Daniel’s biggest obstacle to his plan to replace his crossbow was that he knew nothing about guns, other than he wanted one. Enchanting his original magical weapons had been far easier, both because the heliorite had been helping him, and that he’d had a modicum of understanding on how crossbows worked. Having one to model his improved design off of had also been a boon.
Now he was working with material on his level, trying to improve his enchanting while grappling with unknown mechanisms. Sure, every guy past the age of 12 knew what rifling was, but how tight did you make the spirals? How far into the barrel did they go, or, wait, did they jut into the barrel or recess into the sides? Was it the same either way? Daniel wasn’t about to enchant dozens of barrels just to solve that problem alone.
The only saving grace was that he had time to figure it out. It was three days after he’d arrived in Aurus, and he’d spent most of his time here so far rebuilding himself. Literally, when it came to his cat body. Quala had continued to show up and since she could still talk about his encounters with the gods it seemed Cloak was unwilling or unable to take those memories from her. Neither had the god shown up himself, giving him little opportunity to clarify the situation.
His other project was his enchanting. There was still a day or so left before he’d receive the wolf pelts and bone, meaning he could work on his lowest priority task first. He frowned at the miniature blast marbles in his hand, coming to a conclusion he’d just reached. “This isn’t going to work.”
Sighing, he threw one against the wall. The explosion it produced didn’t burn it, instead creating a puff of smoke. He’d had the idea to use blast marbles as blast powder, making them so small he could pack them behind ammunition. Even if he had access to regular gunpowder he’d prefer this method as he could better insulate the ‘powder’ from electricity than he could heat. With Rorshawd in the next region over he wasn’t going to leave his new primary weapon with that weakness.
Only, it wasn’t working. Creating a small crossbow bolt in the shape of a dowel rod with the lightning affix had been an inspired choice since it could act as a striker, eliminating the need to add the lightning affix to the powder itself and simplifying that end. The issue was he couldn’t get the grain small enough to flow properly. Hell, he still hadn’t figured out how to assemble something that could passably act as a bullet. If he tried enchanting one wholesale, casing and all, it would just explode in the chamber.
He also had an issue with the new splitting ammunition formulae. There was a delay in that effect activating, but it still had to be separated from the part that exploded. Otherwise, it was a promising addition since the effect didn’t take up an affix slot.
Daniel didn’t think this was a dead end, but he was relying too much on what he half-remembered from his world. So, no guns until I figure this out, he thought sadly, disposing of the idea of lugging around a minigun or picking off Rorshawd from a kilometer away with an exploding round. No, he needed to boil this down to what his goals truly were.
First, make a weapon that preserved his old crossbow’s firepower while improving reload time. Second, enable the design to accommodate variable bullet designs, including future-proofing for whatever other formulae he picked up. Murdon had once told him that a competent hunter needed to be adept with many weapons. While his cat body was enough of a cheat, he didn’t want to neglect his human side. The more formulae he learned the more ammunition types he could create, and the more affixes he could add.
His thoughts turned towards using the blast marbles as a propellant for a crossbow design, but then there was the issue of controlling the release. With normal crossbows, the tension in the string was consistently applied to the bolt as it was fired. It needed a channel to hold the ammunition, but not to the degree of precision guns needed. In the latter case, all the potential energy was released at once and it was up to the barrel to make sure the shot didn’t go off target. Which brought him back to the problem with rifling.
This is where Earth-Daniel would have been useful, he thought, standing up and taking a break. He was far less rushed for time than he had been coming here. Quala’s revelation that the church of the Hand had lost its power to bring back the dead truly meant that the moonshot of the ancient ruins was his only real way to bring back Hunter. And Tlara, if she behaved nicely. The Collapse was an imminent, but not urgent threat. Threst had a handle on it and all desperately fighting monsters while being unprepared would do is get his other body cut in half. There was the pressure from his oath bond to progress toward reviving Hunter that Quala had helped him realize, but with those facts in mind, it allowed him to quietly spend most of the day enchanting uncontested.
The house his team had been loaned upon arrival was in the middle altitudes of Aurus. It was easy enough to figure out the paradigm since the city of Aughal had something similar to how close you were to the Spires. It had to be said that while the view from those towers was something, Aurus had it beat. From his window, Daniel could look out to the open sky and breathe in the fantasy. Despite having an entire other body now, small moments like this when he was relaxed still struck him with wonder.
Wishing for the tenth time today that Hunter was here to share in it, Daniel descended the tight spiral staircase into the main room. The structure had many, each leading from the ground floor to separate rooms on the second, which all had balconies. Poor Khiat was too large to take one and had been given half of the common room in compensation. It was strangely reminiscent of the short time Daniel had spent in a dorm room before dropping out of college.
He reached the bottom and tensed, moving before he consciously willed himself to. The crack reached his ears before the object that had been aimed at his head struck his hand instead. Daniel grimaced and shook his hand as the pain faded. “Hey, what was that for?”
“Training!” Khare replied brightly from the ceiling. They were holding one of the small models Daniel had made while testing basic principles. It had a lightning striker and a receiver made from rare level 3 bone, Daniel cheating there as anything weaker would fail from the repeated explosions. He’d used lesser bone for the rest of the construction to make what was roughly shaped like a water pistol. With a flat, rectangular piece of spineshard ‘ammunition’ slotted in, it could shoot something marble-sized in a general direction.
The lack of real power behind the weapon and the fact that the ammunition’s proximity to the blast charge had made Daniel abandon the design. The gestalt, who Daniel was still struggling to believe was only one year old, had taken to it. “You’re trying to train my reflexes, huh?” He remembered arrows hitting him in the back before a blinding pain seized him. “Fair.”
He picked up the bone marble off the ground and tossed it back to Khare. It just had a level 0 base enchantment on it since he didn’t want to make anything lethal for the test weapon. It had also saved the bones in his hand from breaking. If one thing was for sure, it’s that he didn’t have to worry about propulsive force for his ultimate design.
A creaking from behind the curtain made Daniel wince and Khare drop to the floor, their vines moving a little slower than normal. Khiat’s voice boomed from behind the curtain. “Is everything alright?’
“Sorry Khiat, I was testing something. You can go back to sleep.”
“Oh, ok.” The loud, but drowsy voice faded and Khare formed the top half of their body just so they could look at each other.
“We should probably save that for when she’s up,” Daniel whispered, easing away from Khiat’s area. “I do think that could help, though. My awareness and reflexes should be better than they are. Beast Mode is giving me some benefits in this body just from the experience, but I don’t have Mantle of the Hunter to give me instincts.”
“Apology.”
“It’s fine, Khare,” Daniel chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll look into making a combat version of that for you at some point, but Khiat’s armor comes first.”
“Gun.” The gestalt waved the model weapon in his face to underline his hypocrisy.
“Are you acting like this because we know how old you are now?” Not that he minded Khare showing more of their personality, but as Soraso had explained after revealing their age, gestalts were born, or generated, or whatever was the right word with a fully developed mind. They still had a form of youth, which was this otherwise blank slate being introduced to the world. Daniel honestly found it hard to wrap his head around.
Instead of answering his question, Khare leaped back to the ceiling and crawled to their room like a movie monster entering a vent. I have weird roommates, Daniel thought, still smiling. He walked outside to the porch that ringed the entire structure and found Willow leaning on the banister while watching her sister fly. “How’s it going?”
“It’s all so different,” she said distantly, mind on something farther than even her home. “Every time I wake up, there’s a moment I forget what’s happened.”
“It’ll get better. That happened to me at first and at some point I accepted that I’m really here. I’m not saying you should get over it, just that time helps.” Reassure was on the tip of his tongue, ready to be used, but Daniel waved the ability away. He was taking Quala’s advice on it for now and reserving it to counter hostile emotion effects. There’d been a lot of advice he’d taken to heart from their renewed chats.
“Thanks.”
“Any more thoughts on trying for a class?” he asked carefully. “If you hunt with Tlara you’ll gain a huge amount of advancement potential, unless the Octyrrum reads your bond and gives you a penalty.”
Willow picked at her arm, the part without feathers, as she thought. “How can I after refusing it for so long?”
It’s just a system, he thought and wanted to say. The people of this world treated the thing that arbitrated powers like a god, or perhaps the entire pantheon combined since the popular view was that the gods were fractions of it. That wasn’t entirely wrong, but it was also looking at it from the wrong perspective. That was one of the reasons Daniel was being careful with how he talked to Willow about it. He wanted her to get a class but was wary of what would happen if she did.
It wasn’t only the Collapse opening up new possibilities, it was the effect he had on the Octyrrum. It was a revelation he’d come to himself after reminiscing on certain facts. They’d already discovered the asterisk powers were sourced from something weird happening with power evolutions, allowing people to gain powers they shouldn’t be able to. Put simply, it was him. Daniel was a glitch. Whether that was because he was fused with a Spoke, a beacon for the system, or if that was a hidden function of his Spoke, he didn’t know.
What he did know was that not only had he prematurely identified the power that had almost driven Khiat mad, but he’d also probably allowed her to gain her class. Under his influence, he’d given her the ability to refuse the dusker archetype in favor of something else, altering what class the Octyrrum would have given her. That it hadn’t been conscious on his part meant he couldn’t stop it from happening to Willow. If she didn’t get the avianoid archetype, would that prevent her from getting Grow Wings?
“The Octyrrum wants people to defend it, and even if there wasn’t a new Collapse, you’re a good person. I wish it had been you in the Thormundz instead of Tlara.” Willow seemed to blink away a tear as he said that, and she turned to him with clear gratitude. Jeez, I guess this is what having Tlara as a sister does to you. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
He stopped dunking on the Beastmaster as he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She was living here too and over that time they’d already become more familiar. It was hard not to with the common links their bonds had, as well as the fact that the young avianoid was as friendly as Tlara was not. He liked the warm feeling he got whenever he helped her, and his cat side appreciated her spirit in battle. She hadn’t panicked when the monster horde had come for them.
That being said, Willow hadn’t come out of Aughal unscathed. She whispered something instead of immediately backing out of the loose grip, confiding in him. “I’ve lost almost everyone. My mother, my father, in less than a day they’re just… gone.”
That stabbed him in the heart. “If it matters,” Daniel said, lowly even though there wasn’t anyone around, “I was there when your dad died. He was talking about his plan, right before the end.”
“About how he was going to take over the city?” Willow asked, confusion mixing with her sadness. “He never involved me. Maybe if he had, what I’d been doing with, with her would have been found out sooner. Stopped sooner.”
“He wanted to abolish the nobility,” Daniel said, still close to Willow but not right next to her. “I think he saw what was wrong with the city and was trying to fix it. There’s something people say in my world, that people show you their true selves right before the end. I don’t think he was doing it the right way, but he had good intentions.”
“Did he say anything about me?”
“He loved you,” Daniel answered, sure that if the old avianoid had had the time, he would have said something like that. Willow didn’t need the blunt truth here. She blinked away more tears and stepped away, taking both comfort and regret from his words. Though it still hurt, Daniel knew he’d said the right thing and had a sad smile on his face. She was almost like a sister, as if Alex or Ami had been a few years younger than him instead of the other way around. The thought of what might have happened to her if he hadn’t asked her to join him back in Aughal mixed with the memories of his family to haunt him.
“Thanks.”
“Of course.” Daniel tugged a little awkwardly at his light shirt as he thought of what to say next, though he didn’t need too much time. “If you could get a class, any class, which one would you want?” A thought suddenly occurred to him and he stopped Willow from answering. “Wait, nevermind. That’s the wrong way to ask. If you had a class, what would you want it to do?”
Willow furrowed what passed for eyebrows on her face at his sudden revision but respected the question. “I’d want to help people.”
“You sound like Thomas,” Daniel grinned. “So, healer?”
“No,” Willow answered, some conflict in her voice. “If that’s what the Octyrrum wants for me, then I wouldn’t mind. It’s just, I’d want to help everyone.” She looked away to where Tlara was now flying back to the house. “Monsters aren’t our only enemies anymore. Think, just for a moment, if we could turn them to our side.”
“Like Tlara?” Daniel ventured.
“No!” Conflict rose in Willow again. “Not exactly. She wasn’t entirely wrong.” By the way Willow shrank it seemed that confession had taken a lot out of her. “After we bonded, I could tell there was something in Spinner that the wyvern didn’t have. She was… whole, while the other was just a hole. I always thought there were special monsters out there but I’d hoped if we tried, we could find a way to reach them all.”
“But there’s nothing to reach,” Daniel affirmed, remembering his conversation with Cloak about spirits. “I see where you’re going with this. Taking the path Tlara did, just shooting for a different end goal. Huh, contronymous.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Daniel tried to wave away his slip, but a lingering thoughtful look in Willow’s eyes made him wonder if the word had resonated with her mental picture of her bond. “The information I got on the Collapse mentioned that the Octyrrum was unlocking more classes,” he said, aiming not to speak too much in game logic or mention the exact reason for that change. “If you do try to advance into a class, you should keep in mind what you want, rather than the classes you already know about.”
“You think the Octyrrum will listen?”
“I hope so,” Daniel answered, mentally prodding wherever his Spoke was in the hopes it would oblige her. Tlara landed on the platform that extended from one end of the balcony a moment later, the slight shaking of the construction waking Khiat up again. Daniel winced as he heard her call out. “I’m still doing her armor first,” he said sideways to Willow while trying to hide a guilty look, “But noise cancellation should be my next present for her.”
“I should make sure Tlara is alright. Her soul hasn’t left the wyvern since we crossed over but I know she’s afraid of it happening again.” One of Willow’s hands, the one that had put her sister’s soul back in the draconid, closed over her chest at the memory. She’d almost lost another family member just as quickly as the others.
“Yeah, I think someone’s coming up to talk to me too,” Daniel said in parting, mentally adding a reminder to see if Quala could talk to her. He still didn’t know if his earlier suggestion with Khare had made an impact, but he couldn’t deny how she’d helped him despite their differing views on the Octyrrum.
He put those thoughts aside as the unexpected guest made his way up the winding mountain road that led to this collection of oversized birdhouses. It had a middle-class suburban kind of feel, though the streets had verticality instead of cul de sacs.
His cat ears had even picked up a few ‘there goes the neighborhood’ comments from the residents immediately to their left with Keen Senses, and he generously decided to attribute that to the rumors of another Collapse rather than anyone living with him. Willow had done more than enough to smooth things over, both due to her personality and race, so they’d avoided trouble. I should probably keep the explosions to a minimum though.
“Mr. Brant, I’m glad to find you well,” Temir, the Hunter’s Guild representative greeted. At first, Daniel hoped the pelts had been processed early, but there was no comically oversized sack or, more likely, collection of bags of holding on the suited avianoid. Daniel hadn’t made the association before because his mind had been elsewhere, but seeing the official now finally made the image of a penguin click.
“Mr. Riseti, thank you for making the walk,” Daniel replied congenially, heightening Bartering as he did so. Using his commerce powers in actual negotiations felt like unexpectantly walking into niche friends and mentally switching to the group’s internal lingo. Like his nebulous language translation power he now suspected was tied to his Spoke, it worked so long as he didn’t think too hard about it.
The official couldn’t hide his slight frown at the address fast enough. “I see you have anticipated my business here. Would you like to take this inside?”
“It’s probably best I don’t wake up my dusker friend a third time,” Daniel said, gesturing widely at his surroundings with his hand coincidentally ending on the wyvern Willow was standing next to. “I think here is fine.”
“Very well.” Temir walked up the short flight of steps onto the ringed balcony and crouched briefly as he placed a square piece of wood on the ground. A pole appeared from underneath it and telescoped up, turning the surface into a short table. The man had no class as far as Daniel was aware, but the Hunter’s Guild clearly trusted him to hold his own against people with powers, economical or otherwise. Their top government didn’t abuse the magical item cheat like Aughal, but neither did they completely ignore it. “Our select Craftsmen have been hard at work processing your bounty. You will be happy to know that they have managed to produce a surplus so far, which is expected to result in about 7% overage of initial estimates.”
Must be something like Ammunition Surplus, Daniel thought to himself. “Great! So, you don’t want to keep the 65-35 split?” That was the deal they’d landed on prior. His intuition had told him it was a terrible exchange, but also that he didn’t have enough leverage to push for more. Something had changed it, and he had an idea why. “I’ll also go out on a limb and say you haven’t found enough people to work with what you have.”
“The increased rate of monster spawns has created many opportunities,” Temir acknowledged, not hiding the fact. “The Hunter’s Guild doesn’t want this valuable resource to go to waste, and the director of social affairs put out a request to look into means of expanding our food stockpiles.”
“You want me to make more bags.”
“Just so.” Daniel’s economic sense clashed with his other priorities. This was beginning to sound like a dream opportunity for any normal Artificer just starting out, though he was far from normal. It was also easy to see why no one else had taken this offer. Time was the most valuable resource for an established Artificer.
“They aren’t the easiest to make, and a small bag can take an hour. If I go bigger, say an entire wolf pelt for a sack of holding, that can eat up an entire day. And I mean 24 hours of straight enchanting with a non-negligible failure rate. Have you ever seen an entire day’s work turn to dust, Mr. Riseti?”
“Haven’t we all? Someone as experienced as yourself should know how to handle risk.” The official verbally pivoted the direction the conversation was going with ease, beating Daniel’s powers with experience. “The Hunter’s Guild is currently due the pelts and bones of 112 of the corpses, as well as all other derivative remnants from the process you yielded. I’ll be forthright with you, that is more than our Arcanists and Artificers affiliated with the guild can manage. A few Smiths have expressed interest in the material for armor, though it’s our opinion that the preservative augmentation would better serve Aurus through enchantment. We are offering you back the bones of three wolves for every pelt from one you enchant for us.”
No fucking way, was Daniel’s immediate, internal assessment. It was a net profit, but one that would see him grinding away for weeks to get any real benefit. Even more, what was the point of having more enchanting material if all of his time would be spent enchanting for the city? No, this offer was a trap meant to get him comfortable with slaving away for Threst.
“I’m not looking to take on large contracts right now,” Daniel replied, placing a hand on the table palm down while looking slightly away. “A handful I could mix in over the next week, maybe, but I’m trying to get my team fit to hunt. The Regent does want us in fighting shape.” He said the last part in an almost off-handed way and smiled as he saw the feathers of the official perk up. A few emotions could cause avianoids to display that instinctual reaction, and he guessed this was concern.
“We could discuss the addition or monetary renumeration, or conversion of the bones to other material suitable for enchanting.” Daniel couldn’t help but be interested in that. The bonus the wastewolf pelt and bones provided was great for the bags, but he couldn’t be sure it would be useful for armor or weapons. Having a library of material to pick from could expand his horizons and might just solve the problems he was having with his gun. Pouncing on his weakness, the official pulled out several sheets of paper that had been carefully folded in one corner to replicate the effect of a staple. “I’ve brought a catalog, if you’re interested.”
Damn it. The very first entry on the beautifully illustrated list was of feathers from the ‘Tempestfowl Elemental’ monster. Using them in armor or worn equipment would lessen the weight of the wearer. Daniel didn’t know if leathercut would extend to using feathers, or if enchanting with them required the patchwork affix, but if there was a ‘feathercut’ affix he’d undoubtedly get it from hunting in this region. These would also be perfect to mix into Khiat’s gear to help her fly.
“You may feel free to take this and peruse if you wish,” Temir added, doing him the favor of not openly smiling as the hook bit in. Daniel’s eyes scanned the front page and he was surprised to find a material he’d heard of before listed two-thirds of the way down, and was even more interested when he learned what it did when used in enchanting. It wouldn’t help with his flight plans, but it might just make another project more possible.
“You’re from the Hunter’s Guild, right?” Daniel asked, the question coming to him later than he thought it should have. “Why are you negotiating on behalf of the city?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry. If we come to an agreement today, it will be honored by all interested parties,” Temir assured him. “There is greater cohesion between the various institutions required to run Threst and you need but take one look at our flights or our Bekali constructs to see the integration paying off. As an official within the Hunter’s Guild, I am the most appropriate liaison to discuss these matters with you as I am more mindful of the needs of a hunter than someone purely from the commerce sector.”
“That sounds… efficient,” Daniel said, internally taken aback by how regimented Threst’s government was compared to Aughal’s.
“I’m glad you see it that way. Now, do you need more time to think?”
It was too tempting. He’d had seeking out other enchanting materials on his to do list and, like magic, Temir had gift wrapped it all for him with only a few strings attached. “In this hypothetical deal, I’m providing most of the valuable services. Hunting and enchanting are critical commodities, to say nothing of the fact that my time is the most precious thing we’re trading.”
“Of course,” Temir said as he waved his hand, not giving away if he agreed or not. “We respect your ambition and see this as a way we can help equip your team while providing for the needs of Aurus.”
Then why didn’t you lead with this? Daniel thought but didn’t ask as he knew that was a pointless question. “I’m willing to consider more work after further thought, but I’ll agree to make ten normal sized bags now for a few concessions.”
“I’m afraid we can’t budge on your registration,” Temir said carefully, making his first real misstep of the negotiation.
“It’s not that. I know you have to have some pelts ready and I’d like all you can give me now, in addition to the ones I’ll enchant for you.”
“Naturally. What else?” the official asked, sensing that couldn’t be all.
“These Craftsmen you have processing the wolves, they do regular work for the guild?” Temir nodded in reply, now with a slight frown as the conversation got off track. Daniel wished he could use Beast Mode without crippling himself so he could give the avianoid a truly predatory grin. “Good. I want you to arrange it so that I can inspect some or all of the bodies they process before they do anything to them. I don’t want to take anything from them, and it’ll only take a few minutes each time. You could say it would be over in a snap.”