Chapter 109 (1/2)

Razor Fleetfoot hopped to and fro, feeling quite timid and overwhelmed. The elders had tasked him, one of their brightest young warriors, with a very specific, and possibly dangerous, mission. He had followed their instructions, but to his surprise, nothing of what he found was what he was told to expect.

Everyone here just seemed to be rushing around in every which direction. Seeing a friendly looking female, Razor hopped over to her.

“Excuse me…”

The female looked him up and down, sighed, and then looked down at her clipboard. “...Are you still looking for housing?”

“Um no, I-”

“Well then I can’t help you.” The clipboard returned to her side, and she walked away, calling for any people from Franksburg in need of housing.

Razor tried the same thing with 3 more people, and every time, he was given a conflicting answer. He simply wanted to find someone in charge of this village.

First he was told to find the scary looking woman with her hair up in a bun, but this was rather useless advice, because Razor didn’t rightly know what having “hair up in a bun” meant. So that was disregarded.

Second, he was told to find a Classer, who would point him in the right direction. Razor assumed a Classer was someone with a class, but he had no idea how to tell whether people had classes. Did this village have a way to see that….?

He filed that information away for later.

The third advice was pointing him towards a low, squat building, from which a lot of banging and screeching was emanating. Razor’s sensitive ears were already twitching, but he had a mission. So he steadied his resolve, and walked towards the strange building, trying his best to ignore the horrible noise.

****

As the light of dawn filtered through the window, Sam smashed downwards with his hammer, finishing the iron breastplate. As he did so, some of the light in the air seemed to stiffen and congeal, then settle onto the armor. For a second it glowed, but then it faded, leaving nothing but the dull sheen of metal.

Annoyed at his new sleeping habits, but somewhat mollified by the fact that his need for sleep was drastically decreased, Sam examined the armor.

Quality Iron Breastplate Lvl 25: End +3, Resistance +2, Health +30. Possesses the attribute Dawn Touched I.

Dawn Touched I: Wearer has regeneration increased by 10 per hour for Health, and 1 per minute for Stamina.

Sam’s face simply twitched, stuck somewhere between a smile and a frown. Sure, the extra attribute was useful. And if he could manage to mass produce this, giving almost everyone an extra 3 End, 2 Resist, and 30 Health, the strength of the average squad member would rise.

It was simply made with common ingredients, as well, which meant that it was certainly… possible to mass produce. The problem was that the results from most of the other smiths would have only 2 End, No Resist, and 20 Health. His class conferred on him some definite advantages, so it was irksome that he therefore wanted to make every piece of armor.

There simply wasn’t enough time. Especially because he wanted to focus on Bone Shaping, or his other new skill.

Extremely carefully, Sam removed a Needle, covered in runes, that they had purchased with quite a bit of SP, and a book from their newly acquired library. In it, were the basics of engraving.

Still moving with the utmost cautious, Sam produced a small hammer, and began to etch a rune onto the breastplate. Not only did the shape of the rune have to match almost exactly, but he had to insert mana into the needle, letting it flow into the lines he was carving. The amount wasn’t even, but was based on how straight the line was. The straight portions required very little mana to sustain.

A small curve would require addition mana, adding depth to the rune.

A abrupt twist was like a deep well of mana, as Sam sweated bullets, pushing more and more mana into the line.

The needle needed to remain near the breastplate constantly, because it was “sewing” the mana into the correct shape, and the connection could not be broken, or it would all go to waste. So Sam’s hammer hand intermittently needed to set down the hammer and raise a mana potion to his lips.

Even the small breaks weakened the connection, lowering the quality of the engraved rune, but Sam simply had no choice; he didn’t have a large enough mana pool to do an entire rune yet.

Luckily, he finished without a hitch, and leaned back. From the book Sam was able to purchase, he had only learned 3 runes, which translated roughly as Bear, Fish, and Dragonfly. Sam’s current attempt was on a Bear rune, which he now examined.

Engraving of Bear 19% (P): When struck, this armor will have a small chance of resisting stunning and knockback effects.

Sam spat in the corner, his mood sour. Especially after he clicked on the P. After all, he had never seen the rarity P. It turned out it stood for poor.