novelraw Chapter 336: Crafty Crafts
Chapter 336: Crafty Crafts
Chapter 336: Crafty Crafts“Did you know the Woodworking Dungeon is the largest one the Littans have found?” asked Ishi.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Being inside a forest and all.”
“It’s gotten larger as well,” she added. “The staff wielded by the Hierophant of the Abductor fell inside the Divine Dungeon, but it was never fully recovered. A large portion of the staff found its way across several hundred miles to this Dungeon, but no one knows how.”
“Not sure that ‘wielded’ is the right word. The Hierophant lived inside the staff like some weird, evil hermit crab.”
“Wasn’t it a brain parasite?” asked Xim. “It was controlling the big hippo part.”
“Nobody figured it out,” said Etja. “The whole thing could have been its body; hippo and staff and all the trees growing on it.”
“Yeah?” I said. “And it could eject its brain in case of emergency?”
“From what you said, it had a whole extra head inside that staff,” she replied. “Imagine having two faces, with one hidden deep inside you in case the other gets exploded.” Etja shuddered. “Would you feel like your face was trapped somewhere warm and wet? Would you have to struggle not to accidentally open your eyes?”
“Huh,” said Xim, looking up in thought. “That sounds like what a baby might experience in the womb. Maybe the Hierophant was pregnant with itself and gave birth.”
“Shit,” I said. “The face on the staff was all weird and baby-like.”Everyone stopped walking at that. We’d landed outside the Woodworking Dungeon’s perimeter moments before and were tackling the last stretch on foot. This particular Dungeon didn’t have any obvious entrances or exits, though, so we were relying on Ishi to guide us there.
“Moving on to less disturbing things,” I said, “how can you tell this is where the Dungeons starts, Ishi?”
The princess shook off whatever mental image Xim’s cursed ideas had summoned into her mind, and she walked forward again with purpose. Dimensional mana flooded down one arm as she cast a spell, twisting space and tearing up a swath of the forest floor. All the dirt and plant matter directly ahead of us collapsed into a sphere the size of a small house, which Ishi cast it away with a flick of her wrist. It crashed noisily through the distant forest. She continued striding forward until her boots went from soft footfalls over moist earth to an authoritative clunk. She spun, smiled, and waved at the ground. Beneath her impromptu excavation were pristine wooden planks.
“Large, wooden buildings make up most of the forest floor within the Woodworking Dungeon,” she said. “Most have sunk into the ground or otherwise been absorbed by the forest, but the base materials of the buildings are flawless once uncovered.” She tapped her toe against the wood beneath her. “These are roofing planks–still watertight after who knows how many millennia–and if we were to venture inside, we’d find hardwood floors that shine like they’ve just been oiled and waxed.”
Ishi beamed at the structure below her, the formal air of the draconic princess giving way to joy and wonder as she surveyed an exemplar of her favorite art. The armor that Ishi wore was made from wood, crafted by her own hand, and had also made her staves and bows. Even her jewelry was intricately carved Guardian Wood and Blackthorn.
The woman fucking loved her wood.
I walked forward, getting a notification once I stepped onto the exposed surface.
You have entered the Horologist’s Remains
Woodworking Dungeon
Recommended skills: Woodworking 20 or Golemancy 20
Wandmaking wasn’t expressly listed, but as a specialized subskill of Woodworking it would carry me through fine. The addition of Golemancy was a surprise, but a welcome one. I was still trying to get those shared intrinsics from Grotto to work.
I joined Ishi in peering down at the flawless, unburied surface. As interesting as it was that the building below us had withstood the test of time and come out with a perfect score, acing all the bonus questions along the way, it just looked like some normal planks to me.
“Why’s it look so ordinary?” asked Xim. “Shouldn’t ancient, indestructible ruins be all fancy?”
“We’re looking at a roof,” I said. “I’m sure the marquetry can be found in places meant to be more visible back when the structure wasn’t buried.”
Ishi clicked her tongue. “The proof of the quality is in the durability of these structures, rather than any particular ornamentation or sophistication.” She stomped like a salesman trying to prove a point. “These are hardy buildings designed to endure, not gaudy halls of governance or aristocracy.” She looked up at the three of us. “The furniture joints do tend to have some lovely dovetailing, though. Functional, but also decorative. Simplicity is its own kind of beauty.”
Ishi turned to look deeper into the Dungeon.
“All of these buildings have complex mana weaves hidden within the walls and foundations, controlling who has access to them,” she continued. “These outer buildings all contain a task that you can complete to acquire a badge of sorts. The badge will let you enter the next tier of buildings, wherein there will be another test of your abilities. Subsequent buildings have golems which will authenticate and upgrade your badge as you complete the different challenges. They also act as guardians should you enter without permission.”
“I assume the challenges ramp in difficulty and complexity as we get closer to the Dungeon’s center,” I said.
“Naturally,” said Ishi.
“What’s the point of a place like this?” Xim asked. “I mean, originally. It sounds great for improving somebody’s Woodworking skill, but it’s huge, right?”
“The size of a moderately large city,” said Ishi.
“That’s completely overbuilt for a training facility. The System claims it doesn’t make these Dungeons, that it just takes advantage of something that’s already here. If this wasn’t designed by a manic Delve Core with a carpentry obsession, then who made it and why?”
“The Littans surmise these are the ancient remains of a sprawling workshop. One that additionally served as a research center, a learning center, and a military base.”
“With all access gated by your skill using lathes and a spindle gouge?” Xim asked.
“Apparently so. Whatever group built this place appears to operate on purely meritocratic principles. Gaining access to better materials first requires proving oneself with the lower quality stuff. Technique and mana weaving libraries are scattered throughout, divided and restricted according to the compound’s ranking system.”
“What if we don’t want to play?" I asked. “I can teleport wherever. Plus, I doubt these buildings are indestructible.”
“It’s possible to teleport or smash your way inside,” Ishi replied. “However, any mode of entry that bypasses the ranking gauntlet will invoke deterrents that are better avoided. For instance, this place is thick with golems, enough to annoy even us, but the real problem these constructs present are that they make an absolute nuisance of themselves. They’ll burn the books you’re trying to read or spray corroding substances over the treated planks you’re trying to loot. They’re also walking hives of some kind of super termite that will infest your gear and consume anything you have that’s made from wood or fiber at an absurd pace. The entire place also remembers everyone who enters. Breaking a rule gets a penalty, but if you’re bad enough it will send everything it has any time you step into the Dungeon. I’m told it’s quite inconvenient.
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“However, if you complete even a single challenge, you can pass through the outdoor areas of the zone unbothered, so long as you stay away from any tree farms, lumber mills, or other restricted areas. They’re all clearly marked, so the trip is quite safe if all you want to do is travel from one side to the other. However, if you want the good stuff, the best way to make progress through the Woodworking Dungeon is to do some Woodworking, as alarming as that may be to the cheaters among us.”
Ishi shook her head at me in mock disapproval. Both Etja and Xim also looked my way.
I held up a finger. “Exploits aren’t cheats,” I said, “they’re loopholes, which are meant to be abused. In fact, I firmly believe we have a moral obligation to abuse loopholes.”
“A moral obligation?” Xim asked, one eyebrow trying to launch itself from her face.
“Abusing loopholes is a valuable public service wherein the people making the rules are taught they need to do a better job.”
Ishi cocked her head in amusement. “I hope you maintain that attitude when someone finds a ‘loophole’ in one of the laws you’re currently writing for Closetland.”
“Loopholes are unethical!” I corrected, shaking my fist. “People should obey the spirit of my laws, not just the letter!”
“How am I getting through this place?” asked Xim. “I don’t have Woodworking, so I can’t get one of those badge things.”
“Simple enough,” said Ishi. “You won’t. We aren’t going any deeper than the first tier. Like Arlo said earlier, these wands aren’t complex. We don’t need superior materials, so we can use what’s out here.” She stomped on the wooden roof again. “This building houses an entry-level wand challenge, so it’s perfect.”
“Oh,” said Xim, tucking away an errant lock of her dark, curly hair. “I thought all that stuff you said would be important.”
Etja leaned in towards the cleric. “So did I,” she whispered.
Ishi frowned at Xim. “You were hypothesizing about a deceased mana fiend giving birth to itself earlier,” she said. “My commentary is at least relevant to our current task.”
Xim bobbed her head a few times. “So, is there a door or something…?” she asked, looking around the cleared off roof, then to Ishi. The princess gave her a flat look, then cast another spell to excavate a wall to our south, creating a wide hole that revealed a door-shaped recess. She then floated down and tapped the recess, a series of ticking and clinking gears sounding in response. The recessed portion slid away, revealing a dark interior into which Ishi threw a glowstone before sweeping inside.
“You didn’t like the backstory?” I asked.
“Actually, I thought it was fascinating,” said Xim. “This is just our dynamic. How do you think she knew this was a wand challenge before she ever dug it up?”
“She probably would have explained it if you’d let her keep going.”
Ishi’s muffled voice came from the doorway. “I have a map!”
“We should go inside,” I said.
“Yeah.” Xim reached out and took Etja by a hand, and the three of us dropped down to enter the ancient structure.
*****
The wand ‘challenge’ turned out to be making a wand from a damp pile of sawdust. I found that strange but also weirdly ordinary. Before I’d even begun to get started on the problem, a portal opened beside me and Grotto floated out of it.
“Hey there, Grotto,” I said. “Wasn’t expecting you to join us.”
Despite being in his little octo body, Grotto spoke via sound waves, rather than the psychic comms he normally used in this form. The dude was still avoiding Earworm’s psychic security network.
I had no idea where the sound came from. Did he have a little mouth under his feelers?
“This is a rather obvious opportunity to vastly enhance the efficiency with which we advance our skills,” he said. “At least, for a short period of time. If you are ignorant of this potential, I will need to update the behavioral model I’ve developed for you. I suspected it was too optimistic, but I dislike being proven correct in this limited regard.”
“You wanna make the wands?” I asked, ignoring the Core’s prodding.
“Indeed.”
“And while you do that,” I continued, “I’ll work on accessing your Golemancy skill.”
“I am glad that you are able to intuit that much.”
“Have fun with the sawdust, I guess.”
Relieved that I’d somehow managed to dodge that job, I sat on the ground, assuming the meditative pose of criss-cross applesauce. Despite being part of a Woodworking Dungeon, this building was surprisingly bare of any furniture. It was an indoor dumping ground for sawdust and had all the trappings appropriate for such a place. Which is to say, none.
I took out the little wooden doll I’d been whittling away at in my free time, carefully setting it on the ground. It was currently in several pieces, all meant to connect at various joints. I was just about ready to start slotting in the tiny pins and hinges I’d made out of some scrap Verdantum.
Meanwhile, Grotto had somehow figured out that the vines growing over the room’s eastern wall weren’t invasive vegetation from the forest, but rather a plant cultivated for its sticky sap. That sap could be used as a binding agent, and with a bit of boiling and reducing, my familiar had a compound that mixed with the sawdust to create a type of fiberboard that was perfectly serviceable for use in crafting wands.
The two of us worked on our own things in silence, each of us getting into a focused rhythm with our tasks. Grotto made the fiberboard in batches, using the time it took one batch to dry to ensure the material of the next batch had a consistent quality. He’d started making his first actual wands as I finally slotted all the pieces of my doll together. As I did so, I felt the tingle of advancement and hurriedly checked my notifications.
Your Wandmaking skill has increased to Level 23!
I pursed my lips and stroked my beard. I was glad to see Grotto’s work would still net me some rapid levels in Wandmaking, but I’d been hoping to see something with Golemancy. Theoretically, the skill sharing that allowed Grotto and I to share Dungeoneering, and which subsequently allowed my familiar to share all my skills, should allow me to access his skills as well. This was the current puzzle of my Traveler’s Amulet, which would evolve again once I figured out how to steal skills from the bonded Delve Core.
Still, I’d spent a lot of time using my extra instance of focus to work with Grotto, learning the basics of Golemancy. I understood the theory and had a basic grasp of the craft. The problem was that I just didn’t have a feel for the magic. My mana matrix didn’t have a Golemancy imprint. I had no System-built pathways like those for my other intrinsics, and while there might be a way to create one without the System’s help, that was a whole other universe of risky wizardry I wasn’t ready to step into. Based on everything I understood about the System and its interaction with the mana matrix and the soul, I didn’t have the tools for Golemancy.
At the end of the day, that shouldn’t matter. What I was trying to do was go around my own matrix, through the soul connection Grotto and I shared, into his mana matrix, and grab his Golemancy skill to wield like it was my own. Grotto had no trouble accessing my skills, but there was some kind of roadblock to me accessing his.
As I turned the little doll over in my hands, checking and rechecking the miniscule weaves I’d carved into it, Grotto paused his work on the wands. He drifted through the air to look at what I was doing, then floated down and picked up the doll with a feeler. He looked it over, did a quick, expert check of its joints and mobility, then made a noise that might have meant approval. He dropped the doll back into my palm.
“Something we have not considered is that you are trying to use my intrinsic skills, but I have done very little work on golems using my hands.”
I looked up from the doll to the big, black eyes of my familiar. “It can’t be that simple,” I said.
“I have ample experience with humanoid hands, so it is no trouble for me to pick up skills that ordinarily rely upon them. How much experience do you have with tentacles?”
I furrowed my brow and stared at the doll laying across my palm, joints limp like a ragdoll. I’d been going for a generic-looking female form, since Grotto seemed to have a preference for feminine creations. Only then did I realize that it looked a bit like my mother.
She’d already been dead when I had my lethal tree encounter. I hadn’t thought of her in years. It was an odd thing to pop into my head right then.
I activated Therianthropy. Colorful wings, outstanding hair, and a pair of downy tentacles emerged. I brought the feelers forward to take hold of the doll, mentally nudging the mana weaves within that served to animate it.
And then I lost my fucking mind.