The rolling pumpkin had no chance of escaping the bounding drake, instincts set afire by fleeing prey.
The blacksmith could feel the damage as broad, clawed paws slammed into their metal hull. The force sent the round object skittering across the floor and bouncing off the stone wall, only to roll down a sloped portion of the continuing hallway.
[ repair necessity 1% ➢ 22% ]
The drake yowled, its glittering green scales the only thing the blacksmith could see as they frantically rolled along. The goal was to escape; they didn’t care where.
The great paws smacked into them again, like a cat with a mouse. It threw the Jack O’ Lantern further down the hallway. Doorways flashed through their vision, but not long enough to save them.
[ repair necessity 22% ➢ 31% ]
The hallway ended.
The blacksmith’s hollow shell smacked into the stone wall with a loud clang. They could see the drake growing closer, yet a dark rectangle in the corner of their vision suggested that this might not be the end.
With great effort, they rolled along the edge of the wall toward the dark spot. The drake’s claws barely missed the erratically moving lantern. The smith willed themselves to keep rolling, feeling the lip of the spot beneath them.
Then a sudden drop into near darkness.
The blacksmith crashed against a stone table then to the floor, taking severe damage. The irritated yowling and hissing of the drake sounded from above. As the smith rolled over to face the stone grate – missing its bars from age – they watched the great beast throw its paws into the room, scrambling to catch the now-distant lantern.
They were safe, for now. Unless the drake could become much, much smaller, the smith doubted even something of human form could fit down that grate.
[ repair necessity 31% ➢ 57% ]
They needed to find metal.
With a shaking that could only indicate stress and difficulty, the lantern rolled onto the side. There was a gentle glow of a light ahead of them, cut out into the shape of the Jack O’ Lantern’s visage.
The smith drew the only conclusion available. The reason fire featured so heavily in their waking moments had to be because a burning candle meant consciousness for the lantern.
They sat still, taking stock of this realization. If their candle was blown out, then they would go unconscious. A span of time that could last forever, in fact. Especially if they were buried in this dragon’s lair deep underground.
The blacksmith began moving without further despair, reticent to waste time pondering what could be instead of what currently is. They would find no value in plotting for a future that didn’t exist yet.
A slab of stone was half resting on a table, half on the floor. It was enough of an incline that the smith thought they could manage to roll to higher ground to scout their surroundings. It was dark, lit only by the grate up above and the candlelight of the blacksmith themselves.
The incline was steeper than predicted, taking all of the blacksmith’s limited willpower to mount the hill without rolling backwards. As soon as they reached the peak, the smith felt the world fall out from under them.
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A clatter of metal against metal sounded as the smith dropped a foot or two into an unseen trench. They clanged here and there, trying to set their eyes upon the “table” instead of the ceiling.
To their surprise, the low candlelight illuminated an old breastplate, metal intact but leather straps dry-rotted in place. To the side, bones lay preserved in eerie finality.
A crypt, a sepulcher, a mausoleum. This was the final resting place of the dead.
With a plea for forgiveness, the blacksmith began their [ skill: capture ] upon the breastplate, in its tarnished gold and silver glory. The armor shuddered but did not move.
Captured objects: 1 / 11
WARNING: Object size is beyond capability.
That was fine. The smith did not need to throw about the breastplate as they did the coins. [ skill: convert ] provided the repairs necessary for survival; the blacksmith was pleased to learn that good steel lay under the decorative plating.
They watched as the breastplate was reduced to half its size, fragments fizzling away like soda pop bubbles rising to the top of a glass.
That still left the blacksmith resting on top of a corpse, one long dead, but a corpse nonetheless. They noted a sword to the side, long with a curved blade. A scimitar or a saber.
During their prior life, the blacksmith was primarily a maker of functional things. Tools, horseshoes, nails. They knew something of swords, but their world had shifted to guns as a primary weapon in most cases.
With that acknowledged, the presence of a dragon surely suggested that swords were a necessary part of life. The blacksmith did not want to use the sword for repairs, but perhaps if they could build a makeshift body, then… having a sword would be of great use.
The blacksmith could handle the morose and morbid nature of the world; for every spark of hope and bright days, there were disconcerting and difficult choices. This was one of them.
Graverobbing was not their first choice, yet…
They activated [ skill: capture ] and began to practice using this strange magic given to them by the System.
Perhaps this sword could serve another owner, in a new life.
🎃 🎃 🎃
Time did not exist here, nor did the lantern experience exhaustion, so the blacksmith worked until there was no longer work to do.
Hours turned to days, possibly weeks.
If the blacksmith rested, it was to recharge their stamina and magic. They silently sung songs to pass the time as they listened to the sounds up above.
The arrival of the dragon to the cave echoed with a scratching sound down the long, winding stone hallway. Each time, the blacksmith stopped and listened, as if the beast was around the corner instead of a half-mile away.
Sometimes, footsteps were heard, but the blacksmith never saw the humanoid figure pass the grate. She was merely a phantom haunting the smith as they worked. Unseen, therefore nonexistent.
They wiggled the breastplate and sword about until an improvement gave them the ability to move the items fluidly.
Desperation and determination led them to do the unthinkable. The breastplate fizzled into nothing as the blacksmith – the saltsmith, now – applied the steel in a thin later over the arm bones of the unfortunate dead.
The arms reanimated with rough movements, jerking about as if puppeteered by an impatient master.
The saltsmith learned that if they magically affixed their captured objects to their lantern shell, the point of “connection” would hover an inch or so off their body. It allowed for free movement of the limbs, but still lifted and held the lantern upright.
By the time they were done looting the crypt – opening up every stone casket, examining every shelf for metal and bones – the saltsmith’s attributes and skills were nearly unrecognizable.
NEW! [ skill: chain ] - passive skill; Permanently connect captured objects together to form one cohesive unit. Can be adjusted to maintain rigidity or fluidity.
Level 2: Range (short ➢ bodily), weight (small ➢ medium), control (weak ➢ low ➢ bodily), persistence (weak ➢ low)
Captured chains: 12/12
Captured objects: 302 / 302
The saltsmith no longer had to roll. They waited until they were certain the dragon was not present before scuttling up the walls of the crypt, metal-coated limbs gripping every crevice and notch in the stone.
With ten metallic arms and two matching swords in the place of legs, the saltsmith was beginning to look vaguely human. An insect’s dream of a human, perhaps, but people-shaped nonetheless.
They scurried out of the crypt into the long hallway, wasting no time at all making their way to the exit of the dragon’s lair.
It was time to face this world.