DTK 32.1

I felt like I was talking to imaginary friends as I walked through the woods with Gerald and Sandy both invisible. I could hear their footsteps breaking branches and crunching through foliage as we walked.

“You guys really don’t have to be invisible for this.” I said.

“You could’ve joined us!” Sandy said.

I groaned.

“Gerald would’ve gotten lost.”

“No I wouldn’t.” He replied, voice sullen and not at all in the mood for joking.

We came onto the clearing in no time, rushing through the Wild and the everpresent vague discomfort I felt at it.

“Will you guys go check for monsters?” Gerald asked.

“Sure.” Sandy said. There was a rush of dust as she ducked into the wide open area. The furnaces of the crystal golems had all but melted away into the ground, nothing more than a few lumps remaining to show that someone had changed the terrain. Even monsters weren’t spared from the Wild’s constant degradation.

I slid down the hill next, needle in hand, though the clearing was dead and silent. It was extremely eerie, especially with my friends both invisible. My eyes scanned the treeline, but I saw nothing but small animals and waving leaves.

“All clear!” Sandy shouted.

I flinched back.

Then she grunted, and the entire Storm Curtain outfit fell out of her hands and onto the ground.

“I thought we agreed not to bring that!” I said.

“Well yeah, walking out of the town wearing it would be stupid.” Sandy said. “So I just carried it. It must weigh, like, forty pounds by the way. Where is it even hiding all that? Your mom must have used everything I saved.”

I rubbed my temples.

“Come on. You can’t wait to see what it does either, right? What skill does it give? Have you checked yet?” Sandy asked.

“No. Mom said it gave a Noble skill but she didn’t say what.”

“And you didn’t immediately check? You’re nuts. I’m putting this on.”

“Guess we will get mining then?” I asked Gerald, looking in the general direction I last heard his voice.

He popped into existence with a frown, a pickaxe now in his hands. Then he slowly disappeared again. I wasn’t sure if he reactivated the skill or if summoning the pickaxe didn’t cancel it; bringing stuff out of my own inventory didn’t cancel my stealth, even with [Quick Change.]

I lit another oil lamp before heading towards the cave, trusting Gerald to follow me. Light caught on the edges of metal veins, practically glittering in the dark. As the outside world and sun light fell away, it was replaced by the burning orange of the lamp.

“Here is fine.” Gerald said, stopping me only a few dozen feet in. He appeared visible next to me, walking forward to the cave before summoning his shield. It stuck into the earth and walls, blocking the passage off almost entirely.

Gerald sucked in a breath.

Then he swung.

At that moment, I was harshly reminded of the difference between Nobility and regular people. They gained stats every level, not just from equipment. I hadn’t seen Gerald fight. Not properly. He had shields, not weapons.

But that pickaxe shattered the wall, stone crumbling away in an entire layer. The pickaxe sunk deeper into the stone, stuck inside. Gerald grunted.

Part of the mining skills of the outfit, surely, are what made the falling pieces of ore separate themselves from the stone. Rubble rose to his shins, still tumbling downward, and I stepped back. The shield flickered with its enchantments as stone bumped against it, filling the tunnel.

Gerald left the pickaxe buried in the wall, then sank down and ran his hands through the stone, the metal disappearing as his fingers easily parted what must have been a hundred pounds of rubble. Not all of that was skills.

My grip on my sewing needle was tight.

“I… I think that’s enough.” Gerald said, turning back toward me.

I nodded. It definitely was. He knocked loose most of the wall. He gripped his pickaxe and tugged, but it didn’t come loose. He grunted, and it disappeared into his inventory, and then he was stepping on and crushing rubble to get out.

“Oh.” He said, turning around and swiping at his shield to recover it before walking out into the field.

Sandy was only just pulling on the last pieces of the Storm Curtain outfit.

“The hell was that noise?” Sandy asked.

Now that I looked, she was rushing to put them on, rushing to pull on the gloves.

“Gerald… mined.” I said, looking over at him. He nodded.

“I’m done for today. I got all the metal I need for tonight.”

“What do you mean — did he collapse the whole cave? Because it sounded like it.”

“Just a wall.” Gerald scratched his chin.

“A wall? He mined a wall?” Sandy looked at me.

“He collapsed a wall. Blew the whole thing down.”

“Sounded like an explosion out here.” Sandy replied. “No monsters, right?”

I shook my head no. Then Sandy pulled her helmet on.

Her eyes were visible through the holes in the cascading plates. She whistled, reading through her system. Then flexed.

“So?” I asked. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about what skill the outfit had; though it wouldn’t be my skill.

“Lightning resistance… twenty strength attribute… and… Gwen, hit me with your skill!” Sandy said.

“What? No. I don’t want to damage the armor.”

“Trust me!” Sandy said.

“I’ll hit you.” Gerald said with a shrug, re-summoning his pickaxe.

“Gerald!” I shouted.

“Do it!” Sandy said, voice excited.

Gerald swung. There was a ringing noise of metal on metal as Sandy caught the blow with a wild swing of her arm. The ground beneath them exploded up, peppering them both with dirt. Gerald closed his eyes and stepped back as it fell onto him.

“What was that?” He asked.

“Oh shit, that took three mana.” Sandy said. “I can only do two more of those today. The skill it gives is called [Parry.]”

“It… deflects attacks?” I guessed.

“Yes!” Sandy said, lifting her helmet off. “So now I can finally fight that damn bear.”

“How high is your health?” I asked.

“One hundred.” Sandy said. “Hundred ten.”

“Fifty points in constitution? That’s ridiculous.” I said after doing the math in my head. How much of those stats was the quality of the material and how much was my mother raising the quality of what she made to Good? Compared to that, what I made really did qualify as Ragged. I needed to level my sewing skills; I had been focusing too much on fighting.

Sandy pulled her helmet free, a wide grin covering her whole face, fixed in a manic expression.

“We’re going to kill that damn monster tonight.” She said.