Well, I was right about one thing — my hammer did in fact level up. All the way to F - 9. I was wrong, however, about expecting a corresponding levelup from my Blessing. The worst part was how close I was to E - 5. Sure, the extra Essence was always nice, but it was the ability I’d gain I was most excited about.
For my F - 5 upgrade, I’d obtained the ability to Initialize armor in addition to weapons, so it felt like the upgrade was related to the one I got upon ranking up. Which was my inventory.
What that meant was obvious—more space. And boy could I use more space. Between the full plate armor I now had, the extra sword, and my old cuirass, I had a lot to store. Right now, the 4 ft x 1 ft x 1 ft space was just too small to accommodate any of my armor pieces other than my gauntlets. Even my helm didn’t really fit unless I removed some weapons.
That problem was only going to get worse. That wasn’t a ‘it’ll get worse eventually’ sort of thing—it was getting worse, today.
Because finally, after Baron Sinclair’s raids on the local gangs, he’d finally caught all the culprits involved in Dominion’s blasphemy.
In fact, they’d already been executed. Publicly. Aerion wanted to go, but I declined. Watching people die just felt wrong. What they did probably warranted it, but still… I didn’t see a need to make it a spectacle.
Which all meant that today was the day Aerion and I got to peruse Sinclair’s armory and walk out with a couple of kickass weapons.
That was the hope, at least. As the royal attendant looked us over and asked us a series of boilerplate questions—please write down your names on this roster. Are you carrying any weapons on you? Oh, you are? Please disarm before entering the armory—that sort of thing.
“Pretty ridiculous to have us go in unarmed,” I said the moment the attendant stepped away, leaving us alone in our waiting room. “Considering we’re quite literally entering a room filled with weapons.”
Aerion frowned. “I believe it might be more to do with theft.”
“As in it’ll be harder to know what’s theirs and what’s ours if we go in with weapons?” I said. Aerion nodded. “Guess that’s a fair point.”
If only they knew I had a storage space I could chuck weapons into without anyone being the wiser. Well, assuming we weren’t caught. I was sure we’d have guards with us the whole time to make sure we didn’t try and steal anything.
Not that I would, anyway. Biting the hand that feeds you sounded like a great way to get yourself lynched. Or excommunicated, which in this case, would undo everything we’d striven for.
Rather, what weighed on me more was whether I’d have enough spare Essence to Initialize the weapon I’d get today. For my strategy to work, I had to initialize it there and then, which was why I’d held off on Initializing any more of my new armor.
That hadn’t been enough, on its own, so Aerion and I had gone on a destroying spree. Without a levelup to let me uninitialize gear, we’d had to do things the old-fashioned way.
The first victims were Aerion’s old iron dagger, her Elven Commoner Robe, and the pet rock she still carried around.
For whatever reason, she seemed more peeved about the rock than the dagger or the robe. She’d agreed quite readily to cut it down, to my great surprise. Apparently such robes were easy to get a hold of, and her truly valuable heirloom robe was hidden somewhere safe within Order’s territory.
The waterskin had been the next to go—the next time we delved, we’d have proper waterskins that didn’t rip whenever anyone sneezed.
I also trashed my old socks and sneakers. Both were in pretty bad shape—especially the sneakers. The patch job on that looked godawful, and now that I had boots, I wasn’t wearing them. Between them, 9 Essence was a lot to pay for a measly 4 points of Vigor and 4 points of Grace. Even destroying these, my max Vigor was at 48, while my current value sat at 31. Grace dropped to 10, but if my plan worked out, I’d be gaining dozens of points to that ability soon.
Finally, I bought a blacksmith hammer identical to the one I’d Initialized, so Rogar wouldn’t notice, and melted that one down. I planned to Initialize the new one after my shopping spree here, and hand that off to Rogar. With luck, its level would increase even while I was away.
All in all, my Essence now sat at 162/210, leaving 48 points to initialize. I hoped it would be enough.
The attendant’s arrival pulled me out of my thoughts. He was flanked by no less than four royal guards in full plate. Their armor looked almost identical to the City Guard plate I wore, but theirs had gold accents all over, along with Baron Sinclair’s family sigil.
“This way, please. No sudden movements. Your time will be limited to a half hour. Should you need to inspect any piece of gear, please ask me, and I will have the guards fetch it for you. Some of these pieces are priceless heirlooms, and while the Baron has made it clear those are off-limits to you, he has given you quite a rare opportunity to take pieces we’d never ordinarily even consider giving away. I hope you understand the privilege you’ve received.”
Aerion beat me to it. A good thing, too.
“Of course, sir. We are profusely thankful for the favor the Baron has shown us, and we are glad for the opportunity to deepen our mutual respect.”
The attendant grunted, apparently impressed, and led us down the hall.
I glanced over at my elven friend. Maybe I ought to have had her specialize in Charisma instead. I could almost picture the Passion levelups she’d have had if she’d invested points into it. She really was a natural, though sadly a Passion build was totally incompatible with [Reave].
The stairs that led to the armory were guarded by another half-dozen soldiers in full plate, in an oversized room with a wall that looked like a giant garage door.
After that, it was a solid five minutes of descending a well-lit, extra-wide hall before we were in front of the doors. The hall was weird, too. Not only was it tall, it had ramps in the center and on the sides, cutting the staircase in two. Like what they did in malls with escalators, where there was one set for going up and another for going down.
“They really take this seriously, don’t they?” I muttered, hoping our guide wouldn’t hear. He heard.
“We do,” he said. “Some of the weapons and armor in here come from Cataclysms long past. As such, they are priceless artifacts. As for the rest, they represent the lifeblood of our city in times of turmoil. With the Cataclysm upon us…”
“Makes sense,” I said. I’d seen firsthand just how much effort forging something as simple as a blade was. Chain mail? Gauntlets? The amount of labor that went into stuff like that was absurd. I was pretty sure my set of armor had taken a team of smiths many months, if not longer.
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The reason for all this rigmarole became obvious the moment we stepped through the huge double doors.
I’d expected a long, narrow room filled with weapons and armor. Dense, packed, and organized.
I got that, mostly. The room had all the things I’d expect from an armory.
I just hadn’t realized just how goddamn big it’d be.
“Holy… shit,” I muttered, while Aerion gave a much more polite “Astounding.”
Our guide’s lips curved upward. “Indeed, that is the reaction most newcomers have. Not that there are many of those.”
“There have to be tens of thousands of weapons in here!” I said. The room seemed to extend forever, and it was at least three stories tall. The ground, the walls, and even some of the ceiling had gear hanging off it. Weapons of all shapes and sizes absolutely filled the place, outshined only by the racks upon racks of armor.
Also, I now knew why the hallway down here was so large, and why it had ramps. This wasn’t just an armory of small arms. It was where they stored their siege weapons as well. There were even ballistas and other siege weapons.
Sweeping my gaze over the treasures, I rubbed my palms together. “Why don’t you show us the good stuff?”
I felt like a kid in a candy store.
----------------------------------------
The ‘good stuff’, as it turned out, was in another subsection of the vast room, guarded by a handful more soldiers in royal armor. These guys were big, too. Wide like bodybuilders. I wouldn’t want to get into a fight with them unless I had Aerion’s level of Dominion with Reave.
Inside was a collection of much smaller, yet far more interesting weapons and armor. Unlike the main room, the armor here was all on stands, and each weapon sat inside a glass case.
I looked around and whistled. How much wealth was in just this room alone?
“What would you like to see first?” the man said. “Remember, your time is limited.”
“Right,” I said, appreciative of the reminder. I could spend hours in here, ogling all the gear. Judging from the stars in her eyes, so could Aerion.
“Are there any weapons here with magical properties?” she asked.
“Afraid not,” the man said, shaking his head. “Those would be priceless heirlooms. What you’ll find here, however, is the very best non-magical weaponry in all the land, save perhaps for the capital.”
That didn’t worry me overly much. “Swords, then,” I said. “The exact details don’t matter too much, so long as it’s a sword. Longsword length. One-handed, ideally. Let’s start with the best and go from there.”
“As you wish,” the attendant said, nodding to one of our guards, who opened a nearby glass case and brought me a sword.
It was gorgeous. Even its scabbard was a work of art, with complex engravings, that all had gold inlays and precious gems.
I carefully took the weapon and drew it. The blade was polished so perfectly, it made a perfect mirror. “It’s beautiful…” I said, taking a few practice swings. While I wasn’t nearly an expert yet, or anything even close to it, the blade felt good in my hand. The jewels encrusted in its hilt were actually a bit of a turnoff for a functional weapon, but what mattered more was its rarity.
“C’mon…”
Initialize [Blade of Sun’s Edge]? 1% chance to successfully Initialize [Epic] weapon. Essence Cost: 324. Current Utilization: 162/210
I balked. Not only was its cost larger than my total Essence pool, its 1% chance was just atrocious.
“Not this one,” I said, sadly putting the sword back in its sheath.
My strategy, of course, involved abusing my Blessing’s ability to enchant things. All it cost me for a failed initialization—assuming I had the Essence to spare—was a splitting headache.
I could deal with a few headaches, but attempting to Initialize a hundred or more weapons? I didn’t even know if I’d survive that, even if we had the time. We didn’t. Back in the Trial, it took me minutes to recover from each failure.
“Let’s go more basic,” I said, earning me a raised eyebrow from our attendant. “Truly? Baron Sinclair has authorized you to take weapons of this caliber. Why settle for less?”
“I… Have my reasons,” I said, looking at Aerion, who nodded. As tempting as it was to take a fancy sword and hoard it for later when my Initialization probability was 99%, that would mean keeping around a weapon that wouldn’t help me for potentially a long, long time.
Considering where we were headed next, I needed something useful right now. That meant Initializing it now. Which meant it had to be [Rare] or lower, and I had to be able to afford it with the 48 free points I had.
The next weapon the guard handed over was much less frilly, though its curved scabbard also had gold inlays. I could see this beautiful longsword actually being functional, though of course, all of that was secondary to its rarity.
The blade, of course, bore the same shape as its scabbard, making it closer to a scimitar, but without quite as much curve as those blades.
Initialize [Netherbane]? 33% chance to successfully Initialize [Rare] weapon. Essence Cost: 43. Current Utilization: 162/210.
43 points. While I could afford it, it’d leave me with very little buffer. That said, I fully intended to level up Initializer before delving the Cataclysm dungeon, so I wasn’t too worried. The weapon again felt right in my hands and was easily long enough.
Initialize.
I’d come up with a way to mask the telltale glow of my ability. It was pretty simple, actually. If I just swung the thing really fast while I initialized it, nobody would be able to see the glow. It was Aerion who’d suggested it, after I’d proposed a much more involved plan involving her distracting our guards.
The headache hit me almost before I’d thought of the word.
Error: Initialization failed.
“Not this one,” I said through gritted teeth. The recoil was as bad as I’d remembered. I tried my best not to show any signs of discomfort. The last thing I needed was for them to cut my session short due to medical reasons.
I made a show of perusing the swords for a minute before continuing. This time, I selected the blade. Maybe it was the beautiful aquamarine-colored scabbard, but the blade just caught my eye. It was thinner and slightly longer than the last one, and perfectly straight. A true longsword.
The guard handed it over, and my breath nearly caught the moment I opened it up. The blade was… jagged. Not serrated like a kitchen knife—there was a pattern in the blade. Like the wavy lines katanas had.
“This is pattern-welded steel,” our attendant said, seeing both Aerion and me staring at the blade. “It uses two different steels, folded over repeatedly. This evens out any imperfections in the ores, though of course, only the finest ores were used in the creation of this weapon.”
“It’s gorgeous,” I said. I’d heard of the process—I knew Japanese swords used that method.
Initialize [Faecor]? 33% chance to successfully Initialize [Rare] weapon. Essence Cost: 47. Current Utilization: 162/210.
Without hesitation, I committed.
I was so sure. So sure it’d work this time.
Error: Initialization failed.
Goddammit!
I really wanted this one. And now, because of the way my power worked, I could never Initialize it again.
I paced around to hide my disappointment and my rage… And came to a stop in front of an utterly enormous weapon.
It was a greatsword, easily double the length of the Arming Sword I’d used in the Trial.
“What’s this one?” I asked.
Unlike the other blades, its blade had a silvery hue to it.
Aerion drew in a sharp breath, and it was she who answered. “Mythril!?” she asked.
“Merely a mythril coating, I’m afraid,” our guide said, approaching the blade. “For cosmetics, mostly. Though the steel underneath is of high grade, else it would not be in here.”
“I’d like to try it,” I said, thinking of the man’s words earlier.
I hefted the weapon, and sure enough, its point of balance was very different. It didn’t feel nearly as heavy as I thought it would—it actually felt rather light, mostly thanks to the huge pommel.
It was far too large for me, but that didn’t really matter. If what I had planned was going to work, I’d need a lot of material to work with. A lot. That this blade had two metals, even if one was just cosmetic, was icing on the cake. It cost less Essence than the last one, too.
Initialize [Light of the Fearless]? 33% chance to successfully Initialize [Rare] weapon. Essence Cost: 42. Current Utilization: 162/210
Cosmo, if this doesn’t work, I’m gonna slap you. Initialize.
The headache… Never came. Instead, a dialog box popped up, showing me its ability.
Despite myself, a grin spread on my face from ear to ear.
Well, my new friend. We're gonna kick some serious fucking ass together. But first, I gotta modify you just a bit...