Rashid looked very confused. In hindsight he thought it may be a bit soon to ask the man for things when he was still recovering but watching him rip apart the very thing they had come for was perturbing.
“Err, please?”
“I said no.”
“But the adventure society promised these adventurers the favour you owe after the work they’ve been doing.”
“Aye, I promised a custom speeder. This is a speeder.” He ripped another part of the crystal structure off and dug what looked like a cowboy spur on the end of a magic wand in the rest of the contraption. “But this is not the speeder they’re going to have.”
The adventurers all shrugged at one another and settled in to watch. There was a flurry of tools as the man worked with diligent fervour. Every motion was purposeful, he knew where every tool was without looking and applied it with confidence. There was no pause to contemplate or check a schematic, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing ripping apart the old model and building the new. Teddy had more insight to it than the others, a lot of his skill book purchases had been artifice based for a plan that he and Lucy had in mind.
The skill books had imparted the knowledge directly into his mind, it felt strange to recognise what the man was doing and recall the information that he wasn’t directly responsible for putting there. Even though the man was working at a high silver rank level Teddy could follow most of what he was doing. The fundamentals had been absorbed for as many streams of artifice as he could afford to buy skill books for. As he watched he realised with excitement that he could feel himself consolidating his understanding, he was learning as the man was working and he leant in to watch closer.
Lucy was watching with interest also, the skill books purchasing spree had been based around the fundamentals of magic theory and magically imbuing effects. The tools in the mans hands were some of the most complicated and powerful she had ever seen. She wasn’t so much interested in the thing he was making, rather in how he was altering its magical properties and the magical properties of the tools themselves. When Teddy moved closer to look at the work she realised she could help. She moved next to him and gently, slowly, she released her aura so that it encompassed him.
Clarity
Ability [Clarity] (Mind)
Aura
Base cost: None
Cool-down: Nil
Current rank: Iron 9 (30%)
Effect (iron): Improves clarity of thinking speed to self and allies within aura.
Teddy jumped a little and looked at Lucy briefly and gave her a smile in thanks before turning back to the impromptu lesson. The boost to his thinking speed and clarity of thought meant he could gain insights quicker, getting more out of the observation. Even though Teddy was getting the most out of the demonstration everyone was watching. The Craftsman manipulated the crystal this way and that and then put the final tool into his apron pocket and clapped his hands together from either side of the crystal structure, flattening it. He twirled on the chair and the others had to scoot back away from him. He raised an eyebrow at the crowding. They backed off and he threw the small crystal onto the floor.
There was a faint tinkling noise as it started to unfold like a glass origami. The blueish metallic glass was unfolding from an impossibly small space to expand into a much larger structure. It started to slow down as it reached around waist height. After it reached the size, smaller panels started folding and unfolding to provide the delicate shape. It was a strong square shaped chair, it had wide short arms that matched the backrest. It looked… simple. All the tinkering and fancy tools and the amazing Craftsman had produced something that looked very mediocre.
On reaching silver rank, essence users gained the inherent ability to levitate, it took concentration and focus, it couldn’t be relied on in battle and was more a cool trick than a useful skill. Charlie could just about make use of it now to levitate his body with his useless dangling legs from the stool at the workbench over to the squat chair. He looked relieved as he sat, shuffling back in the deep flat seat. They all felt his tightly controlled aura pulse slightly and the chair raised slightly into a smooth hover.
“Charles Xavier! With hair!” James exclaimed.
The climactic ambience was broken as everyone turned to stare at James.
“Professor Charles Xavier? From xmen? I mean the films just kept going and going, too many, but I think it was from ‘Days of Future Past’ he had the levitating chair? No one?” He looked at Teddy pleadingly.
“I mean, I see what you’re getting at, but he’s a magical mechanic not a mind reading professor? Also, is this really the time?” Teddy asked.
The others had already started looking back to the chair to investigate. It seemed once he had connected with the chair with his aura he could direct it at will. He experimentally drove it from one side of the room to the other and back to the waiting group.
“Thankee for your patience. I couldnae see straight until I’d fixed the problem of not being able to get around. Now I can move under me own power lets say hello. Meh name is… Charlie, Charles, Craftsman, whatever you would like to call meh. I’m an inventor of magical crafts n’ vehicles, I’ve been around these parts for a long time an I figure I’ve got a handle on it by now, some of meh stuff gets a bit spicy an occasionally goes a bit wrong.” He tapped his limp legs at the last bit.
He had what the team thought of as a deep West Country accent.
“I’m Theodore Mitchel, this is my wife Kyra, my brother James and his wife Lucy, we’re a new adventuring team out of the Remore academy annex. We’ve only just formed a team but making some good progress… and some waves. We kicked the hornets nest a little in Greenstone and found ourselves pointed your way.”
Charlie looked at him with interest, his wild eyebrows raised comically on his forehead. Rashid picked up the explanation.
“They did what good adventurers should do, they went out and helped people without thinking of the reward, they happened to complete some contracts above their rank and also got involved in age old politicking. The society deemed that they couldn’t be seen to reward them for their performance publicly without exacerbating the situation. Seeing as your favour is technically off the books that means nothing is missing from the coffers when people ask where they got this from.”
“Well then, seems a me that y’all got reason to have a goodie off’n me anyways for helpin meh, will seem to fit the story of helpful folk that y’all found me down here and I did a touch for yah.”
He led them to the other end away from the workbench and started putting the kettle on in the kitchenette. He gestured at the sofas and they sat around a low table.
“Y’all are brand new green adventurers, betcha y’all are hoofin it around on hydals whenever you can get them an hoofin it on foot when you cant? Mayhap we can sort you out a team vehicle, speeder ain’t gonna cut it after what you done for me. The society’s offer plus my gratitude oughta get you somethin’ pretty special.”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He pulled out a thin notebook, the pages had slices of crystal between each page. He took five of the slices and put them on the long low table in front of the team and Rashid. He tapped each one lightly and they all expanded to the size of a child’s expensive electric car that a child could sit in and drive. They were very different designs, ranging from blocky utilitarianism to fantastic swirls and decoration that looked like it belonged more as a float in a parade than a working vehicle. There was one design that captured the teams attention straight away, even without communicating internally the team knew what the others would choose, Charlie saw which one they had all started to look at closer and he slapped the others flat again and pulled on either side of the model they fancied, making it take up the whole table.
It looked like a James Bond small squat luxury yacht but with a wide flat bottom. It was a modern design by earths standards, looking like a mix of stealth and luxury in a boat. It had a high prow that curved down like the broad blade of leaf. It tapered down to the back that was open to look inside, the very back had a sharp slope tidying the back off. By its scale it looked around thirty meters long. The upper deck was mostly enclosed with a walk way all the way round, looking through the translucent crystal they could see a driving station that was open plan to a dining area with some cooking facilities at the back that had a round table and chairs around it. Stairs led down into the underneath to four empty rooms each with a small bathroom. Charlie leant forward and pushed the one piece roof forward and it shrunk to make it open top.
“This’n ain’t a vehicle but a model, we’d have to start this one from scratch n’ build it up. I’m grateful to y’all and need to pay my dues by the society but I ain’t gonna go bust over this. This’n here is the peak of what I do, one of the most defensible crafts I’ve made, fully customisable, featuring an abundance of dimensional storage and can be upgraded indefinitely as far as I’m aware. I don’t keep tabs on meh clients unless they wanna get back in touch but one diamond ranker thanked me for the base design after he’d fiddled with it an took it up off planet.”
[What do you guys think? I’m going to try get as involved in making this as I can so I might be able to work on it in the future and I’m confident this could be an amazing way to get around.] Teddy said.
[What’s it made of? The same as his chair? That stuff looks expensive for upgrades.] James chipped in.
[I feel like we’re at a Mercedes garage when we should be buying a second hand car from a beat up garage. But it would be interesting to know more, what fuels it? Does it have self repair? How fast does it go?] Lucy added
The interface conversation happened at the speed of thought so there was a surprise as they waited for Kyra to ‘voice’ her thoughts on it, they all look at her across the table, Rashid and Charlie catching on and looking at her with the others.
“What colours does it come in?”
……….
A while later the group was spread out, Rashid had made his goodbyes and teleported out to the academy annex, his curiosity had kept him longer than he planned, now he had seen it was going to take a while he had chosen to leave before his disappearance back in Greenstone was noticed.
Charlie had explained to the group that commissioned projects normally took weeks or months depending on what was in the order. There were a few issues with completing theirs, firstly he normally had a stockpile of materials ready to go, the explosion had consumed a lot of what he had around and he had to de-construct other projects in order to make theirs. Then there was his mobility issue, this would have slowed him down if not for Teddy being on hand as an assistant, Lucy was helping with the magical side of the build as true artifice was done by essence users with specific powers to create the items, as they had learned the skills and were doing them by ‘hand’ rather than essence it took Teddy to fabricate and Lucy to imbue the magic. Kyra was needed on hand to continue the healing she had started on Charlie as it was going to be a long road.
They settled into a routine, they would break fast together after the four adventurers had trained upstairs on the desert sands, they would work solidly through lunch, the three on the construction, Kyra on her medical research and James would try and keep himself busy. On the second or third morning Charlie had spied the vambrace.
“Aye, wassat yous got there then?”
“Just an item looted from a monster, probably my most prized possession.”
“Oh really? What makes a thing like that so special then?”
James touched the vambrace with a finger of his left hand, bringing up its description. He started reading it to the silver ranker and swore when he saw something new about the effects.
Item: [Vambrace of Menagerie] (iron rank [growth], legendary)
Armour that when developed will increase the effect of transformation powers.
This item is bound to you and cannot be used by anyone else.
Effect: When engraved by a magical armourer (or mystical tattooist’s with the necessary skills) will grant the wearer benefits to transformation powers. Benefits will be limited to size and skill of engraving. Once an engraving is in place it cannot be removed. Engravers must be at least equal rank to the item, higher rank engravers will produce a stronger effect.
Effect (Bear Claw): When making physical attacks with this item it will create a slashing effect that will cause the [Bleeding] condition to occur. Against targets that do not bleed extra damage of the resonating force type will be added.
Effect (Eagle wing): When making attacks that involve a wing it will sheathe the wing in metalled blades. The attack will be much stronger than without this item. Attacks will have resonating force, disruptive force and trace transcendent damage. Any transformation to wings will include these effects. Ranged effects will be augmented by this accessory. [This effect cannot be improve until silver-gold ascension but will still need upgrade materials per ritual of ascension]
*Effect (Lightning): [SEALED]*
[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs or negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.
Growth Conditions (bronze):
Bound user must be at least bronze rank.
4 kilograms of low grade (bronze rank) star-fall silver
100 bronze-rank iron quintessence gems
100 bronze-rank magic quintessence gems
100 bronze-rank animal based quintessence gems (per engraving)
[100 bear quintessence]
[100 wing quintessence]
[100 lightning quintessence]
1000 bronze rank spirit coins
Silver rank Artificer
Ritual of bronze ascension.
He pulled off the vambrace and stared accusingly at the spider web lightning pattern on the back.
“Gods damn it! When will I actually get to choose what goes on here?!”
“Yous needin a bit of fancy artwork done on it I take it then?” Charlie held his hand out.
James bent his head, there was no point having an upgrade cost to the item without it having some sort of benefit, he thought about it for a moment and reluctantly handed over the item.
………
After a week of sitting around only going on the odd local monster hunt James was bored, they had set a blistering pace since Vitesse and he was restless. Kyra came up to him with a book in hand one night for a chat.
[James?]
[Yeh?]
[I think I’ve gone as far as I can healing Charlie, his legs aren’t getting any better. I’m worried about him if he can’t get them back, he can’t work alone, while the others are here he’s fine and I’m not sure if he’s thought of it, we kind of threw him into a project which kept him busy.]
[How can I help?]
[I need someone with more experience, I have some theory books like this one but I don’t want to make him worse trying to make him better.]
[Where’s best to try? Back to Greenstone?]
[See if that nearby town, Boko has a temple of the Healer. If it doesn’t then you might have to go to Greenstone.]
James stood up.
[I’ll leave now, I just need to see if Charles is done with my vambrace.]
The others had seen the conversation in the interface while they were working as they all shared it. They had stopped working and told Charlie they all needed to see James.
[Try not to let on that I’ve reached the end of what I can do, I don’t want to worry him.]
“What’s goin on then o’er here?”
“I’m headed out for a bit, I’m not really needed here so going to do a bit of adventuring solo.”
“Aye, good for the soul that is, hang a sec, lemme see if’n your jewellery is ready for you.”
He made his way to one of the doors either side of the workbench, the team had been staying out in the large open space between the front door from the stairs and the workbench at the back. One of the doors was a bathroom and the other was Charlie’s room, as he opened the door they saw a ritual circle on the floor with the vambrace in the middle. He touched the metal and flinched slightly before putting on a glove and picking it up and bringing it out.
“I reckon it’s just finished, still hot from the cooking. Should be fine for yous to touch as it’s yours.”
He held it out to James and he tentatively took it. As he did he read the item description in front of him.
“Oh damn thats cool!”