“Ah, there you are, Isaac!” Duncan called out, not stopping his rhythmic sawing as he greeted Isaac. “You have good timing! Help me move this off the table.”
“Um, sure!” Isaac replied, wiping the dust from his eyes and putting on some work goggles to get his bearings around the workshop.
Duncan's work area was set in the very back of the crafting hall, where the workshop had been converted into a carpentry space today. The center of the room was completely clear of obstructions, save for several thick bars of freshly cut wood lying on the floor.
“So what are we building today?” Isaac asked as he helped Duncan move his .. lumber onto a work table.
“Oh, come and take a look,” Duncan said, beckoning Isaac over to a nearby drafting table filled with a series of sharply drawn sketches.
“So these are perhaps rougher than I would like, but I have managed to come up with a few initial concepts for us to experiment with,” Duncan explained as they arrived at the table, indicating the designs that Isaac recognized as several types of siege engines.
“Christ, are we actually going to be building these things,” Isaac asked in confusion as he scanned through the designs.
Some of the designs he had seen before. His eyes passed across the familiar sketches of trebuchets, catapults, and ballistae before going on to see several he was pretty sure didn't exist outside of video games. Now that he thought about it, that might be appropriate for this situation. However, he wasn't sure if they could build a forty-foot-tall trebuchet in the workshop. Then again, he had seen his brother pick up and stash a vending machine in his [Storage], so what the hell did he know?
"Most of these, probably not. I just pulled everything that came up when I looked up Siege Engine in the Library. No, what I'm thinking of creating is the Roman mobile ballista, otherwise known as the scorpion."
"Oh," Issac said.
"What, you don't like it?" Duncan asked.
"No, it's just... I was honestly hoping we would work on something more magical. You told me you were going to show me how to enchant stuff," Isaac whined.
"We don't have what we need to enchant anything in mass, unfortunately. Though, don't let that confuse you. These ballistas are going to be very magical when we're done with them,” Duncan said with a dismissive wave. "Understand that a purely magical weapon takes a lot of mana to use. Since we'll be making scorpions, we can use magic to augment what's already there instead of wasting all the energy on creating the attack."
"Can we even build these?" Isaac asked skeptically as he looked over the design. It was easily more complex than anything he had ever created, and he wasn't sure he could build one on his own, let alone build multiple of them in a day.
Duncan shrugged. "I would say no if we were still in the Legend of Noralon. We shouldn't be able to build a scorpion ballista at our level in Carpentry without a blueprint. But this is reality, so … we should be able to manage it, especially with Charles over there. He actually does have the skill levels for it. Say hi, Charles!" Duncan called out.
One of the crafters working on a project nodded in acknowledgment but didn't look away from his work.
"Charles was or is a carpenter. I think that because he has so much prior experience, he's getting a truly stupid amount of skill XP for his [Carpentry] skills. Or at least I hope that's the reason. Otherwise, I'm just a really shitty carpenter."
“So what can I do?” Isaac asked, eager to get to make something truly magical.
“I’ve got the perfect job for our resident [Runesmith],” Duncan said, reaching for a large metal rod that had been placed on the table. He lifted it up, revealing a giant ballista bolt. Stretching a little over a meter in length, the bolt was forged from what looked like a single piece of iron, its tip molded into a four-pointed arrowhead. Smooth along the length of its shaft. The weapon bore little other decoration or embellishments, save for a quartet of thick fins at its base and an overly bulbous tip, making it almost appear as a massively oversized dildo.
“This one is for measuring purposes. But the final design will have core bomb-tipped arrows. These will let people without combat classes do as much damage as a mage like Alex,” Duncan said.
"Do I want to know what a core bomb is?" Issac asked.
"It's when you try an uncontrolled fusion of two cores. They explode." Duncan explained.
"You're going to teach me?!" Issac asked excitedly.
"As soon as we build the ballista," Duncan said.
Issac immediately felt disappointed.
"Okay, fine. But just remember that my [Carpentry] skill level hasn’t even hit level 10 yet," Isaac warned.
"Don't worry about it, kid. We all have to start out somewhere. Besides, do you really think we don't need metal components? Hell, you think we aren't going to carve runes for all these things? I know," Duncan replied reassuringly.
“Okay, okay, I get it. Now that we've had enough of the pep talk, how can I help?” Isaac asked.
“With the framing as you see here,” Duncan said, motioning towards another sketch pinned to the drafting table. “We will need to ensure that its core can withstand movement and repeated use."
Continuing on with his explanation, the next few minutes passed quickly as Duncan brought Isaac up to speed on the nature of the design and how they would tackle building a ballista. It was a far cry from the rudimentary armour that Isaac had already crafted; building something like a siege engine was a much more complicated task, requiring a variety of different crafting skills to see the project through to completion.
Isaac did his best to help Duncan gather all the tools they would need for their crafting as Duncan started to give instructions. Following Duncan’s lead, they began the process of building a working ballista from scratch.
Beginning by preparing the various cuts of wood needed for the siege engine’s frame, the first two hours were spent largely measuring and sawing before progressing to the other remaining pieces.
With the pieces cut and shaped, they assembled the main frame, meticulously attaching the vertical supports and main bow supports. Each joint was checked and adjusted to guarantee it wouldn't fall apart the moment they tried to fire before they glued and pressed it together.
The stock and trigger required the most technical work, but once they were done, they turned their attention to the arrow guide, ensuring it was aligned and sanded down.
Finally, the bow limbs were attached, and the string was strung with clumsy fingers. Unfortunately, their low skill levels in Carpentry led to many frustrating failures. Though just as many rewards.
<[Carpentry] has Reached Level 10>
<[Carpentry] has Reached Level 11>
<...>
<[Carpentry] has Reached Level 23>
Finally, after many, many failures, accidents, and a few out-and-out mistakes on their part, they finally completed their first ballista to the sound of a notification.
DING!!!
"Holy crap," Issac said as he looked upon what they had created.
The ballista was small, only big enough for one man to fire it, not unlike a mounted machine gun. The wood looked rough and maybe a little crooked, but to Issac, it was more impressive than anything he had ever seen.
"Yeah, it's a piece of shit," Duncan said.
"It's not that bad?!" Issac protested.
"It's a good prototype, but I don't see us getting more than a dozen shots off before something breaks. We'll need to gather some more materials and fine-tune the design, but this is a solid prototype." Duncan said.
"Any ideas for improvement?" Issac asked.
"We could actually get good at Carpentry." Duncan chuckled. "Look at Charles Scorpion.
Issac turned and saw two well-put-together ballistas, each at Lesser Rarity. The two beasts were leagues better than the one they had first created, with almost 500 durability apiece.
"I'm sorry. What did we waste all that time on?" Issac asked.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Because we needed to level up our Carpentry skills," Duncan stated.
"In a more practical sense, let's try adding some runes to it. If it's enough of an improvement, then we can move on to the core bombs. If not, we will try again." Duncan said
Issac shrugged. "Fine, but I still want to learn how to make those core bombs after this."
Issac got to work using his [Rune Lore] and [Runecrafting] to guide him in carving the runes into the ballista for the best effect. Duncan's experience with runes was invaluable. Duncan showed him dozens of new runes, expanding his knowledge base. When he finished up, he got two notifications.
DING!!!
"Huh," Issac muttered as he read the second notification.
The strange thing was that it didn't feel any different. Every other time he had purchased a new skill, he had gotten a weird feeling. But he wasn't sure he would have even noticed this change if the system hadn't notified him.
"Did you get something interesting?" Duncan asked.
"No, I just got this notification," Issac said, showing the notification to Duncan.
"Oh good, you got that one," Duncan said, barely even reading the notification.
"You knew about this?" Issac asked.
"I knew those two skills were eventually going to combine," Duncan said as he examined the scorpion. "Hey, I think this scorpion is a bust. Let's start over."
And just like that, they got back to work—sawing, measuring, and sanding down the wooden beams. As they worked, Issac reviewed his status and picked up some new skills, and he was assigned his new levels.
DING!!!
Issac smiled as his work improved. Thanks to his three new skills, the carving went faster than before. [Equipment Maintenance] allowed him to maintain the wood's durability during his carving. And [Accident Prone] seemed to be helping him avoid mistakes. Seemed to be because he honestly couldn't feel anything from it. But he was making fewer mistakes. And the results spoke for themselves.
DING!!!
DING!!!
<[Carpentry] has Reached Level 33>
"Now, this is much better," Duncan said.
Then Duncan picked up the Scorpion and ate it. Issac stared at him in shock as Duncan swallowed up the Scorpion like he was Kirby. His mouth warped until he swallowed the table-sized siege weapon.
"What the actual fuck?!" Issac asked.
"[Dungeon Pallet]," Duncan said, smiling at Issacs' shock. "It allows me to 'eat' an item and gain a perfect blueprint of the item; it also gives me insight into all the skills that went into making it, and I can steal those skills and add them to my own crafting skills."
Issac paused. "So you just stole my skills?"
Duncan smiled, "Yep, pretty much."
Issac just stared at him. "Your class is bullshit."
Duncan smiled. "Yeah, except it doesn't do anything in combat, remember? I can't use [Hammering Blows] to beat the crap out of someone. I don't get to keep [Accident Prone] outside of crafting. And I can't use [Shape Metal] to turn my opponent's sword to jelly."
Issac paused as he digested Duncan's words.
"I can turn swords into jelly?" he asked.
"When your skill levels increase." Duncan chuckled. "Now, if you can get started on the runes for Charles's stuff, I can get started on getting together our supposed for the Core Bombs."
Duncan placed the two Lesser rarity cores on the table.
"Now, what's your jeweller skill level?" Duncan asked.
Issac shrugged. "I never got it."
Duncan signed.
"You must have left the class before we could get into it," Duncan said. "observe."
Taking the two cores, he slowly started feeding them his mana. The cores themselves began to glow. Once they started to look dangerously bright, Duncan loaded them into a spring trap. One that, when placed at the end of a ballista bolt, would forcibly shove one core into the other, smashing them together like two glass balls.
"Done. now we just need to add this to the bolts." Duncan said.
"That's it?" Issac asked as he stared at the literal bomb on the table in front of him. "That's so anti-climatic."
"Really, I find it terrifying," Duncan said.
"How is this terrifying?" Issac bemoaned.
"Because now any dumbass with two cores and a mana pool can make a bomb," Duncan said.
Issac stared down at the core bomb as Duncan's words sunk in.
"Fuck"
You may skip to the next chapter.
Base
Personal: +4 DEX +3 STR +3 INT +2 PER +2 WILL
Racial: +3 CON +2 END +2 SPIRIT +1 EGO
Mini-Character List
Duncan Coffeehouse: The Awoken Myths Guild head crafter
Issac Brown: Gareth's brother, an aspiring crafter with no desire to fight monsters
AN:
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