First, they took a few logs from the pile—enough to provide enough parts for another bed-frame, but which hadn't been cut into planks. Using [Instant Crafting] on them immediately returned an error. He needed more mana.

He used [Hands-Free Crafting] to cut one log into planks, meditated to regenerate his mana, and tried again. Still nothing. He repeated the process until he had enough planks to build another frame. Then, of course, it worked. Because it was exactly what he had done the first time.

And then they had to wrestle the frame inside the second shack. That was annoying.

For the next two frames, they carried the planks inside the shacks again. Now all they needed was mattresses and blankets. Sheets would be nice, but were ultimately optional.

Josh wondered if he could make anything like that himself. Rope and cloth were often cotton and other plant matter. Did that fall under his class purview? He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything with leathers or animal furs. Of course, he'd need to learn how to make rope and cloth first, and that wasn't likely out here. Most production like that was handled inside the City.

They wandered into town with their little cart, bought the mattresses, and returned. Jose, the owner of the furniture store, was a nice Hispanic man with a trimmed beard, and sold them for cheap. Well, relatively cheap. Mattresses weren't terribly hard to make, but they were a valuable commodity out here beyond the edge of civilization. Apparently he had a cousin in the City who provided them. Almost everything else he sold was hand-made. He was very proud of his skills.

Josh decided not to tell him that if given the chance, he could copy any of his pieces and produce a dozen an hour. Especially when the nice man threw in some decent blankets for free.

By the time they got back, the sun had finally started to set. Mary and Josh cooked up some simple boar steaks on the fire pit, while Ruth tried to make light with her runes and Darius started on his shroud focuses.

Josh didn't pay much attention to Ruth's attempts. Without some way for the runes to recharge themselves, they were going to remain limited by the mana she could put into them. That could be useful, but it wouldn't be interesting to watch.

Darius was another story.

“I don't have your Instant Crafting or Hands-Free Crafting spells,” he said, as he laid out tools and materials in front of him. “Though I am unsure if I would be able to make best use of them regardless. This blueprint requires an investment of mana, and I am not sure I would be able to cast either spell while paying the cost.”

Josh nodded. “How much do you understand of the blueprint? Do you understand the muckity-muck of the theory, or you just tracing the lines?” His blueprints gave him some knowledge of how and why the blueprint was designed, but, well, his blueprints were all mostly wood. He understood wood pretty well, he didn't need all that much extra magic insight to see how the blueprints worked.

Darius nodded. “Some. Not much, but some. For example.” He pointed at a lead rod, about the size of his hand. “I know that the purpose of this rod is to ground out the energies of the item, to limit outside interference during the crafting. Otherwise, it is difficult to predict what will happen.”

Mary leaned over. “Small rod, innit?”

Darius gave her a small glare, as if he wasn't sure if that was a sex joke or not.

Josh, on the other hand, knew that it definitely was one. It always was.

“This is a small project,” Darius said at last. “It does not require much. I suspect that for larger projects, I might need a full rune-circle to protect my work area. I do not know if that would be provided with the blueprint, though I suspect not.”

“All right,” Josh said. “You need help with anything?”

“I do not believe so, no. I will let you know when I am done.”

Josh watched him out of the corner of his eyes as he worked on dinner. Darius arranged small crystals in a pattern around glowing feathers and other monster parts, the lead rod spiked in the middle of the dirt like a maypole. Slowly, the glow from one of the items disappeared, and Darius threw it out only to rearrange the circle around the remaining items again. This repeated several times over ten or twenty minutes, until all that was left was a small metal torc, glowing gently.

“Is that it?” Josh asked, even as he and Mary passed out dinner.

Darius nodded. “It is the simplest, weakest, and least efficient shroud focus I could infuse.” He looked at Ruth. “I wish it used runes, because it has several self-charging properties that I know you would find useful for your own items.”

Ruth just looked confused more than anything. “Why would your focus need to charge itself?”

“Is this like Mages with their wands?” Mary asked. She mimed waving a stick around. “You know... pchew pchew!” She made sounds that could be generously interpreted as a Mage casting magic with a wand.

“In a manner of speaking,” Darius said slowly. “The point of a wand is to use its own store of mana instead of your own. It is limited in what it is capable of, and generally can't provide mana for spells outside a specific range, if that.”

Josh felt a grin stretching across his face. “You're being cagey. That means you did it, right?”

Darius rolled his eyes, adjusted his glasses, and then threw the torc to him. “See for yourself.”

Josh used Identify on the torc. He grinned wider, put it around his neck, and then beckoned to Mary. “Come on.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She raised an eyebrow. “Come on... what?”

“Come on, hit me!”

She stared at him for a good, long moment. Then she shrugged, whipped out her gun, and shot him.

In the leg.

“Oi!” he said, indignant. The sound of the gunshot was still ringing through the Jungle, and his ears hurt. “Wot was that for?”

She grinned. “You said to hit you.”

“I meant punch me, you muppet!”

“You look all right to me.”

It was true. For a brief moment, a glittering blue force field had manifested around him like a second skin, blocking the bullet. Josh could sense the power in the talisman. It had gone down significantly, but it could block another bullet. Maybe. And it was already regenerating, though slower than he'd like.

Ruth was on her feet, her chisel in her hand. “What was that?” Her eyes darted between the two of them. “What the muck was that?”

Josh proudly displayed his torc. “It's a shroud focus! It creates a shroud, a magical shield, around the wearer that goes off when they're in danger!”

She stared at him. “I thought that was just something for people who use shrouds. You know, like wands? Which we were just talking about?”

Josh shook his head, still grinning. “I wasn't sure until Big D finished.”

“Don't call me that,” Darius said, sounding pained.

Josh ignored him. “I knew it was possible to make shroud focuses that normal people could use, I just didn't know if he'd be able to do it at his level! Here.” He brought up the torc's information screen, then threw it over to her.

Terrible Torc. Shroud focus. Basic-tier. This metal ring fits around the wearer's neck and provides a defensive shroud against enemy attacks. When depleted, the shroud will regenerate with time. However, since this is the lowest-quality shroud focus made by a child who had no idea what he was doing, don't expect it to do much. It might be able to survive a punch. Or maybe a strong sneeze.

“I already have ideas for improving the process,” Darius said. He seemed defensive about what the System was saying. He shouldn't be. The System was always an ass. “This was, magically speaking, basically pouring water into a bowl. I can do much better.”

“Don't get my hopes up too high,” Josh said with a grin. “This is loads better than nothing. I feel like we'll finally be fighting like we're supposed to.” Before the Last Raid, when [Crafters] were commonplace, everyone had a shroud, if only a weak one.

But after the human race was reduced to eight survivors and a hundred growth pods, so much had been lost. Enchanted items lost their power if a human didn't touch them for too long, and hunting down those sorts of things hadn't been a high priority in the early days. By the time the Eight Immortals had realized they needed to collect as many magic items as they could, it was already too late.

Ruth still didn't look happy that her friends were shooting each other, but she tabled it. She turned to Darius. “How much did this cost?”

“All my mana.” He paused. “And all the money we had left.”

Ruth groaned. “Come on, Big D! Josh and I need crafting materials!”

“Don't call me that.” He pointed at Josh. “If this turns into a thing, I'm blaming you.”

Josh ignored that. “Okay!” He clapped his hands and smiled. “That means it's time to take on a dungeon!”

Darius and Ruth stared at him. Mary, however, just nodded.

“We need money,” Josh explained. “We also need more materials and more experience, both the real kind and the System kind.” He waved at the piles of lumber and everything else he had built. “I'm getting muck and smoke from the blueprints I've got. I need to use my junk in combat.”

Darius stood, frowning. “I do not believe you will gain any useful blueprints through that method. Even your Pierce-Resistant Armor is only marginally better than wearing nothing.”

“Sure, I'd agree with you—if that was the point.” Josh shrugged. “It's not. Wood's never going to be good for fighting, I know that. I can get new blueprints to get more experience, though.” He grinned. “Maybe you will too? Who knows!”

Mary gave Darius a look. “Did you get any experience from bashing together that focus? Since you're not actually a Crafter, I mean.”

Darius shook his head. “I didn't. I likely have to use them in combat.”

“See? There you go.” Josh grinned. “Tomorrow we'll find us a dungeon, beat up some weak monsters, and be home in time for dinner.”

Darius gave him a flat look. “I do not believe it will be that simple.”

“Y-yeah!” Ruth said, fists clenched as if forcing herself to stay strong. “What if there's another dragon? I mean, I want more runes—I know I'm missing something obvious—but dungeons are dangerous at the best of times! What if we wake up another stupidly powerful monster?”

Josh shrugged. He wasn't that concerned. It was a danger, he'd admit that, just not as large of one as Ruth's panic was making it seem. “People delve in dungeons on the regular. Out here, they probably have a rotation and a waiting list. We make sure we find one in our level range, clear it out, let it get refilled over the next week.” He grinned. “Simple!”

Ruth still didn't look convinced. However, before anyone could say anything else, Mary stretched and yawned. “Can we just have our bloody dinner and go to sleep? I've been out hunting monsters all day already, and I'm beat.”

Darius gave her a sideways look. “We fought eight monsters.”

Mary snorted. “Yeah, and we spent the whole day skulking around the Jungle like rats, jumping monsters ten levels above us.” She looked Darius dead in the eye. “I hate skulking. I'm a mucking Gunner, not a Ninja. I want to get stronger.” She clenched her fist. “I don't want to get driven out of another town.”

Josh paused the witty quip he had ready. Mary was his oldest living friend—besides his sister—but it was easy to forget that she wasn't some invincible wall who was never phased by anything. Mary took her licks and kept on going... usually. Some things still left scars.

Getting betrayed by your favorite aunt and forced to flee into the Jungle might be one of those things.

Her hand shook, and Ruth reached over. She gave Mary a small smile. Mary took a deep breath and nodded. She didn't smile, but she stopped shaking.

Darius sighed. “I suppose it is a reasonable risk to increase our power.”

Josh grinned and clapped his hands together again. “Good! Now, let's eat before this gets cold.”

The boar steaks were terrible. None of them were cooks. But they were filling, and that was enough for now. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.