Invent ~ 16!

Raising the smithy was far easier than raising the warehouse, since he was able to bribe a few Dwarves with no rent on the smithy for the next two weeks if they helped him out. After the forges were created and at proper heat, Joe easily put together a Beginner gyroscope out of aspects using an Aspect Ingot Hammer.

There was something about not needing other materials that made him laugh out loud as the Dwarves grumbled about not having access to metal. The downside to all of this was the jeering they sent his way as he started on the third layer of the gyroscope and it fell apart immediately, nearly lighting the new building on fire before he managed to put out the aspect-driven flames. Joe scratched at a few small burns he had taken, unsure what had happened.

He tried again, and got further, but then the ring fell apart; now onto a large amount of stone rubble the Dwarves had set around him like they were ringing a campfire in the woods. “What is happening? I know how to do this…?”

A third try, and another failure. This time, he got a notification of a skill increase.

Ritualistic Forging (Beginner V) -> Ritualistic Forging (Beginner VI).

“Ah…” Joe looked over his skills, noting the fact that even though his Smithing Lore was at the Apprentice rank, his actual skill was still lagging behind. “Nothing to do but grind, I suppose. Anyone wanna point out my issues with forging as I go? Also, I need someone to run to the warehouse and order metal from Stan. I’m paying if someone can help me with a project I have going on here.”

A Dwarf offered his expertise, at an interesting rate per hour of teaching: a mere twenty-five reputation with the Oligarchy. Joe made sure to inform them that he would remember that these Dwarves thought that was a reasonable hourly rate when they were charged for using the forge. The price mysteriously dropped to ten reputation for the entire day.

Now doing everything he could to move through all the forms properly, and with a paid instructor, the aspects began happily converting to metal at a rapid rate. Joe spent the next few hours making stabilization baubles, tiny pyramids that he planned to embed in his ritual tiles. He could only craft Beginner versions with a decent success rate, but he still managed to make two sets of Apprentice stabilizers by the time his skill increased.

Congratulations! Ritualistic Forging has reached Apprentice 0! Reward: Aspect Ingot Hammer technique. Hammering using this pattern will increase the chances of a successful item creation by 20% when used at the same tier of your Ritualistic Forging. No additional benefit will be given when attempting to create something of a higher tier!

Joe looked at his skill list, not seeing the new technique appearing. He asked his instructor about it, “Pardon me… it seems I increased my forging, and I got a hammering technique. It isn’t showing up when I look for it in my skill list, though?”

“Oh? Congrats, kid.” The Dwarf nodded at the anvil Joe had been standing at. “As to why that is, just try making something. You’ll see.”

Joe pulled out his gyroscope and started working on the next ring, silver aspects converting to metal with each strike. His eyebrow rose when he noticed that he was unconsciously hammering in a new pattern. His loss of focus cost him the ring, and it converted back into aspects with a flash of light and heat. “Ahh!”

“Yeah, just wait till you see what it looks like when you try to make something at the Unique rank and mess it up.” The Dwarf shook his head and started waving his hands while he spoke. “Grandmasters don’t have subspaces in their smithy just for privacy. Something goes wrong on a Legendary they try to make? *Boom*.”

“Why does everything have to blow up? Can’t it just fail?” Joe grumbled as he got set up to try again.

“It can. If you aren’t making something magical.” The Dwarf tapped the side of his nose knowingly. “When you’re pumping magic into something, putting it in sideways makes the whole thing unstable. In fact, It can be preferable to have it go wrong at the start. Often an instant failure saves a ton of material, time, and keeps people alive. Imagine you make something that looks right, you get all the way to the end, and find out that there was an incorrect magical matrix in the first part you made? Then the entire thing is a natural disaster waiting to happen. You just don’t know when.”

“That happens?” Joe paused as he pulled back his hammer.

“Oh, ye~eah.” The Dwarf sounded far too close to a certain juice commercial for Joe not to chuckle at him. “That’s why most anything made by a Master goes straight to an appraiser. Failure can mean an explosion, a curse, or something… wonky coming out of it.”

The Reductionist’s mind went to a powerful sword that only wanted to cut feet, but he managed to keep his mouth shut and nod, getting back to work on the gyroscope. His next attempt at the third ring met with success, but that meant that his skill increases also stopped rolling in. The fact of the matter was that the Dwarf was just too low-skilled at his profession to artificially boost someone through teaching. Joe had fully expected this; it was very unlikely that a Master Smith was going to leave the city and come to an unknown campground without good reason or even better compensation.

That left Joe with an issue: he needed two more rings on his gyroscope if he wanted to make a firm foundation for his ritual of enchantment, and there was no way that he could make it happen. He left the smithy with both his completed and partially-completed works, on his way to find Havoc. He was fretting about this choice, and so worked to psych himself up. “He called me his Apprentice. That’s gotta mean something, and… he won’t be able to ignore me forever on this stuff. He wants something out of me, and this land. Why else does he have secret projects going?”

He went to find Havoc, but instead came upon Bauen handing a group of engineers something; something that he made them hide as soon as Joe was within earshot. That was the only reason he knew anything about this at all. “The human’s almost here, move, ya blighters! Havoc’ll slice open our gizzards!”

Joe simply paused, took a deep breath, and decided to put the strangeness out of mind. After the rapid shuffling had subsided, he walked over with his eyes firmly locked on the sweating engineer. “Bauen, I’m looking for Havoc… a~and I just remembered he’s gone for the rest of the week. Drat. How did I forget that? You know metalwork, right? Could I have your assistance on a project?”

Bauen stood in a ‘totally casual’ position, and took a long moment to look Joe over. “Hmm. Why not? How about we go to your workshop?”

“I need some metal work done; I got the smithy-”

“To the workshop!” Bauen cheered as he marched away at twice the speed a normal human could run. Joe had no choice but to hurry along after him, even though he knew the Dwarf was just trying to keep him away from what he was doing.

“Major Cleave, anything you need while we’re out and about?” Joe questioned the empty air around him, knowing that there was a strong probability of his minder being next to him.

“I’m fine.” She informed him stoically from where she was walking just to the right of his elbow. “I appreciate the concern.”

They hurried to follow Bauen, who was looking at the door to Joe’s shop, but not attempting to open it. The Dwarf shook his head in wonder as he turned to Joe, “This… it’s a masterwork of trickery, Joe. I have no idea how you managed to trap this place in such a way that I can’t even figure out what will pop out at me if I go in there without being invited. Care to share?”

“That’s easy, Bauen.” Joe slapped the door open with a tiny effort of will, walking inside along with the other two. “It isn’t trapped. I haven’t made anything in here that I haven’t taken with me.”

Bauen squinted his eyes at Joe to see if he was being toyed with, then his face started to go red. “You’re going to fix that, yes? No crafter worth their salt is going to just… let people in without protections in place. Just… right, what do you need now?”

Pulling out his gyroscope, Joe pointed out the design and explained about needing two more rings. He and Bauen went over a few ideas, including just having the Dwarf make them, until the engineer grinned and snapped his fingers. “Why do you even need the metal? I saw that fancy light you put up on your shop, didn’t see anything under it. You’ve got a new trick, right? Use that.”

Joe considered that, but slowly shook his head. “No… it would require a lot of time to get that properly made. I need an Expert ritual circle, and that skill really hikes up the instability when trying to make something free floating. At the Expert tier right now, the instability would jump… thirty per tier… I think that’s the math on it, so something like one hundred and eighty percent. Guaranteed explosion.”

“Huh. That is an issue. I suppose you could grind and get that skill up, or find ways to stabilize the ritual as you were using it.” Bauen saw Joe flinch, and a wide grin appeared on his face. “Oh? You’re holding out on me so you can be lazy, aren’t you?”

Joe reluctantly pulled out his ritual stabilizers from his time in the smithy. “I can make these, I have a skill for ritualistic forging, but-”

“But you wanna cut corners to beat your class quests.” Bauen smiled gently, reaching over and patting Joe’s shoulder. “That’s a great way to be trapped and unable to complete the next quest, lad. Rushing ahead is gonna ruin your foundation if you let it.”

“I just want the nifty bonuses.” Joe let the Dwarf see his defeated smile, but slowly nodded in acknowledgment of his words. “Havoc told you I was challenging the record?”

“He warned all of us to stay out of your way, more like.” Bauen shuddered, a dark expression covering his face. “That man is a genius. Insane, perhaps, but a genius.”

“So… help me to stay on track?” Joe offered brightly, deflating as Bauen shook his head.

“I was recently hired for a, um, job. I recommend sending an order to the Capital if you really don’t want to do it yourself.” Bauen raised a bushy eyebrow, and let a knowing look show on his face. “That is, if you’re gonna offload all your problems?”

“I mean. If possible.” Joe’s attempt at keeping a straight face failed under Bauen’s confused expression. “No, fine, you’re right. Time to rise and grind. Time to show the world that I don’t have a mindset. I have a grindset.”

“Please don’t.” Major Cleave saw where Joe was going and attempted to head him off. She failed. Joe slapped the table and stood erect, already planning his next move.

As Joe rushed out the door to get to work, Bauen met Major Cleave’s annoyed stare as she grumped at him, “Why are you encouraging him to fail? There’s a reason the Legion rarely allows people to rank up so rapidly. Trying to do all of these things at once is a mistake, and he’s going to get himself killed.

“He can respawn for just a small cost of experience.” Bauen ignored her glare as he walked more leisurely out of the door. “Hey, they say you learn from mistakes, so maybe he’ll be a genius soon.”

Major Cleave growled and ground her teeth as she stomped off to follow her charge. “I’m gonna die in this volcano again. I just know it.”