Kya opened her eyes to the brilliantly blue-green morning sky, light reflecting off the sparkling lake outside her dorm room window to dance on her walls and ceiling. Stretching languidly and then sitting up, her thin, soft blanket sliding off to the side, she touched her bare feet to the rug below. Compared to her extraordinary boots, the otherwise soft fibrous rug felt as rough and coarse as the forest floor.
Standing up, and once more stretching out with both hands reaching towards the ceiling, Kya relaxed her entire body with a long exhale. She felt good. Really good. Far more rested than she really should have been considering she’d only…
The brilliant blue light glinting off the lake… that was coming from the east if the gentle blue rays were able to bounce into her room. The suns were rising?
She had gone to sleep around noon, had she really slept four more than half a day straight?
For the first time since coming to this world, she found herself scanning the room looking for her phone. Kya knew immediately that she wouldn’t find it, it was left on her nightstand charging when she’d fallen asleep on that pivotal night. But she had, for the first time, been looking about to try and check the date and time.
She reflected on this for only a moment, thinking about how truly hectic things must have been for her to not once want for her phone. However, any and all thoughts in her mind were indelibly cut short by two things: the world was too damn uncomfortable without her boots on, and she wouldn’t put on her boots without taking a shower.
So, without a moment to lose and eager to return to the plush, godly comfort of her walking boots, Kya made her way down the hall and entered the steamy bathroom with its multicolored crystals and echoing sounds.
~ ~ ~
Kya exited the dorm building into the now bright and pleasantly warm air. It wasn’t hot, but the second sun joining the first and making noticeable progress in climbing into the sky, meant that the chilled night air had been thoroughly dispelled. She knew that they were in the middle of what was more or less springtime for this planet, but that they were quickly transitioning into the warmer and rainier months.
That all being taken into account, Kya had decided to try on one of her newly made casual outfits from Meri’s shop she’d just recently picked up. In addition to her blessed boots, the soft gray leather going surprisingly well with the rest of the ensemble. Tucked into the boots, she had the pair of soft, loose fitting pants the same color as the center of a scarlet rose, and her a long sleeve shirt as white as freshly fallen snow. She’d rolled up the sleeves to her elbows simply out of habit, and completed the look with her reaping tiger necklace. The braided white and and crimson fur was intercut with small black beads every couple of inches, and the white shard of its fang seemed to glow with the faintest orange light.
Her dark black hair, dried from a magical wind stone she’d found in the bathroom, fell free to just past her shoulders. Kya wasn’t normally one to spend hours on her clothes or tediously perfecting her makeup, but she felt good in her outfit, and was almost irrationally motivated to get stuff done today.
She inhaled a deep breath of the crisp morning air, and gazed out at the distant spires of what she now knew to be the tallest tower of the Lyra Academy. She had an itching curiosity to head there now and simply immerse herself in the teachings and knowledge she knew they would give her there. Money wouldn’t really be an issue either. With her loot ability, she was confident she could afford most anything she really needed for classes, and moreover felt comfortable that whatever she learned there would be well worth the cost of investment.
However, since her first days in this world, she’d been building up something of a to-do list, and while she wanted to start learning from the academy, she was far more eager to learn more about some of the basics on her own. From potions to items to gods and blessings, Kya had quite the list indeed.
Turning away from the academy, at least for now, she began to walk with a little bit of an extra spring in her step as she activated a sliver of her slow fall ability to travel just a bit further than a single step really ought to carry her.
This had quickly become one of Kya’s favorite parts of this whole magic business. Sure, fighting to protect people and kill crazy monsters and the almost raw ecstasy she experienced when her abilities improved was all important, all delightful and impactful. Addicting even in the case of getting stronger. But this simple pleasure of acting like she was on the moon and getting to bounce around made her inordinately happy.
After getting some advice from Merivan during the previous visit and then later scouting out the place during her walk about yesterday, Kya knew exactly where she was heading first.
Along the flowing banks of one of the many smaller rivers flowing into the central lake of the city was built a squat gray stoned two-story building. It stood apart from the majority of the buildings in the city for those simple facts alone. During her short ten or fifteen minute walk there from the dorm, she had seen a tavern with walls the color of tangerines and a roof like chocolate tiles. She’d seen several shops and homes colored teal, cyan, burgundy, lavender, lilac, mauve, every color she could imagine was somewhere represented in the city, like a rainbow had vomited on the stones that made up each and every building. The only exception was the uniform black of the paving stones that made up the main streets, and the gray of the gutters to either side.
Here, however, she found what might possibly be the only ordinary building in the city. Not to undersell it, the construction of the stones was exquisite, showing a craftsmanship and attention to detail that was severely lacking in other buildings. It wasn’t ostentatious, there weren’t grand domes or soaring pillars, but there were hand carved friezes of weapons and armor in the stones. As Kya got closer, she even noticed and appreciated that the building wasn’t uniform in its hue, but held multitudes in its coloring. From grays so dark they melded with the very shadows, to ones so light they seemed to emit their own light, there had to be dozens and dozens of different shades of gray.
“I swear to god this better not be some weird pervert thing…” Kya mumbled under her breath as she crossed over the threshold of the outdoor patio, imagining Meri laughing hysterically at sending Kya to such a place.
However, her fears were, mostly, put to rest as with the simple act of stepping onto the patio, the heat in the air rose at least fifteen degrees, and most of the sounds from the city had fallen away, not quite muted but muffled. She was slightly caught off guard by the sudden shift, not expecting anything as her aura hadn’t given any indication that she was about to walk across some magical barrier. She had sensed the one man inside the building, and could sense him even now scribbling away at something on the counter.
Deciding to trust her instinct that nothing untoward was about to happen, she walked over to the door, passing by the carefully arranged tools, various anvils, pieces of scrap metal, and a sizable fire dancing merrily away, and knocked three times before pulling on the door. Then pulling slightly harder. Then swearing quietly and pushing.
Swinging inwards on well oiled hinges, the door revealed an almost cozy interior. The same fire that burned outside lit up most of the interior as well, Kya realized, as a simple partition of tinted crystal let in its light.
Kya saw, as she knew she would, the man staring at her from behind a heavy wooden counter, a wry smile showing through his patchy beard. She wondered if it would have naturally been more full and voluminous if it weren’t so clearly burned and charred in several places, leaving large gaps behind. She even thought she saw part of the bushy expanse still smoldering, as if he’d just recently swatted it out. Aside from the admittedly attention grabbing beard, the elf, for he was most certainly an elf, had a towering figure of at least six and a half feet tall. The bulging muscles of his arms were lightly tanned, with wisps of brown hair poking out from a soot stained and grime covered bald head. He had eyes like shining medals, the most brilliant scarlet, and streaks of polished gold throughout.
- - - - -
- Gobi Hadur
- Class: Molten Magma - 2-Star
- - - - -
A voice that rivaled the dwarves she heard for the amount of grit and gravel it contained, while still remaining as warm and welcoming as the hearth fire next to her said “I couldn’t help but notice you had some trouble with the door there.”
Pinching the bridge of her nose and not meeting his eyes, Kya said back “Yeah, it’s something of a recent development, I can’t seem to get doors right in this blasted place.”
Apparently taking her to mean the city, he chuckled and said “Lyra can be somewhat strange to an outsider, true. But allow me to introduce myself. I go by the name of Hadur, Master Smith and craftsman, welcome to my humble shop.”
Taking the catcher's mitt of a hand he’d extended and shaking it, she said “I’m Kya, pleasure to meet you. I heard from the seamstress Merivan that you were a, in her words, foolish and moronic man that could nevertheless create passable works. I figure for her, that’s some high praise.”
He bellowed out a laugh like mortar fire and said “I think so, yes. And if she recommended me to you, that means you’re at least a passably acceptable customer.” Clapping his arms together and polishing his palms before placing them firmly on his hips, he asked “So then little user, what can I do for you today?”
“Well, I was wondering what you could make from these.” She said, and brought out the two halves of the staff she’d taken from the temple in her first few hours being in this world, as well as the sparkling rose crystal that had been embedded in its top.
The smith's eyes flashed white hot for a moment, before he began to physically inspect the items. He picked up each piece of wood, though they were roughly equal at around two feet each, they looked almost miniscule in the vast expanse of his hands. He tossed them both up and down several times, held them both close to his eye and sighted down their length, he even bit down on one of them before giving it a contemplative look. Finally putting them down with a grunt, and faint mutterings that Kya couldn’t quite make out, he pulled out a pad of paper from underneath the counter and began to scribble several notes. Then eyes flashing briefly once more, he began to inspect the crystal.
She wasn’t sure what exactly he saw when his eyes flashed, nor what information he would get from his various odd tests, but she identified them herself once more.
- - - - -
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- Item: Space Crystal
- Rarity: 1-Star - Epic
- Description: A crystallized form of space mana found in an area of high magical saturation. This crystal has been refined and enchanted to grant limited access to the spatial abilities of attraction and repulsion when affixed to a suitable conduit.
- Enchantments: Basic Attraction, Basic Repulsion
- Requirements: Spatial Affinity
- - - - -
- Item: Shard of the Spatial Staff
- Rarity: 1-Star - Rare
- Description: A splinter of uld wood that once acted as a conduit for a spatial gem. It has been enhanced by 1-Sar craftsmen.
- Enchantments: N/A
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
She had been hoping since the day the reaping tiger had snapped it, that she would be able to incorporate it back into her arsenal somehow. It seemed far too powerful and useful a tool to have simply been lost from a single attack like that.
It seemed, or at least Kya assumed, that the smith agreed. He spent much longer examining the rose crystal with its faint glow, taking out several small instruments from shelves hidden beneath the counter. From a scale to weigh its exact measurements, to an eyeglass for a closer and exacting inspection of its surface, to even an absolutely miniscule chisel looking more like a toothpick as he wielded it to try and leave small scratches along its surface.
As the minutes ticked by, Kya stood silently, watching the bear of a man work with almost delicate touch until at last he placed the stone down on a small tray he'd set out for the purpose.
“Before I speak,” said the smith, “I’d like some information about the crystal. Where did you get it? What do you know about it?”
Kya felt he wasn’t asking out of suspicion or malice, but genuine curiosity judging by the tone in his voice.
“I got it from an old derelict temple out in the forest.” She said “I unfortunately uh… broke it a few days after finding it though. I don’t know much about it’s history but is has an enchantment to mimic an ability from a spatial user.”
Hadur nodded along to all of this, hand idly swatting at the embers in his beard as though this were completely normal for him.
“That makes quite a bit of sense. The staff, or remnants of the staff, are still somewhat young as far as artifacts go. They were crafted at least a good hundred, hundred and ten years ago I’d say. The utility and sheer convenience of spatial storage items keeps them in high demand, but almost every other space related item was completely abandoned after the war, so I don’t often get to see their likeness, let alone work with them.”
“So you are willing to work with them, then?” Asked Kya.
“Well of course!” Hadur scoffed at her “I’d be delighted to. Can’t say I won’t damage it in the process, but I’d be more than willing to give it a go. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I wanted to ask, how easily can an item be taken from 1-Star to 2-Star?”
"Well, depends on the item, doesn’t it?” He replied. “But as a very general rule, it’s not the easiest task in the world unless it's soul bound. Soul bound items will grow with the strength of the soul. So as you get stronger, so do they. For everything else, it’ll need to be reforged or remade with higher quality materials.”
Bringing out her daggers, all three of the ones she’d now looted from her various monster fights, she placed them down.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” began Kya as she started to talk through the various ideas she’d been nurturing.
She held up each item as she talked, starting with the rat fang dagger, then the viper fang, and finally the claw of the night mother. Hadur nodded along all the while and began writing notes as she talked, not commenting yet on anything she said. Finally, when she took out the broken spatial ring she’d taken from the fight with Arthur’s son.
At this, the giant smith began to laugh, a deep, full bellied rumbling sound. But before he could object, Kya again explained her idea and her overall hope for the items.
Again, Hadur's laughter faded as he listened and again, began to write notes and as she finished what she was saying, he was actually nodding along with her.
“So what do you think, first of all is it possible? More importantly, are you willing?”
Idly twirling one side of his mustache, Hadur read over the notes he’d taken, then once more picked up the items she’d placed down, holding each of them in turn, the other hand holding the shards of wood or the spatial crystal.
He seemed to weigh them against one another, eyes distant as he was lost in thought. Once again, Kya stayed silent as the man contemplated the tasks she was asking of him.
“The answer to both questions is unequivocally yes.” He finally said in his gravelly voice. “My only hesitation is that such enchantments as these are relatively unknown to me. Crafting the items, that won’t be a problem. But the effects you specified will be… tricky.”
“What makes these more difficult than others you’ve wrought?” Kya asked, genuinely curious about the process of enchanting and crafting. She wasn’t sure she’d ever approach this type of activity herself, but she couldn’t see any harm in getting as much information as possible from a trustworthy source.
Seeming delighted to talk about his craft to an eager listener, Hadur answered “Well, it isn’t that it’s inherently more difficult, yah see, it’s more that it's simply unknown to me. Each class, each form of mana, behaves in its own unique way. You’ll see this for yourself if you ever get a second class. For example, my first class was fire. For the first few months I became as familiar with the magic in my body as moss to a tree. It was only when I killed a Quake Golem out east in the Kapari Desert and got an item for an earth awakening I realized just how different they can be. It made me realize, by simple contrast, that fire is.. is temperamental and yearning to act. It’s almost eager to be put to use, to spread hot and bright. Whereas, earth is stable and calm. Content just as it is. If you want to act upon the earth, you must motivate it to act, enforce your will upon it. All of this applies doubly so for enchantments, each class of magic, each type of mana in each crystal has idiosyncrasies that mean a technique used for a life enchantment won’t work for an earth or knowledge one. So while I’m confident I can craft any item under the sun, especially one at a 1-Star level, even potentially an item that’ll bind to your soul if we’re really lucky, I’m not sure about one with specific spatial effects.”
Kya had been listening with rapt attention as Hadur had spoken, taking it all in like rain on a sun cracked earth. She almost asked for a piece of paper to start taking notes. However, as he finished, she asked the first question that popped into her head “Is there any way to increase your chances? Or is there someone else in the city that might be able to do it more confidently?”
It was as if an air hose had been attached to the smith's body, he seemed to swell until he filled the whole room, and Kya could feel his aura spreading out as well, causing the very air to ripple as it did over the pavement on a summer day.
“There is no one in the city” he said with all the quiet intensity of an oncoming storm “that could do a better job than me.”
In the next moment, he seemed to return to normal, deflating back down to the size of an average brown bear and the air cooling back to an oven being preheated.
“That being said, if you’re willing to buy the commission, I will consult an enchanter over in the noble district. He’s pretentious as hell but the most skilled craftsman aside from myself that I know.”
“Should I tell Meri about that comment, or…” Kya said with a wry smile.
Hadur returned her smile and said “Be my guest. Been a while since she tried to tear off my ear.”
Chuckling softly, Kya said “Alright, alright. But how much then, for the whole lot? And how long do you think it would take?”
Without taking even a moment to consider, the smith wrote out several numbers on the page in front of him, then tore off a section along the bottom.
“Holy fuck” Kya whispered. Her entire set of enhanced and powerful outfits from Meri had cost her twenty silver agrens. Staying in her dorm for the next several months cost her eighty. Getting these four items enchanted the way she wanted would cost her a full thirty-four agren, seven curen, and six feron.
“That price” Hadur added with a tone of sheer delight “Does not include a tip.”
Kya was reminded of a small shop owner she’d visited when she’d first gotten to Lyra. He had been a short oily man with inflated prices and sketchy wares who never stopped wringing his hands. Still, the man had been a sharp and frugal businessman, wringing every drop out of his wares.
Sighing, and feeling the pain of emptying hard earned money from her wallet, Kya put down forty silver agren on the counter, which were gone a moment later with a swipe of the man's dexterous hands, along with each of the materials she’d placed down .
He grinned through his beard and said in a tone that made her feel like she’d just signed a deal with the devil.
“Excellent, excellent, now then, it’ll take at least a day or two before I start working on them. Come back at the end of the week and they should be done. If I finish them beforehand, where can I contact you?”
Kya told him she was in the dorm by the lake, and after conversing for a couple more minutes on various things, she said her goodbyes and went back out into the shining light of the two suns.
She had two more stops to make, then she’d be headed to the Academy for the first time. Next up would be the finest potion manufacturer in the city.
The high tier potion she’d gotten from Alder the previous day during the fight with the Chiroptera was still safely tucked away in her storage space, along with a hoarder's garage of other random knick knacks that she needed to sort through. But when given the choice between “explore the magic city to learn about cool stuff” and “Clean” there really wasn’t a choice at all.
~ ~ ~
Forty-five minutes and one food stall later, Kya walked through the gleaming white stone arch that marked the boundary of the alchemist's estate. She’d read about the alchemist association during her first night in the guild library. They were one of the universal factions present in nearly every branch of the Guild across the planet. This one was headed by one of the few 3-Stars in the city from what Alder had told her during their walk back yesterday, a reclusive woman most simply called the potion master.
Kya’s stomach wasn’t happy with going to meet someone that powerful, as it kept doing little loop-de-loops with each step. She didn’t give a shit about who they were or anything like that, she had never been one to get nervous because the boss or sergeant or whomever was watching. No, it was simply being that close to someone that overpowered her by such a degree, her last experience with a 3-Star was still at the front of her mind. She once again reaffirmed in her mind that she would get stronger as quickly as possible, enough that she could hold her own at least, no matter who stood in her way.
However, despite her trepidation, Kya still appreciated the small but elaborate garden grounds located so deep in the heart of the city. It wasn’t a sprawling estate, maybe a little over an acre in size. Still, especially in a city, that meant these people must be truly wealthy to have such a property. But more than just the size, it was the presentation that made Kya appreciate it. There were carefully kept plants in every direction she could see. Beautiful berry bushes, delicate beds of bizarre and fantastical flowers, small bubbling streams and quant wooden bridges running throughout, Kya felt like she was on set in a hallmark movie. Complete with couples and small groups walking about, holding hands or laughing softly at jokes she couldn’t hear. It was one of the most beautiful and idyllic places she’d ever been.
This was undercut slightly, by what her aura had picked up the moment she passed through the stone arch at the entrance; there were people watching her. At least two, but she guessed more. They weren’t doing anything, and were staying a respectful distance from her as she walked the main pathway leading to the large building at the center, but she imagined a single step out of line and they’d get a lot less respectful about their distance.
As she finally made it to the wide front steps, an affluent looking group of three young men walked quickly past her, excited and seeming eager to leave as they talked in exaggerated whispers. Watching them go curiously, she turned back and began to walk up the marble steps. However, she had hardly placed a single foot at the top when both of the large wooden double doors swung open and an older man with thinning black hair and a walrus mustache came out. He had on simple clothes the color of liquid gold, and a simple white sash running from his shoulder to the opposite hip.
“May I ask the young mistresses purpose in visiting us today?” he said, inclining his head slightly, bronze eyes flashing briefly.
Inclining her head in return, Kya said “I’ve heard this is the best place in the city for potions, is that true?”
He smiled, or at least Kya thought he did underneath the thick bristles of his mustache, as they moved slightly upwards on either side. “Of course. The doors to the Wadrin Apothecary are always open to our worthy customers.” He said, before stepping to one side and beckoning her in through the open doors.