Hana and I sat on our beds while staring at the creation core on the small side table between us. From what Ara said that core could be my personal Rosetta stone. I expected that device to blow open a world of possibilities for me. Starting with the basics, my appraisal of the device yielded the following result.
Item Name: Creation Core
Class: Core
Material: Iecrian 70%, Volcanic Glass 30%
EE: Unlimited
Attribute: Programme Core
Cost: Unknown
Sheesh that was a serious amount of heat. Part of my tertiary studies included the mechanics of plasma cutters, concentrated energy used to cut through toughened metals.
Putting that aside Ara did mention that there was already a host of metals in the core, which had an endless storage capacity although it absorbed materials by absorbing them through the top surface of the glass. Although its storage capacity was incredible, the speed of absorption was far too slow to act as a storage device to compete with the pocket dimension or transfer storages, but I could still use it in a pinch.
The core happened to be a significant device. It contained programmes for multiple functions from the artificial intelligence (AI) for golems to creating jewellery and weapons. Virtually anything that could be produced by a
Ara turned out to be a major cheat in my case because she could pre-programme the modelled result ahead of time, something I could visualise in my heads-up display. The final model could then be uploaded into the core and while the materials were available in the core’s inventory, the completed product could be retrieved.
Ara’s records on creation cores had enough information to get me started with browsing the option menus on the core. Menus were displayed in a format where the characters of the alphabet were raised slightly above the core surface. It reminded me of a children’s game that used metal pins in a square plastic board. When a person’s hand pushed the pins from underneath the board, an image of that person’s hand displayed on the pins placed at the top surface. The raised surface was easily readable, and selections were made by pushing buttons or using a finger to create indentations.
Enough of the theory, time to test it out.
“Um, Shane? You’ve been quiet for a while now, and it’s starting to freak me out a little.”
“Sorry Hana. I’ve been figuring out how to use this, and I would like to make a copy of my ring.”
“A copy of your storage ring?”
I nodded and smiled. She had already seen the storage ring in action more than enough times, since it still carrying a lot of her stuff. Something seemed wrong about that arrangement to me. No matter, the situation was about to be corrected. However, if I lost that ring due to some industrial accident with the core, shattered, would not adequately describe my state of mind. Desipite Ara’s assurances to the contrary, I felt that packing everything out of the ring was the lesser of the precautionary measures I could take. A meter cubed didn’t sound like much, but when everything came out of the ring, little free moving space remained in the room.
The ring slowly sank into the core as if disappearing into a black pool of still water without any ripples. I could see Hana’s focused face close to mine as she watched the ring with me. For a moment I watched her with fascination until the ring totally disappeared.
After a minute, Ara asked me some design questions.
I liked the idea of a blue and gold colouring.
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We watched in fascination as two rings slowly emerged from the core.
“It’s beautiful.”
Said Hana in awe as I picked both rings up, feeling the weight in my hand.
“There doesn’t seem to be any difference in weight.”
Looking closer at the ring I could see intricate detail of the pattern and the hypnotic iridescent blue. The effect reminded me of a Fabergé egg. I appraised the ring.
Item Name: Pocket Dimension Storage (Hana)
Class: Ring
Material: Gold 20%, Silver 10%, Mustite 60%, Greythril 10%
EE: 50/50
Attribute: Pocket Dimension Storage, EE Recharge
Cost: 40 Small gold
Those specs seemed similar to my ring from what I could remember.
That made sense. It also accounted for the one gold difference in price. Hana’s ring already came charged with EE so there was no need to supply her with more. Still, because she had no way of supplying the ring with EE, I wondered when it would run out. Ara answered the question for me.
There was no reason to delay. I handed the new ring to Hana.
“For you.”
“For me?”
She didn’t seem to catch that.
“I made this for you. Please have it.”
I placed the ring in her hand, and she started at it.
“How does it work?”
“Start by putting the ring on a finger that’s comfortable for you. Then when you are ready, touch the ring with your other hand and the storage will open in front of you.”
“Okay.”
When she touched the ring, a hole about a football’s size opened in front of her.
“Oh wow!”
She exclaimed and immediately started exploring the hole.
“There’s about a half your height’s space in there. You’ll see it better when there’s stuff inside.”
I wanted to say she could put some of her stuff in there, looking at the pile of her stuff lying on the floor, but providence wisely warned me to rather not say anything. By Grenfell’s wizened beard, I nearly walked into a dangerous situation of my own making. I needed to say something very wise at that moment. What would the old man say?
“Ah, how about we give that ring a test run on a quest today? You can leave all your stuff here, it should be safe, nobody’s going to carry all that away.”
On the morning cart out of Shimmerstal Hana still wasn’t talking to me. I accept it was my fault for opening my stupid mouth and saying something very ‘un-zen like’. We selected a simple goblin quest at the guild, picking the eastern route for our baptism of fire. I wasn’t too concerned seeing that I had more experience fighting goblins and that I wasn’t intending to go more than three hours foot travel into the forest.
The guild mentioned to me that there were carts leaving for the different regions around Shimmerstal that catered to adventurers like us. They would drop us off at the edge of the forest then pick us up later in the day. A four-hour cart trip would be nearly a day’s walking so going by cart was far more convenient. Hana and I were charged two silvers for a return trip, which may have seemed a lot but when split into fifty coppers per trip for each of us, wasn’t a bad overhead cost to bare. Even one goblin would cover the costs just fine.
Any materials from the quest brought back by us would be charged the appropriate transfer fee, and the cart owner reserved the right to decline anything. Another group of five adventurers called the Harpies joined us in the cart. Consisting of one tank, two archers and three swordfighters, they were also intending to work the same area as ours, deciding to head deeper into the forest and camp there for the evening. I struck up a conversation with their group leader in his thirties and asked him about the advantage of camping out.
“You must be new to adventuring. It’s a balancing act for sure, but it’s more lucrative. Not having to travel everyday means we can save costs while being in the effective hunting zone. The downside to that is how long is too long? There comes a point where stores need to be replaced and nerves become frayed. It’s best to be smart and leave long before that.”
“How many days will you be away?”
“We’re planning for six days. Do you mind if I contribute a comment about your arrangement?”
“No, by all means. Be brutally honest if you must.”
Any information would be invaluable to us.
“It’s good to see that you’re willing to learn but I’ve seen far too many empty cart seats on the return trip. You’ve chosen a difficult region to cover so early on in your adventuring. In many ways this eastern region is the new front line of the battlefield the knights recently lost.”
He paused for a moment as if reminiscing about something.
“You can take this any way you like, but if I were you, I’d start by getting more people on your team as a priority and until you’re far more skilled, keep strictly to the forest outskirts.”
I thanked him for his word of advice. The Harpies were the first to be dropped off as they intended to cut northeast through the forest. As for us, the cart owner offered to take us north along a small side road travelling with the forest edge on the left and the tilled fields on our right.
Just as the Harpies left, their leader said,
“My name is Matheus. May it go well with your trip. One more bit of free advice. Never become predictable. Goblins may not be the most intelligent of monsters, but they have the habit of hatching surprises when they figure your strategies out.”
“The name is Shane and that’s Hana. Thanks, I’ll make sure not to give them that opportunity.”
He nodded, turning away to follow the rest of team. We continued for another half an hour on that side road, and the dropped us off.
“I’ll pick you up before sundown, make sure you’re here otherwise you’ll be walking home because I won’t wait for you.”
“That’s fine, we’ll be walking less than 30,000 steps.”
“That’s quite a walk. See you then, I bid you farewell.”
We stood watching him until the cart disappeared between the foliage and the sounds of cartwheels replaced by forest noises. It always felt weird when suddenly leaving civilisation, but at the same time exhilarating.
“I’m planning to take us in a big loop. First, we’ll head north west then cut south for a while and on the last run, aim north east back here.”
Hana seemed to grasp the concept well enough and I decided to take the lead. Hana stayed two steps behind me while I used air scan to monitor the area up to fifty meters away. The scan distance limitation, due to my mobility, meant our time to respond to monster’s presence would be lessened. If I moved less, my scan distance would increase. We still had some distance to cover and didn’t want to miss the cart, so we kept a constant pace.
The tree cover in that area was thin enough, interspersed with larger openings, that I could still trust my scan’s effectiveness.
An hour had just gone past when Hana suddenly stopped walking.
“Wait.”
She said, looking to her left. There was nothing on my heads-up.
When I raised the resolution while focusing on a shorter area ten goblins headed towards us, and judging by their trajectory, would intersect our path just a few meters ahead. Her keen hearing came up trumps. The trees thinned a bit in the contact zone, just enough to fire from a distance.
“There’s ten goblin scouts headed our way. They’ll pass in front of us. Let’s ambush them here. When the first five walk past us, you aim for them and I’ll focus on the last five.”
Hana wordlessly nodded and selected a tree five meters to my right and hid herself a third of the way up the large tree trunk. She planned to use her bow at short range, taking it from behind her back and notching her first arrow. I took out five metal spheres and held them ready in my hand. I could draw my sword if my first attack failed.
A few minutes later a silent line of goblins appeared from between the trees. Everything was going as planned until two things happened. The leading goblin decided to change course slightly, heading away from us. At almost the same time, a gust of wind caused the goblins all to stop and stare in our direction. All I could think at the time was, bugger, I’d messed up.