Feral Beast Master: A Gamelit Adventure, page 15
It wasn’t the Thousand Year Terapin’s fault it had been hijacked by a parasite and turned into a lumbering infection farm. It was Kaden’s responsibility to stop it from hurting anyone else. He swung Remembrance overhand, bringing down the axe edge. Remembrance chopped through the head in one blow.
You have slain a Boss Monster (Thousand Year Terrapin)
You have gained experience.
The battlefield fell quiet.
And Kaden sat down in the snow, with the TriTerror curled around him. Vip exploded forth, barking at the dead turtle as though each bark was a blow. He didn’t look up as a shadow fell over him.
“What did you do wrong?” Mr. Dervish asked.
He replayed the battle in his mind. “I took too long to spike it. One of those thorns to my heart could have killed me.”
“And?”
What else was there? Oh. “I spoke to Trinity.”
Mr. Dervish put a hand on the terrapin and one on Kaden. “You don’t need to speak to your Beasts to command them. Especially you, with those skills. Don’t give away what you’re going to do, or Enlightened Beasts will punish you.”
Kaden nodded. “I’ll work on it.”
“I know you will. Now, try and pull Trinity into your soul. You’re nearly ready.” Mr. Dervish crossed his arms and waited.
The days of Mana-Dart had slowly increased his Mana to twenty three. It would be close. Kaden pulled on the soul binding. And his chest swelled, burning, aching like he’s swallowed a barrel full of fire.
You have received a skill: [Acidic Drool] (Trinity, TriTerror)
You have received a skill:[Razor Scales] (Trinity, TriTerror)
You have received a Talent: Resilient Constitution.
Kaden closed his eyes in spite of the pain, focusing on Trinity. She stood atop a rock on an Island, her tail stabbed through the heart of a man-deer. They really would have to work on that.
When he opened his eyes, Mr. Dervish was smiling. “I bet that hurts, don’t it?”
“So bad. Is this going to rupture my soul?”
“Nah, if that were going to happen, it would have. Now, let’s see if what I think is true will be. Try and pull that dog of yours, too.”
Kaden paused, thinking it over. “I can’t. I don’t have the soul capacity.”
“Do it.”
He reluctantly triggered the binding—and she disappeared into him. The burning intensified, but not nearly as much as it had with Rocky. He still summoned Vip again. “Why did you think that would work?”
“Your first is special. Your soul will pretty much make room. We’ve only got one more thing for today. Put your hand on mine.” Mr. Dervish covered Kaden’s hand with his much, much larger one, and put both on the turtle. “Sometimes, you’ll be in the field and won’t have Inventory to store an entire corpse. Sometimes it’s a Beast like this who you couldn’t store if you had to. It’s always better to bring the whole thing back, but when you can’t?”
He pressed down on Kaden’s hand, and triggered something.
You have learned a new skill: Field Harvest.
[Field Harvest]
Strip a corpse of the most valuable crafting materials, at the cost of less valuable ones. At higher levels, your efficiency will increase, as will the quality and amount of materials harvested.
“Thank you! How did you do that?” Kaden asked.
Mr. Dervish laughed and shook his head. “Get any skill high enough, pick up the teacher profession, and you can give a point of it to someone else. Now, use it.”
Kaden focused on the turtle and activated [Field Harvest].
His mana dropped by twenty two points—and the turtle collapsed into a pile of foul meat.
You have received: 24x Thousand Year Terrapin Shell Segment
You have received 1x Thousand Year Terrapin Beak
Kaden shared the results with Mr. Dervish. “This is the best skill in the System.”
“It’s handy, I’ll give you that. And those segments? There’s almost always a crafter with a Quest out for ‘em. You really want to build relationships with crafters. An Adventurer without crafters is a poorly equipped adventurer, which means a dead adventurer.” Mr. Dervish grew quiet. “It isn’t easy, being ordered around, and I know it. But I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t think it would save you or your party.”
Kaden offered him a hand, wincing from the pain in his soul. “Thank you. For the skill. For the training. Not for the bruises.”
“You’ve got a long way to go, but that skill wasn’t your reward. You’ll find it when you reach the Guild. Keep Trinity in your soul and use Mana Dart to ease the pain until it doesn’t hurt. Now, I have to go have lunch with a Queen.” Mr. Dervish opened a portal—but stopped. “You might want to turn off that skill before you enter the Guild.”
And like that, he stepped through and was gone.
Only then did Kaden realized his arms, the backs of his hands, his chest, everything was covered in razor scales that jutted out. He spat on the ground, and yellow acid sizzled in the snow.
Turning the skill off was as easy as thinking about it, and his skin itched as the scales receded.
They were miles from the City, but Kaden didn’t worry as he made his way back. If he had to, he’d drop Trinity on anyone who threatened him. The TriTerror would be very unhappy to leave her soul world, and take out that displeasure in a number of unpleasant ways.
The long walk to the City was pleasant, with Vip digging in the snow and barking at a stick, a sketchy rock, and a frozen corpse, which Kaden dropped in Inventory. The Healer’s Temple would know if the man could be resurrected. He looked like a commoner, with his knitted woolen cloak. He didn’t have an Inventory, because the system didn’t give him the choice of looting.
The City square bustled with life even with Winter’s cold. The Healers accepted the body, quickly pointing out the numerous dagger wounds on the frozen corpse, and began taking bets on whether he could be resurrected.
Kaden headed to the Guild.
That is, he headed to the Guild after making Vip return a golden medallion that he gathered was some sort of holy relic of The Healer, with apologies (Kaden’s; Vip did not apologize for anything).
He headed for his room, noting the package flag that would prevent [Thieves] from stealing in the Guild, and opened the wooden box.
Inside sat four Charms of Veela. A cargo card for a package of provisions. A fire starting stone, and a shimmering white brick Kaden didn’t recognize.
[Icon of the Builder]
This Icon contains the power of Legos, the Builder god. Made from a stone of his temple, it has the ability to reduce Decay over time. (1/week). Commit more unspeakable sins by stealing more bricks to increase this rate.
And a note, saying he’d earned a vacation. That he should gather his party…and take them home. Kaden closed the box and headed to find his Party. He didn’t have room in Inventory, but it was long past time they went together.
As he wandered through the first floor, which contained not one but five separate bars, three dinner enclaves, and two general merchants, he looked everywhere. Vip right beside him, there simply wasn’t room on the crowded floor.
Then someone pounded a table, and a [Necromancer] with a bald head and third eye on his forehead raised his glass. “Tonight!”
The entire bar echoed the word.
“We celebrate! Because even the rawest, greenest recruits can hold their own. Only one star, still ran a rank three dungeon!”
A roar of approval ran through the crowd.
That’s when he spotted Sara. And Eve. And Trella, at the center of the party. They’d run a dungeon without him. Part of him stopped, completely shocked. The rational part of him said of course they had. He’d been a slave to training, dead on his feet when he crawled into bed, gone before sunrise. So they’d found a way to keep progressing. To earn money and loot and apparently stars.
The awkward tension could be cut with a dull War Hammer as he sat down. “So. What did you three do today?”
“We ran Blue Bay, a tide pool dungeon on the coast. So. Many. Crabs,” Trella said, her voice barely audible above the crowd. “We didn’t get the notice that you were going to be done training until we’d already received the slot. It didn’t make sense to give it up.”
The disappointment of missing a dungeon run was balanced by the relief of knowing that Mr. Dervish wouldn’t be lurking around the corner, or in the common room, or outside the bathrooms, or any of the dozens of places he’d met Kaden to encourage him practicing. With a flex, he forced a mana spike into being ,and crushed it. Mana Dart was still a better way to develop capacity. “Any new skills?”
“Eve leveled when we beat the boss crab. I swear it was like Verdant Vineyards all over again. Every minion was a crab. Every boss was a crab. The dungeon champion? Also a crab. The loot was crab themed.” Sara shook her head. “It beats irregular dungeons, that’s for sure.”
The right thing to do was celebrate with his Party. But after two weeks of Kaden being Mr. Dervish’s training dummy, what he wanted more than anything was a hot meal, a hot bath, and to sleep for three days. “I’m going back to spend some time at my Holding in a few days. You’re welcome to come, if you want.”
With that, he ordered food from the bar, tipped the table boy to bring it to his room, and headed up to wash off the sheer exhaustion. The promise of home, even in the depths of winter, kept his feet light up the stairs.
Vip swam in the bathtub, leaping from the sides to plunge through suds and then surfacing to bark. *No Stink* His chest felt tender, even though the pain wasn’t in his flesh, but is soul, and he lay in bed cycling Mana Darts, hoping for a skill level. It was third evening bell before the notification came.
Your skill with Mana Dart has increased.
And with it came blessed relief, as the pain receded just enough for him to sleep.
He dreamed of mushroom spores and Trinity, and hunting through the depths of Fangwood. Or maybe he was being hunted. The difference lay in the swing of a hammer. But tomorrow he’d need to face a different kind of challenge.
Crafters.
Was it wrong that he preferred monsters?
18
EIGHTEEN - TRADE CRAFT
A good nights sleep made everything better. A good day’s sleep, too, made everything better, and another night’s sleep was just the finding the lizard-tail hidden in every green lizard pie. He woke because Vip wouldn’t stop scratching at the door.
Eve waited outside. She clapped for Vip, and Vip leaped into her arms. *Sweet!* “Are you ever going to wake up? We’ve been patient. Trella would probably continue being patient. Sara would continue and complain. I’m out of patience. Get dressed, we’re hitting the craft level to ditch a thousand crab shells.”
He’d left his armor out for cleaning and retrieved it, happy to trade three silver for perfectly clean clothing that wouldn’t mildew or wrinkle or smell. “I have stuff to sell, too, but I’m supposed to check a Quest board for material quests.”
Downstairs, Trella sat back with her feet up on a table, while Sara fed bits of sausage to her Horror. Trella sat up as he approached. “He does live. Where did you get [Field Harvest]?”
“Mr. Dervish taught it to me. He says it’ll level the more I use it.” The more Kaden thought about it, the less jealous he was. He’d learned a useful skill, actual battle skills with Remembrance, and managed to enlarge his soul enough to hold Trinity. He couldn’t help wondering how much more it would take for Rocky as well, but the pain in his chest said it wouldn’t be soon.
“What do you have to sell?” Eve asked. “You can’t access the quest boards, but Sara can and we’ll hit up the crafters who want it.”
Kaden shared the Terrapin loot with the party. Each segment of the shell had broken down into a perfect hexagon. What had happened to the rim of the shell, he couldn’t say. “Twenty four of these and the beak. What do you make from the beak?”
“Cooking utensils for Chef crafters,” Sara said. “Oh, interesting. The Quest is for five. So is that one, and that one, and…what do you say we game the System?”
Kaden was always up for a little cheating. “How?”
“Crafters put out Quests in blocks. If you turn in, say, six, you don’t get a bonus for the last piece. But if each of us turned in five? We’d get the bonus times four. I think. We might have to hit four different crafters, but there’s twenty quests for the shells. This part of the Party Leader interface is confusing.”
“I spent days waiting at the Guild. Five is a standard number for a [Unyielding Shield].” Eve shrugged as the party stared at her. “What? I had nothing to do but talk to people. I have a preference, if Salazar the Crafter has a quest for the shells, we should ask if we can fulfill it multiple times for him. He was kind to me.”
“Salazar’s it is.” Sara looked to the others. “Crab shells are only used by the weird armorer lady in the back left corner. I checked the recipes book at the guild, we should take whatever she offers.”
Kaden had questions about how the Party making a run without him affected his ability to take other dungeon runs or quests, but those could wait. Salazar’s was a miniature castle, indoors. Salazar himself was not even four feet tall, though he insisted he wasn’t a dwarf. His castle-mart focused exclusively on armor and shields, with not a single boot or even club to see. But the small man in chainmail armor came limping out to inspect their wares. “Well, well, what did you get?”
Sara would do the negotiation, since she could access the quests and had negotiation skills. “Thousand Year Terrapin shell segments. I see the Quest you put out is for five. What do we get if we only have three?”
“You get told to go find another Terrapin,” the crafter said. “Don’t try your fancy bargaining on me, Miss. Evie, good to see you. Looking sharp in those robes.”
Sara laid out five segments. “I trust these will do?”
“They will.” He deposited them into Inventory.
Your Party has fulfilled a Quest for Crafter Salazar.
You have received experience.
You have received 1x Reputation.
The look on Trella’s face said she’d gotten it too. “What’s a reputation, and how do I turn it into something I can eat?”
Salazar gave a hearty laugh. “Surprising the Guild Administrator didn’t explain that to you when he formed your party. See, any member of the Guild can shop with us. But we Crafters have our own system of knowing who takes care of our needs and helps us level. We can’t level without completing sets that need materials like that.”
Sara’s face turned red. “I didn’t know. I may have been hasty in forming my own party. And we spent…I don’t want to think about it.”
“You bought yourself a lesson,” Salazar said. “It was expensive, so you’ll remember. But let me explain. Your reputation is shared among all the crafters, except Thatcher. That man gives all of us the creeps. He crafts to keep his ghosts from haunting him, not to level.”
Kaden swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “I met him. Bought my War Hammer from him.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. As I was saying, you share reputation. There’s a hidden Crafter skill that takes over collectives like this. It makes coins worth more when the seller has a higher reputation”
“I see,” Eve said. “It’s exactly like the merchant’s reputation, except that is with the city or a governor’s with the nation. So raising our reputation works to get us a discount.”
Salazar nodded. “And it makes it worth your while to keep in good standing. Steal from one of us, your reputation goes down with all of us. And some of my wares, you won’t even see, if you don’t have enough reputation. Now, there’s one more wrinkle.” He waved for them to step closer. “There’s two kinds of reputation. One’s with crafters in general. The other is with each specific crafter. You want to raise your party’s general rep—and with the ones who make what you need.”
“The party?” Trella asked. “Why is it—oh, no.”
“You understand, then. If you have a thief in your party, you keep them under control. If they get caught…you won’t like what happens. Some of your reputation transfers to other crafter communities, but you’ll have to build it up with each if you travel a lot.”
Sara shared their Inventory list with Salazar. “I had planned to cash in on multiple quests from one crafter. But now, it seems like that won’t work.”
“Those shell segments, any armorer is looking for. Lower level ones may only be able to work with a single segment, while Master Armorers will want five for a full set.” He rubbed his short silver beard. “I’ll send you a list of who I’d suggest you start building reputation with. Master FellHammer is easy. He’s almost as good as I am and will want a full shell set. The others, trust me on. The last one, he’s a gamble. Came here as an apprentice Armorer, can’t work with more than one segment, making round shields. But don’t be afraid to take a chance on a new Crafter.”
Kaden took the segments, making the rounds to distribute them. Most of the crafters wanted him to stay and shop, Master FellHammer, a black man with powerful muscles and long hair braided into ropes that hung to his shoulders, looked over the stack, shoved them into Inventory, and said “Door’s that way.”
The last crafter was a young man named Ruman Long, who shared a smithing stall with three other apprentices. Ruman wore heavy brown leather scarred with burns and gashes, and a metal mask with a smiling face pounded into the surface, but when he flipped up the mask, he wasn’t more than five years older than Kaden.
He looked over the segment with glee. “I could actually take three.” Then he frowned. “You’ll be wanting the Quest rewards?”
“That’s usually how it works.” Kaden jumped as Trella materialized beside him. “I know it’s not a full five segments. I’m not expecting that kind of bonus.”
