Gainful Employment 3_Everybody Loves Large Chests

The front door to Fizzy’s Fidgety Widgets opened up with a ringing noise and a humongous cloaked man exited out of the store and into the street. Looking at the sun’s position, it seemed to be late afternoon, maybe 2 or 3 hours from sunset. The Mimic and the gnome had spent most of the day inside Fizzy’s workshop as the hyperactive little mechanic eagerly showed off her skill at construction. As expected of a Level 56 Artificer, her dexterity and precision were the real deal, and Boxxy eagerly soaked up all of her teachings. Of course, it also closely observed her hand movements with its magical perception and made sure to memorize them so that it can replicate them later.

The disguised monster surveyed the street. It would seem foot traffic had died down quite a bit while it was inside, which was good and bad at the same time. Good, because it meant fewer eyes in its immediate vicinity would be on its conspicuous form, and bad because its 220 centimeter high form stood out like a sore thumb and was even more noticeable from a distance. So all things said and done, nothing much changed, did it? Deciding it didn’t want to spend any more time exposed like this, it hoisted the large hemp bag in its hand onto its shoulder and trudged off towards its ‘home base.’

This bag was filled with yet more toolboxes and parts it purchased from Fizzy. The reason it had to carry it around like this instead of sticking in its Storage was that it had to open its maw in order to access that pocket dimensions. It could manage doing so discreetly when it came to small objects like a Bladeblossom or a satchel of gold, but fitting those bulky toolboxes in there would undoubtedly blow its cover.

As for the cost of this new purchase, it came out to a whopping 1,170 GP. A naturally greedy creature like that severely disliked parting with that much shiny gold at once, but it was for the sake of advancing its Artificer Job, so it couldn’t be helped. Besides, it was also a form of investment.

Most Artificer-made devices were difficult to put together since they required specialized parts, tools and know-how, but the final product was extremely simple to use. As a side-effect, the value of such gizmos would go up immensely when compared to the cost of the raw materials to make them.

Take for example the 100 Bladeblossom kit the Mimic had purchased three days ago. The raw materials to produce all those spring-loaded single-use devices only amounted to about 150 GP. Fizzy had then used her workshop to transform the metal ingots into tiny blades, springs, wires and other necessary parts. The final kit she sold Boxxy cost a whopping 650 GP, which consisted of 50 GP worth of tools and 600 GP worth of parts. And yet a single well-made Bladeblossom that Boxxy made could be sold at 15 GP. So wouldn’t it be able to make almost 3 times as much gold as it spent on the parts themselves?

Well no, no it wouldn’t. Reality is not rosy enough to fulfill such wishful thinking.

Of the first 30 devices that Boxxy made, 12 were complete failures, 14 were of poor quality and only 4 were of standard quality. And while the next 70 were at least of standard quality, only 22 of them were high-quality ones like those it sold at the Mercenary Guild. Then there were small things like setting off a bunch of them for testing purposes or setting several of them aside for future use. Even if it did make 100 high-quality Bladeblossoms, it would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to buy so many at once.

Either way, the number of items it actually had when everything was said and done was far from 100. It then started taking them apart and putting them back together in order to get more Levels. However, not all of the components could be retrieved so easily. The sturdy blades were mostly fine, but the more delicate internal parts got dented or broken from the repeated strain and were rendered unusable pretty quickly.

All things said and done, Boxxy had actually assembled a total of 165 Bladeblossoms before it stopped. Right now it only had 21 well-crafted ones and 6 standard ones left in its possession. It was no longer in a position to recoup its losses even if it were to sell all of those, but that was fine. The main purpose spending that much gold, which was to increase its Artificer Level, was already accomplished.

Besides, that money spent would eventually come back to it since it was an investment. Which in Mimicanese meant that when Boxxy was done with this city, it would kill the gnome, absorb her body, steal all her money, take every single ingot, spring, sprocket and nail in her workshop and then have Xera burn down her house for good measure.

The Mimic kept walking through the city streets in the vague direction of the southern gate for about 25 minutes. It then turned off into a less populated side road, then later into a series of alleyways until it reached an old, run-down stone building in the middle of the slums. This place was likely a warehouse at some point, considering how large and spacious it was. Boxxy went inside through what was once its loading bay.

Rotting boxes, bits of rubble, a couple of wrecked carriages and other useless junk was lying strewn about the place. It was also home to a small community of 16 wretched vagrants. They were so pitiful that the only successful Cadaver Absorption one of their bodies yielded gave a boost of just 2 END. Merely a drop in the lake that was the Mimic’s HP at this point.

The monster in question proceeded towards a doorway that led further in the back. This appeared to have once been an office at some point. The old desk, wooden cabinet, broken chairs and old, musty bookshelves the Mimic found when it first entered the place suggested as much. All that garbage had been thrown out since then, though. The room was now completely empty except for two dead bodies on the floor, a rusty iron trunk in the corner and a red-skinned, four-armed demon that sat on top of it with a bored expression.

“Oh, hey boss,” said Kora when she noticed her master approach.

She lifted her well-toned ass off of her impromptu chair and stretched her stiff body. The gigantic fiend that towered over even Boxxy’s current form was deemed way to conspicuous to accompany it around town. She was therefore ordered to guard this place and keep out of sight. Well, the former was hardly necessary. This run-down old building held no significance to the Mimic other than being a quiet spot where it could focus on its work.

“We heading out soon?”

“After sunset,” answered Boxxy while setting down the heavy bag it was carrying around.

Now that it was away from prying eyes, it quickly undid its human-like transformation and assumed its favorite spider-chest form. Having to keep its real body tilted on its side all day while masquerading as a person was considerably uncomfortable and slightly disorienting. It had gotten used to it over the last week, but it much preferred its spider legs after all.

“What’s all this?” asked kora while pointing at the sack.

“Parts. Those two the intruders you mentioned?”

“Hm? Ah yeah. Just some pathetically weak bums. One of them keeled over the instant he saw me. No fun at all.”

The fiend pouted slightly as to indicate her displeasure, but her master completely ignored her and skittered over to the bodies. It hadn’t gotten a chance to eat anything worthwhile all day.

*CRUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH*

The dead men were thus quickly devoured and any blood stains were instantly licked up out of habit. These pathetic weaklings were better utilized as food rather than trying to absorb them. Even then they were mostly skin and bones and wouldn’t be nearly enough to satiate Boxxy’s monstrous hunger, but would at least keep its belly from rumbling for the moment.

It then went back to the sack it brought in and opened it. Three metal toolboxes were retrieved from the inside - a gray one, a red one, and a blue one. They were approximately 30 centimeters wide, 20 centimeters long and 15 centimeters tall. These containers looked pretty much like miniature chests, which the Mimic found to be oddly endearing, maybe even a little bit cute. It put the red and blue ones inside its Storage and opened up the gray one using two of its spider legs as elongated fingers. A number of smaller boxes and compartments lined the inside, each holding a number of metallic bits necessary for hand-held Artificer devices.

“Oh!” exclaimed Kora. “You’re building stuff again, huh? Can I watch?”

“Sure.”

Boxxy sat firmly on the ground and narrowed its focus. Its eight arachnid limbs were not retracted inside its body, however, but instead bent forward towards the toolbox. The four at the very front had their pointed tips split in two as if they were organic tweezers. The Mimic then applied Metal Mimicry to the other four and transformed them into a set of miniature steel tools. More specifically, they turned into a hammer, a pair of wire cutters, and two screwdrivers.

Two of the tweezer-like fingers grabbed a part each from the toolbox and held them in place while two of tool-tipped limbs put them together. Then the other set of tools and pincers did the same, then the first repeated their action. The eight stick-like limbs began moving about frantically, gradually picking up in speed, but always moving with the utmost precision.

Those practiced movements almost made the whole thing look too easy, as the monster was simply throwing the bits into a pile that assembled into something all on its own. In truth, this was simply the result of the Mimic’s DEX Attribute and its magical perception working in unison to make sure nothing is out of place.

And it truly did not take long before it accomplished its task.