Animated guardian (rare)
This paired sword and shield possess the joint modification: Sentry.
For one hour each day, the guardian can be activated to fight alongside its owner. Sentry items can obey simple commands and will operate independently if they remain within fifty feet of the point of activation. If damaged, these items will gradually repair themselves unless the weapon core is destroyed (at a rate much slower than self-maintenance modifications).
Nick let out an appreciative whistle. The animated guardian was a fantastic item, even better than the ability stone. Picking it would greatly improve his offensive capabilities and would offer him some additional protection as well. The guardian would have been great to have during the tutorial. He imagined using the sword to distract the bonecruncher alpha, then sneaking up from behind to land a fatal blow while the shield held off the rest of the pack.
If he didn’t use it on a given day, he could order the guardian to protect him for an hour while he slept, which was far better than nothing at all. He could also fight beside the guardian in battles against multiple opponents, shielding his flanks while adding to the damage he could deal out.
In short, the animated guardian was awesome. Finding it made him glad that he had waited to make his selection. Although, he would have preferred that the System provide more details regarding the guardian’s abilities, including how precisely it would obey his commands. But none of that would stop Nick from picking it. Just looking at the gleaming shield and sword made his soul burn with greed, as the item felt like a perfect fit considering his present needs.
However, he still had enough time on the clock to explore one final section of the collection. He took a lingering, lustful look at the animated guardian and started sprinting once more. By the time that he drew near the end of the row, he was gasping for air, so winded that he could barely think. He would have pushed himself even harder if he could, but Nick simply didn’t have anything else to give. Although it disappointed the min/max portion of his psyche, he had to accept that he wouldn’t be able to examine every display in the vault before the timer hit zero.
I’ll take a close look at two more, then head back and pick the guardian before I run out of time. He turned to the closest offering and started reading. This shelf held three pouches that were bound together in a set, each containing a reusable ward that could be activated once a day. Each pouch held a series of stones that were inscribed with an enchantment that could be activated when the stones were placed in a ring and a command word was spoken.
The first was an alarm ward that could be keyed to sound in the presence of a variety of life forms. The second detected hostile magic cast within its perimeter, and the third was a deterrent for something called an astral parasite.
Nick’s nearly fatal encounter with the giant leeches in the sewers of Kastilla had severely traumatized him. If he had been carrying these alarm wards, the leeches wouldn’t have been able to approach him without warning, pumping him full of sedative venom while he slept. The uses of the other two types were less obvious, but he was sure that if he knew what an astral parasite was, it would find a home in his nightmares as well.
These wards weren’t as flashy as the sentry or as reliable as a new ability, but they were still an incredible item that would serve him well on the road ahead if he decided to claim them.
Nick had less than two minutes to decide between three solid options, each item offering unique and powerful advantages. With most of his attention allocated to making his choice, he turned to a display at random and started scanning a final block of text. Five seconds later, he looked up and broke into an ear-to-ear grin.
“I’ll take this one,” Nick pointed to the display in front of him, eyes lighting up as they drank in the image of his prize. “It’s perfect.”
Selection confirmed. Stand by for transportation.
After the System made its announcement, the world around Nick began to fade, everything besides the display case in front of him gradually dissolving into an indistinct blur. He needed to rest, and he desperately wanted to learn more about Taltos’s latest challenge. But all of that could wait until he stepped through the next portal. Before he did anything else, he was going to take a moment simply to savor the reward he had chosen from the treasure vault.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The object in question honestly wasn’t all that impressive to look at, but it seemed that you couldn’t always judge the quality of an item by its appearance. Nick peered through the display case, running his gaze across a crystal flask twice the width of his thumb, which he estimated would hold about eight ounces of fluid when full.
The top of the flask was secured by what appeared to be a snap-on cap. The exterior of the crystal was embedded with tiny black and golden gemstones and etched in what appeared to be System writing, although Nick couldn’t decipher the meaning of the glyphs. When he took a closer look, he decided that the symbols looked more like a mathematical formula than words.
However, it wasn’t the flask that had him dancing from one foot to the other in excitement, but what it held. Or rather, what would appear inside the container sometime within the next twenty-four hours. Before he reached out to crack open the display case and claim his prize, Nick read the attached description one more time, savoring every word as the thrill of growing stronger by gearing up coursed through his veins, a rush more intoxicating than any drug.
Flask of restoration (rare)
Consuming the contents of this flask will restore 25% of the owner’s health, stamina, and mana over a period of sixty seconds. Anyone besides the owner of the flask who drinks the elixir will receive half of the listed benefits. If the elixir is removed from the flask without being consumed, it will lose potency after one hour.
The flask will absorb ambient essence and mana from the atmosphere to regenerate the elixir of restoration. This process will take approximately twenty-four hours on a tier one planet.
Modifications
Soulbound: This item will be rendered nearly indestructible as long as its owner is alive. It will be destroyed instantly if they perish. If separated from its owner, this item will automatically reappear somewhere close at hand after ten minutes have passed.
Ownership of this item is registered to: Nicholas Henry.
Nick sighed in contentment as he arrived at the last word of the description, noting that it had been updated to include his name since the last time he had read it. This is such a great find, he let out an enthusiastic whoop as a portal materialized beside the display. He was glad that he had resisted temptation and waited as long as he could to make his decision, because this was exactly the kind of item that he’d been hoping to find.
The flask of restoration filled a critical hole in his skillset, a lack of regenerative or direct healing abilities. Better yet, it restored a fixed percentage of his health rather than a raw amount. This meant that the elixir would scale to his level and attributes, although Nick still had no idea how to measure his health pool. On top of everything else, the flask couldn’t be lost, stolen, or taken from him by force, and although the elixir only refilled once per day, the item had effectively unlimited charges.
In addition to serving as a lifeline by providing emergency medical treatment, the elixir generated by the flask would restore a portion of his stamina and mana as well. This feature could prove useful in any number of ways. It would let him fight at full capacity for longer or recover more quickly after a battle had ended.
He should be able to figure out how to use the flask to perform feats he otherwise could not, although Nick had a lot of experimenting to do before he attempted such a risky maneuver when his life was on the line. He could even extend its benefits to others at half strength, which might be enough to save the life of an ally in the midst of battle.
All things considered, the flask was a flexible tool that he could rely on for the rest of his life. An item that could help him form his own personal fighting style over the months to come. He assumed that its rarity was partially balanced by the soulbound modification.
While being soulbound offered a number of benefits, it also meant that Nick could not sell the item if he somehow outgrew it. Couldn’t trade it for a tool better suited to his future needs. He suspected that the animated guardian that had sorely tempted him would have one day outlived its usefulness, but the flask never would.
As a bonus to having received such a wonderful reward from the System, he had finally learned the function of the soulbound modification, although he had no idea why his wand had it too. It was interesting to see the term essence mentioned again. Nick intended to investigate essence as soon as possible, before the System locked him out of the kp database at the end of the rest period.
Deciding that he was done geeking out over the reward for now, he opened the display case and removed the flask, savoring the weight of the crystal in his hand. Nick slid the flask into a loop on his toolbelt, turned away from the display, and took a quick look around, noticing that the portal had finished forming sometime over the last few minutes.
Without waiting for the System to prompt him, Nick stepped through the glowing aperture, ready to discover what fate had in store for him next.