Forge of Eternity: Alpha Testing, page 30
“I think the message was for us,” Amalie corrected. “A show of force, showing that they’re not helpless. They can defend this place all by themselves.”
“Hmm,” I considered her words, drumming my fingers against my sword. “Message received then. They have potent fixed defenses that they can raise at a day’s notice. Looks like we won’t need much help from the faction to keep this place secure.”
“That was a probing strike,” Goodwin said. “I was only with them for a few days, but they seemed to work in phases. Like setting the locusts in the mine, then following up later with more people. I don’t think we’ll see any more attacks tonight, but the next one is going to be bigger.
“Alright then, everyone get some sleep then in case we have to do this again tomorrow,” I stretched and took up a seat near the alarm bell. “I’ll keep an eye out in case we have more visitors.”
“I’m logging out then, I’ll be back on tomorrow morning,” Amalie waved, then her avatar’s posture changed to a neutral stance. I confirmed she’d logged out via the party menus and assigned her to lookout duty with Phelyya. Everyone else slowly wound down from the excitement, returning to their makeshift beds and eventually drifting back to sleep.
Amalie - Charged
By the time I logged in we had already made it back to the mining outpost. My avatar was idling in Koh’s workshop, sitting on a stool and watching over the faction shrine as it charged on a side table. Bracing for the unpleasant sensation of new memories, I selected the option to review everything that happened since I logged out. The rapid information dump took a moment to sort through, even though it seemed like I hadn’t missed all that much. Nothing else eventful happened during the night watch and we made our way back at dawn. Phelyya hadn’t logged in by the time we finished breakfast, so Deacon sent her to help with resetting log traps. I was told to guard and watch the shine charge, while Deacon intended to spend the morning crafting at the forge.
It made sense, but it was still disappointing. I’d rather have been helping with something in the outpost or resetting traps instead of just babysitting the shrine as it accumulated power. I looked over the shrine, checking the charge and finding it no more than three-quarters full. That wasn’t right, it had been longer than twelve hours so the shrine should have been fully charged at this point.
“Oh, we’re several hundred feet underground and separated from most of the people,” I said aloud, putting a hand over my eyes as I thought through the issue. “That means we’re only getting residual flow from the miners' life force, so the shrine is relying almost entirely on mana for charging.”
“I would have fixed it for you, but you had a rather,” Koh pondered the word for a moment, “difficult disposition if I attempted to touch the shrine.”
I startled for a second, turning to see Koh a few steps back with his hands up in a warding gesture. I relaxed, so he put his hands back to his sides and approached the table. He produced a brightly glowing mana cell from a side pouch and handed it to me.
“That should get you fully charged within the hour,” he said, pointing at the conduit trailing out of the box.
Inspecting the item pulled up details about it, showing me that it was a fully charged neutral mana cell with a capacity of 10,000 mana. I boggled at the amount of power in the small sphere and connected it to the faction shrine. The lit runes surged for a moment, then the duller ones began filling at a faster pace.
“Thanks, Koh!” I said, smiling in appreciation. “Sorry about before, it’s uh, well, an adventurer thing.”
“Figured as much, don’t worry about it,” he returned my smile, “I would ask that you take that thing out of my workshop though if you don’t mind. I’d rather this not turn into a high traffic area.”
A loud clanging of metal on stone pulled our attention as a large piece dropped off a waist-high piece of mining equipment. Koh’s brow’s furrowed, his expression equal parts concern and annoyance.
“You still have all your fingers over there?” he asked, raising his voice so that it echoed through the workshop.
“I’m okay,” a small female voice responded from the direction of the crash. “I just didn’t have the hammer mechanism secured right and it fell.”
“You can see why I’d like to avoid unnecessary bodies down here, ask the boss where she wants it. You know the way out, right?” Koh asked, words firm, but not unkind. A moment later he rushed over to help with whatever maintenance had caused the distraction.
“Yeah, I’ll take this off your hands. Thanks again!” I nodded, placing the shrine and its attached mana cell in the wooden crate, then heading for the lift. The path back to the mine’s entrance was easy enough to remember at this point and, after a few minutes, I was back above ground. I made my way to where I expected to find the foreman, knocking on the door to the small warehouse building she used as an office.
“You’d better be here for a reason or you need to be gone by the time I reach this door,” the shrill New York smoker’s voice of the halfling called out from within the building. I stepped back a bit on reflex, then made an effort to smile, hoping it may brighten her mood or at least lessen any anger aimed my way. I was very glad that I didn’t actually work for her directly. The door slammed open, foreman Quickhand’s hair lacking the dust and ash I’d seen before while somehow looking even more unruly than usual. Her dusty overalls and linen work shirt had been exchanged for a cleaner, though still somewhat dusty, set of dark brown leather armor. An oversized dagger with a strange curved shape sat in a scabbard at her hip, closer in size to a sword for the halfling.
“Oh, it’s you,” her voice lost some, but not all, of its edge. “I suppose you’re here for that spell training I promised? Come in then, let’s get this over with.”
That was not what I was here for, but I had no reason to pass up the offer before talking to her about the shrine. I stepped inside, following the foreman over to her desk. She unlocked a drawer and started rummaging for something. I took a seat on a stack of wooden crates next to her desk, kicking my legs casually against the wood. I set the faction shrine down in its own crate on a similar stack to my side. It took the halfling a few minutes of digging before she produced a small wooden box and set it down on the desk. With another key, she unlocked a padlock and handed me the box.
“Put these on,” she tossed me a set of fingerless leather gloves, “these gloves are useless for battle, but essential for any experimentation with spell analysis or construction.”
Gloves of Mana Deceleration, Level 1
Type: Utility gear
Armor: 5
Weight: 0.5 lbs.
Durability: 10/10
90% increase in casting time for all spells
I equipped the gloves, happy to see the game adjusting them to fit my hands since even my avatar’s slender elven hands would have been cramped in the halfling-sized gloves. Despite not physically restricting my movement, I felt an odd sort of pressure on my mana itself. I tried to shift my mana around like I would when preparing to send a Firebolt through my wand and found that the energy took significantly longer to move but was much clearer to my senses. As the mana moved, I found that I could make minor adjustments or alterations to exactly how it was flowing. Wearing the gloves was like slowly tracing out a perfectly straight line against a straight edge, compared to slashing a pencil across a page quickly and hoping for a straight line. I released my hold on the mana, allowing it to return to its natural state inside my body.
The foreman nodded. “You see the difference already? Good, saves me the time of explaining it. Before you can make a spell, you need to know exactly what goes into casting the spells you know. I assume you have been just pouring mana into the spell and making the hand motions without really understanding what you’re touching, right?”
“Actually, no hand motions,” I said, pulling the wand from my robes. “I just push the spells through this.”
“A gods damned crutch,” she said, waving her hand frantically. “Put that away, I don’t want to see it. No wonder you need help learning to craft spells. I’m probably not going to be able to help you today, you need to go unlearn some bad habits before you can do anything correctly. Go to the far side of the ledge and cast spells off toward the cliff face. Don’t break my stuff or light anything on fire down in the forest. Wear the gloves, make the proper spell motions with your hands when you cast, and really focus on what the mana is doing.”
“Is this going to increase my Arcana skill?” I asked, putting the wand away.
“Arcana and any skill related to the spells you cast,” she nodded. “However, before you spend too much time on this I do need to tell you the price.”
I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “I thought you said you’d show me the basics, we didn’t talk about it having a price attached to it. Is it the gloves?”
“What? No, I’m not asking you to pay me for training. I promised I’d teach you what I know and I’m doing that, even throwing in some training gloves for free. I’m talking about the price of knowledge.”
“What? Stare into the abyss and eventually the abyss stares back?” I hedged.
“You stare into the abyss and you’ll be devoured by tentacles of inky black and evil before you know what you’re looking at,” the halfling responded, shaking her head. “Abyss stares back. Hah! No, child, I’m talking about the toll spell creation takes on your body and mind. When you create a spell, you have to pour your own life essence and experience into the process if you want to make anything repeatable. The spell takes up residence in your mind and that new power comes with an equal loss of something else.”
It finally clicked in my brain, once I translated everything to in-game logic. “You mean it costs me literal experience points to build spells? That seems a little harsh. Does that apply to spells I purchase?”
“If you buy a spell scroll that’s been properly created it will cover the cost for you, but those are expensive and hard to come by. Whoever scribes the spell needs to invest their own power into it, even if it’s a spell they know well, or they need to let the scroll gain its own power over time. I’m not just talking about a mana cost. Most scrolls you buy are ancient or made by debtors, for the record. You either have to wait for it to accumulate power on its own, or pour your power into it. Once the scroll has been read, the information and potential remain in it but the invested energy is gone. Whoever reads it next needs to pay the price if sufficient recharge time hasn’t been allowed.”
I groaned, visions of infinite spell variety slowly crushed by the experience point cost. There were a ton of spells available with ability points gained during certain levels, all available without additional cost. I cursed the game balance under my breath, despite knowing that it was necessary. If I could just build any spell I wanted, it would reduce the value of the class-rewarded spells from ability points. Being able to train others to learn my spells at no cost would allow for a massive power increase in a small amount of time if enough people traded spells.
“Chin up, everyone has the same reaction when they see how the sausage gets made,” the foreman said, giving me a pat on the leg as I idly kicked a heel against my box tower chair. “I did warn you not to get your hopes up.”
“No, you’re right, I shouldn’t have expected something for nothing,” I sighed. “Before I go off to blast craters into a poor unsuspecting mountain, where do you want me to put the faction shrine while it finishes charging?”
Meritum Faction Shrine charged, connection to other Meritum shrines established!
Meritum Faction Shrine identified by “Stathmore Mines” location name.
Communication with the faction is now possible for nearby Meritum members outside of combat. Communication range: 2 miles
Fast travel to and from this location is now possible for Meritum members.
This shrine may be used by Meritum members to bind their souls.
Quest Updated: What’s Yours is Mine.
Would you like to activate the shrine and summon a faction representative? Yes/No
I declined the selection and amended my question. “Uh, actually, where do you want to put this faction shrine now that it has charged and we can use it to connect up with Meritum?”
“Give it here,” she said, arms outstretched. I lowered the crate to the halfling and she quickly removed the shrine, inspecting it thoroughly.
“I assume you have a place for it then?” I asked. The foreman nodded, placing the shrine in the center of her desk.
“Safest spot in the whole outpost. Anyone who tries to take something off my desk is going to have a bad time, even if I’m not here. We ready to activate it?”
“No,” I said, hopping off my seat and putting my hand between the foreman and the shrine. “I’m sorry, I didn’t warn you earlier. I need to get in touch with my, uh, contact. I want to make sure we get someone inclined to help us here and get you the best deal, instead of just the first available body.”
Foreman Quickhand nodded and took a seat at her desk, placing a thick book on a stand before taking out a sheaf of vellum and a quill. I hovered nearby for a couple of minutes as she wrote and flipped pages until I got the hint that I’d been dismissed. I logged out for a moment, putting my avatar on partial autonomy, and sent out a quick text message to Jane letting her know we were hooked up to the Meritum network now. I asked her to send someone to the “Stathmore Mines” location I’d just joined to the network. She responded within a minute letting me know she wouldn’t have anyone to spare for another hour or so. I logged back in, ingesting the less painful set of bland memories of the brief time I was logged out, and left to go try out my new gloves.
Deacon - Weapons
I missed a strike intended for the edge of the thin blade I was shaping. The impact put a small bend into the tip of the weapon and I flipped it over to correct my mistake. In doing so, I saw that I had flattened the metal more than expected and sighed. I returned the blade to the flames of the forge, Uri working the bellows with casual ease as he watched. Goodwin was at another anvil working a thick piece of chitin, using his palm and a hammer interchangeably. He wasn’t returning it to the heat as often as he should have and had been completely ignoring any of my advice like he hadn’t heard me.
“You sure you wanted a rapier,” I asked Uri, keeping an eye on the blade. “Could I perhaps interest you in an accidental scimitar with incorrect proportions?”
“I have faith that you can make what I want,” he replied, a wide smile on his face. “Your efforts will only make the weapon more powerful.”
“I’m pretty sure failing to create a straight blade for three hours is not a sign that I’m improving its quality.” I took the metal from the forge and corrected my previous mistake before moving on to produce a uniform thickness along one edge. “Joking aside, I might be a bit out of my depth on this design here and may have to make something simpler.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t think a new sword would be hard to make.”
I sighed, bringing the heated metal back to the anvil and working out the issues I’d created. Aside from the easily spotted flat area, I could see some uneven tapering along one edge. “I’m not just going for a basic rapier, I’m trying to see if I can get a higher quality item that will last longer than a few levels.”
“Why though?” Uri asked, sounding confused. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but why not make mine a simple upgrade and then replace it in a few levels?”
“Yesterday I got my blacksmithing skill up to level five and cranked out a bunch of simple armor,” I explained, finally getting the blade closer to the shape I wanted, “I didn’t get any skill increase notifications from any of those pieces. I assume the game won’t reward me for crafting easy items. If I’m going to improve I have to try things a bit above my ability. This one may just be a little too far past me.”
“What makes it so hard to craft? Is it just too high level?”
“Something like that,” I said, keeping the specifics to myself. I’d rather not get his hopes up if I couldn’t actually deliver on the design.
In the hours before sunrise this morning, I browsed through the pages of craftable items for ideas. With only basic blacksmithing, no specific crafting enhancement ability, and no access to magic, there were no enchanted items in my recipe list. I did have options for masterwork items, which could later be enchanted. Attempting to pull the recipe into my mind resulted in a mild headache, and I immediately knew crafting it was impossible at my current skill level. That meant masterwork items were off the table. Looking over the designs, I did notice a feature available on some masterwork weapons that I felt could be adapted to weaker designs. Thinking it through and trying to visualize the end result lead to an upgrade in my mind craft skill. Even more exciting, the design didn’t make my head hurt when I thought about crafting it. That was all the confirmation I needed that it was possible.
Instead of building a weapon with sufficient initial quality to support a full magical enchantment, I could make a weapon with a socketed design to accept modular upgrades at a later time. According to the tooltips in the crafting menus, sockets allowed for a wide array of future modifications. These ranged from the traditional rune-carved gemstones to entire component replacements allowing for sections of the weapon to be swapped out. This enabled a weapon to grow, up to a point, and the incremental growth approach was appealing to me. On the downside, a socketable base weapon was slightly less durable and significantly more difficult to make than the standard version of the same weapon. I learned from my first attempt that significant flaws, like lack of symmetry or unintended bends, would render the items useless. I could only imagine what standards the game would enforce for a mastercraft level item.
If this was successful I had a feeling I would be able to add sockets to other items with less effort in the future. That left me with the question of how to make or find socketable upgrades. Crafting them was probably another trade skill altogether, I’d check in with Amalie to see if she had any information on it when she logged back in. I returned my focus to the task at hand, surprised to see that the blade had been evened out perfectly while I was distracted. I confirmed that the shape was exactly how I wanted it, inspected the entire length of the blade, then warmed it back up in the forge. I evened out the temperature as best I could before setting it aside to slowly cool. The shape was in line with a standard rapier blade: thin, tapered, and pointed at the tip. Each side had a single groove running along the center of the blade. The only deviation from the base version of the weapon was a set of flanged holes in the center of the tang and blade, situated equidistant on either side of the where the crossguard would be placed.
