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Vol1 Chapter 6
Wolves and Clockwork
Don was sprinting. He had been fighting a pack of mountain wolves for the past twenty minutes and Bob’s cart got some distance between them. Wolves fight intelligently, Don’s defensive movement barely kept them at bay while he whittled away at them one by one. It took forever.
After another fifteen minutes Don caught up to Bob’s caravan and took out some cloth. Bob taught him the Tailoring skill a week prior, and now Don was trying to get his skill to level 4. When tailoring is at level 1, cloth can be sewn, level 2, soft cloth, level 3, leather, and level 4, stiff leather. Don was almost through making some hide boots.
Skill level up: Tailoring [3]
“Identify”
Deer skin boots:
Durability: 20/20
Defense: 2.
Woven deer skin boots made with practiced hands. Although the defense is not high, they are comfortable and durable.
Effects:
Agility +2.
Don passed the shoes to Bob for minor inspection and said, “Got up to 3.”
“Congratulations, these are good work. Now, how much would they sell for?”
Don thought about it for a moment before saying, “Fair price, 60 copper. Market Price, 1 silver, 30 copper.”
Bob nodded. One of the first things Don learned about Bob was that the gnome sold his wares at fair prices, not market prices. Because of the isolation of the towns he visited the demand for most of his goods was greater than the supply, if he sold his goods at double the price, no one would be able to complain. He said that the reason he didn’t was because he wasn’t a merchant with class exclusive skills like Barter and Trading. He did however say that a month after started out he got the stat Trade. To Bob, trading buying and selling was a way to increase his trade stats and fame. The higher these were the easier it would be for him to acquire rare and unique items when he came across them.
Don asked, “What will you do after we part ways?”
This was a question that had bugged Don. If Bob needed an escort to get this far from civilization, he would need one to get back. This deal was to split up at the Veneir mountain range, it would take Bob at least two if not three months to get back to the central continent and if he ran out of homemade artifacts on the way he could lose his life and his cart. Don didn’t know how long either of their business would take so their was a good chance they would not be able to return together. Don wouldn’t feel right leaving Bob on his own but there were no mercenaries or warriors in the towns that would likely agree to escort Bob.
Bob remained silent for a while before saying, “If I can’t get an escort back I will take the time to make more artifacts for use on the way back.”
Don said, “Artifacts which you’ll be throwing away and unable to retrieve.... Umm, you said you specialize in automation, you skilled enough to make a robot that can distract the enemy then return to you?”
Bob nodded. “That was one of my dreams in this game. But it’s not that simple. Building the machinations of a robot is within my capabilities but what gives an Automaton its soul, its programming if you will is a soul gear. Basically it’s a crystal that is filled with pieces of the souls of the type of robot you are making. Say you want to make a giant robot, you would need to kill giants while holding the soul gear. The gear would absorb a small piece of the soul of every giant you kill until it becomes full. If you couldn’t tell, giant robots are nonexistent, gnomes don’t kill giants, giants eat gnomes. There are ways to program a soul gear without killing anything but I don’t have the skill to do so.”
Don thought for a moment and said, “Do you have a soul gear?”
Bob nodded.
“Then how about a Wolf Automaton? We’ve been attacked by mountain wolves 3 times since entering this valley. If you give me the soul gear I can look for the wolves’ den and kill as many as I can.”
Bob sighed, “Unfortunately that wouldn’t work either. If it did, gnomes could hire out mercenaries to fill soul gears. No, soul gears only fill when in the inventory of an artificer. And I already told you gnomes don’t fight, and I don’t have the skill to make an artifact capable of killing enough wolves to fill it.”
Don thought for a moment and said, “Can you teach the artifice skill?”
Bob pulled the reins of his horse, stopping the wagon. He turned to Don and said, “Yes, I can teach it, but it requires 80 intellect and 40 wisdom to learn, minimum. And it requires a certain dexterity rating.”
“Dexterity rating?”
Bob nodded, “Think of it as an unwritten stat for the skill of your hands. It is determined by the handicraft skill, the tailoring skill, sculpting skill, the agility stat, and your natural ability. That and you would have to level up here repeatedly to get your stats to the minimum.
Don thought it over for a second, but the answer was clear, he was in Bob’s debt for the material to learn tailoring. A real man always repays his debt. “How do I know if I have a high enough dexterity rating?”
Bob looked at Don for a moment and got off the cart before going to the back. He pulled another secret lever and the back of the cart opened, revealing a tiny room. Too small for Don to enter but enough for a gnome. Bob went in, opened a drawer, pulled out some things and jumped back outside, handing them to Don. It was a metal sphere and a pile of small parts. Bob said, “This is a simple artifact, and all the parts needed to make it. How fast you can assemble it is a good test for dexterity rating as well as a measure of the aptitude of artificing.”
Don sat down and looked through the pieces. Tiny clockwork gears, springs, and form fitting components. Don examined the pieces to see what matched where on the assembled piece. After he saw how the pieces fit together and how they would look on the final piece, Don got to work putting them together with the tools he was given. When Don knew how something worked, assembling or fixing was no problem.
Don threw the pair of artifacts to Bob. He finished in 3 minutes. Bob looked at them and said, “You really wanna do this?”
Don nodded, a man didn’t go back on his word.
Bob found a spot to park his wagon and placed a few artifact traps around the area. It seemed this was how he protected his wagon when he logged out. He got out a large pile of gears, metal ore, and some blacksmith implements. It seemed he was going to make some of the parts from scratch.
Don left to find monsters to hunt. He wanted to avoid the wolf den for now but he needed to rise 11 levels. His wisdom was 25 and his intellect 40, he had given stats to each some time ago to increase the success rate of his adventurer skills.
Don wandered around the valley till he found a pack of beasts he didn’t recognize. They were the size of bears but they had thick hind legs and moved around on all fours. Don hid behind a hill and threw a rock at one of them before ducking away. The beast snarled but didn’t make any other noises. It slowly went to the hill to investigate. Don started his blade dance catching the beast’s attention. It approached slowly and when it was close enough Don said, “Scan.”
Bonstros lvl 110~
Health 3500~
Don was level 72, if he could defeat one or two of these he could level up. He had to be careful though, his defense was no where near good enough to survive more than one attack, and if he had to fight more than one at a time, he would likely die. He had to slowly whittle away at the Bonstros’ defense while keeping up his own defense while slowly moving away from their pack in case the beast decided to call for backup.
Fifteen minutes later the Bonstros fell and Don got 1/3 closer to the next level. The Bonstros was an example of a low quality mob, too strong with low experience. On the bright side though their attack patterns were easy to notice and the attacks themselves straight forward. Don would likely have to kill a hundred or so to get to level 83.
Don spent the next five real world days killing Bonstros. Once he died while trying to train his perseverance stat and after being cut off for a day he had to sprint from the last village he visited back to Bob’s camp. Bob spent those days slowly and painstakingly making the wolf automaton. He told Don to take his time with grinding because he would need at least another three real world days to craft and assemble the various pieces together. After the fifth day Don got his long awaited message.
You have gained a level!
Don sat down, put his five stat points into intellect and took a good look at his stat chart.
Status WindowAvatar DonAlignment NeutralRace Lunar ElfTitle NoneLevel 83Class Blade DancerFame 20Infamy 20Health 3360Mana 1430Strength 219Agility 171Wisdom 40Intellect 80Vitality 80Affinity to Nature 0Charisma 80Charm 80Leadership 0Perseverance 33Fighting Spirit 82Endurance 95Attack 221Defense 54Magic Resistances None+ Charisma stat is added extra 80 points.
+ Charm stat is added an extra 80 points
+ Enables you to equip certain items specialized for the class.
+ Increases Attack Power while dual wielding swords.
+ Enables you to learn secret skills based on your level in Blade Dancing Mastery.
He went back to Bob who was still assembling pieces and said, “I’m done.”
Bob looked up for a moment and said, “See that pile over there? That assembles into the the foot. The blueprint for the foot is next to it. See if you can make it without seeing the finished product.”
Bob then went back to working and Don checked out the pile. The blueprints were exacting in their detail and highly complex. For those who don’t know, a foot is not a simple thing, not as complex as a hand but fairly close. During each step you subconsciously make dozens of minute adjustments to keep your balance. A mechanical foot has to be able to make those adjustments automatically without slowly down the movement, especially if it has to run at high speeds. Don judged that from the size of the foot that the wolf would be much larger than an average wolf. When don picked up the first piece he noticed that it wasn’t iron. Its color was darker, almost purple, and it weighed less than iron. Don said, “Identify.”
Orichalcum part
Durability: Unknown
A part forged of orichalcum ore meant to be constructed into something greater.
Don had heard of orichalcum before but knew very little of it other than the fact than it is worth more by weight than gold. Don began assembling from the core of the design outward. It took about twenty minutes but he finished it flawlessly.
New skill acquired: Artifice
New skill acquired: Repair
Don said, “I finished. Got artifice and repair.”
Bob looked at the foot and said, “Being able to make implies being able to repair, I wasn’t sure if you already had that skill so I didn’t mention you would acquire it as well.”
Bob went to his wagon and pulled out a small glass sphere. “This is the soul gear. Take as long as you need to. Activate it after you find the den of wolves and whatever you do, don’t die. If you die while holding it the thing shatters.”
Don put it in his inventory and went to the wolf cave. It was a dungeon he found the entrance to a few days prior, though he didn’t enter it. Monsters are stronger when in a dungeon so going in was risky.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Dungeon: You are the first players to discover the Mountain Wolf’s Den
Reward 80 Fame
Double experience, 2x item drop rate.
The first monster killed will drop a good quality item.
Don smiled. He started in a frontier city then traveled south to an uninhabited area and found a dungeon no user had ever been in. Don opened his inventory and double clicked the soul gear.
Would you like to activate the soul gear? A piece of the soul of every monster you kill will be collected automatically. If the user dies after activation the soul gear will be destroyed.
Activate | Cancel
Don tapped activate and started looking through the cave. A minute later he found a pack of large mountain wolves. Although Don’s level and health had increased, his strength did not, his was in at a disadvantage since the wolves were 50% stronger. But Don wasn’t worried. “Fiery Dance!”
Don’s swords erupted in flames and he tore through the wolves like their were tissue paper. With higher wisdom and intellect his magic was stronger and he had a lot more mana. Because wisdom also increase mana recovery speed it didn’t take as long to recover mana between fights.
Soul Gem filled 00.7%
After each kill the soul gem would message him than it was slowly filling. Don’s experience was also filling. Besides being stronger, monsters in dungeons gave more exp, these wolves were a good quality mob without double experience, with it they were an excellent opportunity to advance his level and skill proficiencies. Don aggressively slashed the oncoming wolves with something of a tempo. Regardless of anything else his fiery dance only worked while dancing so he needed to keep it up. But even though Don had more mana he still could only use fiery dance for about a minute, afterwards he relied on the fact than enemies with burns had lower attack which made defending easier. So he would search for a pack of wolves, use fiery dance for a minute, then finished off the weakened whatever wasn’t dead yet.
Soul Gear filled 39.2%
Don had just about reached the end of the cave. It wasn’t than large but he had still killed over a hundred wolves. Standing before him was a monster of a wolf, likely the leader of the pack, the named wolf, Galnra.
There were ten other wolves in the room, each one larger than the ones before. An average mountain wolf was level 70, the ones in the cave were level 70 plus a dungeon stat bonus.
Don looked at one of the ten wolves and said, “Scan.”
Alpha Mountain Wolf lvl 80~
Health 4400~ Mana 500~
ATK 120~ DEF 40~
Don looked at Galnra and scanned him as well.
Galnra
Alpha Mountain Wolf lvl 100~
Health 6500~ Mana 700~
ATK 150~ DEF 60~
Don took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. Don had leveled up seven times since entering and put all of it into agility. The faster he moved, the better his defense while moving, the fewer opportunities he gave others to attack him. Don started dancing, he decided only to use fiery dance sparingly when needed.
The wolves observed and slowly approached him. Don thought they would all come at once but only one did. The other wolves surrounded and casually observed Don from a distance. Don stopped his dance. They intended to check out his attacks without endangering themselves. Don charged at the wolf, faking anger to give an impression of recklessness. Don gave an opening to his right which the wolf took and slashed at Don.
Perseverance increased by 1 (+1PER)
The loss of health was well worth the risk, it would make the wolves underestimate him, and the added stats were always worth it. Don struck the wolf six times in the back with the opening it gave him before it slide lifelessly to the ground. The other wolves growled. They all leaped at Don who immediately started dancing. His blades cut everything around him, pushing back in 360 degrees simultaneously. He felt the blade bite into the neck of two of the wolves and he moved to finish them off before they could get up. Don slashed and stabbed everything vital he could as fast as he could. Over the last few hours he had gotten the hang of aiming at the vital parts of wolves and in that instant had killed two and wounded three. The few he missed moved back giving Don the opening to finish the wounded three, though he only killed two before Galnra jumped at him forcing him to get back into a defensive dance. The remaining wolves circled him, carefully keeping their distance. Don changed his dance to the slow moving circular Dance of Death. Having killed a few wolves in front of them he felt it would have more ‘umph’. Don suddenly came up with an idea on using the dance. Death did not move slowly, it only appeared that way, it moves quickly and unexpectedly. Don waited while slowly moving, drawing the wolves in. When two were in range Don’s small circular movements lashed out like a whip, removing two wolf heads before seamlessly going back to a slow speed. Anyone who blinked would’ve missed it, it looked like their heads fell off after getting too close.
The other wolves jumped back a bit, Don ran to Galnra, who tried to bite Don only to get two slashes to the midsection and neck. “Scan”
Galnra
Alpha Mountain Wolf lvl 100~
Health 4000~ Mana 700~
ATK 150~ DEF 60~
His scan still wasn’t at a high enough level to be very specific but at this point the life gauge was accurate to within 300 health points. Don had taken less than a third of the boss’s health. But he had to focus on him, or at least appear to focus on him. By appearing to focus on only one thing Don made it look like he was leaving himself open to be attacked. Pretending to focus on Galnra while keeping in mind every movement in the cavern was far from simple, but Don had no choice if he wanted to survive. Don tried three times to strike Galnra but each was dodged, while doing so the remaining three alphas slowly came from behind. Don let them get in range while slashing at the wolf boss. Galnra didn’t seem interested in attacking, only in keeping Don occupied while the three closed it. Don swayed his body while appearing to jump at Galnra, at the same time the three wolves leapt at Don’s back. However they jumped through him. Don had disappeared and was now behind them where he killed each with a three slashes a piece.
Skill level up: Illusionary Step [3]
Skill level up: Blade Dancing [6]
Skill level up: Dance of Death [3]
Galnra was next to the wall, he had cornered himself to give his pack the opportunity to attack Don but it had backfired. “Fiery Dance”
Don slashed as fast as he could, refusing to let up an inch. Galnra tried to escape but a wall of fire and blades blocked his path. It died without much of a fight.
Skill level up: Fiery Dance [5]
You have gained a level!
Soul Gear filled 55.2%
Don took all the wolf hides that dropped and proceeded to finish off everything in the dungeon. It took three days but he finally got the soul gear full. Bob however said than it would take a few more days to finish the wolf automaton and told Don to make the most of the 2x exp and get all the wolf skins he could. Don thought than Bob may have slowed down or took his time on purpose to let Don hunt until the experience buff was gone.
Four days later Don was admiring Bob’s handiwork. A wolf of dark purple metal, larger even than Galnra was on its side. Over its gears and clockwork was overlapping sheets of orichalcum plates. At the end of its four feet were claws sharper than blades, and its mouth contained a row of vicious teeth along a highly mobile jaw. Bob opened a panel on the chest and set the soul gear inside a notch within. The gem started to glow, the gears started moving, slow at first but then faster. Bob kept his hand on the soul gear, he told Don he was imprinting himself on the gear, letting it know who was its master. After it stopped getting brighter Bob closed the hatch and stood back. After another moment the wolf started moving. It looked around at first a bit at first before stopping at Bob. It inclined its head towards him before Bob nodded.
Bob shouted with joy, “HA! Hahahaha! It worked! It’s working perfectly.”
Don thought for a moment and said, “How do you know its working? It only moved a bit.”
Bob said, “Well if you mess up in any one part of a beast automaton’s creation it will attack on sight. Something most troubling considering how fierce I made it. Would you like to see it in action?”
“Oh yea.”
Bob took out a small crystal necklace and passed it to Don saying, “Wear this. Oric here recognizes me as its master but if you wear this it will follow your orders.”
“Oric?”
Bob nodded. “Gotta name it something. Short for Orichalcum.”
Don looked over at the lazy robo wolf and said, “Lets go Oric.”
It got to its feet excitedly, like a happy dog. Don couldn’t help but like it. He took it to the entrance of the wolf’s den where it killed seven wolves in twelve seconds. It had extraordinary strength and speed, its defense was off the charts, and it had the cunning of a hundred wolves. Don was pleased that he played a part in its creation. He brought it back to Bob and said, “You’ll be fine when we part ways, I doubt I would stand a chance against it.”
Bob smiled and said, “Wait till you see the best part.” Bob took out an artifact, one Don recognized as something than could cast lightning magic once every two hours. Bob brought it to Oric and opened a hatch on Oric’s back where the artifact slipped in and attached itself inside. Bob said, “I thought of this the other day, I made it so Oric can equip and use artifacts. Right now he can equip up to three. He also has a few other features I’ll surprise you with later. Hehe.”
This pic not mine. By luck i found it on the internet. It really close to what i wanted Oric to look like
http%3a%2f%2ffc09.deviantart.net%2ffs70%2fi%2f2010%2f1...anReed.jpg [http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/145/9/9/Steam_punk_wolf_1_3_by_OvanReed.jpg]
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... anReed.jpg
Don and Bob got back into the cart. Oric jumped onto the top of the wagon and laid down. Don heard some click sounds, like Oric had latched himself to the top of the cart. Don took out the wolf leather and began practicing sewing leather under Bob’s instructive eyes.
Chapter 7 The Hardlight Blacksmith viewtopic.php?f=185&t=1638
Chapter 5 Deal with a Tinker viewtopic.php?f=185&t=1611
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