Possibilator (Legendary)

Description: An artifact dating back to when the human military was at its zenith. It was used to train the most advanced and specialized military forces. It's a miracle that it survived the Rain of Fire.

Effects:

Active. Number of charges left (1/3);

Say out loud your request for a stat, skill, or item. After doing so, you will be transported to a special map where you must complete a challenge. If you pass the challenge, you will get what you asked for.

Roth gasped, almost letting the legendary artifact drop.

“I know, right? It's like a genie's lamp. You tell it what you want in the game, and it gives it to you.”

Roth shook his head. “It can't be that simple.”

“My best guess is that the more you ask of it, the harder the challenge is.”

“Even so, this is still a godly item. Why would Zin ever give it away?”

Drake drummed his fingers on the desk again. “He said that it is limited to two uses per player. He had already used his charges and wanted to offer you the last one as a bargaining chip.”

Roth raised an eyebrow. “He knows I need to get to the top ten. He knows this would be too much for me to pass on.”

Drake nodded.

“There’s something that bugs me. Nothing about the item says it can only be used twice per player.”

Drake leaned in. “What are you thinking?”

“I guess that Zin used it twice and judged whatever challenge it generated as too impossible to complete. Believing I couldn't use it successfully in one run, he gave it away. It’s all just a pretense. He’s not being generous. He’s giving us unusable trash!”

Drake let out a heavy sigh. “That would be in character. That man's a snake. I’ve never met anyone quite like him. Loki, I can predict. But this man shows no emotions. My old boss would have gone out of his way to hire him.”

“Should we turn him down?”

“He's a two-edged sword, a dangerous tool. However, you can use him just like he used you. Provided that you can complete this thing’s challenge.”

Roth's mind raced. What could he ask from the item that he didn't have yet? A new zoomorph form? A way to reduce cooldowns between forms even further? A legendary item? A better set of equipment? A new legendary skill?

Something told him that if he asked for something that let him jump 20 spots in the rankings, the challenge it would generate would be impossible to complete. It wasn’t easy to think of something valuable enough to make it worth helping Zin but not so unreasonable that the challenge generated by the system would be insurmountable.

He should forget about items, forms, and stats. What was Roth missing in his arsenal? What could help him cross that final bottleneck and reach the top 10 in the rankings? What was there, unique but reasonable, that he could only gain from this legendary object?

“So, have you come to a decision yet?” Drake asked, interrupting Roth's train of thought.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Roth quoted. “I'll do it. As much as I dislike helping a man who was probably involved in trapping me here, he did warn me that Loki was going to kill me. Also, this item is just too good of a chance to tip the scales. I can’t wrap my head around why he left it here with you. Was he so sure I'd say yes?”

Drake laughed. “He was sure we wouldn’t use it if we said no. It was a hidden threat. He'll hunt us down if we use it without adding him to the VIP list. This Zin… he uses the stick and the carrot all at once. No wonder he worked for Loki.”

“Right,” Roth agreed, staring at the black cylinder.

“Do you know what you'll ask of the item?”

Roth checked his character sheet, and his eyes landed on his affinities. “I have a clue. However, I don't have time to do this now. I have to go back to Sapphira.”

“Very well then. Here, keep the item, and don't forget to add Zin to the VIPs.”

Roth stood up and shook Drake’s hand. “Thank you so much for everything you do for me, Drake. And thanks again for your help with organizing my date with Mel.”

Drake shook his head and gave him a nod with a smile. “You deserve it. Besides, I'm having a lot of fun. Thanks to you, I've made many new friends. This game has been a new page in my life. Your situation is terrible,” Drake said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. “But since life gave us lemons, we’ll just make lemonade.”

“True. Well,” Roth said, “I'm supposed to go through some kind of spartan crafting session now.”

“Scared?” Drake said, grinning.

“No. I'm just curious about what Jack will have me do. See you later, Drake.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“See you later, son.”

Roth took out the orb that transported him to the Rock Lizard Cave in the Rock Canyon, and his figure disappeared into motes of light as he teleported to another region.

Drake stared out the window, thinking of his next move. He cracked his neck. There was a lot of work to do.

*

The 82nd floor of Sapphira was the busiest that Roth had ever seen. Wherever Roth looked, there was a kiln, a forge, or an anvil with a tool rack beside it. The dwarves had renovated the academic floor into a massive workshop.

Roth saw some new faces among the crowd of workers. The population of dwarves had increased yet again, and it was starting to feel cramped here. Dwarves walked to and fro, setting up new forges, cleaning tools, building new workstations, or having lively discussions as they leaned over blueprints and pointed at the following construction site.

Roth didn’t remember seeing dwarves this happy and driven while they were in exile in the villages of Green Woods or hidden in their village in the mountains. They were hardworking people who felt at home here more than anywhere else. Roth dodged the many busy dwarves and finally found one of them screaming and pointing furiously at all the others.

Jack looked like a maestro conducting an orchestra. Instead of a baton, he used a large hammer to address the busy dwarves.

"Set it right over there," Jack instructed a group of workers with wheelbarrows loaded with ingots of different colors, which they proceeded to deposit in neat stacks by a blazing kiln. Nodding approvingly, Jack addressed another group of workers working on a forge. “No, no. Two forges facing each other,” he instructed the team of engineers.

“But, why, my lord?”

“Because sometimes I use two simultaneously while working.”

“Oh, I see now. Don’t worry, my lord. We’ll leave them here then. Would you like a third one?”

“No need, no need.”

Seeing the mountain of material already organized, all the other materials that the dwarves were bringing in, and the number of forges, Roth couldn't help but shudder. The scale of this operation was mind-blowing. The only organization he could imagine rivaling it was the Union. "Are we going to use all of this?" he couldn’t help but ask aloud.

"Hey, Roth, you're back.”

“Hey, Jack, what's going on?"

"I’m just making sure we have enough materials. I would hate to underuse [Robornir’s Hammer and Anvil] and [The All Horn] because of a lack of planning."

“What are these materials?”

“Magnitidium and awnium, mostly.”

“Never heard of them,” Roth admitted, blushing.

Jack walked over to one of the piles and handed two ingots to Roth. One was sky blue and surprisingly light. The other was whitish yellow, almost like sickly pale gold. It was incredibly heavy.

“The blue one is magnitidium. It is a fantastic metal for detailed work and for making scales and chainmail. Awnium is very sturdy and can take a huge beating.”

“How much for each ingot?”

“Magnitidium sells for 35 gold a bar, and awnium for 40.”

Roth glanced at the many piles of metal scattered around the floor and tried to calculate how much money in materials there was but quickly gave up. “Did the guild pay for all this?"

"Oh, no. This is just stuff I had lying in the bank."

Roth gulped dryly. "This is all yours?"

"Yes, when you focus on crafting, you eventually start hoarding. This is an excellent opportunity to clean house. It's finally time to give these metals some use."

"I don't remember you working with metal back in New Earth. Weren’t you mostly known for…"

"Pottery, yes,” Jack interrupted. “But here I decided to go for smithing. I wanted to try something different. There’s so much you can do with metal. Hey, Journos, please separate them by metal!” he asked a nearby dwarf, who was about to deposit metals on the wrong pile.

“Can I do anything to help?”

“Just make sure you have whatever you need to make light traps. Let me know if you’re short of cash, and I’ll lend you some.”

“No need, no need. I’ll make a quick run to the auction house and buy supplies,” Roth said, looking at his inventory. Even though he had some sand in his inventory, he should probably restock. He would also buy energy potions and a few gems in case anything happened to the one in his laser gun.

Even though Jack’s offer was thoughtful, if there was anything Roth wasn’t short of right now, it was cash. Thousands of players joined the lizardman race daily, and Crownia had become one of the most used teleportation gates in AstroTerra. The combination of [Patron to the Lizards] and [Imperial Gatekeeper] brought him in so much cash that he’d recently reached seven digits for the first time. With it, he got a title to boot.

Millionaire (Rare)

Description: You’ve managed to amass vast amounts of wealth, and even noblemen look at you with envy.

Effects:

+5 charisma;

Merchants and businessmen look up to you and are afraid to break deals with you.

It wasn’t much, even though Roth appreciated the extra protection against other brokers encroaching on his business. Now that he knew at least one other broker somewhere still held a monopoly over agreements with the moles and that he’d stolen the rock lizards from his clientele, he couldn’t be too careful. BlueFire was also privy to some of his gaming strategies. He wouldn’t be too surprised if more brokers started popping up now.

"Is Godsfried here yet?" Roth inquired, looking left and right and failing to find his friend among all the other busy dwarves.

"He's making his 24 hours count," Jack said with a wolfish grin. "I guess I freaked him out last time we worked together."

"He's an excellent jeweler," Roth said in Godsfried’s defense.

"No argument there, the best in our guild," Jack assured him.

"So what's the plan?" Roth asked.

Jack grabbed an ancient-looking manual from his inventory and handed it to Roth. Thanks to the [Omniglot] title, the beautiful yet mysterious script rearranged itself into an alphabet that Roth was familiar with. The book's title read in letters almost too faint to read: ‘Robornir’s Crafting Manual.’

“Robornir. Isn’t he the dwarf after which that legendary item you own is named?”

"Good memory. Open to page seven."

Roth did. A diagram of an ornamented suit of armor appeared. The intricacy of the design captivated him instantly.

The armor was detailed down to the last rivet. The helm was fashioned from awnium, and its surface was etched with beautiful magnitidium patterns. It bore a distinctive crest, a hammered relief of a sun shining between two mountains. The eye slits were narrow, and a thick, sharp chin guard extended down.

Moving down, the chest plate was a mosaic of polished awnium and magnitidium inlays that formed intricate geometric patterns. The pauldrons were broad and reinforced. The gauntlets protected every finger and had knuckles reinforced with small awnium spikes.

The bottom armor was made of metal plates, with magnitidium scales covering the leggings. The boots looked sturdy, with soles thick and ridged for traction, the toes capped with magnitidium.

As Roth's eyes roved over the detailed illustrations, he could almost feel the weight and strength of the armor. The blueprint didn’t come in color, but Roth imagined an army of warriors dressed in white and blue armor guarding the city of Sapphira. Even though Roth’s days as a berserker were long past him, he still couldn’t help but feel his blood boil.

As he skimmed through the notes accompanying the diagram, Roth whistled. He had a similar manual on leatherworking written by lizardmen. However thorough the reptiles were, the extensive notes left by the dwarves on the materials and techniques used in crafting each piece of the armor put the lizardmen to shame. This race had no equal in crafting.

Next to each piece of equipment was also a description of the armor’s base stats.