image [https://i.imgur.com/nALgeWi.png]
Instead of moving to a new space immediately after rolling his dice, Will got a new type of message.
Your move action will take you over the merchant Space “Fili and Kili’s Trading Post and Inn”
Would you like to end your move on the merchant Space?
Yes/No
Must be from the changes that happened after turn 10. Well, I do need to talk to Kili about skill synergies, and I definitely have a whole bunch of stuff to sell.
As soon as Will thought about accepting the offer, the message vanished and the now familiar sensation of moving to a new Space enveloped him.
When it was over, Will found himself at the entrance to Fili’s part of the establishment. The pickled Wild Sage was nowhere to be found.
Well, easy come easy go, I guess. It probably wouldn’t have been welcome here anyway.
“Will, my favourite customer in the world! Welcome!” Came Fili’s unexpectedly enthusiastic greeting.
I really doubt that I’m your favourite customer, Fili. Between the different instances of your shop, there have to be thousands of people shopping here.
“Ah, but they aren’t in this world, now, are they? There’s only two of you here, and the other guy is a serious grump. Therefore, you are my favourite customer in the world!”
OK, yeah. I’ve met the guy, and I’ll definitely grant you that.
“So how can I help you today?”
I’ve got some stuff to sell, some questions to ask, and then probably some stuff to buy.
“Wonderful! Let’s start with selling. What do you have for me?”
Will started by spilling his monster drops, and Fili looked them over with a discerning eye.
“OK. I’ll give you five copper bits per Slime Core and Living Cloud, and ten pieces per pile of Wild Sage Leaves, and the average quality Cloud Corn ears. I’m not buying the terrible one. How did you even get that thing? Did you just rip it from the stalk with your hands instead of harvesting?”
Um… Yeah, I kind of did…
“Pity. Can’t do anything with a terrible quality drop, really. My brother might put it in a soup for you, but that’s about it.”
Thanks. What about the Sage Oil?
“Fifty bits per bottle.”
Fifty? That’s quite a bit higher than I’d expected.
“They’re useable as they are, and can be used in some high-end items, so the price is higher than most drops.”
Makes sense, I guess. Not sure I want to actually sell them though. I’m sure I’ll be back to that Space at some point, and I’ll want the protection.
“Up to you, of course, but I’d suggest getting a more permanent protection. You can’t trust on getting any more of them whenever you need them.”
That’s actually one of the things I wanted to ask you about. I’ve seen a Space that was far too hot for me too, and I need some way to deal with that.
“Well, there are four basic ways to deal with environmental hazards like that. You can use consumables, like your Wild Sage Oil. You can get more reliable ones from an alchemist, but they’ll cost you, and they’ll work for a limited duration.”
Yeah, that’s going to the last place on my list of options, I think. Especially if they all smell like this one.
“Alchemicals almost always smell even worse. Anyway, your second option is gear. You can either get something that is inherently enchanted to protect from heat or cold, or you can use Heat or Cold aspects with whatever armor you already have.”
And you don’t sell either, so it will require a trip to an armorer or enchanter, I suppose.
“I’m afraid so. Your third method is probably the most effective, but also the costliest, and not purely in money.”
What do you mean?
“You can get a Heat or Cold aspect, and use it on any defensively oriented skill. Problem is, unless it’s one of a few very specific options, you’ll need to level up the aspect before it will offer any protection.”
Like the Stone aspect I’ve got on my armor skill.
“Yeah, that’s a good example. Heat or Cold would have given you the relevant protection, but only on level two. If you had the Resistance skill, on the other hand, you’ll get the elemental protection from level one, and potentially stronger than with the armor skill.”
But that also requires a trip to the enchanter to get the aspects. And a skill slot for Resistance, if I go with that.
“I’m afraid so. Which is why I said that option was costly.”
Put that on the back burner for now, which means I’m keeping the oil.
“Your choice, of course. That makes it a total of three hundred and eighty copper bits.”
Next question, which I need an answer to before I decide on what I want to buy. I got a Syphon skill shard earlier, but it didn’t merge with Hunter-Gatherer. Which both costs me a skill slot and gets me poor quality drops instead of average. Could you explain how skill merging work, precisely?
“I figured you got syphon from what you’ve sold me. So. Short answer is that you’re lacking the Miner skill shard. You get that, and all three will merge into Harvester, which will also boost you to good quality drops.”
And I suppose you have that one for sale, too?
“Naturally. It’s a fairly common skill.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
But that only solves this particular problem. Can you tell me the long answer?
“Every skill set has one, or more, synergy paths. Skills will merge along those paths, but only those paths. For Harvester, the path is Hunter and Gatherer to Hunter-Gatherer, Syphon and Miner to Extractor, and then Hunter-Gatherer and Extractor to Harvester. You can’t merge Hunter with Miner, or any other possible combination.
“For Resource, which you’ve started buying last time you were here, there are two different paths. You can merge by type, which takes Mana Pool I, Stamina Pool I, and Health Pool I, and merge them into Resource Pool I. Do the same for the type II skills, and then merge both Resource Pool skills to simply get Resource Pool.
“Or, you could merge by resource, so that Mana Pool I and Mana Pool II merge into Mana Pool, and the same for health and stamina. Then all three will merge to get the same Resource Pool as the other path.”
That sounds complicated.
“It is definitely that. No way around it.”
I don’t think I can do anything with the resource pools right now, but I’ll probably take Miner to at least free up one more slot.
“That’ll be two hundred copper bits.”
Of course. But I had another question first. I use an aspect on my Mana Bolt, and it changed into Shock Bolt. Which is useful, but I’ve been meeting too many monsters that seem to be resistant or immune to it. Any way to get around that?
“Well, you could get another magic damage skill.”
Won’t that merge with Mana Bolt though?
“Not necessarily. If it’s a Mage skill, probably. But that means it can hold two different basic aspects, or a single advanced aspect.”
Advanced aspect?
“Two merged basic aspects. Has the properties of both, so it can bypass most resistances.”
Sounds good, but I’ll need another aspect for it.
“Yeah. And it has to be compatible with Electrical. On the other hand, if it’s a different type it’ll remain separate. Which means that you can either leave it as pure mana or aspect it to a different element.”
But take another skill slot.
“Yeah. It’s generally better to go with the merged skill and an advanced aspect.”
Makes sense. Do you have anything that can merge with it that I can buy?
“Naturally! I’ve got Mana Burst or Mana Stream. Both would work for you.”
What’s the difference?
“Burst has a really short range, but hits everything around you. Stream has medium range, and deals more damage than Bolt or Burst, but also costs more mana to use.”
Mana is a problem for me. I guess Burst it is.
“That, too, will be two hundred copper bits.”
Which leaves me with two hundred fifty, which I’ll want to use to buy an aspect to merge with Electrical.
“That’s probably not going to be enough. You’ll need around twice that for a single aspect.”
Damn. That’s not enough, even if I sell you the Sage Oil. Wait. I have some skill shards I’m not using.
Will pulled his unused skill shards from his inventory, placing them on the counter next to Fili. The dwarf took one look at the skills and shoved Pickle Dead back at Will.
“Get that damn thing out of my sight! I don’t deal in Acetomancy!”
The dwarf wouldn’t say a single word after that until Will took the skill shard into his inventory.
“The only reason I’m not kicking you out of my store is that you’ve been a good customer so far. And that you’re probably too new to know better. But you won’t get another chance.”
O…K… A somewhat terrified Will mumbled.
“I’ll give you a hundred copper bits each for the others. I’m kind of surprised you haven’t used the Claw Proficiency yet though.”
I was running out of slots, and didn’t know what I’ll need to free them up.
“How many are you at now?”
Eight. Though Miner will free one up for me.
“You work fast. How many different types do you have there?”
Let me see. Six? Yeah, six.
“That’s not too bad. You’ll need one more slot for the resource pool skills before you can start reducing them, and you’ll want to leave one slot free, otherwise you can’t get new skills, which means you can’t merge. But you can probably afford one more type.”
Thanks. I guess I’ll keep Claw Proficiency then. Selling the other two will bring me up to four hundred fifty, and if I sell one of the Wild Sage Oil bottles, I’m up to five hundred.
“Fantastic! Let me get your new shards out.”
Fili picked up the two skill shards Will was selling and put them in one of the glass display cases, then took two different shards and brought them to Will.
“Here you go.”
Will picked up and used the Miner skill shard first.
Skill shard: Miner
Tier: Basic
Type: Harvesting
Cost: 10 stamina
Duration: 10 minutes
Identify and extract useable minerals from the ground
Diggy that hole, brother!
As soon as Will used the shard, he sighed in relief when he saw the skill merging message.
Skill set discovered!
Your new Miner skill is part of the same set as your existing Syphon skill.
The skill shards have been merged to form the Extractor skill.
Before Will could even try and examine the new skill, the message popped up again.
Skill set discovered!
Your new Extractor skill is part of the same set as your existing Hunter-Gatherer skill.
The skill shards have been merged to form the Harvester skill.
This time, he had no trouble identifying the new skill.
Skill shard: Harvester
Tier: Expert
Type: Harvesting
Cost: 10 stamina
Duration: 10 minutes
Level 1
XP 0/400
Extract all of the useable parts of one dead enemy.
Identify and extract the useable parts of one non-monster plant.
Identify and extract useable minerals from the ground.
You’re a one manwombat locust swarm!
Next, Will took the Mana Burst skill shard.
Mana Burst
Tier: Basic
Type: Mage
Cost: 10 mana
Releases a burst of mana in a half meter radius around you, dealing lesser magic damage to everything caught in the blast.
Finesse? We don’t need no stinking finesse!
Which merged with Shock Bolt to produce a very nice result, in Will’s opinion.
Skill shard: Shock (Mana) Ball
Tier: Advanced
Type: Mage
Cost: 10 mana
Level 1
XP 100/200
Fires a bolt of pure mana for up to fifty meters distance, dealing lesser magic damage
Or
Releases a burst of mana in a half meter radius around you, dealing lesser magic damage to everything caught in the blast.
Or
Fires a ball of pure mana for up to fifty meters distance. When the bolt hits something or reaches the maximum distance, it explodes into a ball with a radius of half a meter, dealing lesser magic damage to anything caught in the blast.
Pew! Pew! Pew! BOOM!
Aspect: Electrical
Tier: Basic
Level 2
XP 0/100
Change skill to Shock Ball, dealing lightning magical damage.
Bolt, Blast or Ball damage is raised by one category
Bolts have a 20% chance to stun target for 1 second
…Even if it did level down in the process. Last, but not least, Will used his Claw Proficiency shard.
Thanks for the advice, Fili.
“My pleasure, and thank YOU for your business, Will!”
Finished with the store, Will moved over to the inn part of the establishment, already thinking about dinner and a nice sleeping tunnel.
Only to stop and stare at the bloody and filthy kangaroo standing next to Kili’s bar.