Ability Stone (Rare) (Artificer Only): Drain

Passive

When deconstructing magic items to learn their enchantments, the Artificer may salvage a portion of the Mana and Soul Energy that went into making it.

That one ability already had me thinking that there was no need to even check the other two. Regardless, knowing that something else might pop up, I checked anyway.

Ability Stone (Rare) (Artificer Only): Revert

Per Use, At-Will

At the cost of 1 Mana per pound of material, the Artificer may revert a non-magical finished item into its raw form.

And that right there is why we check. Both of them entailed destroying or returning stuff, making me wonder what the third would be.

Ability Stone (Uncommon): Precise Shot

Per Use, At-Will

At the cost of 10 Stamina per use, the user will be directed toward a critical area of their target when attacking.

In complete honesty, if it wasn't for the previous two abilities there were available, this would have been extremely tempting given how I fought. But with those two show stealing abilities right beside it, it was like seeing a twenty dollar bill between two uncashed thousand dollar checks.

So that left me with another decision to make, which the dungeon seemed to love making me do. Did I want the ability to harvest stuff into raw materials? Or did I want to siphon away energy from stuff that I deconstructed? That was a fucking stumper right there. A real brain knocker. As such it was time to pull out our reliable old friend, the coin-toss. Heads for Drain, Tails for Revert.

Ability Stone (Rare)(Artificer Only): Revert has been selected.

Granting Ability.

With that out of the way, and off of my conscious, I walked over to the three treasure chests that sat on the throne platform. It was time to see my hard-won loot. Behind door number one we have… A small black leather pouch with draw-strings, and a loop that might run through a belt. Twenty small gems lined the mouth of it, embedded into the fabric.

Lesser Pouch of Storage (25%)

Allows the user to stow large items inside of the pouch, to be retrieved at a later time.

Oh that right there is fucking phenominal. Certain that perhaps the dungeon was playing a trick on my eyes, I ignored the other two chests and sprinted over to where my crowbar laid, and willed it to store. I watched with glee as the tool disappeared and a gem lit up. I pulled it back out the same as I had to do with the glove.

“OH FUCK YES!”

The next thing I tried to store was my backpack, but alas that one didn’t fit. Right after that was my wrecked rifle, which took up two gems. Conclusion: Something smaller than my crowbar takes one slot. Anything bulkier like my rifle would take two slots. I immediately used the provided loop and attached it to my belt, then walked back to the chests while I whistled a happy tune.

The entire dungeon run, with all that wasted time and the wrecking of my rifle, had been completely worth it for that single item alone. Anything that came after this would just be icing on the cake. When I opened up chest number two I found… A silver bow? To my untrained eye (I’m no archer), it looked just like a standard recurve bow. Instead of wood however, it was made of something that looked quite a bit like silver. It also lacked a bowstring.

I picked it up, and it felt incredibly light, making me think maybe it was more similar to aluminum.

Echo Caster (10%)

At the cost of 1 Mana per five shots, this bow will create and project an arrow of solidified energy.

Well that certainly sounded kinda cool. It reminded me of a movie poorly based on Greek myth that came out a few years ago. But, in my opinion, that was a steep Mana price to pay when I could just use a gun, or my Blade. However, if I managed to snag that enchantment for my own use, that would make an excellent backup weapon of sorts. I wondered if it would hold the charge so I could just stock up on them over time.

Fuck it, lets try.

Would you like to deconstruct Echo Caster?

This has only a 10% chance of success, and cannot be reversed.

I held it firmly and crossed my fingers as it began to violently shake, cracks along its surface leaked purple light which intensified bit by bit. For a moment I considered letting it go thinking it was going to explode. Then there was a bright flash.

Success! Enchantment learned: Energy Projectile Creation

I released a breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding. While losing this wouldn’t have been on the same level as losing the new pouch I’d just gotten, it was still something I really wanted. You might say “But James! You could’ve just kept it and used it as it was!” Well, yeah, I could have. I already told you that I’m not an archer! I’ve tried archery, it just doesn’t do it for me. The bow was more useful to me as an enchant in my arsenal than an item I couldn’t properly use.

The third and final chest sat there patiently waiting for me, so I walked over and opened it. Inside sat… A longsword? How the hell did an entire longsword fit in this chest? I mean it! The sword was physically longer than the chest, there was no possible way it could’ve fit, yet it just sat there like it belonged! How in the hell did—

My Mana ticked up by a point. Odd, that was a bit faster than normal. Oh well. I pulled the sword from the chest and inspected it. The blade was about forty inches long and double edged, with sigils that lined the length of it. The metal itself was a deep blue which seemed to suck in the light. The hilt was wrapped in a black leather which gripped firmly in my hand, like nothing could wrestle it away from me unless I let it.

Sealed Sword (0%)

This sword has not yet been unsealed to unlock its potential, please embark on a quest of unsealing.

Excuse me?

Quest of Unsealing: A journey that one must take to unlock the potential of certain magic items.

Oh that was just great! Really useful! Thank you for that clarification System! Not like it’d be helpful to know just what the actual quest was or anything! I stored it in the pouch for now anyway and decided that I’d be heading home. I gathered up all of my stuff and located the hidden door that led me back to the entrance.

As I walked in I noticed something new on the north wall.

There was a set of thick double doors made of stone. I might be inattentive at times, but I was ninety nine percent certain that the door didn’t exist that morning when I entered the dungeon.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Huh… That might be worth looking int—”

No. Stop. Do not pass go. This was not a good time to go exploring. I was mentally exhausted, my rifle was busted, I was out of food and water. I needed to go home, take a shower, and eat breakfast. There were projects to work on! I couldn’t just go and explore some new section of the dungeon without even a functional rifle! No matter how tempting it was.

I decided to mount a bar over the door, sealing it shut as best as I could until I could properly check it out later. And at long last, after what felt like days, I left the dungeon.

I slowly stripped off my gear and left it on the floor. My new pouch and gloves went onto the workbench, alongside my partially ruined rifle. I left the sword stowed away for now. With all of that taken off I locked the door behind me and went straight to my bathroom to take a much needed shower.

I stayed in there until the water ran cold, then finally stepped out to dry and got dressed in some proper around-the-house clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, socks, Shield Plus in the pocket. The usual.

It was only 5pm by the time I was done taking care of my personal needs and doing maintenance on my guns and mags. My barrel was still trashed. I had an idea of what to do about that though. The first thing I did was grab my gunsmithing tools and vice and moved them into the dungeon. Then I wheeled in the Abyssal Iron chunk. Finally I grabbed the upper receiver from my workbench and got started.

I set up my vice first, then removed the thermal, IR device, and foregrip from the upper. I set them aside and then removed the handguard. With that, set it in my vice and got to work removing the muzzle device. I had to think how exactly I’d get the gas block off with the bend in the barrel, and decided on just chopping the end of it off. I grabbed my metal saw and my hearing protection, then got to sawing.

With that removed, I just had to unscrew two screws, knock out a pin, and then set a block of wood against the gas block which I beat with a hammer until it scooted off the end. The gas tube was free to come out as well.

Finally the barrel itself, easy enough. I used my armorer's wrench to loosen the barrel nut, and it came right off. An inspection of the threading showed me it was all good. Now for the hard part. In the time I had been out of the dungeon, it’d been only three hours.

Mana: 2/4

I went out and grabbed a book from the living room and sat my ass down in the dungeon to start reading and pass the time. Just as I was finishing a chapter, my Mana completely filled, and I set the book aside.

I broke out my notebook, pen, measuring tape, and calipers, and started notating every single measurement on that barrel. Whatever I couldn’t get, I referred to the manual that came with the gun. Once I was satisfied, I walked to the chunk and focused.

Ability: Quick Craft activated

Mana: 2/4

The metal began to morph as a long tube of it sprouted from the side, with a hollow forming in the end as it went down. I could see the rifling take shape, the threading on the barrel’s end, the gas port. So far as I could see, it was coming out perfectly. After a few minutes it was ready.

I gave it an inspection and decided it was acceptable, then got to work attaching it to the upper. Thirty minutes later I had everything reinstalled. I loaded one round, walked into the north hallway, and fired it.

It struck dead on, though I had to re-zero the optic a bit.

That got me thinking.

“Couldn’t I just make an entire gun like this?

By all logic and reason there was nothing that I could think of that would prevent me from making an entire gun using Quick Craft. Hadn’t I just made an entire functional barrel with it after all? What exactly were my limiting factors in play here? Time? Mana supply? I had plenty of resources to work with just sitting on my floor. I had enough Mana to use on a trial run. So why not?

I touched the chunk, thought of a design, and focused.

Ability: Quick Craft activated

Mana: 1/4

I watched eagerly as a small section of the metal chunk removed itself from the large piece and began to morph into the basic outline of a handgun. At that stage, it was probably illegal in California for resembling a firearm. I decided to base the design of my prototype off of my good old PX-9. I had been carrying it at work nearly every day for over a year. In that time I had taken it apart and put it back together more times than every other gun I own. I would dare say that I know this gun better than any other.

For example, did you know that my exact gun was originally made by Tisas to be sent to the Philippines to be used by their police officers? Tisas made ten thousand of them and sent half over, to which the Philippines said, “Great! That’s really awesome! We want something cheaper, sorry!” Then they canceled the rest of the order and left Tisas with the bag. So there they were, left with five thousand of these things that had been all prettied up with the Philippines National Police sigil engraved on one side, “PNP Property” on the other, and a bunch of other upgrades over the standard edition.

They ended up selling them to a bunch of American distributors to break even, and through that I got my hands on one. I got a good deal, the cheapest gun I own actually. In the whole time that I’ve owned it, the singular malfunction I’ve ever had was caused entirely by the cheap ass ammo that I was using at the range that day. If it wasn’t for my need for higher caliber firepower, I’d still be rocking it in the dungeon.

I think I let myself get a little distracted there. The exterior of what I ended up making certainly looked identical to my PX-9 but was at least twice the weight. I tried inserting one of my mags and it fit, and seated firmly. I pulled the slide back to chamber a round but when I let it go it didn’t snap forward at all. I gave it a whack on the back-plate to send it home, and walked into the dungeon to give it a test fire.

I aimed it down the long north hallway and gave the trigger a squeeze.

Crickets.

I racked the slide back again to clear the round, and pushed it forward manually again to chamber the next. Then I tried to fire again.

The silence was deafening.

Finally I took the mag out and dumped the loaded round into my palm. After setting that aside I got to work trying to pull the gun apart to see what was going on inside. I say trying, because the take-down lever was seized in place and wouldn’t budge. I ended up grabbing a screwdriver and a mallet to smack it a few times before I heard something snap, and the slide slid right off. Right away I could see that everything was wrong. This reminded me of a counterfeit electronic device you could buy on the street, where the outside looked right then you crack it open to find a single LED light and a watch battery.

No, that would be too kind, the inside of this looked like The Thing if it was a gun. The striker and firing pin were both fused in place. The recoil spring was fully attached to the slide and made no contact with the frame. None of it was functional. So what happened? Was it my inattention as it formed? Or was it too complicated for Quick Craft to make at all?

This obviously required further testing at a later time. Maybe I could try making it piece by piece? A quick consultation of my PX-9’s manual made me realize that it would take several days.

“Right, guess I’m sticking to buying guns the old fashioned way for now.”

At least I had enough Mana left to do one more thing. I touched the chunk of abyssal iron again.

Ability: Quick Craft activated

Mana: 0/4

I carved out a one pound chunk of the iron and shoved it into my bag, just in case. Now what?

Once again I had to come to a decision. With a fully functional rifle ready to go (if a bit oddly color mismatched) I could go check out what was behind that fancy new door in the dungeon entrance. It was right there. Waiting. Tempting.

Just what was beyond it? I bet it was something really cool. Lots of magic items? Maybe materials? There could be new enemies. Enemies give SE! I needed more of that! I wondered what kind there would be. How would I go about fighting them? Ooh! I hope there are kobolds! I donned my gear, restocked my flashbangs, and started unmounting the bar that I had blocked the door with.

I had plenty of ammo on me still, most of it left over from the last dungeon run. No need to restock that. The bar fell free and clattered to the floor while I gave the double doors a shove. They opened slowly, and a breeze drifted through them. It felt quite a bit warmer than the cool dungeon air I was used to.

I found myself facing a long staircase that led upwards, dimly lit by Abyssalite crystals along the walls. I walked in and began my ascent into the unknown.