Level 1 Fallen

The three of us walked the familiar path to Hammerhead’s workshop, where the dwarven player was already waiting for us. Upon our arrival, he looked up at us, his eyes briefly going wide. “I don’t envy the poor sod that decided to put that look on your face. I trust it wasn’t myself, yeah?”

I blinked, not realizing that my expression still showed my earlier anger. “No, it’s not you. Sorry, some… issues came up a little bit ago. Anyways, you completed the items?”

Hammerhead flashed a crafty grin at that, nodding his head. “That I did. Quite proud of myself with this one. First time I’ve worked on a true energy-based material, so I took some extra time to study the ins and outs.”

After saying that, he walked us back to the workshop, where a large cloth was covering a display table. Hammerhead grabbed the cloth and pulled it off, revealing an array of items. Seeing these items, my eyes went wide. “I thought you were only going to make a couple of weapons?”

“Same, but once I got started, there was no stopping me,” Hammerhead said with a laugh. On the table were two full sets of gear, and then some. A large, flowing hooded cloak with tight, flexible clothes. A suit of black leather armor and black leggings, also with its own hood. A pair of sleek, black pistols. Two short swords with rounded handguards. A pair of black, fingerless gloves. And finally, a black, gnarled staff.

Seeing us approach the table, Hammerhead quickly moved to stop us. “Don’t get too close yet. They’re technically not finished yet, and there’s a bit I have to explain first.”

“Not finished?” Diane asked, looking between Hammerhead and the items on the table. “Then, why did you call us over? It wasn’t just to tease us, right?”

Hammerhead let out a hearty laugh. “No, course not. You two have to do the finishing touches yourselves, so to speak.”

“Y’see, once I really got into the process of making this gear, I found an interesting little mechanic. Maybe it’s because this material was made from pure energy, I don’t know. If processed just right, the final result becomes… a bit unusual. I didn’t learn this with the dagger I showed you before, Drake, but after I tweaked the refining process, it just happened.”

“Anyways… There are three inherent properties attached to every item on that table, thanks to the material and how I refined it. The first is that the equipment is Soulbound. It can’t drop, it doesn’t use up a slot in your inventory, and nobody can take it away. The second is that the items can be repaired by channeling your mana into them. Whenever they’re damaged, it’ll function like an enchantment you can activate.”

“The third inherent ability is that they’re growth items.” Diane looked over in surprise when Hammerhead said this. “Not in the same way as the mimic cores I made before. These are true, bona fide growth items that scale with your level. I had to craft each piece multiple times to get the best results I could, but I managed to get them all to be five-star standard. Above average for your level, but not fantastic.”

“Still, the fact that the gear levels up with you means that you’ll never need a replacement. Well, not unless Drake there figures out how to give me even higher quality materials to work with,” he added that last part as a joke. “However, there is a drawback to having these three inherent properties.”

“Each of these items only has a single enchantment slot, and will become bound to whoever enchants it. So, think it over very carefully what enchantment you want to put on each piece. It also means your walking Skill Bank over there can’t do the enchantments for you on this.”

“I’m not sure if I should take offense at that or not,” I chuckled as the other two approached the table. It was clear who each piece of gear was meant for, so I just stepped back and let them handle the final steps.

To my surprise, the first item that Diane went for wasn’t the gloves or her new cloak, but the staff at the end. That was meant for her Chosen, who always wanted to be a mage. Diane picked the staff up, focusing on it as darkness swirled along the staff. Then, it seemed to fade away, absorbed into her hand.

Diane opened her eyes wide in surprise, about to shout when Hammerhead spoke. “Easy there, girl. That’s the soulbinding process. Just focus on retrieving the staff, and it will come out on its own.”

Diane did so, focusing. A moment later, the staff appeared again. It looked largely the same, though there was a draconic pattern engraved along its length, making it easy to guess which skill she had enchanted it with.

Meanwhile, Bella was working on her own equipment. Her list of skills was even shorter than Diane’s, so she had to choose carefully. “Do we have to enchant everything before we can start wearing it?” she asked, to which Hammerhead nodded his head.

“That’s right. The gear’s pretty much worthless if it hasn’t been bound, since that’s how it matches with your level.”

Bella bit her lip gently. First, she took the two pistols, binding them. However, for her armor, she seemed hesitant. “My stealth skill isn’t at a level where I’d like to use it for something like this.”

“Best to just use it now,” Diane said, enchanting the rest of her equipment after considering the skills she wanted to use. “In the worst case scenario, we’ll come back after your skills level up to get another set made. The fact that they require an enchantment to bind means that the enchantment slot shouldn’t be wasted even if you fail, right?” she asked, looking at Hammerhead.

However, Hammerhead simply shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I can’t do any enchanting myself, thanks to my negative trait. I only know about the soul binding process from reading the appraisal window and making my own conjectures. If it does fail and get wasted, I’ll just give you one of the lower quality products. Better than nothing, after all.”

That didn’t exactly inspire confidence in Bella. Still, she began to enchant her armor piece by piece, letting it sink into her body. Once she summoned it onto her body, her presence diminished considerably. If I didn’t have True Sight activated, I might have lost sight of her after briefly looking away.

Diane’s armor had a similar ability when enchanted, though even more pronounced. She equipped the last of her gear, then looked at me with a smile hidden behind her eyes. “Thanks, Drake. This was great.”

“Hey, what about me?!” Hammerhead asked with a raucous laugh. “I’m the one that made the damn things!”

“What, do you want a hug or something?” Diane retorted, rolling her eyes playfully. “Thanks, old man. Are you planning to sell these on the market? True growth items would be no less valuable than your mimic cores.”

Hammerhead thought it over for a long moment, before letting out a sigh and shaking his head. “Much as I’d like to, the supply is too limited. Without Drake bringing it over, I don’t think that I’d be able to produce the material myself.”

Diane pursed her lips behind her mask. “You said that it was a skill, right? It should be like the halberd you made that guy before, through your Shadow King and Shadow Forge skills.”

After I confirmed that, she turned back to Hammerhead. “Let’s wait on mass production until after the next major patch. It should be possible to produce the material itself with runes, but with that big rune rebalance coming up…”

Hammerhead couldn’t help but grunt. “Yeah. Bunch of craftsmen are complaining about that. Took ages for them to actually get into runes and figure out how they work, and now the whole system around them is being changed. Still, if it’s because of those pixies, I can understand why.”

“Well, once the patch hits and we figure out what the change brings, we can talk about the runes again. If it does work, I might even be able to make gear with different elements than just shadows. That said, I have the feeling that you two would prefer the shadow element regardless of what else I get?”

Diane immediately nodded her agreement, while Bella blushed and confirmed it a moment later. “Y-yeah. I’m a sniper, so blending in with the darkness works for me, right?” she asked, as if trying to reason it with herself.

Hammerhead simply let out a knowing laugh, his hand slapping on the table. “Yeah, yeah. Anyways, with that gear, you should be good until you need to update the enchantments. I’ll be counting on you for reviews on its performance in the field, too. After all, I can’t properly test it myself without being able to apply enchantments.”

After he said that, he turned to face me. “Sorry, kid. I was originally planning to make this gear for you, too. But when I saw the details of the soul binding, I figured it was basically worthless for you. Since you can’t level up, the gear would only be as good as moderately useful level one equipment. Against the types of enemies you’re facing now, you might as well be wearing rice paper.”

My eye twitched, but I could only nod my head in agreement. Weapons and armor like that would be utterly useless for me. Now, if they scaled not with the level of the character they were bound to, but the level of the skill used to enchant them, it would be perfect for my use. However, getting something like that would be next to impossible to engineer intentionally.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, knowing that I couldn’t just pay nothing after Hammerhead devoted a week of his time to understanding and utilizing the materials.

Hammerhead similarly seemed to see the insistence in my gaze, thinking it over seriously. “You provided all the materials yourself, honestly. Considering the effects, I’d say that a fair price would be…twenty platinum for the whole batch. And before you ask the girl, yes that’s discounting the price of the materials I still have as an additional payment.”

I looked at Diane for confirmation, and she mulled the number over. “He should be right. Growth-type items are expensive, but they can’t be considered priceless. A lot of gear will still need to be swapped out over time as new enchantments become available, and this only has a single enchantment slot. If it had two or three, the price could easily double, because that would open up the possibility of letting outsiders enchant the gear. Which is probably why the system restricted it to a single slot.”

Hearing Diane’s confirmation, I retrieved a small stack of platinum coins from my inventory to hand over to Hammerhead as thanks for the equipment. Now it was time to go find somewhere to properly test it out.

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