I appeared before EDEN, noting as I did that using Bloodwalk was becoming more natural with each use. I took a deep breath of the familiar scents. The slightly sweet smell of dead leaves danced with the sharp and clean scent of fresh snow. My nose wrinkled as the intrusive smell of copper and iron tainted the bouquet. A quick thought communication with Niiya revealed the summary of what Tabula had told her, and my mind kicked into fast planning mode.
I entered the resort and was greeted by a packed house. Newly arrived celestials exhausted from their long flight whispered to one another, and glanced around with a mixture of worry and wonder. I couldn’t imagine how jarring it must have been for them. Most of them had been born and lived their entire lives inside the insulating barrier. I hid my presence beneath my cloak and passed through the crowd to where Tabula and Saet were in the middle of a discussion.
“Hey Tab.” I greeted her, canceling my camouflage effect. “Everything okay here?”
“Certainly Mr. Gray.” She replied easily. “I have already assigned the fifth and sixth floors as temporary housing for these new arrivals. A minor logistical issue may arise concerning cooldown recovery rates of popular menu items in the restaurants. The aquatics facilities are also likely to reach peak volume at certain times of day.”
“I thought that might come up eventually.” I nodded. “I’ve got some ideas about that. We’ll talk later when we can get Hurstag and Raj to join us. For now, let’s just assign an optimal rotating access schedule attached to room numbers so that everyone has fair access to food and facilities.”
“Restaurant? Aquatics facility?” Saet repeated the words awkwardly. “What exactly is this place?”
“A restaurant is a place for guests to select food from a menu and enjoy their meal in a relaxing environment.” Tabula began to answer the rhetorical questions before I could stop her. “The aquatics facility features two large swimming pools, mineral baths, showers, wet and dry saunas, and a childrens’ pool with slides and toys. This place as a whole is EDEN, a state of the art living space owned by my master with myself serving as its administrator.”
“Wait, you’re not just going to lend us a piece of land and have us fend for ourselves?” Apparently Saet had some very weak assumptions about my hospitality.
“I mean eventually we’ll develop a place for your tree and get you back on your feet.” I answered, trying to find a way to explain. “For now, you’re our guests. You’re free to come and go as you please, but each of you will have access to a room and amenities until then.”
“Why would you go so far for us?” Saet asked, and then suddenly changed her expression to one of panic. “Please don’t take that as me being ungrateful! It’s just so unexpected.”
“Dunno.” My answer seemed to deflate her a little. “I guess it feels pretty good to see decent people catch a break ... Speaking of that.” I decided to change the subject to something a little more urgent. “Tab, please get messages to all of our allies in the area and request their presence in the courtyard in two hours. I’ll be leaving the organization of the refugees to you for now if that’s alright.”
“Will we be making a move on the dwarven capital?” She easily read my mind.
“Yes, after I properly thank everyone for their hard work, and take care of some business with Yugal that is the next move.” I excused myself and noticed something was off. There was no cat girl tagging along beside me.
“Hanging out with Jade.” Was the reply I got. Wonder if she’s pouting about me leaving her in charge while I played with the giants. Also Jade’s influence was starting to pile on thicker than I would have liked.
After that I went and visited Sapphire, the former Carbuncle turned Almiraj. There was something I was hoping she could pull off and it was the perfect time to test her abilities. She had become an assistant to Raj, and oversaw most of the new booming trade between the dwarves and Ariel’s Gate. Yet another competent person I lucked into finding.
I found her in the first floor business center seated at a large table with several thick stacks of parchment before her. She was pulling documents from one pile in the middle, stamping them, scribbling something in a three ring binder, and finally placing them on a specific stack. It was hypnotic to watch, like those old internet videos of people doing mundane jobs insanely fast. Even tomato slicing looks badass at Warp 10.
When one of her elegant hands darted away to grab a tiny espresso cup for a sip, the momentum never broke, but seeing her long fingers and dark blue nails reminded me of what she had looked like when I first met her.
Before this woman’s evolution, she had been a tiny waifish thing too small for children’s clothes. I especially remembered her tiny hands, wringing nervously with nails long chewed away in the horrible grip of anxiety. She was now at least my height, and the spiraled sapphire horn on her forehead made her seem even taller. She wore a suit from a popular dwarven tailor that had moved into the area. The insanely industrious woman was making a killing here by designing women’s clothes that were reminiscent of Tabula’s striking and sexy business attire.
“That’s a great outfit.” I greeted cheerfully. “The blue lapels and cuffs are perfect for you.”
“My lord!” Sapphire jolted from her flow and spun out of her chair into a bow.
“Cut it out!” I huffed. “You know that’s not me.”
“Reverence may be inconvenient, but it is a trapping of power such as yours.” She smiled and finally looked up. Her eyes made me gulp. They were the most intense blue I had ever seen in any lifetime and no matter how many times I saw them I was stunned.
“As long as it’s something you want and not something you feel forced to do.” I said, unable to argue.
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“Do you really like these clothes?” She suddenly seemed to remember my greeting. “Balira made them for me after I helped her fill out all of her trade agreements. She measured me and everything! It’s the first time I’ve ever worn anything that’s just for me.” Her childish excitement was heart melting and I felt a welling in my eyes. Was I always this emotional before?
“It’s an amazing outfit, and no one else could pull it off like you.” I confirmed to her widening smile. “I actually came to ask a favor, do you have a moment?”
I then asked her what new details she had learned about her skills, particularly the Duplicate Item skill.
“It seems that the skill breaks down items into categories of difficulty. I can duplicate what it deems ‘Normal Items’ at will as long as I have the required Soul Energy. ‘Magic Items’ Require much more Soul Energy and there is a chance of failure which destroys the original item.”
“Are the other categories Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic, and Transcendent?” I guessed out loud.
“That’s correct.” She nodded. “Though I’m not sure how to tell which is which.”
“Those categories are designed very simply. Every step up in rarity up to Mythic class means that another line of modifications exist on the item. A higher base Item Score means that those lines of modifications can be rolled within a wider range of values. Transcendent items tend to have more abstract functions. For example, EDEN is in the Transcendent class.” As I rambled on like a total geek, I began pulling potion bottles from my Astral Vault.
“There are just a few things we need to confirm. First is the actual rate of failure since I assume they don’t give you a reliable statistic in the tooltip.” As I spoke, I lined up ten identical potions on the table in front of her. “These are potions in the Magic class. They restore fifty Soul Energy. Let’s try to duplicate one.”
“I don’t understand most of what you’re saying but I’ll try.” She held her palm out toward one of the pale pink crystal bottles and focused. A ghostly reflection of the bottle began to appear next to the potion, and after ten more seconds it seemed to have worked. Eleven bottles now existed on the table.
I picked up the duplicate and appraised it.
----------------------------------------
Item: Minor Potion of Soul Energy
Magic Consumable
Restore (40) Soul Energy
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“Hmm. It seems to produce a weaker version of the original. Does the Duplicate Item skill have ranks?” I asked her.
“Yes. It is currently ranked one of six.” She replied
“Awesome!” I exclaimed “If your Critical Fortune skill is available can you try using it on Duplicate Item and try again?”
She indulged the request, and the resulting potion was able to restore forty-five Soul Energy rather than forty.
“Just like I hoped. If we raise your skill, you’ll be able to not just duplicate items but maybe even strengthen the duplicate beyond normal limits.” I was getting pumped. “Also that’s two in a row with no failure. Go ahead and try to duplicate the rest of these, if you get low on Soul Energy just drink some of the duplicates.”
Of the ten total attempts, only two ended in failure. I imagined that the failure potential skyrocketed with Rare or higher class items. We also learned that duplicates could not be duplicated themselves, meaning that once an original was lost it was game over unless you found another. Sapphire seemed happy to play along with me, and we finally got to the reason I had brought up the topic in the first place.
“I’d like to make a bunch of these.” I brought out a bauble which (thanks to my impulsive hoarding tendency and messy inventory management) had been spared from becoming vendor trash back in EG. It was a Normal item, statistically useless but extremely fancy. It was a shining black diamond-shaped pin with a stylized gryphon engraved into its surface.
An hour later I stood outside in the early afternoon sun. As expected a large crowd of both familiar and new faces watched me from the same field where the invading knights had been slaughtered less than a day before. I had been given a detailed recap of the events during my absence, and there were alot of people here I was seeing in a brand new light. I noticed many of them were well equipped adventurers, whom scrutinized me intensely.
All of the cambions were in attendance. I noticed that the mother hen Meri now emitted a more powerful aura than the rest of her peers. I would have to ask her about it later. The hellcats were there, looking as awesome as always. Asha still seemed groggy from her ordeal but otherwise she was fine.
Perhaps a hundred dwarven traders and refugees waited for me to speak in stoic silence, and at least two hundred celestials had also insisted on attending. Niiya stood beside me along with Tabula, Jade, and Rain while Yugal formed the background behind us. I nodded at Tabula and she raised her hand. The murmuring conversation ceased instantly.
“First I want to thank all of you for keeping yourselves and each other safe during the recent attack by the kingdom. All of you deserve praise, but some of you went above and beyond. Would all of you who participated in the effort of evacuating the dwarves in the Sea of Stone and the destruction of the enemy’s base camp please come forward?” I called out to the cambions.
All of them gracefully separated themselves from the crowd and knelt in front of me. Sapphire’s earlier comment echoed in my mind. With a sigh to myself I continued.
“For your valor and service, please accept these medals, and these coins as my thanks.” Tabula walked down the line as I spoke my stuffy lines. I looked at each woman as they received their pin and small envelope of twenty gold. Ohh no. They’re all crying their damn eyes out. Keep it together Gray! What the hell was going on with my emotions lately!?
I cleared my throat to mask the fact that I was getting choked up and hurried along my little awards ceremony. Stuff like this was important to me. Those brief moments of praise in my wrestling career, or seeing my name on top of the leaderboards when I zoned back from a record breaking abyss are things that everyone should get to feel once in awhile. I presented the hellcats and the dark alfar their rewards, and then called on some of the new adventurers I had yet to meet.
“Would the adventuring team known as The Mighty Four please step forward?” I called out, and to my great surprise the huge hairless warrior was dragging a fifth person along with the group. A very old, and very familiar fifth person.
My confused face asked the question for me.
“We’re The Mighty Five nowadays apparently.” The clean cut leader said with an uneasy smile as he looked up at me and then over to the big fighter.
“I see.” I was fighting back a grin. I couldn’t wait to hear the explanation for this. “As you may have heard, my name is Gray. Please introduce yourselves.”
“Certainly, lord Gray.” The soldier answered. “My name is Norris Fobb, also known as Norris the Worthy. I am a swordsman and main strategist of our group.” The man knelt after identifying himself.
“I am Delia, a magic user.” Short and sweet from the short and probably not so sweet dark haired girl.
“Luna Laguna.” The tall and uncomfortably attractive lavender haired woman was the only one to lock her eyes onto mine as she spoke. “I am a monk. My body is at your service.” Phrasing. Boom. Thank Ariel my thoughts stayed in my skull for once.
“I’m Rust. Pretty handy with an axe.” The big man jerked his thumb to the side. “I adopted this fella. He knows how to make slimes eat people. He’s gonna teach me how to grow slimes and I’m teaching him to bash heads.”
“Hello again.” Slimer Jaik said meekly. “It’s been quite the month, hasn’t it?”
“It certainly has Jaik.” I chuckled to the frail looking senior. “Did you really come to that agreement, or is this a good natured kidnapping?”
Jaik gave a helpless shrug and Norris intervened.
“Mr. Jaik really did defeat an elite member of the red knight’s forces with his pet slimes. He conducted himself with as much bravery and ingenuity as any professional soldier. My teammate really just wanted to make sure he received proper acknowledgment.” Norris explained helpfully.
My eyes popped open wide, I felt a new respect for the eccentric man. I was short on medals but I did have a better option.
“Mr. Jaik.” I addressed him in dad’s old military tone and he stiffened up. “Soon there will be some very large scale developments happening in this area, and our need for proper sanitation infrastructure is going to be immense. I need someone of your experience that I can turn to in those times. Tell me, can I count on you?”
The old man’s eyes lit up and steam blasted from his mouth as he shouted out. “Nothing would make me happier, lord Gray! My body may be wearing down but my passion for what I do will never break.”
“How many years have you served this city? How long have you spent toiling so that everyone could enjoy clean water and streets?” I asked him in a much softer voice. Many nods of respect came from the crowd, and the old slime wrangler puffed his skinny chest out just a bit more.
“Forty years.” He replied in almost a whisper, as if he could scarcely believe it had been that long himself. “Forty years.” He repeated louder with conviction.
“Would you like forty more?” I asked him genuinely.
“I could study slimes for a thousand years.” He said without a slight hesitation.
“Then that is what you shall do.” With a thought I appeared before him, hovering just a few feet in the air with my wings fully extended. I held my hand above his balding head. “For your lifetime of service, I grant you my blessing. Soul Brand.” The audience collectively gasped. And the old man’s eyes widened in wonder as black tendrils of evolution appeared around him.