103 (II)

Reforge [I]

As he traveled, he regarded the current state of the gate. With everything compacted together, the amount of detritus they needed to clean through was dramatically reduced. However, that also removed a great deal of materials they could have scavenged and reused. The closeness of the gateways also made getting around easier, but it meant that if they were infiltrated or invaded through one gate, they didn’t have as much space to retreat as before.

The System gave. The System took.

As Shiv got to the midpoint of the gate, he slowed and descended. Tides of twisted metal had been shaped into a dense barrier over the dormant Vulketh Gateway. Spirals of spatial magic patterns lined the knotted clumps of metal, and Shiv guessed it was another layer of restriction

Nearby, a team of Umbral Geomancers was using sections from the obsidian tower Shiv had dropped on the Vulketh Gateway earlier to create a building. Though most of the tower got destroyed, enough of it remained intact even through Shiv’s devastating struggle against the Recollector. The Geomancers were slowly sculpting the obsidian tower back together, and stone by stone, it climbed higher into the sky.

At its base, along a patch of flattened and reshaped ground, the portal to Can Hu’s Garden of Bountiful Alloy was splayed open. A tarp had been set up over it; nearby groups of Weaveresses and Sisters were setting up something of a temporary operating base a few meters away from the unfinished tower. Within the garden, Uva was busy debriefing her team and a good number of Weaveresses on what had happened within the gate. He frowned slightly as he watched one of the Weaveresses gesture aggressively at Uva’s skill-altered eyes. Uva betrayed little through her expressions, but she was clenching her jaw tightly. He saw her make that look more than a few times during combat. That was anger. Or frustration.

The hells are they saying to her? Shiv crashed down against the ground with a large thud, breaking up the conversation. Heads turned, and he met Uva’s gaze first, and one of her Psychomancy strands slipped into his mind.

“What’s going on?” Shiv asked. “You look kind of pissed.” And he could feel from the anger repressed within her mind that she actually was.

“I’ll tell you later,” Uva answered. Her mana strands were heavy with unvented stress. Unvented stress that was still building. But before he could decide between pressing and just letting the topic go, a Veilpiercer burst out beside him, opening a dimensional pathway leading directly above the still rising obsidian tower.

“Come over,” Adam called out through the dimensional pathway. “There’s something I need to show you!”

Shiv shot Uva a final look, but again, she shook her head. The rest of her team looked displeased as well, but the Weaveress jabbing at Uva’s eyes just kept going, snubbing Shiv’s presence altogether.

He regarded the Weaveress and noted the metallic hairs lining her limbs, as well as the faint sparks of electricity dancing around her. Shiv had a feeling he was going to be having his own conversation with her very, very soon.

“So,” Shiv asked as he emerged through the gateway. “What’s got you so excited? And why up here?”

“Because they haven’t finished making the door, and the teleportation anchor we’re going to is planted in the middle of the building,” Adam said, chuckling. The Gate Lord was grinning. He was a bit excited—despite seeming utterly exhausted as well.

“Alright. Take me to whatever this surprise is.”

“First, take off your Magebreaker. It’s still damaged, isn’t it?”

Shiv regarded his still-broken gauntlet. Parts of it were vibrating, but it wasn’t coming back together like it did before. Using it on Absence and the entity had left it damaged on a deeper level than Shiv expected.

Adam descended and led Shiv down into the hollowed-out interior of the tower. Though the tower itself remained intact, most of its interior didn’t survive Shiv’s brawl with the Recollector. As such, only a few structural support beams were holding the entire edifice together.

“I had to talk with the mercenaries again,” Shiv said.

Before he could continue, he heard Adam scoff. “I know. I heard. Bastards. But that mercenary from Lone Star might have a point.”

Shiv narrowed his eyes. “What mercenary from Lone Star?”

“The one in the yellow armor. She had a Sign of the Unbroken painted on her shoulder and several orc teeth hanging from her hip. She’s Lone Star.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that.”

“You would if you paid more attention and knew what cultural artifacts to look for, but back to the point—Mithril. Treasures. Loot. Equipment. We collected some from this very tower, and with Blackedge close at hand, we’re going to need more resources than ever to help lift the siege. Sell-skills. Rebuilding equipment. Supplies. All of that is going to be necessary, and since I had a brief moment to myself, I decided to go over all the loot you managed to seize from Confriga’s vault.”

Adam suddenly turned left along a large support column, and Shiv reverted time by two seconds so he could adjust and keep up with the Gate Lord instead of shooting off further ahead. They landed on an extended balcony leading into an extremely dusty but mostly intact teleportation anchor fused into the walls of the obsidian tower.

“Why’s this here?” Shiv asked.

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“Because we’re going to set up a teleportation network, and the placement is temporary,” Adam replied. “The loot is being stored here temporarily because it’s also the closest thing to a vault we have.”

“Aside from my cloak,” Shiv replied. “And Courtney.”

“Yes, well, you’ll be unequipping your cloak as well in a moment. And despite pulling off that ridiculous meal, you must forgive me for not trusting a massive, oversized monstrosity with our valuables. Or lives.”

“It can barely think,” Shiv said. “It’s harmless. Besides.” He bumped Adam playfully, and the Gate Lord kicked at him, growling in annoyance. “If anyone tried to hurt you, I’ll do terrible things to them.”

“Truly touching, Shiv. But I think I’ll err on the side of wisdom rather than becoming a tragic footnote that leads into one of your many violent rampages.”

“Think of the story, though.”

“How? I’ll be dead.”

“Maybe you can be a ghost. And I’ll build you a statue. Well, I’ll have Can Hu do it. And speaking of…”

Inside the anchor, Shiv saw Can Hu weaving rivers of flowing metal around a pair of boots. As he entered the chamber, Shiv found mithril ingots stacked to the ceiling along a curved section of wall. There were also pieces of gold and gems overflowing from the insides of twelve different chests. Shiv barely even remembered collecting that much treasure from Confriga’s vault, but he was in a hurry at the time.

“The treasures are going to be very useful for us soon,” Adam said, gesturing at the gathered wealth without looking. “It was good of us to capture and store this loot. But that’s not why I called you. After your experiences with melding Biomancy and Cooking, several other people experienced the temporary skill fusion as well. It occurs when someone uses two or more skills intensely at the same time. And now…” The Gate Lord held a hand out at Can Hu.

The Penitent looked better than Shiv remembered it being. The paintings lining its skeletal chassis were bright with the azure twilight of Adam’s skill. But more important was how the cracks and erosion lining Can Hu’s body seemed reduced as well. Nearby, Valor was leaning over a table, studying four pieces of a broken blade. A colorful, thin blade that Shiv remembered breaking while facing the Recollector.

“Huh. You found Absence,” Shiv muttered. He stared as Can Hu continued molding metal into the cracked stone boots hovering before it. “And what’s happening here? Can Hu, did you apply your Master-Tier Skill Evolution reward to crafting?”

“Geomancy,” Can Hu replied. “And with the mana core’s Unique Skill, it has melded with my crafting to create something Heroic—TheForge of Material Synthesis.”

That was a pleasant surprise. “Heroic? That’s great. Although I’m really glad I got my Heroic Reflexes Evolution during the fight, otherwise I’d be left completely in the dust by you three there. What’s the skill do?”

“Legend Valor, if you’d please,” Can Hu asked politely.

Shiv watched as Valor brought a fragment of Absence over. Then, the liquid metals flowed out to connect the boots Can Hu was currently manipulating with the fragment of Absence. Shiv looked on, his attention completely consumed by what the Penitent was doing. Originally, the boots resembled broken concrete slabs. If that was because of damage or simply the nature of its original design, he didn’t know. Now, though, it was changing. A rainbow-colored gleam coated the once cracked boots, and Shiv felt a rush of magic flood out from the altered item. As the synthesization finished, small chunks of prismatic stone hovered around the boots, but it looked partially fused with the composition of Absence.

“The merging was successful,” Can Hu declared. “It is still at Master-Tier, however. I have not achieved a reliable Heroic-Tier item breakthrough.”

Adam smirked. “That’s no major issue. It would be preferable if you could craft Heroic-Tier weapons, but the fact that you can combine broken items together to repair them to fullness both in condition, functionality, and retained Enchantments, is more than enough for now.”

And suddenly, Shiv understood why Adam had asked him to remove his Magebreaker earlier, along with his Cloak of Midnight’s Kindred. As Can Hu finished its initial administrations, an azure glow radiated from its body, shrouding it in a coronal radiance comparable only to Adam’s sun.

“I still think we can do better,” Can Hu said. “Pathbearer Adam, I request that you infuse me with the light your Righteous Dawn Prevails. Perhaps a combination of two Unique Skills might be enough to see an ascended synthesis rather than merely a proper merger.”

“Certainly, we can try again,” Adam said. “But the main thing is…” He pointed to the table behind Can Hu, and Shiv saw some other Equipment. “Picking out the pieces that go together the best.”

Just then, Shiv realized he vaguely recognized them. After all, he was the one who took them from Confriga’s vault. He had extracted five pieces of Equipment from their display cases then.

One was a full set of armor. It was slatted and flexible, made from focus crystal. That one was lined against a wall and currently seemed mostly undamaged.

Aside from that, there was a thin wand filled with compact Hydromancy. It did not radiate out in a field of considerable size, but it was so concentrated within a rod that was barely longer than Shiv’s index finger that it made him wonder just what exactly it was capable of.

Then, there was a leather helmet with scuff marks on its sides and a diamond gem implanted at the forehead. It gleamed softly, but the gem was also slightly cracked. Shiv was relatively sure they weren’t damaged during the battle. He’d kept them in his cloak and only pulled them out earlier, handing them off to Adam for him to observe and sift through while he was out on his hunt. It seemed they were already damaged when Confriga took them as trophies.

Another of the five items were the boots Can Hu had just merged with. But then on the table, he saw another familiar weapon: a shattered rapier, snapped along the middle. That used to belong to Harkness. It was the rapier that allowed Adam to clone himself many times over in battle. And now, it might have a second lease on life, if Can Hu’s new skill had anything to say about it.

Finally, there was the smallest dagger Shiv had ever seen in his life. It was little more than the size of his pinky. It resembled a rondel dagger, round at the hilt, with a circular guard and a long, thin blade. Despite the diminutive size of the weapon, Shiv found himself drawn to it, mainly because his kukri—or the remaining pieces of his kukri—were laid beside the small blade.

Quietly, Shiv unequipped his damaged Magebreaker and started offloading the objects stored in his cloak as he took it off as well. As he placed it on the table, he picked up the tiny knife and narrowed his eyes at it.

“First, I think it’s best that you go through all the different items,” Adam said. “After all, it would be awkward if you merged a piece of Equipment with your Magebreaker that didn’t align with it.”

Shiv looked at his broken gauntlet and nodded. The Magebreaker hated magic—attuned magic specifically. If Can Hu’s skill could fix it, but it ended up taking on an attuned magical Enchantment, it would probably break in little to no time. And then there was his Cloak of Midnight’s Kindred. If he was going to have that synthesized with another item, he didn’t want to lose its spatial storage. That was the best part about it. That, and the fact that it allowed him to see in the darkness. He needed to think about this.

“Alright, little thing,” Shiv muttered. “Let’s see what you offer.”

Equipment Obtained: [Skypiercer]

Tier: Master

Condition: Moderately Damaged

Composition: Adamantine

Enchantments > Spatially-Anchored; Size-Shifting; Master Self-Mending; Mass-Stealing; Binding

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