“Generally, items work the same on both worlds,” said the lady behind the private sales desk of the Artificer’s Guild. Her name was Julie, and she was maybe 30 years old. “This is a gross overestimation, though, and mana pressure does play a key role in the viability of a magical item. Generally, items work better on Daihoon, because then they don’t have to deal with negative mana pressure. But that is not the whole story at all.
“In my professional opinion, the problem most people encounter with the viability of magical items is a matter of survivor’s bias; people who use items on Daihoon know not to trust them overmuch, while people on Earth can use items to fantastic effect, what with the weaker monsters and all that, so many earth-born fighters get overconfident when they get a new trinket. And then they die.
“That’s one of the first things we tell everyone trying to buy items; filling gaps in defense is great, and so is enhancing strengths, but miracles are better handled by gods. Don’t expect miracles born of mortal hands.”
Mark and Isoko had walked over to Castle South just before noon, while Eliot was back in the room, sleeping off a particularly intense morning of building. The main tram station had needed a lot more work than what anyone had expected, but it was up and running now, and trams were zipping across all of the settlement and coming back to the station to roost.
Castle South was the main governmental and sales building of the settlement, and it was a lot busier now that people could get to Castle South without needing to walk there. Some of those offices were always busy, though, like the Artificer’s Guild, which was on the ground floor. It had a big exterior entrance and an interior entrance, to the courtyard in the center of the castle.
Mark and Isoko had shown up ten minutes ago, looking to ask questions and maybe buy things that were displayed on the walls and under glass. One short talk with the saleswoman out front had gotten Mark and Isoko in to talk with this woman, Julie, in an office to the side. She was their ‘randomly assigned caseworker’, according to the lady out front. Mark wondered how ‘random’ it had been, since the randomizer had been an artifact made by artificers, but he ignored those paranoid thoughts for now.
Everyone got a caseworker on their first step into the Artificer’s Guild, and Mark and Isoko were no exception.
Upon hearing Julie’s talk of how items weren’t miracles, Mark could understand why new people got caseworkers to start. Someone needed to tell every person looking to get an edge that they should not rely on those edges.
“We are not looking for miracles,” Mark said, speaking for himself and Isoko.
Julie nodded, and continued, “Most items will break when exposed to any sort of strong monster at all. All items are sold with the disclaimer that they will not jump you up a grade at all. They’ll only help you survive monsters within your grade, and maybe not even then.” With a stronger voice, Julie finished, “And yet, maybe with some proper items, you can counter the items of other people, like Grand Mage’s Solari’s son, for instance.”
Mark and Isoko both had a moment.
And then Mark frowned. “Everyone is talking about that ‘fight’ with Tartu, huh.”
“Oh yes!” Julie said, excited. “There’s a lot of good gossip happening everywhere, but that’s the big ticket story right now.”
Mark had tried to not notice the way people looked at him when he walked around the settlement, either to the commissary of Castle North for groceries and food, or anywhere else. People looked at him all the time, actually, so Mark had gotten good at ignoring how people looked at him. But from their time on the Grey Whale to post-Tartu, things had changed, and Mark hadn’t wanted to notice that change—
With perfect interest, but with a calm facade, Julie placidly asked, “Would you have cut off his feet?”
Mark should have snorted and said ‘no way!’ but he wasn’t feeling that charitable at the moment. He was feeling suddenly distrustful. Tartu had used items to fuck Mark over. Had Tartu gotten them here? Or made them here? Or… or something like that?
Mark asked, “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve got a bet going with a friend.”
She said it with such lack of inflection that it felt like an interrogation tactic, like she was trying to get the baseline story and not influence the story as it came out.
Mark was a bit weirded out by that, but his sudden distrust didn’t seem all that important, since he’d be surely buying a lot of stuff from the Artificer’s Guild going forward. He doubted they would want to be antagonistic. Julie was probably just wondering if Mark was psychotic, or not.
With that in mind, Mark said, “I thought the fight was just going to be some punching and whatever, with light Power usage. If he would have come at me without… what he did… then I would have taken the dive…” A rage inflamed Mark’s voice, but Mark managed to cap most of that rage. With a frown, Mark said, “He might have beaten me fairly. I’ve lost spars before. Loss is not new. Domainer is a strong Skill! I would have loved to fight him for real, instead of… what happened. So, no. I wouldn’t have cut off his feet if I had won. That’s just a persona... But now? I called him a thief as a part of the act, but… Whatever I do, it’ll be something that puts him out of commission for 2 days, just like he did to me.”
Julie got more than she asked for, and she was absolutely delighted. She tried to keep her face even. She tried to keep her vector calm. But she was excited. Her lips turned up in a slight smile that she had to fight to keep off of her face. She relaxed as much as she could, and then she said, “One moment.”
Julie got up from her desk. She rapidly left through a door in the back of her office—
She came right back, the doorway briefly showing an artificer’s room in the back, with a wall of drawers and a lathe and some other machinery, and then the door shut.
“This is what you want, and it’s 25,000 points,” Julie said, as she set a trinket down on the desk between them.
The object was primarily a drop of liquid sunlight about the size of a fingernail, surrounded by a cage of silver spiderwebs and attached to a thin chain that did not seem to be a part of the trinket. The chain was plain silver. Mark wasn’t sure what the amulet was. It was clearly magical, and at a 25k price tag, it was expensive as fuck, too.
Julie continued, “It’s a spellbreaker, done in the classical style. There’s a lot of nuance to these things, but their basic action is to absorb a single instance of negatively-influenced Power cast upon the wearer and to provide immunity from the effect that triggered the protection for about 2 seconds. Maybe 3 seconds. They have so many caveats to what they can do that they aren’t in use much these days. They’re a general solution to a million different possible issues, so pretty much every individualized protection you can buy does a lot better against individualized problems. If you know what you’re going up against, you should buy a specific defense, and leave the spellbreaker for emergencies.
“Mind Shields, for instance. You want a Mind Shield when you’re going up against Mind monsters. You want a Power Level Shield when you’re going up against strong monsters, and you need a higher Body to shrug off claws and some incidental Knack or otherwise. Other popular protective devices are Tech Guards that prevent tampering with your phones, or other such things, and Auto-Antidotes, that clear up most miasma and poison and toxins. A truly good Auto-Antidote can clear up parasites, too.
“This spellbreaker will survive a trip to Earth, but it will take a month to gain a single charge in the ambient mana of Earth, instead of passively gaining a charge over 12 hours, like it does here on Daihoon.
“This is what it looks like when charged. This shining light.
“It only has one charge.
“One charge will protect you from one directed, harmful instance of magic that overcomes your own defenses. Since you have a high all-around Power Level as a tri-Skilled then it shouldn’t activate too often, but when it does activate the spellbreaker will offer complete protection against whatever tried to harm you for about 2 seconds. Maybe 3 seconds if it’s been charged up for a few days.
“And that is the most basic rundown I can give you about this item in a single minute. There’s a lot more to it than that.
“Spellbreakers are based on the Spell known as Protect.”
Mark stared at the drop of caged light, wondering a lot of things. Protection against a single effect sounded pretty lame, but… also pretty amazing, actually, now that Mark thought about it. 2 seconds of being immune to Tartu’s Domain would have saved him that fight. And for 25k points? Not a bad price!
Mark almost had 25k…
He kinda really wanted this spellbreaker thingy.
Mark looked up at Julie and asked, “If I wear this and rush Tartu, it’ll protect me from his Domain?”
“For about 2 seconds; Absolutely,” Julie said, delighted to talk about kicking Tartu’s ass. “But it won’t stop him from throwing something else at you, triggering the spellbreaker, and then throwing something stronger at you. That’s provided he knows about the spellbreaker in the first place, though. Spellbreakers are fantastic against monsters and even against people, but if someone does their research then they can trigger your breaker on something that doesn’t matter.”
Mark huh’d, mumbling, “He could just waste a wand…”
And if other people tried to rob Mark, then they’d do their research beforehand, too, and they’d bring extra wands, or whatever, to try and trigger the spellbreaker before he actually needed it against the debilitating magics.
Mark asked, “Could you wear multiples of these?”
“… Yes, and no,” Julie said. “What you are talking about is an item known as a sequenced spellbreaker. Those things get ruinously expensive for anything above 3 breakers. It’s much more economic to get a double sequencer and then a standard shield to buff every Power Level to a minimum of 50. A double sequencer and a standard shield costs 95k for the sequencer and just 2,500 for a standard shield. Shields that go higher than 50 PL rapidly balloon in price, up to 25k for a baseline of 60 in every Power Level, to 250k for a baseline of 75 in every Power Level.”
Mark’s current Power Levels were, Body 062, Shaper 090, Mind 79, Natural 091, Arcane 67, and Arch 49.
He didn’t need a basic shield and a good shield was too expensive.
Tartu was probably at a 95 in Arch, which is why his Power was able to work so well on Mark. If Mark was just a normal Union-user, then his Arch levels would have been even lower, at maybe something like 25, and Tartu never would have needed to use those debuffers to get him low enough to affect with Domain. Tartu could have just used his Power right at the start of the fight and won that way.
Mark would need to spend 250k to get a Shield to raise his Arch up to 75, to make it even tougher for Tartu to affect him… And honestly, Mark wanted one of those kinds of shields, anyway. He was usually using Union to buff himself in all Power Level categories, but redundancy was awesome. Redundancy might have saved him when Tartu shut down his Union, too.
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… It was kinda neat that this stuff even existed. That these were options to be had.
Expensive as fuck, but still neat!
“I’ll have to put the good shield on hold until after I get an Obsidian Card. The sequencer, too,” Mark said. “But I’m interested in a single spellbreaker, probably tuned to a pretty high tolerance.”
Julie’s vector and face both seemed pleased with that decision. “You want to win against Tartu, yes? I want to help. Do you know what wands Tartu used against you?”
Mark was slightly concerned that Julie seemed to be involving herself directly in Mark’s vendetta because he didn’t really know her at all. But Mark was willing to roll with it, for a little while. Isoko seemed to be willing to let it happen, too; she sat silently, listening and watching.
Mark guessed, “General debuffing wands?”
“I saw the video, and he did not use general wands at all,” Julie said, her vector focused. “If you tell me exactly how they made you feel, I can probably guess them.”
Eliot had had some guesses about those wands, too, but they weren’t exact. Tartu made his wands himself, or someone made them for him in a non-standard way, because all Eliot could tell were the effects the wands had on Mark. Eliot had thought they might have been a general weakness wand, as in a weakening of Power Levels, and also a specific sort of sense-deadening wand. The Artificer’s Guild had those kinds of wands for sale for 8k points and 5k points, respectively, but they also had a bunch of other wands, such as anti-pain and anti-sight, which also could have been what Tartu used against Mark.
Mark rolled past his own discomfort, saying, “It was all foggy. But yeah, I felt… pressure, really. Not much more than that. I was in darkness and unable to feel much at all. No up or down or… or anything, really.”
With her eyes lighting up in absolute conviction, Julie said, “Anti-sense and Weak-to-Skills! Those are the wands he used against you! Ah ha!”
She was way too happy about that.
Mark eyed her.
Julie paused. She lightly cleared her throat and then whispered, “Sorry—” She continued, “It was a sequence of Skills that built upon each other, you see. He used Anti-sense first because if he had used Weak-to-Skills first then you would have been unable to feel anything at all, because Weak-to-Skills would have increased the effect of Anti-sense. In that case, you would have been locked in a black void, completely insensate, but you still would have been moving around and in control of your body. Therefore, he did Anti-sense first, because he wanted to use Weak-to-Skills to make you vulnerable to his Domain, which is what kept you from being unable to use your astral body at all. It was probably a Domain against you, specifically you. Domainer can do that. He didn’t actually use a Skill-Weakener at all, and probably because you were already buffing your PLs with Union.
“And that’s how he won!”
As she announced her professional opinion, Julie was so happy with herself that Mark almost wasn’t furious at being reminded about the ‘fight’.
Having a professional artifact maker and user give a professional opinion about Tartu’s actions… was kinda comforting, actually.
Mark kinda liked Julie—
“What’s your stake in this?” Isoko asked, with a carefully even tone.
“Oh!” Julie said, “Sorry, sorry. Uh… yes. It’s probably odd…”
Julie looked down at the spellbreaker for a moment, her vector turning inward, and deep. She was considering if she wanted to lie, or not. Mark had seen that type of vector before, and Lola had instructed him about that type of vector before so that he would know it when he saw it… So she was either considering if she wanted to lie, or could be considering how deep of a truth she wanted to tell.
Either or, really.
Julie looked up at Mark and told what might have been the truth, “I was trying to buy kel-essence at the depot but Tartu bought everything they had in stock! I mean, sure, kel-essence is pretty damned plentiful, and they got a restock in that afternoon after some guys ran to the Shine and harvested some, but it’s the principle of the thing. He bought the entire stock… And you have no basis for understanding that, uh. Sorry. Anyway… I kinda…” She paused. She said, “Anyway. I complained to him, and he told me that he was there first! Can you believe that shit! Who buys out the full stock of anything at a settlement? In the wilds? That’s the problem I have with him. I can kind of understand buying everything in a normal store because this sure as shit doesn’t feel like the wilds, what with shops and stone castles, but we’re still at least two days away from civilization… And I’m rambling. But you get it, right? He bought out the whole stock of something, and then he downed you for 2 days. One of our primary defensive people! Everyone knows what your Union feels like, Mister Careed, and it… It’s really empowering, really.”
Ah.
Well…
Yeah.
Tartu definitely needed to be kicked in the balls—
Isoko lightly glared. “And?”
Julie rapidly said, “And I prefer the villains in the HVP. The dramatic shit really gets me.”
Ah, so… Sure. That’s fine, too.
Isoko relaxed.
Mark kinda relaxed, too.
Isoko said, “I prefer the villains, too.”
“Right!” Julie said, smiling again.
Mark felt a lot more comfortable, now that he knew Julie’s reasons. “So what was your bet about, anyway?”
“One of my friends over at the army quartermaster’s office— I bet that you’re a good guy, and you wouldn’t actually cut off anyone’s feet… At least not for a first offense. My friend was totally ready for you to throw down for real, because you can just heal the people you beat up, right? Chopped legs are not a big deal when you got this much healing going around, like we do here at the settlement. But of course you wouldn’t actually do that! Not for a first fight! That’s psycho behavior.” Julie pulled back, shaking her head. “But then Tartu went and did what he did, and he almost would have gotten away with it, too, but Aurora was there to piss in his beer and that was absolutely fantastic.”
Mark grinned a little—
“I want one of the spellbreakers, too,” Isoko said. “I don’t have 25k. What kind of quests do you have to make up the difference?”
“Oh! Uh?” Julie smiled a little, and said, “I can absolutely do quests.” She pulled out a tablet and started tapping away. “Let’s see what the Guild needs and what’s been scouted— Ah!” She looked to Mark. “Are you interested in a spellbreaker, too, Mister Careed?”
Mark had no trouble saying, “Yes, and I’ll take the quest discount, too— I would like to know the full capabilities of one of these spellbreakers, though.”
“Certainly! The base item is a mithril spellframe around a synth-crystal core. I’d go into more detail than that, but then we’d be getting into Mage Secrecy Contracts and so, I will digress. As for capabilities, I am able to speak on those a lot more freely. The spellbreaker charges off of your own astral body, and it will react to your astral body being attacked in a way that your astral body cannot naturally fend off, which occurs when your self is suppressed in a deadly sort of way. It will not react to a Stone Shaper slapping you with a stone bat, but it will react to a Water Shaper trying to grievously harm your body through control of your blood or other bodily fluids. It will not react to a Minder trying to get you to ignore them but it will react to a Minder trying to alter your normal reactions, unless, of course, you have the breaker tuned to a very high tolerance. I suggest everyone to buy a Mind Charm eventually. Some people need it more than others, and it will work with a spellbreaker just fine.”
Mark asked, “What does ‘grievously harm’ mean?”
Julie smiled a little bit, saying, “A simple bloodletting will not trigger the Protect, but cardiac arrest will cause the gem to burst with light which will then insulate your astral body and physical body from further manipulation. That’s all depending on the various tolerance settings, of course, and...”
Over the next half hour Mark and Isoko both asked questions and Julie did her best to answer them.
Spellbreakers were fantastic and Mark absolutely wanted one, but…
They had issues.