The [Demon Lord] has succeeded. System’s countdown has completed, and our strikeforce, aided by the [Hero], could not stop him.
With his ritual cast, we must prepare for the worst.
Who knows what cruelties he has in store for us in the coming days?
* Secret Gram memo from the [King] to Gram high command
--------
“Hey! You can’t fish here!” came an irate voice.
“Says who?” I asked blithely as I reeled in. And yes, reeled in, fishing technology appeared to have come quite a ways when I hadn’t been looking.
“It’s the law!” the grumpy elf shouted as he started wading towards me.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do-“ I started to warn him, but a knife fish jumped and attacked him before I could.
From there, he screamed like a little girl and beat a hasty retreat back onto land, leaving me in peace and quiet.
Well, not really. He continued shouting, and I was sure that [Guards] or the Watch would be on their way soon enough. Also, I still had an entire horde of knife fish swimming around me, bouncing off my armor uselessly.
Well, fishing is a bust. I thought humorlessly as I reeled in for the last time. I guess I don’t have what it takes to even get past level 1 as a [Fisherman]. I hadn’t caught anything all day, and while I thought fishing was supposed to be relaxing, I didn’t feel very relaxed.
I guess this is more for people who want to enjoy nature and be alone with their thoughts… that ain’t me.
I walked back up onto the bank of the lake, and the knife fish jumped recklessly onto the shore to attack me.
As they bounced off harmlessly, I took a second to enjoy the shocked expression of the elf who had accosted me.
His look turned to even more shock and confusion as I gently handed him the rod and shrugged. “I guess fishing isn’t for me,” I stated as I walked away.
I was hoping that he was sufficiently bamboozled that he wouldn’t bug me, but to my chagrin, his brain eventually caught up with him. He followed along, yelling at me.
The end result was that I paid the 15 gold fine for fishing in a restricted area with a shrug and an eye roll. I could have killed the man… the [Watch Officers]… and probably the entire city, but that seemed excessive when I had gone to all the trouble of resurrecting my alias of Fillarion Silverleaf and found somewhere where I wouldn’t get caught up in the Dryadal-Gram war.
Thus my stay on the eastern side of Drydal at Repose, the city-state of Peace.
It seemed like a nice place. Naturey. Everyone was relaxed and kind to each other.
I was growing to hate every single minute of it.
What am I even doing here? I asked as I walked back to my inn. I knew the answer to that. I was here because I didn’t know where else to go… and because I hadn’t gone on anything resembling a vacation in my several-century existence.
Unless you count floating around in the void as a vacation. I added in. However, I was pretty sure something like that wasn’t supposed to count as a vacation. It was also concerning that that topped my list of “closest things I’ve had to a vacation.” Thus, my attempts to figure out how to have one.
I was ready to chalk it all up as a bust if I hadn’t heard a loud voice echo across the busy street.
“Behold, and be amazed! The Great Magician Lianthorn arrives once more!”
That piqued my interest, but the oooohs and aaaaahs that echoed from the building were what sold me.
Alright. Sure. I thought. Nothing better to do.
After paying far too much to enter the theater, especially since only standing room was left, I was treated to… a magician?
Am I being punked? I asked as I watched the man with the top hat wave a wand around and do nothing. However, the oohs and aahs seemed genuine, which finally clued me in to what I was missing.
It’s a magic show. I thought. He’s doing illusions.
As someone who was utterly unable to see illusions even if I wanted to, it was safe to say that my disappointment was immeasurable, and my day was ruined.
I was about to turn around and leave the theater when I realized something.
Wait. Wasn’t there a way for me to see illusions after all? I asked myself.
I thought back. All the way to my first life. The first time I encountered the fey forest, defeated their trials, and then talked to their [Queen] Primavia.
“[Link Sight],” I mumbled under my breath. A simple spell that let both linked people see through the other’s eyes.
But there’s no way that [Spell Recollection] would- I trailed off mid-thought. Sure enough, the skill caught a spell that I had seen centuries ago, before I was even that good at sensing mana.
“Okay, now to find a target,” I muttered. I… didn’t spend very long on that. “Excuse me, sir,” I whispered to the male elf beside me.
He gave me a bit of a glare for interrupting the show, but I continued.
“It seems that one of my artifacts is interfering with me seeing the illusions that the great mage…” I was going to say the guy’s name there, but I had already forgotten it. I continued as if nothing was wrong. “Is currently doing. However, I know a spell that lets me look through another’s eyes. Would you mind if I used it on you?”
“Stay away from me, you flat-eared-loving scammer,” he replied.
I…wasn’t entirely sure how offensive being a “flat-eared-lover” was, but either way, the insult didn’t really land… and I still needed someone to see through.
“You sure?” I asked while pulling out a 50-gold coin and spinning it between my fingers.
He mumbled something I didn’t catch after, but he took the coin and nodded as he looked back at the stage.
“[Link Sight],” I whispered as I gently touched his shoulder.
And then, through his eyes, I could finally see it.
There was currently a mini-fireworks show in the middle of the theater. Unfortunately, [Link Sight] didn’t also link sound, so I could only guess whether or not the mini explosions of light were audible.
He took a bow as a trio of explosions went off overhead at the same time.
“Thank you, thank you,” he stated as he pulled out a different wand with a flourish. “And now, for my next trick, I shall bring back the most fearsome beast the world has ever seen! One that required battalions or true [Heroes] to defeat!” He lowered to a stage whisper. “Not the [Demon Lord], of course, wouldn’t want the church to get their underwear in a bunch.”
The crowd replied with a smattering of laughter.
“Behold, the great… the unstoppable… fire dragon!” he bellowed as a great scaled beast appeared on the stage. It opened its mouth wide… and I guess it roared? There was no other reason I could explain why everyone in the crowd suddenly flinched back, including the guy whose eyes I was borrowing.
“Not to worry, everyone!” the magician shouted. “I have the beast well under control!” As he was speaking, the magician threw an illusory rope around the dragon’s neck and held it tight. The large monster struggled against it uselessly, and the crowd oohed and aahhed again.
Wings aren’t long enough. Scales aren’t the right color. I started critiquing.
“Oh no! Watch out!” the magician cried in fake panic as the dragon broke loose of his tether. It took off and soared through the audience. It took a deep breath, and flames shot down into the crowd.
And the fire’s not quite aligned with its mouth. I finished. I stood there unamused as the rest of the crowd cowered… including the man who I was relying on to see everything.
“Hey,” I murmured as I shook him. “Keep your eyes on the show.”
He slowly uncurled from his eyes-closed arms-covering-face position and gave a nervous chuckle. Then, he looked up as the magician continued. “Not… to… worry,” he said with his voice straining. “I will hold the beast back!”
The fire the dragon had breathed was being diverted from above the audience’s head to the sides of the theater.
I had to give it to him. The man was a good entertainer. However, I also realized something else that was important to note.
I haven’t heard him cast a spell this entire time. I realized as the dragon flew off, swooped around the audience, and then gave off another fire breath that the magician “diverted.” Is someone else actually casting the spells… or… I watched the man carefully and tried to sense the magic.
The theater was too big, but the concentration on the man’s face seemed real enough.
That meant there was something I had to try.
As the dragon landed back on the stage and stuck its head off for another fire breath, I [Disrupted] it discreetly.
… Well, as discreetly as that loud skill can be. Everyone near me jumped, and I swiveled my head in confusion along with them, pretending I had no clue what had caused the loud noise.
The magician laughed sheepishly. “Sorry, folks!” he called out. “Seems I’m not quite the dragon tamer I thought I was. But don’t worry! Even though that one got away, I’ll have another one here for you all in just a moment!”
I watched him sneakily pull a blue vial out of his inventory that he quickly chugged.
“But since we have this extra-ordinary opportunity to summon a second fire dragon, I shall now take some requests from the audience!” he stated with his stage presence recovered. “You’ve seen one of the great beasts, but what shall the second appear like? What shall be changed? There!” he pointed. “You, young lad! What should be different for the second summoned beast?”
“Make it bigger!” he shouted, and his friends next to him cheered.
“Even bigger?” the magician asked with mock shock. “I could scarcely contain the last beast. It might be dangerous to summon a larger one!”
The audience cheered. He pretended to dither, but he was eventually “convinced” to make it bigger.
“Any other requests?” he called out.
I cupped my hands and shouted. “Make it breathe ice!”
“Ice?” he asked with exaggerated shock. “My dear patron, you are aware that these are in fact fire dragons that I am calling upon, are you not?”
The audience chuckled a bit at my expense, but that just made my inner heckler come out more.
“What’s the matter, can’t tame an ice dragon?” I called out again.
“Well, of course, I can!” he blustered a bit. “I am the great mage, Lianthorn! No beast is beyond my power!”
Meanwhile, I managed to start a chant. “Ice dragon. Ice dragon. Ice dragon.”
“Very well,” he sighed in fake defeat. “But just know this will go on your head should something go wrong with the summoning!”
The crowd cheered, and I cheered along with them.
“And so… this time, I, the great mage Lianthorn, bring forth yet another beast… The larger cousin of the fire dragons… a beast that I might not even be able to contain,” he stated with melodrama as he waved his wand and injected struggle into his voice. “The infamous and yet never before seen Ice Dragon!” he shouted.
As he did, another fire dragon appeared on the stage. Except, well, it was a glacial blue color, and it was about 50% bigger than the previous one.
The crowd gasped in awe as he threw the rope toward it.
The illusory beast didn’t even wait. It immediately took off in my direction.
“Everyone! Scatter!” the magician shouted. “I can’t control it!”
The rest of the crowd scrambled away from me as the fake beast landed heavily in front of me… which looked weird without the sound.
Anyway, it seemed that instead of having security get rid of hecklers, the magician decided to just scare the pants off them.
And at that point, I figured… Eh, why not play along?
I fell on my backside as I [Got Into Character] and then stammered out with [Project Voice] active. “N-n-nice dragon. G-g-good dragon. There’s n-n-no need to eat me.”
Judging by the image I saw from the other guy’s eyes, the “great mage” decided otherwise. The dragon reached down, flung me up into the air, and then swallowed me whole.
… Which just wouldn’t do because I was still down there on the ground in reality.
“[Blink],” I whispered, and I reappeared on the stage, after which I immediately crouched and entered [Sneak]. I also broke [Link Sight] for good measure because I had a different idea of who to target.
As the dragon enraptured everyone in the audience by making a big show of swallowing the man who was no longer there, I snuck up next to the “great mage.” “[Link Sight],” I cast quietly as I tapped him on the shoulder.
His eyes widened as he spun to look at me but to give him credit, he barely managed to tip-off that I was there.
“I can’t see illusions, so I have to use magic that shares sight,” I whispered. “Have the dragon puke me up on stage, and I’ll play along with it.”
“You interrupt my show, and now you dare to tell me how it should go?” he asked. Then he grinned. “You, sir, have a future in the business!”
And that was how “Filarion Silverleaf” heckled a magician before getting eaten by his illusory dragon and then puked up on the stage. He then, of course, proceeded to blubber apologies for interrupting the show as he sprinted out of the theater.
And all of that made it incredibly easy to secure some time alone with the mage.
“You, sir,” he said with a laugh as we met alone in one of the backrooms of the theater. “Have an eye for the business! That was my greatest act yet! In fact, I think I may even have a level waiting for me!”
“Happy to help,” I replied as I sipped some tea that I had to pretend didn’t taste like ash. “Though, there is something that I would like in return.”
He wagged a finger. “No shares of the profits, I’m afraid. We were already packing the house even without your timely assistance.” He grinned. “Though I suppose that could change if we move onto an even larger venue.”
“That… wasn’t quite what I was looking for,” I replied. “I mostly just wanted to know how you were casting spells without the chant. Do you have someone else doing your spellwork from behind the scenes, or-“
He scowled. “Of course not! All of the casting in my shows is done by me and me alone!” He snorted. “And as for how I cast without the words, why, a [Stage Magician] never reveals his secrets!”
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I frowned at that, but I had an idea that slowly brought the smile back to my face. “Not even to your… apprentice?”
That brought a greedy smile back to his face. “Well, I suppose there can be some exceptions.”
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And so, for the next 7 years, I enjoyed my time as an apprentice [Stage Magician]. I helped Lianthorn with his acts, pretended to be a heckler on more than one occasion (though we did also outsource that a bit to have other people act as our planted hecklers), and learned the tricks of the trade.
However, I had to learn several of my own tricks before we could even call me Lianthorn’s apprentice. The first was that I desperately needed someone’s eyes to borrow so I could see all of the illusions we would be putting together.
That was solved with another spell from my first life. [Summon Heavenhound], which, when combined with [Link Sight], gave me a literal seeing eye dog.
However, that wouldn’t do all by itself. I still had the audible component to deal with, and after a few months of tinkering, I had that figured out too.
My very creatively titled [Link Sound].
Casting both [Link Sight] and [Link Sound] on a summoned beast that I had full control over almost made it like I could experience shows like a normal person… at least when I was on the stage and didn’t have to worry about my hound’s lower point of view.
Anyway, I made several improvements to my skills and classes during that time.
From my use, or perhaps overuse, of the link spells, I leveled up [Communicatio] from 1 all the way to 4. That was doubly impressive since I had sent a whole bunch of [Messages] across so many different lives, but it never seemed to go up before then.
However, that wasn’t even the main spell school I used then. The primary school was, of course, [Obscurio]. With [Minor Illusion] granted to me by the first level of [Stage Magician], I finally had the two spells I needed to unlock it (the other being my old standby of [Disguise Self]). Instead of wasting points, I decided to let it unlock naturally, and was glad I did. By the end of my stint as Lianthorn’s apprentice, I had managed to get that skill up to the first cap of 5.
Speaking of level 5, I also became a level 5 [Stage Magician] by the end of my run as well. Level 2 granted me a skill, [Create Minor Flourish], which essentially let me use [Minor Illusion] for free whenever it was off its cooldown of a few minutes. Meanwhile, levels 3 and 5 granted new spells. [Illusion] and [Major Illusion].
The latter was a bit of a disappointment if I was being honest. I could cast that already because I had seen the fey cast illusions all sorts of times… or at least, I could have cast it if I took the time to bother figuring out [Major Illusion] once I had my seeing eye dog. Either way, that level just felt like a waste.
Fortunately, level 4 most certainly wasn’t. [Wordless Cast]. And that did exactly what was listed on the incredibly overpowered tin. Instead of saying the words to cast a spell, I could just… not. Any spell I wanted from any school. Not just illusions but things like [Hell Blaze] and [Blink].
What was the downside? Well, casting the spell had an MP markup of about 50% at level 5, and it was also much more difficult to cast. It was essentially like going from casting a spell I picked up at the obelisk to one I cast by learning how to put the spell together myself. Also, it wasn’t entirely wordless since I only seemed to succeed when I said the words in my head, but the uses for that were still innumerable.
And even though I was primarily doing it because it secured yet another trick up my sleeve for when I was fighting [Heroes] or Mishael, I couldn’t ignore that I also just found it… well… fun.
We even took our show on the road for a while and traveled all around Dryadal, selling out shows in the other city-states. I thought that was impressive since there was a war going on with Gram, but… there was kinda always a war going on with Gram it seemed, at least from the elves perspective. It had mostly devolved into both sides fighting over Jenkins since it was a key place on neutral ground.
That tangent aside, I enjoyed my work as a [Stage Magician], right up until its abrupt end.
I should have known that the [Hero] would track me down eventually.
------
“Children of Dryadal!” she shouted as she barged into one of our bigger shows late one evening. “Remain calm and evacuate slowly! An oracle has revealed that the [Demon Lord] is among you!”
“Who does she think she is ruining our show?” Lianthorn grumbled from behind the curtain.
“Someone who’s going to give us a great send-off,” I stated as I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s been fun.”
He gave me a quizzical look as my seeing-eye dog, and I strode alone onto the stage.
“And the oracle has stated he is none other than-“ the [Hero] continued.
“It’s me, everyone!” I projected from up on stage. In a moment, my disguise was gone, and I was in my armor, which I had technically never taken off. As I put on my gloves, I burst into flame and made a beckoning gesture at the [Hero]. “Come now, [Hero]! Show me what you’re capable of!”
“Very well! I issue you a [Hero’s Chall-“
She was cut off by a loud snap.
“Nuhuhuh!” I said with a wag of my finger. “No pocket dimensions for you! We’re here to give the people a show!”
After my continued goading, she sprinted up the stage and thrust at me with her rapier. I easily sidestepped it, and the crowd oohed and ahhed.
They all think it’s part of the show. I thought. Well… I guess they’re not all wrong.
“[Double Thrust]!” she shouted, and her rapier blurred.
I easily hopped back and away from it.
“You will need to do better than that, [Hero]!” I taunted. She gave a wild swipe in my direction, but I reappeared on the other end of the stage. “I thought [Heroes] were supposed to be strong,” I stage whispered to the audience.
That got some more laughter and some boos.
I kept up the game for a dozen more strikes and then nodded.
Alright, should be good enough.
I turned my back on her as I looked out on the stage and spread my hands. “Don’t you understand? I am Titus! The [Demon Lord]! I will never know defeat! Placeholder will soon be mine!”
In timing that couldn’t have been better if I gave her a cue, the [Hero] thrust her rapier through my back.
It came out the other side, and I fell to my knees.
“Curse you… [Hero]!” I shouted as I tried vainly to staunch the blood flowing from my gushing wound.
She looked absolutely bewildered as the audience cheered.
My body disappeared in a plume of black flame.
Lianthorn was quick on the uptake.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the beloved [Hero] from our own home, Shalia Zinphyra!” he shouted as he strode on stage and gestured to the baffled [Hero].
The crowd went wild… and I finally cut off [Link Sight] and [Link Sound].
“It was fun while it lasted, great mage Lianthorn,” I said with a chuckle. I was already several blocks away and in a new disguise. “Have a good life.”
--------
If there was one thing that my “fight” with the [Hero] made clear, it was that I could really use a new weapon after the destruction of Insurance. I didn’t have any way to stop her attacks except dodging, which would be a lot harder when my body wasn’t a [Major Illusion] that I could teleport at will. With no other clear goal in mind, grinding out some [Weaponsmith] levels and making it myself made just as much sense as anything else.
The first step was to find a master dwarf [Weaponsmith] to train under… which was much harder than anticipated.
The dwarves had left Jenkins, what with it being a warzone and all, and they had shut their gates to both the humans and the elves.
… Well, except for the weapon shipments they sent out to profit from the war. I couldn’t help but wonder if Avarice or Trickery had their hands in that bit.
Anyway, I figured it was pretty simple. I would just disguise myself as a dwarf and sneak right on in.
First problem. [Disguise Self] only let me make minor adjustments to my height. And while I could almost get down to 5 feet tall to put me on par with the absolute tallest dwarves in existence, I couldn’t also make my shoulders nearly as broad as a dwarf that size would have.
Second problem. The gate guards had a protocol to check for demons. They asked every individual before they went in to hold their hands out, and when they did, they held a piece of paladium against them.
Unfortunately, yes, paladium burned me even through my gauntlets. Video game logic struck again.
The good news is that I eventually figured out both problems. Upon reading up on dwarven… err… “relations”… with the other races, I disguised myself instead as a dwelf: half dwarf, half elf.
I was sure my new alias would get the absolute crud bullied out of him inside Pumil, but I just put that in as a problem for future me.
Then, for the wall, I just… [Blinked] over it. Millions of tons of stone. Countless man hours. A ridiculous amount of mana thrown into powering (and recharging) runes that were ubiquitous across more than a thousand miles. And yet, not a single precaution taken against teleporting right over it.
…Which was pretty fair, I guess. Most people didn’t even know that spatial magic existed. And the only people that were crazy enough to actually cast it were the fey and me… since neither of us seemed to be affected by the downsides.
Anyway, I was over the wall. I had secured my disguise. Now I, the immortal [Demon Lord] who trained under the greatest [Enchanter] and [Armorsmith] the world had ever seen, just needed to secure an apprenticeship under a similarly high-level [Weaponsmith]. I figured that would be a piece of cake.
------
“We don’t let your kind work here,” the old dwarf sneered as he slammed the door in my face.
I frowned as I pulled out a piece of paper and crossed the 5th [Weaponsmith] off my list. My desire to work under the best [Weaponsmith] in the world had quickly been tempered to any [Weaponsmith]. Or at least, any [Weaponsmith] who had more than 3 levels in the class. I wasn’t going to apprentice myself out under someone worse than me, after all.
And that led me to my final stop of the day.
“Kikraen Swordmaker,” I muttered as I stepped into his forge. “That one seems on the nose… even for a dwarf.” However, he did seem to have quite the operation going. More than a dozen dwarves were running around pouring iron into the smelter, hammering out pieces of steel, or sharpening weapons on a grindstone.
“Hey!” an older dwarf, who I quickly guessed was the Swordmaker in question, shouted at me. “Customers out front! This area’s for my workers only!”
“And if I want to work for you?” I called back.
He gave me a brief look from across the forge. “Levels in [Weaponsmith] and [Blacksmith]?”
“3 and… 4?” I called back after quickly checking my status… and fumbling a bit for the word 4 in dwarvish. I probably could have gotten away with speaking English, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
“You’re hired,” Kikraen stated without further ado. “Your first job is to keep Lufreck and Lufrem from ruining that batch of steel!” he bellowed with a glance towards two young dwarves who gulped nervously.
And thus, at the tail end of my first day seeking employment, I ended up as a babysitter instead. It worked out well enough, I suppose. It let me get back into the swing of things… well, I guess not really since I didn’t use a hammer, but it was a good refresher course on how to make steel.
And steel was all we were making at that shop.
I realized it even before going into the second day, but Kikraen’s operation was much closer to a mass-production style focusing solely on swords.
In other words, I didn’t think I would be learning much or gaining much experience.
I stuck It out for a whole month, though, and then the boss called me for a chat.
“Nindrol, my boy,” he started. “You’re an absolute monster.”
Internally I was a bit disappointed that I may have to leave and/or kill the man on the spot, however, I decided to play dumb. “Sir?” I asked.
“You a retired soldier, or a [Retired Adventurer] or something?” Kikraen asked. “It takes more than half of my shop to keep up with you, and even then, I think it may be in your favor.”
Oh. He meant it in a good way. I gave a small laugh and held up my hands. “Yeah, you got me. I’m pretty high level too after doing my stint on the wall, figured I would settle down a bit and do something more peaceful,” I lied.
“And one of the fighters from the wall, too,” my boss muttered as he shook his head in amazement. He gestured to the seat across his desk, and I took it, though it was a bit small. He sighed. “I don’t think I’m sayin’ anything we both don’t already know. But you’re too good for a hole-in-the-wall operation like this.”
He considers this a hole-in-the-wall operation? I thought. Aloud, I said, “Thank you for saying so, but I’m not sure I have anywhere else to go because of… well…” I vaguely gestured at my ears and my body.
“Bah, those rusted anvils,” he grumbled. “Think they know everything about a man just because of the points of his ears. They should be ashamed of themselves. ”
I chuckled. “Honestly, it seemed like you were the odd one out on that front. Most of the other smiths wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”
He chuckled along with me. “Of course, I gotta do better than that! Otherwise, my great grandmamma would be rolling over in her grave.” He gave me a grin. “Since she was an elf an’ all.”
My grin grew to mirror his. “No kidding?” I asked.
“Of course, I’m not kidding!” he said with a slight huff. “Ever since the founding of Jenkins, it’s more likely than not that a dwarf has an elf, or a human, or even one of the beastfolk in their family tree!” His smile slipped. “Though, that does make me the worst kinda hypocrite for making money off of their war.”
That brought the mood down fast, and I was stuck wondering what to say. Fortunately, Kikraen recovered quickly.
“But what am I going on about?” he asked with a slightly forced laugh. “We’re here to talk about you! You’ve been a great help this past month. You’ve done the work of 5 dwarves and even managed to wrangle our two youngest smiths into no longer being a liability.” We both chuckled at that, but then he continued. “So, I want to help you out in return. But, to do that, I want to know.” He looked me in the eye. “What do you want? What were you looking for when you walked in the forge that day?”
I put my hand on my chin like I was lost in thought, but it probably wasn’t for the reason he assumed.
The answer is levels and making a masterwork sword. Duh. I thought. But should I tell him that? What should I give away? After a few seconds, I came up with my answer.
“I… want to make the best quality of swords possible,” I stated. “Major ones… or maybe even greater ones,” I lied since it was actually masterwork or bust. “So, I guess I was looking for levels?” I half said, half asked.
That got a different smile from him. “Ahh, youths,” he chuckled. He stood up and walked over to his office’s window. “Well, I was afraid of something like that, but if that’s really the case, this isn’t the best spot for ya. We make swords here, excellent ones too, but that won’t get you the big levels.”
He turned and looked back at me. “If you really want experience above all else, you need to push your craft. Try new things. Find out what works and doesn’t on your own.”
I paused and let that soak in. Well… it’s not like I’m in a hurry.
“So, are you suggesting I start my own shop?” I asked.
The experienced smith laughed. “That would be one way to do it if you have enough coin to shovel into your furnaces.”
I nodded after a moment. “Yeah, I think I could swing that. How much are we talking?”
“Nindrol,” he said my fake name seriously. “We’re talking tens of thousands of gold here. Maybe into the hundreds of thousands if you want to level as fast as possible. That’s not something that should-“
“That should be in budget,” I said, looking at my inventory.
I shot the shocked dwarf a cheeky grin. “Would you be willing to get me in touch with some suppliers?”
-------
Despite my nonchalance, money didn’t simply grow on trees. It wasn’t like I could just go out into the wilderness and get however much gold I needed to…
Who am I kidding? Yes, I could. I totally could. Also, it was even easier than before. While before, I had to actually kill all the wolves with my fists, and could even die if I was stupid enough, now I could simply let my flames kill the wolves and loot them.
I went through monster lures like a madman, and had to switch my disguise several times when making the purchases, but it took less than 24 hours of monster farming to completely pay for everything.
And then, I had my very own shop. I started with swords since that was the weapon I was most familiar with, but I quickly started playing around with it like Kikraen had suggested. I saw how short I could make blades before they were classified as daggers, and then I had fun seeing how large and impractical I could make them.
… Yes, I made Cloud’s Buster Sword[1] at one point. The damage wasn’t that great, unfortunately. But I had to assume that a part of that was because my [Weaponsmith] class was still only at 3, meaning I could only make a “minor” Buster Sword.
I set up a [Teleport Beacon] in my shop and frequently went back to my throne room to see if I leveled, but as the weeks turned into months, I hadn’t made any progress.
So, I decided it was time to go with a different tactic. If swords weren’t working, I might as well try to recreate other types of weapons that I hadn’t seen yet on Placeholder.
My first thoughts were throwing weapons, so I started with the javelin.
It was fairly simple, all things considered. Basically just a spear explicitly weighted for throwing.
Imagine my shock when the System decided to award me an achievement for it.
System: New Achievement. Weapon Pioneer. Class Perk Points Gained 2. Weaponsmith experience awarded
In case it wasn’t obvious from the name, that achievement was granted to someone who crafted a weapon that didn’t fall under any existing weapon skill. The perk points seemed useless, but the [Weaponsmith] experience was nice, and it finally got me to level 4.
I thought nothing more of it until I decided to make darts as well, just to stick with my theme of “ranged weapon that most people will likely not pick up.” Those were even easier, though the [Fletcher] looked at me like I was nuts when I asked him to put fletching on the tiny things.
But that is when I learned that the achievement was repeatable.
Making darts put me up to 11 perk points and jumped me to level 5. So, I did the only sane thing that I could think of in that situation.
I stole everything possible weapon-wise from Earth, starting with the ones I thought would be the least likely to be already taken.
Throwing star for 13, to finish out ranged weapons that would never get used. Nunchuks which still seemed to me like they were intended to hurt their wielder more than their foe brought me to 15 points and level 6. The flail, whose name escaped me and I ended up naming the “ball and chain,” came next and brought me to 17.
But that wasn’t anywhere near the end.
The war fan. The boomerang. Chakram[2]. Those were all gimmes because no one would ever think to use those when there were simply options that were better… or at least, options that had better damage values and were less awkward to use.
With those, I was up to 23 perk points and level 7.
It had taken 3 years to develop all of those to the point where the System gave me credit for them, and I was basically a laughingstock to the community. I was the oddball who made useless weapons. That useless dwelf who probably stole all of the money he used to keep his business running.
Unfortunately, to add to their gossip, there were several weapons that I didn’t get credit for, and that ended up being a waste of time.
The bog standard net didn’t count as a weapon for Placeholder’s purposes, even though I doubted I would have been credited for inventing it anyway.
Gauntlets also refused to be classified as a weapon. Even if I made brass knuckles (which were actually steel knuckles in my case), or stuck blades directly on the end, they were always classified as armor. No exceptions… which was a downer, honestly. If I had been able to just increase the damage type of my [Martial Arts] and [Elemental Strike], I would have been able to go with that instead and not waste time learning [Swordsmanship].
Finally, the biggest surprise was that someone beat me to inventing the trident. I hadn’t seen any of those in any lifetime. Still, I had to grudgingly accept that it was a wide world… and also that someone along the line may have realized its use for spearfishing, defense/disarming, or had just been really drunk and decided that they wanted to stab 3 people simultaneously.
So, I got laughed at even more. That was fine. I really didn’t care, but the problem is that that cover wouldn’t hold for long. I had run out of things that would be laughed off and had to start making useful weapons.
Those darts I had made suddenly dealt a whole lot more damage when I invented the blowgun.
I also invented the glaive and war scythe… well, kinda.
I think the System realized that there were a whole lot of different bits that I could stick on the end of a stick that didn’t really fit under a spear or trident, so it decided to cut me off at the pass with [Polearm…manship]. Yeah, on another note, it still seemed deadset on adding “manship” to everything, even [Chakrammanship].
Anyway, glaives, war scythes, regular scythes, halberds, you name it and it fell under that umbrella.
… Except spears and tridents. I didn’t get it, but there were stranger things in Placeholder than that. Like grappling.
However, I wasn’t done quite yet. I got the biggest shock of my crafting career when I made a crossbow… and got credit for it.
I was utterly amazed that no one had thought of making essentially a windup bolt launcher… until I learned something interesting about crossbows.
They had a really high base damage, but there wasn’t a skill that went along with them that acted as a multiplier.
So, while you could deal anywhere from the 20s to the 40s in damage (depending on what tier of crossbow and bolt you wanted to pay for), that’s the highest you would ever deal.
And that was the last one that I got credit for. I was up to level 8, and I had 29 useless perk points to my name.
With the crossbow’s downsides, I assumed it would also be laughed off too…
It wasn’t. Did you know that having an inventory means that you can have a loaded crossbow ready to shoot at all times? Or if you’re a madman (or madwoman), multiple crossbows?
I soon found my store swamped, which was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to have happen. So, I soon came up with a clever plan where I just opened only one day of the week to keep up appearances and spent the rest of the time smithing.
Things were looking good, but the last level would be a grind. I was out of new weapons to cheese things with (unless I was going to introduce firearms, which seemed idiotic), so I would have to craft as many greater-quality weapons as possible.
But I was down for the challenge, and my quest for vengeance had been essentially put on hold. I was thoroughly distracted by making a sword I may never actually need.
But then, I got a visitor…
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[1] Buster Sword – The iconic weapon of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. It’s a single bladed “enormous broadsword” that is about 6 feet long and 1 foot wide.
[2] Chakram – A flat ring with a sharp outer edge used as a throwing weapon.