. Let’s get that thing attached and head out. Unless you have any other last-minute art projects?”

“Maybe a portrait to commemorate the moment?”

Hogg snorted. He took the spearhead, and used a string of leather to attach it to the haft. “It’ll hold for now. Frankly, we can attach it better when we have a better spearhead.”

Brin used [Inpsect].

Spear. A Bog Standard shaft with a common quality head.

“Heh. Common quality,” said Brin. “That’s a first! Everything else I’ve made has been poor or amateur quality.”

“Congratulations,” Hogg said drily. “Are we ready?”

Brin stood, using his spear as a walking staff. That’s probably all it would be used for tonight, but he was glad he had it. “I’m ready.”