Chapter 26 - Billy Spawn Camps

Billy stood outside the copse of trees, a piece of braided metallic wire in hand.

“You sure this is going to work?”

“No. No, I am not,” Rhinus replied. “It should conduct the mana, though you’ll lose some on the way for sure, even if it works.”

Billy just shrugged. “Eh. You did your magical silly putty stretchy thing. It should be fine.”

“Maybe we should test this further before committing,” Roland said.

“Nahhhh, too much thinky, not enough… Stinky?” Billy sent it. He shoved a little over half of his mana into the metal in his hands. The mana shot into and along the wire, flowing in between the trees.

A suspenseful moment full of suspense passed where nothing happened. Everyone held their breath. Then, FLASH. Click, click, clack. Success!

The party’s cheering drew the attention of the newly spawned beetle. It surged towards them, pincers clacking wildly.

“Pull!” Billy yelled gleefully.

“Yup!” Rhinus yelled, cocking back his hammer. As the beetle came within range of snapping at Billy, the tank swung mightily. The hammer collided with a very satisfying PONG! The beetle shattered on impact, spraying chitin, parts and viscera onto the copse of trees.

Billy, Roland and Scrap Heap each held up signs. A 7, a 7 and an 8. They all clapped politely as Rhinus bowed theatrically.

“Who’s next?” Billy asked. Roland stepped up and took the wire. The alchemist funneled some mana into the wire. FLASH.

This time, Scrap Heap casually threw a dagger into the air and let out a high pitch whistle. The beetle came scuttling out of the trees. It took about eighty six tiny steps towards the party. The dagger tore straight through its exoskeleton, bisecting the beetle in one go and lodging itself firmly into the ground.

“Pffft. Show off,” Billy said in mock protest. He, Roland and Rhinus each held up signs. A 4 from Billy and a 9 from both Rhinus and Roland.

Rhinus stepped up and spawned a beetle. Billy borrowed a sword from Scrap Heap and clumsily swung it at the monster. He wasn’t great with it, but it was a pretty straight forward weapon. Eventually, he bludgeoned the thing to death, earning him a 1 from Scrap Heap, a 3 from Rhinus and a pity-5 from Roland.

Farming montage!

The group took turns spawning beetles as their mana regenerated. They discussed killing the scarab, but figured they would rather farm the beetles, both for their strange cores and for Roland’s continued research. Plus, they didn’t know what the crystal would spit out if they destroyed the parasitic thing.

While the others kept experimenting with the crystal, Billy took out his supplies and tried making a tarot card with one of the beetle cores. He carved the card out of a slat of wood, doing his best to engrave the correct constellation of stars on one side. When he tried to infuse the card with the core, however, the power slipped from his fingers. He tried again, focusing his will as much as he could. He managed to hold onto the stream of power from the core, but it slid right off of the card. Damn.

Was it a material issue or a skill issue? Maybe more powerful or exotic cores needed a higher degree of mundane skill or even Skill levels to manipulate. He could always put the cores aside and try again later when he had more experience.

It might be a material issue, though. Billy was using ordinary wood, cut into the right size by a woodworker. Another material might hold the enchantment better, such as metal or even the magical wood from the animated trees. He, of course, decided to try both.

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Billy approached Rhinus with some silver and copper coins in hand. He described what he was looking for and the purpose behind it. Rhinus had constantly been training his metal affinity or whatever metal-related skill he had by using it on everything that he could. He used it to empower his hammer strikes, to lighten the weight of his armor and even to craft the metal wire that they were currently using to channel mana into the monster spawning crystal from afar.

The tank easily agreed to help. He took the copper coins in hand and started molding them like putty. Within minutes, he had made a copper sheet and a silver one, too. Billy was hesitant when it came to the silver sheet, as it took eight silvers to make. He was dipping heavily into his reserves. Even if it panned out, he would have to look into selling some cards to be able to afford the materials to make more. Between the cost of the sheets and the cost of the cores, he would be hemorrhaging money if he ever decided to dedicate himself to his craft.

“Can anyone work with wood by chance?” It was worth a shot. He didn’t know the full extent of anyone’s abilities, after all.

“I am a master woodworker, as it happens.” Scrappy with the clutch save.

“Perfect! Can you work with this magical wood?” Billy took out a few pieces that he had looted and cut from the magical tree monsters.

Scrap Heap looked over the pieces of wood and the template of what Billy wanted before responding. “Affirmative.”

The scout sat with a piece of wood and got to work. He pulled up the sleeve of his right arm, revealing intricate metalwork fused with dimly glowing wood. He held the chunk of wood steady with one hand, his grip like a vice. Lightning crackled on the tip of his metallic index finger on his other hand as he methodically passed it over the slab in a grid pattern. Anything his finger touched was instantly vaporized. After carving a perfectly rectangular block, Scrap Heap placed it on the ground. He entered a combat stance, one hand on his scabbard, one hand on the hilt of his sword. Shwing! The block of wood slowly fell into six perfect cards. Billy didn’t even see him move. Scrap Head nodded once, solemnly, before returning to studying the monster spawning crystal.

Billy raced over and picked up the six sheets of wood, still in awe at Scrappy’s speed. The man was a monster. What was that speed? And that armor around his arm and his hand. Billy thought it fit so tightly to his skin that it almost looked like the arm was made of metal and wood. That would be quite something. Putting that aside, he raced over to a comfortable spot and tried again. The copper card didn’t take. The silver and the wooden ones, however, absorbed the beetle core’s mana easily. He was so excited that he made three: two with wood and one with silver.

The three new cards were almost identical. The backs featured a purple sky dotted with golden stars, forming innumerable constellations. The front of the cards had cogs and pulleys interlocked together and steam coming out of some pipes in one corner. The only difference in the cards was in the small box at the bottom of the silver card. Both wooden cards had “E-II” written in the box, while the card made from silver had “E-IV” written in a looping script. Billy was ecstatic. The new cards had jumped an entire rank!

Buoyed by his success, Billy ran over to the rest of the group. He showed them his new creations while the adventurers oooooed and aaaaaahed appropriately. He didn’t dare use them, though. He wasn’t sure how many beetle cores he would get and he didn’t want to waste them if they turned out to be awesome. He didn’t need to wait for an emergency, per se, he just didn’t want to pop a card out of combat if he didn’t need to do so.

“We have to leave soon if we want to make it back before night,” Roland mentioned. “Should we head back?” He looked reluctant to leave the crystal, but it wasn’t a great spot to hang out without any kind of shelter.

Scrap Heap nodded once. “Affirmative. I shall request additional resources when we arrive. This crystal must be exploited to the fullest.” The rest of the group nodded vigorously.

“That settles it, then,” Rhinus said. With a grunt, he stood up from where he had been lounging on a particularly soft piece of moss. “This way?” He pointed in the exact opposite direction that Billy was headed.

“Nah, leave the directions to the pros,” Billy said with a chuckle. “Outpost’s this way.” He gestured towards where his Gift was leading him.

“Negative,” Scrap Heap interjected before Rhinus could reply. “The outpost is, indeed, in this direction.” Curiously, the scout pointed towards where Rhinus had been heading.

Billy opened his mouth to reply, but then just shut it and furrowed his brows. Had he gotten turned around? Impossible. He had a great sense of direction. Roland scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. “Yeah, Billy, it’s this way,” he said reluctantly. “You probably just got turned around while we were chasing beetles, is all.”

Ok, so maybe it was possible. Billy couldn’t shake the feeling that a side quest, at the very least, was waiting just on the other side of the bushes. He weighed his options, but the slowly fading light of the sun made his decision for him. They were coming back tomorrow, anyway. Plus, they would probably bring more people so that the crystal spat out more beetles. The faster they got back, the sooner they would return. It’s not like there was much that could distract him from monster cores on demand.