Ch.17
Masterwork weapons and armor just ignored a lot of these rules, though, especially ones you wanted to raise the Quality Level of so they could be enchanted to higher heights! A masterwork suit of armor, weapon, or shield was always DC 20, but to make a +1 magic weapon, it needed to be made at DC 22+.
DC 24 would let it be enchanted to +2. DC 26 was +3. DC 28 was +4, and DC 30 was +5. After that, it continued following the same pattern of +2 to DC for +1 to the maximum enchantment bonus. A DC 40 item meant you could make it into a +10 weapon, shield, or suit of armor...
When making a piece of gear, you set a DC you were aiming for, if you reached it, that became the Quality Level the item was made at. QL 20 items were finely made. A QL 20 meal was what you got out of restaurants with Michelin Stars, for example. In the real world, QL 30 items were only made by true master craftsmen, things like this were world famous. The Sistine Chapel. Paintings by the Masters in the Renaissance. Michelangelo’s sculpture of David.
QLs above 30 were very difficult to achieve, because most normal materials simply weren’t good enough to allow that level of crafting. The best steel ever made on Earth was a DC 30, though some steels, if they were alloyed with things like Mithril, Adamant, or other supernatural metals, could go higher than that.
QL 40 was essentially impossible for ordinary humans to create. Just like +11 and greater weapons and armor required an Epic level enchanter to make, QLs past 40, though technically possible, required materials that were not merely magical, but among the very most powerful magical materials. Certain Mithril alloys could get you to 40, but past QL 40 for magical weapons and armor it was adamantine and its alloys, or other Unobtanium-type super materials, or go home!
There were a few of the rarer other-dimensional metals and materials that might get you there, things like dragon and other legendary monster body parts and such, if you can get your hands on enough of them and figure out how to work with it!
Basically, if you wanted +11 or higher weapon, welp, you were talking about making something that fell under the categories of Epic, Mythic, and Legendary! It shouldn’t be surprising that you needed to make them out of materials at that same level!
Now, you could also halve the crafting time to make something by raising the difficulty by 10, though you could only do this twice... but enchanted Tools could reduce this further, depending on the crafting skill.
So, if you could hit a DC 50, no matter how you get there, you can make swords capable of being enchanted up to +5 in about 4 days' worth of work! The market value of a +5 weapon is 50k gold. A craftsman had to put one third of the market value of an item into it in work done. One third of 50k is a smidge under 17k, and one quarter of that, from hitting +20 above the DC you need to make the item; is a bit over 4k... or a bit more than 4 days of work, at the 1000 gold pieces worth of work a day that is the limit for what a craftsman can do.
There were also Feats and Class skills that could affect those things.
Like everything else in Legends and Labyrinths, crafting tools and stations could be enchanted to make them better. Masterwork tools gave a +2 to crafting rolls, and, for example, magical smithing tools could increase your roll by up to whatever their Enhancement bonus is above that. A properly enchanted Furnace and Anvil could EACH halve crafting time, and a well enchanted Anvil could ALSO increase your bonuses to your Smith Crafting rolls!
To go back to the previous example, if you can hit a 50 difficulty check on your weaponsmithing check AND have a properly enchanted Furnace and anvil, you can make a sword that can be enchanted up to +5 in about a day’s work, or 8 hours of labor!
Unfortunately, even with as much as I’d poured into my skills, I was nowhere close to that... but better tools, higher stats, and more levels would fix that...
Even with an 18 Int, and basically double the skill points I should have from getting them from two classes every level, AND my cheaty Talents letting me keep up my overall investment into crafts and lore skills, I still had SOOO many more skills to get and level up!
On the other hand, I’m gonna be good at every damned thing I wanted to be good at!
Yeah, I had totally taken the time to dig out the L&L crafting rules and had memorized them. I spent HOURS digging through web sites and reading up on alternate rules for crafting.
My first job was to upgrade the crafting equipment I already had at my disposal. Every bit of equipment in this town counted as Crude, which meant that it would work, but it gave me penalties to my rolls!
Getting it from crude to masterwork would mean an increase of 4 to my rolls, by taking the bonuses from –2 to +2!
Screw using Crude gear! I want the best!
It was time to get to work.
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I had no clue how the whole Dreamer/Awakener thing worked, but it sure felt weird if I thought about it for too long. The whole point of sleeping for humans was recovery, both physical and mental.
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I certainly hadn’t rested last night! After finally clearing out the Skraven village, I’d spent HOURS melting, forging, and purifying pig iron into good quality steel, then forging THAT into my new, masterwork smithing tools.
I was pretty happy when I realized I’d even gotten some Records out of doing it!
I still needed to upgrade the furnace and anvil, and I hadn’t even touched the leatherworking or alchemy stations!
It was good to have other stuff to work on, though. 4th level would let me start making magic items, one of the abilities from Disciple giving me access to the ability to do so, though I did still need to take the Feats. Normally, to make magic items you had to be able to cast magic spells. The Disciple’s class ability, Disciplined Artifice, let me replace the magical spells needed to create most magic items by channeling Pneuma and making a Spellcraft check instead.
That meant that hitting 4th level as a Disciple of Pneuma would let me start making magic items even though I wasn’t a magic-using class, and just 5th level in any class gives you access to the Feat that lets you make magical Weapons and Armor, but I’d be able to take the Feat that lets you make Potions and Wondrous Items at 4th!
As wonderful as it was to finally be on the edge of being able to craft my own gear, I had responsibilities on Earth I needed to take care of, and I was concerned about being ambushed at one of the businesses I did IT work for.
I wasn’t silly enough to think that the Federovs would hold back from coming after me in public.
I’d been lucky enough to make contact with a couple of other local small business owners that worked in the same field as me, Network Admins and/or IT, and while I didn’t exactly trust them to not try to take my customers, I did trust them to deliver decent service to my customers for a few days while I figured out what I was going to do about the Federovs.
The last thing I wanted was a bunch of Federov goons trying to perform a hit on me while I was in the middle of a call center full of innocent people! I’d never forgive myself, and the Federovs had proved that they were a wretched hive of scum and villainy if ever there was one...
The biggest problem I had was that I knew, basically, nothing about the Mob, or the Federovs in particular, aside from what you learn watching TV crime dramas and movies like Scarface. Sure, some online research and usage of my newly purchased Computer Programming skill might get me somewhere, and I was absolutely going to do some research, but I needed to build up hacking tools, hell I’ll probably have to write my own before my new hacking skills would be really useful!
Wait, didn’t Jojo say that everyone knew Dimi and his pack of thugs? Maybe he knows something about them? Track down a few thugs, make a few Intimidate checks on them, beat a few of them down, then ask them some questions about who, what, when, where and then move on? All I’d need is access to one computer at a business run by them to probably get a lot more info...
That sounded like something remarkably resembling a plan. I’d talk to Jojo as soon as I could, but I’d wait until tonight to actually try to follow up on any of it.
For now, I needed to start on the same process on Earth that I’d started on in the Skraven village. The difference was that here, I could probably just BUY masterwork crafting tools. They probably won’t be high enough Quality Level, or QL, for me to enchant them past +1, but modern manufacturing is easily capable of making masterwork level stuff... but really, that was fine.
Starting the process out with a +2 to my crafting rolls instead of a –2 is a pretty major difference, after all!
First, though, I called Chris. He picked up on the second ring.
“Holy shit, you bastard! I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you again!” he told me, concern obvious in his voice. He was a damned good friend.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I can understand that after seeing the mess at the house. Listen, I talked to a U.S. Marshal last night about something, he was an old Marine buddy of Sensei Kai’s, and I want to talk to you about something along the same lines. Can we meet up? There’s supposed to still be deputies at our place, if you wanna meet there?”
Chris paused, thinking about it. “Sure. Yeah, man. Give me about 45 minutes, ok?”
“Perfect. See you then.” I said. We both hung up.
Do I really want to do this? On the one hand, nothing’s a secret once more than 2 people know it... which probably means that Dreamers and Awakeners are already not a secret. The fact that I’m one, though, is a different story. On the other hand, if I can help Chris, and maybe Sensei and his family, too, be a little more prepared for what’s coming, that seems like the right thing to do... right? At least according to Melnaria, at some point this is all going to come out and everyone will know.
Giving the people I give a crap about a head start only makes sense! Plus, Chris deserves to know. He could easily still get pulled into the middle of all of this. Hell, its only luck that had him go to the Rock and Bowl last night instead of being home and being collateral damage from the hit on me!
It was a tough decision, one that I labored over for a long time, but I’d finally made up my mind.
I’d tell Chris everything. He deserved to know, he was my best friend, and his life was certainly in danger, now!
Now I just had to convince him I wasn’t crazy!
I got back to our place in about thirty minutes, bringing Banner along. About ten minutes later, Chris showed up.
I was a little surprised when he walked right up to me and gave me a big ol’ hug.
I patted him on the back, and he pushed me away from him. I was even more surprised to see tears in his eyes. “I thought you were dead, ya jerk!”
I chuckled, rapidly blinking my eyes... because the sun was totally really bright right now, and no other reason whatsoever! “Bah, I’m too mean and too pretty to die, you should know better!” I punched him, extremely gently, on the shoulder. He still winced. “Come on. I have something I want to show you.”
He looked at me oddly but nodded and followed. I let Banner off his leash in the fenced-off back yard area and we walked into the wooded area in the back lot.
When we were far enough back there that there were a few hundred feet of woods in every direction, I asked him, “Can I see your knife?” Chris, like a lot of Northwesterners, carried a knife on him almost all the time. I include myself in that group.
He started to hand it to me, but then paused to ask, “Why do you want it? Don’t you have your own knife on you?”
I grinned at him. “I’ll put it to you kind of like I did to the Marshal, last night. I’m about to tell you some crazy assed shit, so I’m gonna show you something that will hopefully let you believe me.”
Chris looked at me like I was a little bit crazy, but then shrugged and handed his folding lock blade over.
I grinned at him, flipped it open, and jabbed it through my hand in the exact spot I had the night before for Marshal Sanderson.
Chris gasped, and took a startled step back, then lunged forward. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you maniac?!”
I was gritting my teeth, but I held my left hand up so he could see it. Yup, hurts just as much this time as it did the last time! I grinned through the pain and told him, “This is to hopefully make you understand what’s going on. Go ahead and pull it out. I’m going to be fine, Chris. Pull the knife out.”
He looked at me like I was mentally deranged, and it's not hard to understand why he’d think that... but he pulled the knife out.
“That’s your knife, right? It was just stabbed into my hand, right?” I asked him.
Chris’ eyes were getting a little crazy, themselves. This was a bit too much for him to be able to handle, so I hurried things along by spending a point of Qi into Qi Regeneration and healing the wound while he watched.
His mouth just fell open as most of the blood was pulled back into the wound, and the injury healed before his eyes. “What. The. Fuck?” he asked, obviously stunned.
“I just healed my wound using Qi Regeneration. I can do that because I’m a 3rd level Monk, 3rd level Disciple of Pneuma. No, I’m not fucking with you. I’m now a living L&L character, and you can probably be one, too!”
Chris looked like he was having a small panic attack.
Yup, this might have been a little too much for Chris out of the blue like this. I guided him over to where he could have a seat on the stump of an old oak tree we’d been forced to cut down after it had been struck by lightning a few years ago, back when we were both still in college.
“You ok there, man?” I asked him, in a soft voice, kneeling next to him, rubbing his back gently, reassuringly.
His breathing was slowing down, now, and he’d been looking everywhere but at me... then his eyes got really wide and his head snapped to stare at me. “That’s your blood in the front room, isn’t it?!”
I sighed. I was gonna hold back on revealing that after how he reacted, but I didn’t want to lie to him, either. “Yeah, it is.” Somehow, Chris’ eyes got even wider. “I had died. Then, a pop-up appeared, saying I had four Hero Points, and I was given the option of spending two of them to Cheat Death, using the optional rules for Hero Points. After I said, ‘Yes’ and came back to life was when I remembered everything.”