Despite his best attempts to dissuade her, Sara was still trying to rename the sword a day later. She was adamant that she wasn't a queen, and every few hours, she'd send in another request for him to deny. Reid started to suspect that she was using the naming requests as a way to check in on him, rather than actually trying to rename the sword.

Sara Calderwall has requested to rename [Queen's Edge] to [Ivory Falchion]

You have rejected this request.

Reid yawned cracked his neck. A knee-high pile of bone swords was stacked in front of him.

It was still only his first day of smithing skill practice. Six large tote bins around the room were filled with arrowheads, knives, swords, and axe heads. Some larger weapons were leaned up in the corners, or laying on the floor. The process of crafting had gotten slightly easier and faster with each new creation, and that allowed Reid to go well beyond what he'd expected to do.

Reid wasn't making any more growth weapons or high-leveled things. Susan had refused to heal or help him if he tried repeating his work with Sara's sword too quickly, and as much as he wanted to try and make another incredible bone weapon - she was right.

Reid felt an intrinsic knowledge that he wouldn't be able to replicate the feat anytime soon, and he had a distinct feeling that he would end up suffering a serious backlash if he tried. But none of that meant he had to stay idle.

His work today was all skill practice. Reid wanted to get more familiar with Osteal Smithing, and really test the edges of its possibility and see what changed after the Journeyman upgrade. The fact that he was arming Sanctuary's residents with strong, durable bone weapons was more of a happy byproduct of the practice than the real intent.

When he fought Bertrand's army, one of the fighters had been able to injure Reid pretty severely by using the clip point radius. So, it stood to reason that anyone strong enough to lift and wield one of Reid's weapons would be able to benefit from the strength and sharpness. They might be able to take on stronger monsters, or grow in level a bit faster themselves.

Reid rolled to his feet. He wasn't going to go out of his way to let other people take beast kills and experience that could've been his - but making them able to fight back against the increasingly difficult challenges they faced was something worth doing. Sara was in charge now, and Sanctuary's people were her people. Reid wanted them to be able to stand a chance against stronger monsters, if for no other reason than to allow Sara to grow without worrying about their health and power.

He walked over to one of the bins, and scooped up a handful of arrowheads. His smithing skill brought up information on the weapons.

Metacarpal Bodkin Point [Common]

Metacarpal Broadhead Tip [Uncommon]

Proximal Phalanx Serrated Drillpoint Tip [Basic]

The broadhead tips were standard-looking arrowheads, and Reid had made a ton of those. The serrated drillpoints looked... well they looked like drill bits made to torture something. Reid was most excited about the Bodkin Points. Those were absolutely solid arrowheads, made with four long and skinny sides that all met in a single point. It looked a bit like a tiny obelisk, and it had a single function. Bodkin points were armor-piercing arrows. In medieval times, they were made to go through mail armor, and supposedly also worked on puncturing through plate armor if they were fired at close range - or with enough force. Reid was hoping they could serve a similar purpose now.

If Reid was right - and Mark's wooden shafts for the arrows worked out - the people of Sanctuary might finally have ranged weapons that were effective at punching through salamander skulls. Even if they only worked on lower leveled versions of the beast, it would massively improve their ability to repel a wave. Reid bit his lip and looked at the "Please wait" quest message. It still hadn't changed, and there was no telling when something would actually happen. He tried not to actively worry about what the next quest would be.

Tomorrow, archers would be testing the arrowheads out on a series of harvested salamander skulls from previous waves. There would be other tests of the knives and swords and axes, but Reid shrugged those off. He already knew his bladed weapons could make it through the skulls with enough force. The only real unknown was the arrowheads.

It wasn't Reid's intention to be a true 'smith' for the entire camp. Even with all the arrowheads, knives, axe heads, and weapons scattered on the floor, there weren't enough to outfit everyone. And Reid certainly hadn't taken any custom orders. There were a variety of sizes and weights that Reid had gone through as he tested things out, but that wasn't for any real attempt to make something useful for a particular person. The new bone weapons would be like the balls at a bowling alley - they were 'regular sizes' instead of something made for people's specific hands.

Sanctuary's fighters wouldn't exactly be hurting for options, though. There were swords, knives, axe heads and a few full-bone axes, spears, a halberd, one war scythe that seemed pretty useful, hammers, and even a spiked mace. The hammers and the mace were the most interesting weapons to craft, because they felt fundamentally different from everything else. The entire structure of the weapons had to be designed around the faces taking immense pressure and strain. The first hammer Reid tried had cracked after only a few test swings against the floor. For repeated, intense forces to land squarely on the weapons, Reid had to completely redesign the internals differently than he had with everything else. The faces needed to be rock solid, and the internal structure had to be reinforced enough to handle the blows. Reid had felt something there, like another bit of possibility he hadn't fully uncovered.

There were so many things Reid hadn't uncovered, he knew. He'd made a number of weapons now with the calcification skill, and he'd done something that was honestly impressive in making Sara's growth sword. But, he hadn't ticked off one glaring item that was listed directly under his skill's description. He brought it up again.

Calcification [Uncommon]

Scales with Level. Increases bone durability. Advanced practitioners can manually control the application of this skill. Highly advanced practitioners can create bone armaments and armor.

Bone armor. An image of a bone-covered barbarian popped into Reid's head, but he brushed it aside. His bone weapons were incredibly durable, and there was no reason to think he couldn't make something similarly useful for armor as well - while keeping everything within his body. Reid wanted to avoid the barbarian-image while ensuring he still had the necessary protection that he knew he would need against the ever-stronger foes they had to face.

Reid really, really liked the idea of subdermal armor. It was innate protection that couldn't be removed, and it would save him even if he was caught unexpectedly in a fight. He'd never have to put that armor on or worry about where he left it.

So Reid attempted to make his dream a reality. His first failure was the most depressing - but Reid kept trying. He pushed through a headache and kept going. He stopped counting failures after he hit fifty attempts. But no matter what Reid did or tried, it just wouldn't work. Those failures were the real reason he had a pile of extra weapons sitting on the floor. Reid had decided to push himself back into weapon crafting to see if there was some secret or familiarity he could find in one task that would make the other easier. In a way, the pile on the floor was a physical representation of Reid's failure to get subdermal armor to work.

The issue didn't seem to be familiarity. All the weapons he'd created were slightly different, and each worked fine when he crafted them. They formed, popped out of Reid, and then they were good to go. The skin stitched itself back together afterwards, without really taking any extra energy from Reid. It didn't even need his active input to happen.

When he formed bone armor under the skin, though, things wouldn't stay solid. They did form - he'd grown bone plates either partially or entirely at different points during his testing. The issue was that as soon as Reid's focus left the boney plates, they would erode. No matter how fast or slowly the process - the result was always the same. Bone would seemingly deteriorate and the space would get reclaimed by everything else that had been there before. Even if he moved muscles and blood vessels and tissues out of the way first, the bones disappeared and the soft internals would 'take back' the area. It was as though his muscles and tissue and skin were actively fighting against what he was trying to do - as if the subdermal plates he made were encroaching on space that didn't belong to them.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The inconsistency gnawed at him. He could grow weapons without much strain. He'd gotten good enough to pop arrowheads out of his knuckles five at a time. He could make things larger than his bones themselves, and he could manipulate it all with precision. Growing more bones inside of him should've been straightforward, if not downright easy for him to do.

Reid's fingers pressed into his palm as he concentrated. He hadn't been able to cut his fingernails for about two weeks, and they started to smart on his skin. Reid opened his hand, and watched the indentations slowly fade as his skin changed color. All that were left afterwards was his regular skin, and palm lines that never really changed. He pressed his fingernails into his palm again, and watched the indentations disappear. Reid frowned, then did it twice more.

It couldn't be that simple.

He formed an arrowhead out of his pointer finger, and popped it free. The skin separated by the arrowhead went right back to the way it had been before the bone weapon was formed. He rubbed his fingers together. The skin and the finger didn't feel any different than they had before the arrowhead was made. Reid oriented the arrowhead in his left hand, then used it to make a cut on the same finger he'd used to create the arrowhead. The arrowhead hadn't changed in size or shape from when it had come out of that finger. It was still, without question, part of him. Except it damaged his skin instead of moving through it. He was on the right track. He could feel it.

Reid rubbed the bloody finger against his thumb. Bits of red smeared themselves into the grooves of his fingerprint, and got up under his thumbnail. He could feel the sting of the open skin as it rubbed against itself and let oxygen into his finger. What if...?

Reid focused on his finger bones again, and pushed a new arrowhead straight up and through the cut on his finger. There wasn't any pain, and the skin morphed around the arrowhead to let it pass. Reid snapped the arrowhead off, and stared.

On his finger, the skin that had to morph around the arrowhead was back to the way it had been before he formed the thing. It was still wounded where he'd made the small cut. Or, rather, it was exactly as it had been prior to making the arrowhead.

Reid wanted to scream and cheer at the same time.

His skill wasn't just letting the bone grow out, it was putting everything back together exactly how it had been. When he was healthy, that meant the skin and everything else knitted itself back together perfectly like nothing had ever happened. And when he was cut or injured, the injuries were preserved through the formation. Just like the divots from his fingernails, Reid's body was just going back to normal.

And if his body was trying to go back to normal after each bone creation, then everything started to make much more sense. Reid tried recreating his test. He cut a small wound in his arm, and then grew a hammer through it. Sure enough, the cut was there, exactly the same, once the weapon was free. The size and shape of the bone weapon didn't seem to matter, then. It always reverted.

Reid went back in for another test. He grew a knife out of his arm, and waited. Even back when he'd first made the clip point radius, he hadn't let the weapon stay on himself for too long. As Reid let the seconds tick by, he watched intently. After almost half a minute, Reid saw the bone connecting the knife to his arm start to deteriorate under his skin. It essentially dissolved, and the skin closed as the knife popped out and onto the floor.

If Reid was right, the next test would be successful. Reid focused back on his arm, and willed a piece of bone to grow up and out. It circled him and grew into a thin, wristwatch-like band. Reid waited, and let the internal connection to his arm bone dissolve. The bone-band slumped a bit as gravity took it, and it rested against Reid's skin.

Bone Bangle Created!

Holy shit.

That was it. The problem was his body.

Reid could improve his body and strengthen himself, but he couldn't completely change the shape of his skeleton. He also couldn't make any permanent internal growths. His body would treat them like foreign objects, and they would be removed. It didn't stop him from getting damaged. It didn't let him heal more quickly. It was more like a quirk of the skill itself - and one Reid had no idea how to approach, or even if he wanted it changed. His stomach growled.

Reid leaned over to the bag of supplies he'd brought into the room. He chugged down a water and ate through a protein bar. It was one of the ones that tasted like soap, but he finished it anyway. Abusing his body without refueling it had been a major issue that slowed down his ability to craft, self-heal, and self-empower. Taking care of his body and stopping to refuel had major benefits, like letting him do more overall experimentation - and preventing further fights with his wife about overexerting himself. He turned over ideas while he ate.

The knowledge he'd just gained was great information, but it meant he had no clear path to subdermal armor that he could take anytime soon. Instead, he was going to need to find alternative paths to make himself harder to kill. The most obvious one was also the one he had most wanted to avoid. External bone armor. Reid took a long breath and spun the band around his wrist.

As long as the armor existed outside of his body, there was nothing that would have to fight for space and control. Reid concentrated hard, and created a full piece of solid armor that came out of his lower leg and wrapped itself around.

Reid tapped on the thing with a knuckle. It felt absolutely solid. But something was still... wrong.

Tibia Greave [Basic] Created!

Reid stared at the rarity of the armor. The journeyman moniker on his osteal smith skill let him see all of his created weapon's rarities. He'd already used it to figure out ways that he'd done things wrong during weapon crafting by seeing what rarity things were given. But, even then - nearly everything he'd made for weapons were Common or Uncommon, especially towards the end of the process.

So, crafting something that was only Basic felt like going backwards. It didn't make sense - he'd used the same design as everything else, so why?

Reid's tapping on his greave got more forceful. The bone covering smacked against his lower leg, and he could feel the vibration of each impact as it traveled through and around the basic armor piece. He tried thinking around solutions, but nothing popped out at him. After half an hour of unproductive, attempted solutioning, Reid sat back and stared at the ceiling. He let his mind wander.

The room was professionally built, even it it was a little cheap. He could almost hear the phantom buzz of the fluorescent light fixture in the center of the room. The light had one of the patterned plastic covers on it that always threatened to crack and break when you had to remove them to change a bulb. The fixture was attached to a standard cheap drop-ceiling, all metal flats and white square panels. That, plus the fluorescent lights, reminded Reid of the 'changes' they'd made to the call center. Originally, the building was some sort of manufacturing plant. It had exposed brick, and tall ceilings. There were original windows that had discolored over years and years, and they lit the space with a lovely yellowish glow whenever the sun was out. But as aesthetically pleasing as the exposed beams and brick had been, they were hell for him and his team.

Every conversation in that office echoed off the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling. It was impossible to have a regular conversation in the cubicle area without raising your voice - especially in the really busy hours around lunch and just before closing. For a long time, management had refused to try and make any changes. It was unnecessary, or too expensive, or the rental contract made it too difficult to ask. That line of answers abruptly changed when Linda - the GM's assistant, and also very importantly not his wife - had a confidential, nearly-whispered conversation about the GM's sexual prowess at the watercooler. The watercooler she'd chosen for this wonderful conversation was in a corner of the office Reid's team had nicknamed the amphitheater - for obvious reasons. Word spread about the GM and Linda, and suddenly fixing the noise issue was a critical thing.

First, they attacked the floor. The GM wanted to replace the tile flooring with carpet, but the building owner refused. They ended up with a series of cheap, mismatched area rugs instead. That had helped a bit, but it didn't solve the issue. A drop ceiling was installed off of the existing exposed beams. Walking into the office after the ceilings had been lowered felt claustrophobic. But it had helped with the noise. People no longer had to shout during casual conversations. The last piece was putting up sound deadening panels on the walls, but Reid hadn't cared about that as much as he did the ceiling. He missed looking up and seeing fourteen feet of open space. All of that gone, because of the GM's infidelity and one person's conversation.

Reid let out another long breath. He stared at the ceiling, then looked down at his shin. His pulse quickened.

Foam blocks, the ceiling squares - they were both absorptive. Pitted. Spongey.

Reid had made many of the weapons as fully or mostly solid pieces. It made sense - those things had to puncture through salamander skulls and cleave off limbs. But a shield was the opposite. It needed to protect from strong blows, sure, but that wasn't just about being solid, it was about dispersion.

Reid's breath caught. He'd made the greave solid, just like he'd done with the weapons.

Just like he'd done to his bones.