Now that we are back in Diamond Lake, I am expecting to be here for several more weeks. The cadence of a month out in the wilderness and several weeks in a city where I can purchase materials has been working well for me; I am almost always as stocked up and as ready to go as I can be given my abilities and resources by the time we're due to leave, and I don't see a reason to change that right now.

I assess my current wealth; I had 4 gold, 7 silver, and 12 copper left over prior to leaving this time. I then gained 137 gold and 5 silver from the Orc Investigation Commission, 682 gold and 5 silver for the Orcish weaponry, 350 gold for the healing potions, and a staggering 4,300 gold from the baby dragon body parts that we were able to salvage. That makes for a total of 5474 gold, 7 silver, and 12 copper to work with. A fortune even by the standards of lower nobility in a city like this. I wonder if my teammates realized how absurdly priced dragon bodies are when they decided to let me take the entirety of the sale?

Although even a few gold was a shocking quantity for me when we first arrived in Diamond Lake, I have a bit more perspective now and I understand that this much money is nothing significant for a high-level adventurer, much less a ruler. By the standards of 99.9% of the population, however, I am filthy rich right now.

Unlike many people who found themselves suddenly in possession of thousands of gold, I neither intend to skip town nor retire. I don't even intend to use this for personal equipment alone; I intend to use the money I've gained to upgrade some key equipment for my entire group, as well as to start putting together schematics that will retain their value over time despite not automatically scaling as I level up. I could buy some magical equipment outright with this much money, but the money wouldn't go very far that way, I'd only be able to buy a couple items and they wouldn't be very powerful. Far better to use my abilities to craft things myself.

My expectation is that the schematics I can now make would probably sell rather well, but I have never seen or heard of these schematics before, so despite having a lot of potential as a lucrative trade item, they also might result in making me a target, especially since I plan to craft many, many magic items over time, and am likely to attract powerful attention even without doing anything else particularly crazy. If making schematics that are worth holding on to even later in my career ends up delaying the day where a powerful figure or group takes note of me and decides they want their very own magical spell assembly line? So much the better.

I purchase some materials for the bow I had in mind for Regina. I had to go over some of my design ideas with Regina to ensure my ideas would work well for her, but I am not telling you about the plan I have in mind for that bow right now because I am a bit excited for the big reveal when it is finally done.

Beyond the bow, I purchase special materials for 2 light metal shields and 2 bucklers. Quicksilver armor is great, but even though it will not end up being as good for straight defense compared to the current heavy shield, and even though a bash attempt originating from a light steel shield will have limited impact compared to a heavy shield, I have to make the newer shields smaller to align with the design I have in mind. I am planning to create a shield that we can toggle between being extended versus not, inspired by all the juggling we had to do in the last Orc fight. Maybe future iterations I'll be able to get it to work with better coverage, but right now I'm basically prototyping the idea.

Shields are not meant to be held; they are meant to be strapped onto your arm and supported and controlled by your hand. Both Bucky and I lost our shield in the latest Orc fight in part because the wood was quickly destroyed while attempting to resist the powerful blows of the Orcs, and in part because the transition from ranged to melee caused Bucky to have issues strapping on and carrying the shield correctly in the first place.

Regular steel would not be up to the task of making the transition smooth, it's too heavy for my prototype design, but quicksilver is something of a super alloy, far stronger pound for pound than anything on earth. My intent is to start trying to replace our equipment with, if not forever gear, at least equipment of sufficiently high quality that it will accept enchantments and carry value for a long time to come. Ideally I want the armor to be forever gear, I just recognize that bar as being a rather unlikely goal to achieve.

Quicksilver is not the toughest material I could be using, in this world there is a metal alloy called Adamantine that is strictly more durable. Only the dwarves know the secret to its production, and they guard that secret closely, but they are willing to sell their alloy at absurd prices, and every now and again a dwarven hero carrying Adamantine equipment will fall and their gear will make it into the hands of others, whom are also often willing to sell it off at high rates.

I have wondered before how frequent it is that someone will reincarnate with their memories largely intact across worlds, prompted less by loneliness and more by such considerations as wondering what the odds are of this ridiculously strong metal, said to be unbreakable, aligning directly with an English word meaning unbreakable. That seems more than a little suspicious to me.

Despite the rumored toughness however, there are a couple reasons I do not try to acquire or use Adamantine for use in these shields. Aside from scarcity, which would not be impossible to address in a city like this, purchasing adamantine here would be cost prohibitive but it's possible to get my hands on it. I probably wouldn't be able to quickly acquire enough Adamantine to create a full set of plate mail, but easily enough to make a shield. No, according to my thought process the price and scarcity are not the reason it is a poor material choice for a shield. The biggest issue with Adamantine is the weight. It is very, very heavy.

Adamantine weighs about as much as Osmium, meaning that it is about twice as dense as Lead. A single liter of Adamantine weighs about 22.6 kilograms. Trying to wear a suit of armor made from Adamantine is a feat achievable only by those who have walked far indeed along the path of extreme toughness and physical strength. Even in a world like this, people who can use adamantine effectively are not common.

Theoretically a shield made from Adamantine is something you could expect a fighter to wield, but take a look at a 20 Kg Olympic weight. Really, look at it. That would make for a very small shield, merely a buckler. Now, in your mind, triple the weight for the same amount of protective coverage. Just because you possess a ridiculous physique theoretically capable of holding a large shield made of Adamantine upright for minutes on end does not mean that you would, or even should, especially when in a real fight.

Quicksilver on the other hand weighs about half as much as steel but performs comparably well and often even a little better in every category, whether looking at tensile strength, impact strength, or any other common metric. That is what a good material looks like, light but strong. And, despite being rare and very expensive, Quicksilver is far less rare or expensive than Adamantine. So, quicksilver is my metal of choice, while Adamantine is relegated to extremely limited applications, such as perhaps a band of metal capping a quarterstaff, but even then it would be easy to take it too far so one would have to be mindful of the specific capabilities of the person wielding it.

Now that I have the materials for some non-magical crafting projects, it is time I turn my attention to magical crafting. I take stock of my remaining funds: 2870 gold, 7 silver, and 12 copper. Honestly for what I have been purchasing I am getting great deals. Thank you to both the experience in the city up to now, as well as to my appraisal skill, for being of benefit in letting me know where I should start haggling from.

Some options for where else to spend money have been near the top of my mind since acquiring the ability to create Schematics. In theory there are many options to increase various skills, and being able to look at low level spells makes it pretty easy to pick out several good options. Priests have a spell where they receive divine inspiration on skill checks. Mages also have a spell that grants a competence based bonus to their skill checks, and another that grants a bonus to craft checks in particular. “Divine Inspiration” and “Competence” are second-tier spells so I could turn them into schematics for about 900 gold in materials, whereas “Competent Crafting” is a tier 1 spell, so I could turn it into a schematic for about 150 gold in materials.

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None of the spell descriptions I'm referencing clearly state how big of a bonus they provide, but presumably the tier 2 spells should be a bigger bonus since they are higher level, though perhaps not because the tier 2 versions can be applied to all skill checks, not just crafting the way the tier one spell allows. I am a crafter, so that Tier 1 spell is useful, and what is important to me about those tier 2 spells is that both of them should be interchangeable between my crafting and my "Operate Magical Devices" skills based on whichever I consider to be more relevant at the time. These are all potentially great options, they are just going to consume so much of my money so fast, and I'd been hoping to leverage at least some of my schematic making towards things that are relevant for exploration and combat. Even the Lizardfolk Shamans are able to provide in combat benefits to allies…

And it was at that moment where I experienced an epiphany. I can craft magic based on any class spell list. Shamans draw their magic from Divine magic, they just don't know it and presumably they have less divinity to access since they are drawing from ancestors and animals, which is my running theory on why they are generally less powerful than Priests who draw their magic from the divinity of their gods. So, in general, I have little interest in Shamanic magic because it doesn't offer anything new or more powerful. But the point is that if I chose to I could craft shaman spells without issue… And Lizardfolk Shaman is a monstrous class.

That is the point of relevancy; Mages and Priests aren't the only class I can craft schematics from. I can cast magical items appropriate for any spell list, not just the spell lists of the "goodly" races and classes… Which means that even the classes that are bizarre or shunned are accessible for me, even the ones that are practically legendary; if it's Arcane, Divine, or Nature based, it's fair game for turning it into a schematic. This is yet another game changer.

There are a class of priests known as "Heretical Priests", who perform blasphemous acts and are basically just super evil versions of regular priests. They are rare, as far as I know I've never come anywhere near one, and according to the stories these guys are ridiculously sick and depraved and absolutely horrible, the sort of evil that you never really see outside of stories. According to the stories, Heretical Priests make the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy seem like upright and moral fellows. Are they? Frankly, I don't care, because it doesn't matter with regards to my item creation.

Heretical priests, in exchange for being universally despised and hunted down when found, get power at a much faster rate than regular priests. I don't mean to say that they level up faster, but rather that they gain access to higher tier spells at comparatively low levels, which makes them tough to fight against for all but the most experienced and powerful of heroes even if they are relatively young.

With Heretical Priests in mind, I determine that I will purchase materials appropriate for a lower level casting for Divine Inspiration. Due to picking up the Divine Inspiration spell from the Heretical priest spell lists, which yes would mean that outsiders would consider it tainted and evil if they realized that was how I was able to make the schematic at a lower than expected level, I’m able to save a ton of money and it should only cost about 400 gold for that schematic instead of 900!

Yes I hear you, “But Elliot, aren’t you worried that an evil deity will notice that you are using their power and will smite you down, or that there might be some sort of corruption effect?!”

Well sure. Those might be real concerns if I were the one using the heretical priest spells. But this is not a true heretical priest casting, this is not even a spell release, this is a schematic which is independent of specific magical sources and expressions and merely needs to be creatable based on existing spell structures. I am not stealing from an actual and particular evil deity, I am only selecting a spell that an evil deity would allow. Which happens to be almost all of the same spells a good deity would allow. Meaning I should not personally offend any evil deities, or any other deities for that matter, I shouldn't be noticed at all.

Regarding corruption yes that might be a thing if I were channeling the spells, but the Schematic is the power source, the focus, and the medium, not me, I am only contributing to the expression when I go to use the schematic. Honestly I don't think it will matter at all since schematics are already divorced from specific power sources and are operable across compatible spell lists. If I'm wrong and by basing my schematic on the Heretical Priest spell list the magic itself turns out to be evil and corrupted after all? At worst I would expect for the schematic to end up falling apart since it is the actual medium. If it does? Well, that would make for a convincing data point to inform future endeavors. But really, with such a significant difference in cost, it's definitely worth a shot, especially since I'm pretty sure it will work without any side effects.

Thinking about using heretical priests for my spell list choice frees up my thinking to let me consider the same thing for the mages competence spell, where I decide to draw Competence from a monstrous source; the 9 mouthed gibbering horror. Like the heretical priest, they advance quickly along the Arcane track due to being a special ad notoriously evil monster class. But that's the thing, even if a spell is only possible at a lower level because it is available to a specific Monstrous class, it is still an Arcane spell, ergo I can craft it.

I’m looking at spending 950 gold so far, but as long as these work the way I think they will it should be more than worth it.

What else? A reusable healing technique would be good, it might help take some pressure off Joaqim, and save money on potions over time. I pick out “Invigoration”, which is a heal over time spell that has a more consistent healing effect than the regular instant heal spells. This version is basically always an optimal healing effect without the randomization that seems to accompany most healing spells, but it takes over a minute to finish exhausting its healing magic rather than taking effect all at once. That's another 150 gold well spent, I think. Since it is already tier 1 and level 1 there's no real opportunity for cost saving by using an unusual class list, but much like the tier 1 Competent Crafting, it's just a good spell.

What about offense? Well, honestly, offense is a problem for me. Most spells become stronger as your level increases, but whatever it is that I put into a schematic will not improve without having to jump through proverbial hoops to upgrade them, and at the prices these Schematics cost, that means they will quickly become obsolete relative to my level and against the sorts of enemies I will need to strong enough to face.

I definitely want something that can help against groups of enemies since that is a weakness for my party, but those tend to do less individual damage than single target spells, meaning the lack of scaling will be doubly problematic for them, and while my funds are extensive in relative terms compared to what I could have envisioned prior to leaving my home village, they will become exhausted quickly trying to craft magical items. Even with a way to reduce the cost of Arcane spells via the 9 mouthed gibbering horror, there are other priorities to address first before I start investing in that money sink. For the sake of efficiency, I will skip on offensive spells for now.

So what about utility? Honestly there is just very little that I can get that… Oh. Right. I don't have to limit myself to tier 1 and 2 spells, heretical priest and monster spell lists should be options for nearly all of the arcane and divine spells I know of, not just those buffs. It's a pity I don't know of any creatures that could grant me that accelerated progress from natural spells, but 2 out of 3 classes of magic is still amazing.

I spend some time thinking about what the 9 mouthed gibbering horror could allow me to do, meaning the same things as a normal mage but earlier. 9 mouthed gibbering horrors are like the heretical priests in that when discovered people tend to go crazy trying to hunt them down to kill them before they get stronger, because they are among the exceptions where their racial class levels actually make them terrifyingly powerful rather than granting a small bonus followed by a lifetime of comparative weakness.

Or perhaps the racial class levels of the 9 mouthed gibbering horror really do limit future progression, but because they are so strong in the first place that the majority of onlookers simply lack the perspicacity to discern that it is limiting them in some way.

A professional fencer would absolutely devastate a random person pulled off the street for a fencing match against them. If you are lacking in expertise in the field, however, would you be able to tell the difference between a professional quality performance compared to an Olympic Gold Medalists performance? Either way the existence of a massive skill gap between the expert and the novice would be clear, but for most people recognizing that the novice is severely outclassed would be the extent of their ability to analyze the match.

A fully grown 9 mouthed gibbering horror can cast 9 spells at a time, and according to folklore they can cast up to 9th tier magic, which is the upper end of mortal magic, so I imagine there probably aren't many people who can speak precisely to any tradeoffs associated with their racial class progression.

Regardless, what does being able to cast higher tier spells early mean in the case of using their spell list? Quite a lot, but out of the many amazing options I can think of, one in particular just blows me away. Remember how I said there was a mid-level spell that can let you craft nonmagical things almost instantly? Even using the fast-track version of the spell, it ends up costing me 1,350 gold. In my opinion that is well worth the cost, because that is seriously insane for me and my class. There are other schematics I would like to be able to make, but I am running low on funds, so I go and pick up the remaining materials for the “Manufacture”, “Divine Inspiration”, “Competence”, “Competent Crafting”, and “Invigoration” spells.

After my purchases are completed I have 420 gold, 3 silver, and 12 copper remaining after all of my shopping and a nights rest at our preferred inn.

The next day I rent out a shop and get to crafting, completing the Competent Crafting schematic. That night, when we get to our nightly dinner meetup, Joaqim explains that a representative from the city has directly requested our assistance in another commission. Since he does not feel terribly eloquent, he has Regina, who was with him when they were approached, explain.

The city is specifically requesting that WE do something? Us, in particular? We're too weak for it to make sense that we be approached for anything in an official capacity. Whatever Regina is about to tell us about, it's almost certainly going to be very dangerous for us.