(Y6, July 14th)

After yesterday’s massive boss battle, Vantegaard had decided to spend a day on town organization. If they kept getting two people a day on average, preparing for the influx of people was critical.

If they managed to finish clearing the wall bits and have a real door, then maybe the tower would work as a kind of city hall. Right now, Vantegaard was tempted to bring all the chests and stuff from upstairs into his home, to avoid a newbie sneaking in and stealing everything.

Quandocor had decided to go for the day with Basmark and Amanda. The group wanted to see what they could hunt around, and, as Quandocor said:

“It’s good to know about our new citizens. Don’t worry about me.”

Birkathane had decided to stay around this time. But she warned that there would be no wall removal on her part.

“You’re the earth guy, with the stones and all. I’m the druid. No planting, no druiding.”

They spent the morning investigating every unclaimed house in Fanduk. To Vantegaard’s surprise, almost every home had its coin stash. In the case of one, there were even three stashes in totally different places.

They made a map of the homes, adding the location of all the current citizens. That’s how they learned that their latest newcomer’s name was Isitheti. Unlike most of the newcomers, he’d picked an inner ring home, nearly opposite the tower’s entrance.

The town’s map ended with 6 rings. The sixth was almost all larger buildings, more like business structures than homes. But outside of that, there seemed no relationship between house size and ring position. And none between house size, ring, and coin stash.

For once, Dadanlong wasn’t there. But he had pinned a paper marked “Closed!” on the building he’d claimed was the town’s inn. Presumably, he was out doing some exploration or adventuring instead of overly complicated plans for the town’s expansion.

They made lunch at Birkathane’s rather than Vantegaard’s house. Her chosen abode was slightly smaller, but with a semi-sunken area. This time, she insisted on making lunch. The orange smoked fish and greens were odd for Vantegaard’s American tastes, but he had to admit it worked.

Birkathane whipped out a small bottle. It was a bit smoky, but it had a liquid in it.

“Behold! My very first brew!”

“You made a potion?”

“It’s more like a fruit juice rather than a potion. I used some of the wild fruit from the town’s orchard.”

     Bitter Juiced Stamina (lvl 3), beginner potion.

“What does it do?”

“Well, it gives you 0.1 stamina/s for something like 2mn.”

“It’s a beginning.”

“But at least, I have 3% on my skill. It’s officially no longer useless.”

Then, they were back at the mayor’s house, where Vantegaard started to sort the things they’d brought down from the tower the days before.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“The keys.”

“The flat things, without key indents? Yea, they’re weird, but until we know what they open, we’re stuck.”

“No, the difference was… since I got Aetheric Sense, I can find the level of magical properties an item has.”

“And they’re magical?”

“No. Only one of the seven is.”

“Hmmm…”

“Yes. Either the other six had their magic evaporate over time, or there’s something special about that one.”

Vantegaard stood up.

“Let’s try the door.”

“We did try. None of the keys worked. Including whichever you say is magic.”

“Then let’s see if there’s something else on the door.”

There was indeed something else on the door, according to Aetheric Sense. The keyhole was completely normal, but there was a spot on the door itself, at eye level and next to the hinges. That was the only spot on the door, and it had 30 Aether, like the key. If that was the level of the door, like for items… then no wonder his Door Knocker skill wouldn’t work. Even with the +1 skill from the ring, it was only 15 and you couldn’t use it to open magical doors above 15.

“So, do you need a special twist to open it?” asked Birkathane.

“I’m going to try something else.”

Rather than use the lock, Vantegaard placed the key on the magical spot on the door. His intuition proved correct when he heard a simple click sound and the door opened slightly. He pushed and saw another room, with a stair at the end.

“Jackpot.”

“How did you know how to use the key… oh, magic sense? The door looks different to you?”

“Not different, but there was an obvious spot with magic on it. So, magic key, magic sensor. And it worked.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Quan is going to be jealous we opened it without him.”

“He’ll get over it. Depending on what we find upstairs.”

The next three levels of the tower were all of the same floor plan, a division in four corners of the tower, with stairs going up in one room, and the stairs down in another. None of the rooms had doors, locked or not, just vaulted openings.

The first level was tables, chairs and… drinking flagons. At least that’s what they looked like. They were completely dry, with no sign of whatever had been inside.

The second level was a jackpot. At least for Birkathane.

“Ohhhhh yessss.”

It looked like a lab. Bottles, glasses, glass holders. Something that Vantegaard identified as an alembic over a small firepit. Ceramic jars with unidentifiable symbols engraved. A large through with a set of small buckets. A perfect little chemists’ haunt.

Vantegaard’s attempt at opening one of the jars was met with a slap on the hand.

“Don’t touch. Specialists only!”

He laughed.

“I know. I can order that stuff on Amazon next time I’m on Earth. But this is supposed to work better. I doubt I’d have made that potion with imported bottles.”

She sobered.

“Ok, I’m mostly missing a manual now. I mean, ok, I’m supposed to be able to brew potions. But that is not the same as knowing how to effectively brew potions.”

The third level was another storage area. Shelves with small boxes arrayed on them. However, almost all the boxes were empty. But it was magical jewelry time. They spent an hour opening each box to check, collecting the items.

Vantegaard ended up using a box for identifiable items, one for those with 19 Aether, presumably level 19, one for when the 20 ones, one for 21, and on for “above”.

He picked another ring and one clasp for himself.

     Incised Copper Ring (lvl 15). Requires 20 Reflexes. +1 Strength.

     Bronze Double Clasp (lvl 18). Requires 23 Resilience. +11 health/day.

Birkathane picked a Reflexes and a max Lifeforce ring, along with a lvl 16 +2 Presence necklace of “extreme quality”.

“Do we share the bounty with the town?”

“Nope. It’s ok for the weapons since everyone knows about them already. I think we’ll use it as a treasury for services rendered to the town later. Or sell those to get the economy running.”

“Quan will hate us.”

“Bah, we’ll save some for him.”

The two froze upon entering the next floor.

The entire floor had no windows at all but was lighted from inside. There were glass globes with light inside, looking almost like soft electric lights.

The thing inside was extremely intimidating.

It was a suit of plate armor. But there was a fist-sized interval between each piece of armor, and you could see what looked like hundreds of twisted metallic wires filling the inside of the suit.

Aetheric Sense told Vantegaard that this construct was over 130 Aether. Impossible to guess how much. Or any rank information.

The suit was standing completely immobile to the side of the room. About 10s after they entered the floor, it began moving, walking slowly and deliberately toward the end of the room, where it turned, facing back the center.

They both kept very silent, trying to avoid anything that an animated suit of armor might consider threatening.

After close to one minute, the suit started again, moving to the left side of the room, then faced the center.

The next cycle had the suit stop less than a meter from Vantegaard. He eyed it warily, but the suit ignored him completely. After a minute, it moved back to the position it had originally.

“I think it’s not paying attention” whispered Birkathane.

“Looks like.”

“Any information from the expert?”

“Not particularly. It looks like it’s a magical construct. These things are relatively rare, mostly unique, and all at rank 50+.”

The center of the room held another lighted orb on a small thin metal bar. Vantegaard started toward it, but stopped and precipitously retreated upon hearing Birkathane’s shout.

“Ok, it didn’t like me getting a look.”

“It stopped as soon as you did.”

“Thankfully. We had problems with a 30 magical spirit, this thing would probably still wipe the floor with us next year.”

“Is the town under threat?” gasped Birkathane.

Vantegaard hesitated.

“I don’t think. I mean, it’s probably guarding… whatever is that globe. But if we don’t do anything else, it doesn’t seem to be attacking.”

“Could it?”

“I’m no specialist in constructs.”

“You’re not helping.”

Vantegaard pointed upward instead.

“I hope it doesn’t have a problem with us climbing further.”

The construct did not react as they climbed further. The upper floor had an iron door, which Vantegaard was readying to kick when Birkathane looked, and simply pushed open.

“What?”

“It didn’t have a lock. So I guessed it wasn’t even locked at all. And I was right.”

The floor was also a single room, also without windows, and also with globe lamps. The stairs kept on climbing after a door, but the room had five stone pedestals with an iron box on each.

Vantegaard opened one of the boxes and stared in shock.

“What’s inside?”

He moved aside to let her look.

The box had half a dozen hand-sized marble slabs, with rounded borders. There were metallic stripes across the slabs as if the stone had been engraved with steel melt.

“What’s that?”

Vantegaard looked at her incredulously, before realizing she might not be aware of every detail of the Northworld.

“Those are Skill Stones.”

Birkathane’s eye whipped back to the box’s insides.

“Skill Stones? You’re sure? Real ones?”

Vantegaard reached inside and put his palm on the first stone. He removed his hand almost reflexively.

“Real ones. Check yourself.”

Extended Bestiary

Tier 5 Perception. Your knowledge of your enemies is extensive.

Cost: 0

Acquire skill

“Wow. It costs… 0?”

“That’s Skill Stones for you. You can learn a skill at no cost, but it increases the cost of the next skill as if you picked it from the lottery at the Interface. They’re worth a lot, usually. If you ever wondered what an electrum or gold piece-of-8 is used for, well, you’re seeing a bunch of those pieces now. Depending on which skill they are.”

“And you can get any skill from them?”

“If you find a stone for it, yes. There have been Skill Stones for nearly every type of skill. They’re relatively rare, maybe slightly more common than a Silvergate.”

“You said once every three months?”

“For a Silvergate, yes. I have no idea how common is a Skill Stone drop. But a Silvergate is usually free or cheap since you can’t use more than one. A stone… you either use it or sell it to finance a purchase of another, more suitable.”

Vantegaard closed the box, and moved to the next box, opening it. More Skill Stones. He then checked the rest of the boxes.

“Something like fifty Stones in total. And sorted. Each of those boxes had a specific tier inside. That’s not a few pieces of electrum, that’s a minor fortune.”

“Do we tell… Quan?”

Vantegaard hesitated.

“I don’t know. The guy’s nice. We work well together. Necromancer is iffy but backed by meditation, it’s the bomb. I think… that depends on what we use them for. If we use them, I’d say we share. But if it’s for sale… I’d like to be rich.”

Birkathane dropped her backpack.

“Ok, let’s bring them down. Unless you can relock the magic door?”

“I hate having those kinds of riches. Ok, we’re not a big town yet, but I have no idea if any of the others would be tempted.”

“We’ll see.”

The upper door opened… on the top of the tower. Vantegaard looked over the parapet.

“I see why you liked the view.”

“It’s nice. Very nice. Very, very much niceness all over.”

“So, that’s it?” she added.

“Looks like. End of tower.”

“It’s not even a dungeon.”

“It should have been. I mean, the last room… that’s the kind of stuff you don’t even find in ultra-hardcore zones. A Skill Stone, no problem. Two dozen? Three dozen? Sorted in chests? The only place you find that is in heavily guarded marketplaces’ vaults,” said Vantegaard.

“So the construct should be the boss?”

“Probably. But the whole thing is defective?”

“Is that why the tower was sealed? Because it was broken, and whoever made them didn’t have time to fix it before they had to leave?”

“You know, Birka, maybe you’re right. Maybe we just had a peek into how and why Northworld works.”