Chapter 42: Proper Preparation

TRISTAN

For the next two weeks, all Tristan wanted to do was work on bracers. That he only got time to do so in the evenings was frustrating even if it was to be expected.

Speaking of frustrations, he still hadn’t been graced with one of Jamal’s offensive skills, but at least after asking a few more times, he’d at gotten his master to give him a timeline.

“When you can block all of my attacks, I’ll teach you one.”

Tristan had seen the trap in his teacher’s demand immediately. He merely needed to block all of Jamal’s strikes in a sparring session. Like that was ever going to happen. Jamal was a brilliant swordsman, the best in the land, and Tristan didn’t doubt that he’d been holding back every time they’d ever sparred. For Tristan to block all his attacks was just as much Jamal’s choice as his own. But it also wasn’t fully impossible. That Jamal had introduced it as a possibility actually gave Tristan something to work toward and strive for during the day, too.

At night, Tristan took up his hammer and worked until he couldn’t keep his arm going, even with his 52 Endurance. Strike, strike, strike, turn. For a full week, each night after training, the familiar rhythm echoed on his anvil as he pounded metal into bracers. He tried to take what he’d learned from his previous successes, especially the [Oozebane Greatsword]. If he kept his intent focused enough, he figured, he should be able to at least influence the properties granted to his creations. For six of those first seven nights, he made only basic, uninspiring bracers.

On the seventh night, he finally had his first partial success.

[Bracers of Detect Enhancement (uncommon)]: [Enhanced Identify: Buffs], Soulbound

Bracers crafted by a young and gifted smith, seeking to push beyond the usual limits of his tier.

He expanded the property.

[Enhanced Identify: Buffs] Allows the wearer to see all buffs and debuffs on a target after using [Identify].

The property wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for, but at least it proved that [Identify] could be modified by gear, that it could be done at tier 2, and, most importantly, that he was capable of doing it! He just needed to figure out how to interact with Class instead of buffs and debuffs.

He still had lots of work to do.

Thankfully, due to being tier 2 gear, these bracers offered enough of a defensive upgrade innately that they were a pretty nice upgrade over his old [Rough Bracers]. He immediately traded them out.

In the second week he made undeniable progress. First he was able to reproduce the creation of the [Bracers of Detect Enhancement], proving that it hadn’t been a fluke. With the confidence that those successes brought, he tried branching out into other areas. Trying to see Hit Points felt like a reasonable next step--he wasn’t sure why, but he felt like it might be. But when he’d tracked down Cleo on the eighth night and asked her about it, she’d laughed and explained just how absolutely wrong he’d been.

“Hit points aren’t even close to the same as buffs, Tristan. Even if part of the value might be temporary, it’s also permanent. Or rather, think of it this way: only the current value of HP is temporary, while the max value is set by level, class, gear. All sorts of things! As a result, HP is a much more difficult Status value to see. At least it’s not as bad as trying to see raw stats, though. Gods, not even I can get that invasive.”

While Tristan didn’t love hearing that his original idea wasn’t worth pursuing, he had caught on something else. “What do you mean by ‘Status value’? Like the Status display? What does that have to do with [Identify]?”

“Where do you think [Identify] pulls its information from?” Cleo said with a grin. “You’re just getting some of the top rows of the Status.”

That piece of information set Tristan in an entirely new direction. His experimenting had more than mere optimism to guide him, as he now had the knowledge that he should be able to get more from his [Identify] if he just found the way to focus the ability on the right thing. The skill always showed name, race, and level, even if that last one was limited by tier. Could I remove the restriction on seeing higher tiers, he wondered in passing before shelving the thought for now. If I’ve already found a way to get to temporary displays, like buffs and debuffs, then either I might have skipped a step, or I could have been looking in the wrong direction.

Determined to figure it out, he’d worked, and experimented, and ground himself down, night after night.

Except apparently he hadn’t pushed the thought of revealing levels far enough back on his mental shelves. His next attempt resulted in a different partial success:

[Bracers of Discernment (uncommon)]: [Enhanced Identify: Level], Soulbound

Bracers crafted by a young and gifted smith who was able to push beyond the usual limits of his tier.

He expanded the new property immediately and was excited to see that it allowed him to bypass the tier restrictions on what levels [Identify] could see. He wondered if that worked on a person of any level, or just those one tier above him. It was something he tested the next day on Jamal--with exciting results.

[Jamal, Human, level 80 (tier 5)]

{{The Unerring Blade}}

Seeing that Jamal was tier 5 blew Tristan’s mind. That was stronger than his father! Tier 5 meant that his teacher was in the same range of power as the Brightshield, just a step below the gods themselves! And yet somehow, somehow Tristan kept his wits enough to survive the day’s training. It definitely hadn’t been easy, either, as Jamal had picked up on his new excitement immediately and pushed him all the harder for it. New injuries and an even deeper exhaustion were the results.

On the fourteenth night, he finally did it. He had decided not to start with raw metal but instead he built off what he hoped was a better foundation: [Bracers of Detect Enhancement]. The idea of enhancing something that detected enhancements also felt kind of funny. Plus, he didn’t have to risk his uncommon [Bracers of Discernment] in case the process wasn’t as similar to upgrading as he hoped.

He directed all of his efforts into reworking the [Enhanced Identify: Buffs] affix. It took him days, but he was eventually able to get a feel for its magical “shape.” By tweaking the affix while focusing his intent on Class, he was at last able to produce something that made him literally shout with joy!

[Bracers of Discernment (rare)]: [Enhanced Identify: Class], [Enhanced Identify: Level], Soulbound

Bracers crafted by a determined smith well ahead of the curve.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

He’d far exceeded his expectations. He’d managed to turn the weaker bracers into the better ones, and then make them an even higher rarity due to the additional affix! He’d have been totally fine having two pairs and simply trading out the Level enhancement for Class whenever he needed it, but to have both effects in one piece of gear? Well, he couldn’t have been prouder. He’d slept incredibly well that night.

To add to his success, the following day, Tristan also managed to block every one of Jamal’s attacks. He’d had to use the Roving Blade the entire length of their sparring session, which had been completely exhausting, but somehow--he still wasn't sure exactly how--the session ended with him not taking a single hit.

“You were really in the zone today, mate!” Jamal said with a big smile. “I didn’t know you had that in ya.”

Tristan, despite panting, was also beaming. “Neither did I. Does that mean you’ll teach me an attack skill now?”

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” Jamal said with a laugh. “Seriously, man, you’ve got to give it a break. You’ve already got three attack skills, and you’re creative enough you shouldn’t really need more. Not at tier 2.”

Tristan tried to use the man’s own words against him. “I may be creative, but weren’t you the one who told me that having more options could lead to better outcomes? Imagine what I could do with [Blade Flurry]!”

Jamal groaned. “Yeah, but I also told you to be your own answer to the problems you’re facing. Remember? Techniques over skills. I mean, you’re borderline obsessed with that skill, man. It’s not all that strong unless you upgrade it extensively. It’s literally given at level 1 to some dual-wielding Classes. And you’re going to pick it up at some point in Swordsman tier 1. Might even be your next level.”

Tristan felt a bit sheepish at not knowing that, but it didn’t deter him. “Bernhardt’s [Blade Flurry] left an impression.”

“Oh? And how’d that turn out for him? See, the problem with the default [Blade Flurry] is it locks you into performing the whole attack. No flexibility. Which, I’m sure you remember, is a pretty substantial weakness when an opponent is clever enough.” He winked. “Like you were.”

Tristan nodded, not letting his smile fade. “I do remember that, actually. So what are you going to teach me instead?”

“A better tool, with more uses. And yeah, I know you would learn this one later, too, but much later. Like in the next tier of your swordsman Class, which means you’d be at least 30 plus in your Primary. And trust me, man, you don’t want to wait that long. This is the good stuff!”

To say Tristan was interested was a massive understatement. He was practically bursting with excitement, and it took all of his effort to hold still, since he knew trying to rush Jamal was like rushing a cat: rarely successful and intensely painful.

“It’s called [Blade Echo],” Jamal began, raising his sword. And over the course of the next two hours, Tristan learned everything he could about the skill, until eventually the notification arrived:

Congratulations! You have learned a new skill!

[Blade Echo] An active ability that buffs the user, duplicating all single-target attacks made with a sword. 10 second duration. 3 minute cooldown.

The swordmaster let his student continue testing and trying different approaches, attack angles, and techniques long after Tristan learned it. He always provided honest feedback about what was and wasn’t working. The skill itself proved to be a huge damage increase, despite its long cooldown. It shouldn’t have surprised Tristan that creating two identical attacks with one swing of a greatsword was devastating, especially since the attacks were separated just enough that one could be blocked or parried while the other might continue through untouched. Tristan was excited to put it to use in a real fight.

Jamal seemed to agree. “It looks like you’ve gotten a good start with the skill, so why not take it a step further? We both know that real combat is different--and since you seem opposed to more duels currently, why not try it out in a dungeon?”

Tristan couldn’t have agreed more with the idea, so that night he decided to give crafting a bit of a break and instead switched over to researching the nearby tier 2 dungeons. He’d gone through a similar process weeks before when seeking out the perfect place to take Sophie. This time, however, he would be looking for his own benefit. That made it both a bit easier, since he thought he knew his own abilities pretty well, and a bit harder, since he wasn’t sure how much of a challenge he could really handle on his own.

His first consideration was level. No matter which dungeon he ended up choosing, he was going to tackle it solo. How low should he aim to still have fun, get decent experience, and possibly get useful loot--assuming the dungeon would give him something Soulbound again? It had happened once, so he was holding out hope that at least the loot from the final boss would be usable. But even if the reward would be great, he didn’t trust himself to tackle anything designed for level 15 yet. While going solo would make the enemies easier, it would also mean that any mistake could potentially be his last.

Tristan pushed several guides to the side, leaving four options before him that fit what he was looking for. The first, was an underground sewer system, which Tristan ruled out immediately upon seeing that the primary enemy type was oozes. He didn't care that the dungeon guide said it was “well suited for melee-heavy groups.” He also didn't know how that could be possible with oozes as the dominant enemy! Even with his new sword’s benefits, he wasn’t taking any chances. They were the worst! Dungeon Delver Dave should have known better.

The second dungeon was a lot more tempting, with absolutely no mention of oozes anywhere. But after he read a bit more about it, he decided he didn't want to try it either. It was a goblinoid fortress, and ever since meeting Fred back at Jill’s, Tristan wasn't sure he could just thoughtlessly slaughter a goblin. There were a few notes about a common variant that featured beasts overrunning the same fortress, but Tristan didn't know how “common” it would be, and the risk of preparing for one dungeon just to get the other left him feeling anxious.

As he read about the third dungeon, he got the impression that it would be a bit tougher. It was actually a dungeon that had formed after the city of Rockmoor was built, created by what the guide called “an oversaturation of magic infesting a place of immense cultural importance.” Whatever that meant. It was also the closest of all his options, located in the Rockmoor cemetery. The main enemy types were said to be skeletons and spirits, which could be really interesting.

The final dungeon in his range looked to be the hardest of all. It was located higher up in the same mountain as the dungeon he’d taken Sophie through, but apparently this one was a volcano instead of a mine. The whole interior was known to be incredibly hot, with parts of the layout literally just being lakes of lava dotted by stepping stones. The guide said the main enemies here were golems of various materials, mostly mud and stone, but the final boss was made of lava. That would definitely be a challenge for Tristan on his own.

Of all the options, the Rockmoor Cemetery felt like the best fit for Tristan. Smacking skeletons sounded like a lot of fun, since the guide said these weren’t resistant to slashing damage yet, being only tier 2. And while he wasn’t sure exactly how he was supposed to fight ghosts, he knew that many of their debuffing attacks wouldn’t work on him with his new sword, so he was excited to try. What’s more, the terrain looked like it would offer some interesting tactical choices. The layout was nearly identical to the cemetery it had been back when the dungeon formed, with roughly half of it being an open space dotted with tombstones. The other half contained tombs of all sizes surrounding one larger building. The best note of all was written in the margins by Dungeon Delver Dave himself:

After extensive testing, compiled by none other than myself, it seems that this may be the only dungeon in the Realm that I have heard of without any variants whatsoever. While this is extremely unusual, I am personally quite confident in this claim! So while this is a fairly challenging dungeon at its level, with proper preparation you can prevent poor performance. In this case, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into, so you can judge for yourself whether the rewards seem worth the risks!

The level of certainty Dave had scrawled across the page gave Tristan confidence. Even if Tristan had had a bad experience once with a guide from Dave, back with Opie and Chessa, this was a handwritten note, and the man had put his name on it. Tristan spent the rest of the evening poring over that one guidebook, learning as much as he possibly could about each monster he could expect. What their strengths and weaknesses were. The recommended route through the dungeon, providing the easiest path to where all the chests and best loot were. Even how to handle the final boss, which was apparently a larger skeletal swordsman mounted atop a skeletal steed. The more he read about that fight, the more Tristan was pulled in. It seemed like it would be a great test of his swordsmanship!

He read through the encounter descriptions again and again, not realizing he’d dozed off until he woke up with his head fully buried in the pages before him.

Yawning, Tristan had to admit that he was tired. But as he took one last look at the artist’s depiction of The Skeletal Knight, a grin crept across his face. I’ll be coming for you in the morning, he thought, closing the book. He left a note for Cherry to set up a driver for him, starting as early as she could arrange.

Lying down on his bed, he felt confident that there was nothing the dungeon could throw at him now that he wouldn’t be prepared for.