The Dark Lord of Crafting

The years had not been kind to Gent. His hair was gray and thinning, tied back in a ponytail. His wide, pockmarked face held deep-sunken eyes that hinted at almost as much weariness and stress as he deserved. Either Naifan's interpretation of the situation had spread, or Bojack had lied to the baron about who he was expecting to come out of the portal. He adjusted his surcoat, his hand brushing over the sign of a leaping rabbit emblazoned over his right breast, and instead of bowing, pressed his fist over his heart.

"It is an honor to be graced with your presence," he said.

"Where is Orobas?" I demanded. Though the helm hid my face, I wondered if he would recognize my voice. But there was no recognition in his expression, only weariness, and a little fear.

"The Aychar is in Henterfell," he said, "advising the High King in regards to the war."

"Good," I said. The statement jogged my memory. Aychar was the word for Kevin's demonic generals, Gastard had used it once. Was he still fighting somewhere, resisting Dargoth? Or had he been killed defending Esmelda? Five months had been a big question mark, and now I had ten years of history to worry about. "You are dismissed."

Gent blinked. "My Lord, I'm afraid my instructions were not as clear as they could have been. Orobas merely asked that I inform him if the portal ever became active, he did not tell me it was you he was waiting for. May I ask what I can do for you, and what your purpose is here, after all this time."

"No. Go home, Gent." The baron was a jerk, and probably fit the criteria for a sociopath, but on the scale of evil, he was a small fry. This wasn't my town anymore, and he could keep it. Bojack was in Henterfell, which meant I could pay a visit to Godwod as soon I'd finished looting this place, and my feelings about him were less forgiving. The next time Godwod saw me, it was not going to be a good day for him.

Gent started to talk again, stuttering to a stop as I turned my back on him, headed back into the treasure room, and re-equipped the atreanum pick. Halting in front of the storage system against the back wall, I put out my fancy new boot, and the runic force field activated just like old times. A pale blue, semi-transparent shield shimmered up from the floor. It was darkest around my foot, responding to the pressure of my toe.

This wasn't a resource block that could be harvested, but to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. With quick, light strokes, I assaulted. The field fizzed and sparked wherever the edge of my pick landed, which struck me as a positive indicator that this would work. Monitoring my tool for any signs of damage, I kept it up for nearly a full minute, during which the glow of the runes grew in intensity. Their hues brightened from a calm navy to an alarmed powder blue before shorting out.

Simple as that, the wealth of my predecessors was free for the taking. It had better be worth it.

Stacks of medallions subdivided into neat, square cubbies filled the first chest. It was all standard equipment; picks, shovels, hoes, axes, and shields, a lot of shields. No special materials. Stuff I could have made myself. The chests were attached to a track on the wall around a hopper and could be rotated employing a lever installed to the left of the collection.

Disappointed, I cycled to the next box.

The follow-up was more interesting. Three chests filled with arrows, indistinguishable except for their fletching; white feathers, red, and gray. They wouldn't be convenient to carry. As finished items, they converted into medallions when they were harvested, and couldn't be merged into anything more compact. But I could collect them, and figure out what the color coding meant, after investigating the remaining chests.

Gems. Opening a box filled with high-quality jewels caught me off guard, and it took me a second to realize that these were cabochons, the most compact form of resource management I was aware of. Each gem represented over seven hundred units of whatever it was. I picked one up and threw it on the floor to break it into medallions. Nine, wide, ornately detailed coins scattered from the point of impact.

Basalt. They'd also stored wood in a second compartment. Piles of cabochons worked out to…I had no idea. Thousands and thousands of blocks and logs. It was even more material than there had been in the workroom at the way station. Enough to build a keep, if not a castle. But that wasn't what I needed, and it was also nothing worth sealing behind a force field.

The final box was mostly empty, containing only a few oilcloth purses tied with silk string. Each one of them was worth more than all the rest of the chests combined. Meta-material coins were oversized, and it appeared that like item medallions, could not be merged. Either that or these had been left as individual units out of respect for the effort that had been required to collect them.

Thirty-five ingots of orichalcum, a little more than it would take to craft a full set of armor and tools. Two atreanum ingots, which gave me a sliver of breathing room as far as crafting anti-magic tools went. The third purse had something new. The medallions were royal blue, their edges etched with swirls. There were just as many of these as the orichalcum, but the bag felt like it weighed half as much.

Ding.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Cerulium: One of the five meta-materials, Cerulium is a lustrous, azure mineral known for its light weight and flexibility. Its high aetheric conductivity increases the likelihood of synergistic effects when enchanted. Cerulium is predominately found in the veins of celestial bodies, and when alloyed with orichalcum, the result is blades of surpassing sharpness.

Given the origin of atreanum, the phrase "celestial bodies" probably meant something very different from the moon or other planets. Maybe you had to mine angel hearts, or something equally ridiculous. Synergistic effects sounded fun, but I was particularly pleased by the mention of an alloy. If mixing metals was an option, that opened up an entirely new world of crafting recipes. Four out of five meta-materials accounted for. If I went back to Bedlam to ransack the redstone there, I would be well on the way to completing the Crafty quest.

For now, I would settle for replacing Kevin's sword.

Neither Gent nor Naifan had disturbed me while I was pillaging the chests, but now I was interrupted by a shout of alarm that could have come from either of them. Walking back to the central chamber, I found Naifan struggling manfully with a zombie that was busily attempting to eat Gent's face. The gray, hunched form had pounced on the baron, who was mostly hidden by the skin flaps hanging from the mob's arms.

Naifan plunged a knife into the monster's back, successfully engaging its attention. With a moan, it lurched off of the baron and sank its teeth into its attacker's shoulder. I crossed the room, palmed the back of the zombie's head like a basketball, and tugged, intending to separate them before I finished it. The mob's neck snapped, and I looked it in the face, genuinely befuddled for a long moment, as I held it up with one hand.

Its ragged mouth gaped, a horror show of rotten teeth and fungal growth, as its half-blind eyes rolled back in its head. I was way, way, stronger.

"Thank you, my Dark." Naifan was once again kneeling, and it looked like he would be fine. The zombie hadn't had time to chew through his surcoat. Gent, however, had a nasty-looking bite on his cheek. It must be nighttime.

"You should get that looked at," I said and returned to the treasure room.

How did alloys work? A mismatched arrangement on the crafting grid would result in lost materials. With wood or iron, that was no longer a big deal. But the meta-materials were too precious to waste.

A quick test with stone and iron proved the point. Placing a stone coin beneath an iron piece in the pattern for a sword caused all the materials to vanish as soon as I pulled the worktable lever. No big surprise. You couldn’t melt down a rock and smelt it with metal.

Still, for the sake of completeness, I attempted one more formulation. The Maincraft crafting grid had only nine slots. The total number of available arrangements was enormous, even in that small space, but still finite. As most of the existing recipes involved placing materials in a shape that was at least roughly indicative of what you were trying to make, the number of potentially sensible recipes shrank much further.

The grid in the game, however, was two-dimensional. My worktable had depth, and the slots could fit at least two coins if they were stacked on top of each other.

Two basalt, two iron, one stick. It was the sword formula with the blade portion doubled up.

I pulled the lever and lost the resources. Obviously, I was overthinking this.

This was the wrong way to go about crafting an alloy. The ingot had to come first. Raw ore was smelted in a furnace, not at the worktable. But furnaces only had one slot for the resource being smelted. Or did they? There was only one place to put in a coin, but you could put in as many as nine at a time. I’d been thinking of them as stacking together in a single “slot,” though the furnace didn’t have any kind of visible grid to work with.

Mixing stone with iron was a reach, especially when there was much lower hanging conceptual fruit to be plucked.

One iron ingot and one coal in the top slot, along with more fuel to keep the furnace running. Not long after, a single coin rolled out of the dispenser.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Achievement: Crafty (6)

Took you long enough. There’s smelting, and then there’s smelting. Steel is a quotidian. Use your imagination, and try combining different materials for more noteworthy results.

Steel: The cornerstone of any crafter’s material log. Weapons and armor crafted from steel will have increased durability and sharpness compared to iron.

You don’t have to tell me twice.

The orichalcum-cerulium alloy took much longer to smelt, long enough that I began to worry that it wouldn’t work, but the System had never been big on fanfare. The coin rolled out, just like any other, and the new type of ingot was added to my log.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Xanthium: An alloy of two meta-materials, Xanthium inherits some of the best qualities of each. Though not as durable as orichalcum, it makes up for it with reduced weight, increased flexibility, and surpassing sharpness. Equipment crafted from Xanthium is also more aetherically conductive than orichalcum alone, though not to the extent of pure cerulium.

Not long after, I had my second coin. With limited supplies, it wouldn’t be economical to go crazy with alloying the meta-materials, as the smelting process essentially turned two ingots into one. But I could afford to splurge on a sword.

As always, the actual crafting part was instantaneous.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Xanthium Sword]

Damage Rating: 12

Speed: Insane

Enchantments: None

Durability: 100/100

An anvil would be required to officially grant the item a name, but as I’d already had an Excalibur, I was thinking of this as Caliburn. Basically the same thing, but it sounded cooler. More damage than an orichalcum sword, and that speed rating. The System had a sense of humor somewhere, buried deep down.

I used the rest of my atreanum to craft knives. With as easy as they were supposed to be to break, I wanted as many backups as possible, and knives required half the material investment of swords.

Before leaving the base, I lost several hours to resource collections, mostly converting arrows into medallions and stuffing them into sacks. Mobs spawned and died. Caliburn treated troll hide like paper, and it was virtually weightless. It felt like I was wielding a light-saber.

The extra experience would go to enchanting. Gent and Naifan were long gone, and there were no enchanted books with my chests in the upper chamber. If there were any that hadn’t been looted since my trip to Bedlam, they would be at the farm.

My list of goals was short.

Prep.

Find Bojack.

Kill Kevin.

Meet my son.