Back in Ildul, Maroftis sat in his room at the Silver Penny, awaiting Vultressant’s return from the council meeting. The Gnome had chosen to accompany Isla to collect their payment for the escort job. Their return trip was much quicker than the journey to the Dwarven hold—Taloc had been correct, but since he was the scout, Maroftis suspected he might have influenced the timing. Their payment should be enough to commission his new armor. Isla was also negotiating another mission, but Maroftis was focused solely on the money for now, and he didn’t care what they had to do for it.
As he waited, Maroftis opened his character page and perused his stats:
Name: Maroftis
Race: Korak
Level: 5
Attributes:
Brawn: 28
Charisma: 10
Dexterity: 13
Fate: 20
Intellect: 11
Psyche: 15
Strength: 22
Vitality: 29
HP: 430
MP: 110
He maintained his strategy of raising his primary stats, Strength and Vitality, by two points per level. Brawn increased automatically by one point per level, and he added an additional point each level. He earned a free point in Vitality when his endurance skill reached level ten and another in Dexterity when his swimming skill hit level ten.
His intimidate skill was at level seven, nearing the threshold for an attribute bonus. It leveled up without him actively intimidating anyone; just being himself seemed to do the trick. Maybe it was a Korak trait? He wondered which attribute would benefit from the intimidate bonus.
Animal empathy had also leveled up unexpectedly on the trip to the Dwarven hold. After the first skill notification occurred spending time with the ox, he began feeding and brushing it regularly. By the end of the trip, his animal empathy was at level four.
He now had three special moves at his disposal. Initially, he started with two moves that seemed specific to his race: rear guard, which allowed him to strike with his tail at an opponent behind or flanking him, and savage claws, a supercharged claw attack. Upon reaching level 5, he chose from four new special moves and decided to go with absorb strike. This defensive skill allowed him to mitigate a large percentage of damage from a single source. He had acquired it after battling the Rock Troll.
Things had been quiet since that fight, but by practicing with Ewtain, they discovered that absorb strike could nullify 100% of a small damage attack. As the attack strength increased, the skill absorbed a smaller percentage of the damage. It wasn’t consistently effective against special moves but it had managed to block at least 50% of Ewtain’s most damaging attack. It was a bit cumbersome, however: he had to activate the ability and specify the damage source; it would then work on the next hit from that source. If unspecified, it would apply to the next successful attack he received.
Once activated, the ability lasted for a minute. If not triggered within that time, it was spent to no effect. The cooldown was two minutes, and it drained his energy regardless of whether it was used, so he couldn’t run it continuously. However, he could activate it quickly if he had to, giving it some versatility.
Maroftis was pleased with his progress in skills and powers, and he knew that with some sweet new armor, he would be a great asset to the party. He needed to acquire more skills, but they seemed difficult to come by. A new skill could be learned through repeated attempts until eventually you learned it. Some skills required prerequisites: both Vultressant and Vanya had learned extract essence, which they could only attempt due to their magical knowledge. This skill might be exclusive to certain character classes or those capable of casting spells. There might also be a minimum Psyche requirement, as Taloc assigned it based on that attribute.
Other skills, like butchering and skinning, were available to everyone in the group, but these were tied to Dexterity. Regardless, after each party member had tried a task a few times, they eventually gained the skill.
Those fountains were another way to gain a skill; Vanya had learned life magic, and it had started at level five instead of one. Maroftis really wanted to get another crack at a fountain; his stats were the same after his size had changed, but he did noticeably more damage afterwards. It made sense that larger creatures could hit harder than a smaller creature with the same strength, so he believed that this world had size categories that amplified at least the Strength stat as things grew larger.
Another way to learn a skill was by using magic books. These books were said to be prohibitively expensive and rare. Another option was training, though some skills could take a long time to develop that way, possibly years. This was part of the reason Ewtain wanted to leave Ildul for the cities to the south. However, Maroftis didn’t see the value in spending that kind of time just to learn a single skill.
He could also gain a skill by just levelling up. They had been told that new skills would become available at certain level thresholds, the first being level ten. Vultressant and Taloc were both close to level ten, so he should have confirmation very soon as to whether or not this was true.
The door opened, and Maroftis flicked his tongue out reflexively to taste the air. It tasted like Vultressant and a hint of Isla. Maroftis made his HUD transparent, leaving only the notification lights visible, and turned to greet his roommate.
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“Did you get our cash?” he asked.
Vultressant nodded and said, “Isla did, but I have your share with me. We’re going to have to pool our silver to pay for your armor anyway, and Isla has us booked to do the south mission for extra coin.”
“Let’s do this thing then.”
“You mean the foundry?” Vultressant asked.
Maroftis pumped a fist. “Yeah! I need me some sweet armor.”
Vultressant looked troubled; he wrung his hands together, and his face was all scrunched up.
"Dude, spit it out. What’s the problem?”
“Vanya wanted to go to the foundry the next time we went.”
“So?”
The Gnome scratched his neck. “Well, can it wait until she can come with us?”
Aw crap, the little guy must have it bad. “Look, I know you’re into her, but this is important. She can visit the foundry whenever she wants; she doesn’t need a chaperone.”
“I guess…” Vultressant paused, still thinking. "Hey, wait, why do you think I’m into her?”
“You two hang out all the time,” he said. “Now, I know that you are both casters and all that, but normally there’s just a hint of her flavor on you. Recently, when I’m near you, it’s as if she’s in the room too. Something must be going on.”
“Flavor?” Vultressant asked. “Is that like your sense of smell?”
Well, at least he isn’t trying to deny it. “I can sense things with my tongue, so it’s like tasting instead of smelling. I guess they’re the same though.”
“That’s interesting,” Vultressant said. “Can you tell me how it works?”
“How about I tell you on the way to the foundry?” If Vultressant was going to attempt to change the subject, he would take the opportunity to try to win the argument.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Blassie was barking orders to three Dwarves when they arrived at the foundry. He turned and was walking towards another forge when he noticed the two of them. He cocked his head quizzically and called out, “Is the giant lizard your bodyguard?”
Vultressant hooked a thumb towards Maroftis. “He’s one of our party,” he said.
As Blassie approached, Maroftis smiled to put the little man at ease. Instead, Blassie stopped in his tracks. Maroftis saw a notification light in his vision and accessed it to find that he had just gained a level in his intimidation skill… of all the times. He tried waving and said, “It seems that no one likes how I smile.”
“You call that a smile?” Blassie said, shaking his head. “It looked like you wanted to bite me head off.” He laughed and walked over to them. He shook hands with Vultressant and offered his hand to Maroftis, who did his best to take it gingerly before shaking it. “What can I do for you two?”
“We’re looking to get a suit of armor made for Maroftis here,” Vultressant said, motioning to the Korak.
Blassie looked the lizard up and down before stating, “That will take a great deal of metal and will no be cheap.”
Vultressant pulled out a bar of metal from a bag that he was carrying; they had decided not to openly display their inventory function. “We have 200 pounds of this,” he said, handing the bar to the Dwarf.
Blassie whistled appreciatively. “How did you come by this, boy?” Vultressant briefly described how Vanya had found the two nodes of ore and accepted the emraldium as part of the payment. Blassie barked out a laugh when he had finished. “I wager that Dwern was ready to eat nails!”
Vultressant smiled back. “He was unthrilled to say the least,” he said, eliciting another round of laughter from Blassie. Once the Dwarf regained his composure, Vultressant continued. “We also came across a greater sapphire essence, and we still have some of the lower-tiered essences. What sort of enchantments are possible for armor?”
“We need Rena for that, but you will want defensive abilities,” Blassie said. “Your friend looks to have some natural armor of his own, but the armor we make will certainly enhance that.” The Dwarf called out to have Rena summoned, and one of the workers went to find her.
A minute later, Rena, a Gnomish woman with dark hair, approached the three of them. She eyed Maroftis, but he registered no fear in her. In fact, she gave no reaction at all, which surprised him—he had grown accustomed to people reacting upon seeing him for the first time.
He used his assess other ability on the Enchantress, and a red notification appeared in his vision. Focusing on the prompt, he absorbed the knowledge from the message. He preferred this method over reading messages, as it allowed him to understand the details in a split second. Battle was already distracting, and trying to read while fighting just made it worse. The only problem was that he usually had to think about the new information afterwards to evaluate it properly, especially when he absorbed multiple notifications all at once.
The information he received about Rena was that she was not aggressive towards him, had strong magical capabilities, and that he should under no circumstances provoke her to fight. Her level must be extremely high, he thought, because the ability typically displayed the target’s level unless it was far above his own.
“How may I be of service?” Rena asked, interrupting Maroftis’ thoughts.
“I want some plate mail made and enhanced with enchantments,” Maroftis said. “I won’t be able to move as well in it, so I was hoping you could add a flying spell to the armor.”
Rena scratched her cheek, considering. “If that is what you want, I can look into it. If the enchantment materials come from a flying creature or one with wind magic abilities, I could create a stronger effect. Without such materials, the best I could do would be to produce the ability to fly for a short duration with a long cooldown, probably at least a day. It might not be very useful. Let me see the essences you have.”
Vultressant removed the essences from his inventory and placed them on a nearby table. When he finished, there were one blue, one green, and nine red essences on the table. Rena examined each vial, holding them for a moment to discern their properties. When she finished, she handed Vultressant two of the red essences.
“These are lesser ruby essences, and they are not powerful enough to use for this,” Rena explained. “As for the rest of the ruby essences, they have no traits, which is normal for the lower-tier essences. However, the greater emerald essence might provide added Strength, and the sapphire could enhance Strength, Vitality, or offer regeneration. For a set of armor for a Human or Dwarf, one primary and five secondary essences would suffice. But for someone of your size... I would estimate that seven to ten secondary essences would be necessary.”
“You said before that we could buy the ruby essences, right?” Vultressant asked.
“Certainly,” Rena confirmed, “but with the essences that you have, it will produce only a tier-one enchantment. You have tier three metal here.”
“Is that bad?” Maroftis asked.
Rena shrugged. “The metal will not be used to its fullest potential, but the enchantment is almost certain to work on the higher-tier metal.”
“Wait, you mean that there’s a chance that the enchantment might not work?” Maroftis asked. “If it fails, do we still have to pay for that part?”
Rena shook her head and looked at Vultressant, who laughed loudly. Maroftis thought that he might have said the wrong words, but there had been no problems with his speech after reaching rank seven in the language skill Common. The two Gnomes seemed to have a private joke on the matter, so he thought that he would just look menacing and wait for one of them to let him in on the joke.
When Vultressant finally composed himself, he said, “Dude, Taloc asked the same thing. We’re stuck paying, regardless of how good or bad the enchantment turns out. How much is all of this going to cost, anyway?”