The Vandenilis Fabrication Team was decently sized, a collection of fifteen men and women with varying amounts of experience with different crafting disciplines. Few were more than hobbyists before, and any professionals wouldn’t necessarily be able to rely on modern tools and techniques to get the Skills. The Vanguard would eventually try to secure reliable power, but they needed to know how to work without.

There were also a few, like Kevin, hoping to pick up Skills they didn’t already know how to approach. Kevin was a bit different, because he was hoping to leech off of others for research, and not to help the Vanguard. The city was trying to secure certain Skills– and good ol’ time-honored skills– and some of the crafters would need to figure out how to do their chosen work from scratch.

Frank, of course, already had his Skill.

But I really could do with some practice on my skill using the dang thing.

There wasn’t much work that they could do together at the moment. [Enchanting] set him up to be involved at the end of the creation process, adding a little something extra to a finished product. None of the Fabrication Team had any finished products at the moment. They would mostly be working on getting Skills and setting up their stations today.

After introductions were made, he followed everyone out of the office and back onto the warehouse floor. There was still some work being done to clear some items out, but there were also areas being set up with tables, shelves and tools for various crafts. It was the start of the stations the Fabrication Team would work at.

They deposited individuals at stations as they walked, leaving them with guides that they would read and not consume for Skills, and Kevin leaned over to whisper conspiratorially to Frank.

“So, the others were talking yesterday, and we think we’re going to be joining the Volunteers soon. It’d be a nice way to work on our Skills and actually do something. If you're interested in that kind of thing, we’d all be happy to have you in our group.”

Frank glanced at him out of the side of his eye. “You’d be happy to have the only person with [Enchanting] in the city? You don’t say,” he said, chuckling.

Kevin rolled his eyes. “I mean, yeah! More importantly, though, you are also from the west side of the city. We plan on going back there.” He looked Frank in the eyes, with a more serious expression than he’d seen the teen with before. “Fight a few monsters. Find our homes. Maybe reclaim some space. That kind of thing.”

A little taken aback by the sudden loss of levity, Frank nodded. “And the monsters… How common are they?” He’d had a hard fight against a single Aether-warped deer, and he’d heard some stories about the ‘monsters’ roaming the other end of Vandenilis. I can’t imagine fighting something like that right now.

“They were here and there. I imagine they’re probably more common now, but we wouldn’t start there.” He shuddered. “That would be suicidal.”

Frank nodded, considering. With his [Hunter’s Knowledge] Skill, he would get more out of [Enchanting] by using materials from creatures he’d brought down himself. At the same time, he could get stronger and possibly retake his apartment. Not a lot of negatives, all things considered.

“Sure. I think I’d like that.”

Kevin grinned and smacked him on the shoulder. “Hell yeah you would! Great! I’ll let the others know, and we can get together and talk about it at some point.”

With that decided, he peeled off the dwindling group and joined a few others at a crafting station. From the glance Frank gave it, it looked to be set up for leatherworking.

Anthony cleared his throat, and pointed ahead. “This is the station you’ll be using for now, Frank. We’ve gathered some of the… material components that your Skill needs, but we’re interested in seeing how well it works with different sources. It’s in limited supply.”

Before them was a table set up with several different brushes, a few bins of what looked like riot gear… and bags of blood, like the kind you’d see in a hospital.

“Oh! Huh. I think I thought I was going to use my own blood, but this… makes more sense.” He glanced at the different bags on the table, sifting through them. “And by ‘different sources’ you mean…?”

The grizzled old council member reached under the table, pulling out a jerry can sloshing with liquid. It thunked solidly as he set it on the table. “Animal blood. We’ve had some folks pulling in any bodies from the attacks we’ve had. At first they were just taking the meat and hides,” he said, gesturing over at the leather station, “but knowing there are Skills that can use blood, we’ve been gathering some of that too.”

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Frank stepped around the table, familiarizing himself with everything at it. “So, I’m just going to be enhancing some riot gear today?”

Anthony nodded. “Yeah. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

The older man sighed. “Well, you’re the only enchanter we have right now, and you’re not signed up for the Vanguard. You’re just here on volunteer duty. Knowing now how we can get more enchanters, I’d say the most valuable thing we can have you do is just… Experiment. Figure out what we can use, and what we need so we can start up new enchanters faster.”

Frank held what he suspected was a bulletproof vest in his hands, turning it around. “You want me to just… Mess around with the riot gear? That people are going to wear?”

Anthony gave him a flat stare in return. “Experimenting and messing around are not the same. Find out how the Skill works; if some approaches are more effective than others, variations you can do, that kind of thing.”

He nodded, mind already beginning to race at possible options. “Okay, sure. I can do that.”

Anthony gave him a slow nod and turned away, grumbling under his breath. “Now, where can I find some books on coding?”

As guilty as it made him feel to use other people’s blood for enchanting, he was glad they’d provided the few bags they had. With the variety of tests he did, he ended up running through the animal blood pretty quick, and there were some tests he had to do in both types of blood, so he ended up going through it all faster than he’d expected.

For the most part, he stuck to testing positive words for enchanting– things like ‘strong’ or ‘durable’, as opposed to ‘weak’ or ‘fragile’. He did test out ‘brittle’, on a baton, just to see if negative enchantments were a thing. The rubber baton shattering like glass in his hand was a good confirmation of that.

He couldn’t really see a use for that other than weakening an enemy, but it was hardly a convenient way to do so. In the time it would take to write even just one word on a foe or their equipment, they could easily strike.

Unless there’s some Skill that allows for instant writing, that’s out.

Writing longer enchantments, using multiple words, was also out. For now, at least.

When he’d attempted it, the words had started pulling more of the blood, out of the brush and even agitating what was in the bags, as if it wanted to crawl out and join the words. Then, suddenly, they dissipated into a maroon mist, leaving no traces.

There was some feedback from the Skill when he made the attempts, like there was a slight, somehow ineffable barrier stopping it from working. He’d glanced through his System menus, trying to figure out what he could about the Skill that might be causing it.

Likely I just need to get Aether and… divert it into the Skill, somehow. Like a level-up of sorts.

He noted that thought down, and moved on.

It was hard to figure out what difference, if any, there might be using synonyms. For some words a synonym made no difference, and for others there were subtle changes. ‘Rigid’ and ‘stiff’, for example, could be understood to have the same meaning, but they produced slightly different results. A ‘stiff’ vest became less pliable, and a bit tougher. A ‘rigid’ vest would become completely unmoving.

He glanced at the two, trying to spot the difference. Denotation versus connotation, perhaps? Both mean the same thing, but to different degrees?

He sloshed the last little bit of blood in a bag he had left. I wonder if ‘rigid’ used more blood? I don’t have a great way to measure that right now.

Shrugging, he noted it down. Someone else could follow up. For now, he had one last test. So far, he’d been conveying intent through words, but [Enchanting] didn’t specify that he needed words.

He dipped his brush in the last of the bag, and drew a line around a baton, separating the last few inches of it from the rest. Then, in those last few inches he wrote ‘electric’ on the side.

The blood squirmed, shimmering in the same way that it did when he tried to write two words. It pulled the last of the blood from his brush, the last of what he’d been given… and then stabilized.

The hairs on his arm began to stand on end, and he could feel that the end of the baton was charged. Giddily, he went to touch it to a metal beam.

There was a resounding crack! as the charge from the baton jumped a several inch gap to the beam, and the blood he wrote the enchantment with evaporated, it’s charge spent.

He turned to the rest of the warehouse, where everyone was staring at him, and called out a sheepish “Sorry!”

Then he sat back at his table, baton still clutched in his hand.

Holy shit.

I wanna do that again.

Glancing at the scorch mark on the beam, he tempered his excitement. Maybe something a little less dangerous. Do I even have any blood left?

He did a quick sweep of his station, shaking jerry cans and blood bags and finding them all empty. He stuck his hand in his backpack and froze as a sensation washed over him.

His [Hunter’s Knowledge] was pinging off of the dried deer’s blood in his bag. The Skill wanted to use it.

And who was he to say no?