WilburWoods
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Chapter 9 - The Scythe-rang
🕑 Added 2023-08-25 19:24:05 +0000 UTCLogan woke up to a thud against the door that jerked him awake.
“Gah!”
The hoarse screeches started immediately and the banging on the door became a cacophony of frantic violence. Logan cringed, wondering how long the door would last. He took a closer look at it.
[Door, E-grade Seal, 87%]
Well, that’s interesting…
The violent banging continued and soon the text flickered and changed.
[Door, E-grade Seal, 86%]
Yeah… things went from interesting to real damn scary fast. Logan scrambled up.
“Hey Tumor,” Logan said, ignoring the hoarse screeches behind him. “How long was I asleep?”
[8227 seconds.]
“Remind me, who is the idiot who designed you?”
[While this one’s manufacturing and programming was done by multiple entities, the person in charge of this one’s design was Malcolm Specter.]
Logan smirked. “Idiot to the bone. Here’s the thing, Tumor. Next time I ask you about time, you’re going to give me days, hours, minutes, unless I want you doing something else. We clear?”
[Understood.]
“So how long did I sleep?”
[2 hours and 17 minutes.]
“Right,” Logan said to himself, trying to ignore the scratching at the door. “Let's assume the creatures behind the door try to break down the seal at a steady rate. “It’s been 2 hours, 17 minutes and the door has lost 14% charge. How much time do I have?”
[14 hours and 4 minutes.]
Logan blew out some air. It might be even more, since most likely the monsters had tried to rampage through the door, exerting a bunch of energy. It could also be possible that the door just naturally lost charge over time, but that would result in the same 14 hour timer. He needed to find out a way to deal with three of those crazy scythe monsters by then.
Logan looked at his equipment. Almost five [F-grade Numa-crystals], an enchanted javelin with no charge left, his shield-watch which had proven very useful and a blue and black scythe of an arm, which had smeared Logan’s hand with black blood. By now it was crusty and it let off an oily stench.
This is not enough for three of them.
The room was dim, but there were three floating crystals in the middle of it that provided a thin blue glow to the room. With it Logan could see his hands clearly enough, as well as the edges of the room, which were roped with the same network as any room in these kinds of ruins.
Logan approached the three floating crystals. He could feel the pulse of them. It wasn’t quite as strong as that monolithic crystal he had first encountered, but these three definitely held more power than the few chips in his pocket.
[E-grade Numa-crystal, 100%]
Logan touched it. He could feel the energy. He grabbed it with both hands. The crystal was warm. No matter how Logan tried to yank or pry, the crystal did not move from its place. Logan scoffed in disbelief and took a few steps back.
The floating crystals were clearly cut to many symmetrical facets, so there was more going on to them. They were constructs of sorts. Around the crystals was a circle of stone tables all facing the crystals. Logan placed his stuff on one of the tables and sat on a tall cube made of stone at the table.
The screeches, scratches and banging at the door was sporadic, but if it had held while Logan was dead asleep, it was going to hold for now. No reason to worry about it. But if he couldn't figure out a way to kill three of those nasty things in 14 hours… Well at least he wouldn’t have to worry for long.
Time to take inventory.
Now that Logan actually had the time, he needed to take a closer look at his skills. Getting those level ups felt good and all, but Logan wanted to see where he stood. Not only that, but he wanted to see if he could get some descriptions out of his skills.
Logan spent a longer time than he’d admit to anyone, trying to make his class-screen pop up. What finally worked was saying his own name.
Logan Specter - [Artificer level 3]
Attributes:
Potency: 4
Efficiency: 3
Durability: 2
Control: 6
Focus: 2
Subclasses:
[Transmutation]: 3
[Enchantment]: 5
Class Skills:
[Empower]: 2
[Funnel]: 1
General Skills:
[Marksmanship]: 2
Logan decided he’d take a look at the attributes later. He had a general idea what they meant, and it wasn’t like understanding specifically what ‘Potency’ entailed, would affect his plans. If it came to that or he had time, he’d look into them.
He checked up on [Marksmanship] just in case. It was exactly what he had expected.
[Marksmanship: Accuracy, expenditure of energy and potency increased when handling projectile weapons.]
I don’t know what I was expecting…
However it was his class skills that he really needed to understand.
[Empower: Enhance the magical effect on an item at the expense of Numa charge.]
That made sense. Efficiency and Potency probably played a role in how the spell worked. Basically you could have your Numa-craft javelin and kill those green cats with it, even without empowerment. But if you wanted to kill these clickity bastards, it was most likely wise to use the skill.
[Funnel: Transfer Numa-energy from one crystal to another, or from a magical item back to a crystal, or from one magical item to another.]
Okay. Now that was interesting. Logan glanced at the large floating crystals. At least he could make sure he’d have all his stuff charged up before the door was opened. This was probably an ability in which Control played a big role. If video-game logic applied, the higher his level in the skill and all the relevant attributes, the less loss of energy during the transfer.
“How’s that theory sound, Tumor?”
[Reasonable hypothesis. More information required. This one will monitor said parameters and notify you, when there is applicable data.]
Logan leaned his head on his palm and idly looked at the scythe on the table. The blade was a darker blue, than the azure glow of the Numa-crystals, but it was still clearly magical. Whatever that monster in the sky was, it had its own brand of magic. Now, Logan was no expert, but this darker blue was some distant cousin of the brighter Numa-variety of magic.
No text box popped up, but that was fine. Logan looked at the curved blade, attached to a black and blue arch of flesh and bone. He picked it up. It had a nice heft to it. Logan got up and swung the blade. It was rather gross, but once he got over that, the blade cut the air with an uncanny grace.
Well, I’d still rather not get close to those assholes. I don’t think I’m cut out for brute force. Besides, I already have this [Marksmanship] skill.
It took Logan a few seconds to string together the necessary thoughts.
“Hey, Tumor!” He said, grinning to himself. “We’re making a magic-boomerang.”
*
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 18% Completion]
[Analyzing material properties…]
[Running a computational fluid dynamics simulation…]
[Running a comprehensive set of aerodynamic equations…]
[Running center of gravity calculations…]
[Calculating moment of inertia…]
[...]
[Calculations complete.]
After making Tumor repeat the instructions twice, Logan made a rough prototype. It turned out that designing a boomerang was infinitely harder than making something as simple as a javelin. Logan told Tumor he wanted to do this thing in phases, so that Tumor would also get more data, as it observed the flight paths and spin and all that nonsense when Logan threw the weapon.
Turned out throwing a boomerang was also an interesting exercise. Logan quickly realized that throwing it in such a way that it would actually return was a ridiculous proposition. He’d first have to learn to throw the weapon in such a way that it would actually be dangerous.
[Skill Level Up!]
[Marksmanship level 3]
After Tumor had calculated enough data from the throws, it wanted Logan to adjust numerous proportions with minute measure. Logan did as instructed, exhausting the last [F-grade Numa crystal]
[Sub-class Level Up!]
[Transmutation level 4]
However, the flight of the weapon wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. Logan had a suspicion as to why. It could have been that his Control just wasn’t high enough. But Logan felt it was something else. It felt wrong to only recite what the AI told him. It felt like Logan wasn’t as intimately part of the process as he should have been, as the progenitor of the spell.
“Look, Tumor,” he said. “This isn’t working.”
[This one suggests patience. Engineering is a product of trial and error.]’
“Yeah, yeah,” Logan said. “Hard work and all that. Heard it all before. But I prefer smart work.”
[Unfortunately, your intellect is—]
“You sure are a design of my father,” Logan interjected and scoffed. “For future reference; don’t need to hear it.”
[Understood.]
“Look, I don’t think like you. Or my father for that matter. I’m this free, cool, bohem, awesome creative person. I’m a visual person. Well, sometimes. How about this, Tumor. Can you create a hallucination of one-to-one proportions for me, after which I can model the design?”
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 20% Completion]
Suddenly a red, translucent shape appeared in Logan’s vision. Logan took a startled step back. The vision followed him.
“Okay, awesome,” Logan said. “But can you keep it in one place, so I can walk around it and have a look.”
Logan waited, took another step back and noticed that the red boomerang hologram indeed stayed still. “Perfect.”
Now he could approach the design in a very different way. However all his Numa crystals were dim rocks on the stone table. Logan wasn’t worried. His mind had been working on that during his boomerang engineering. He walked up to one of the floating [E-grade Numa Crystals, 100%], brought the dimmed out fist-sized chunk of an [E-grade Numa Crystal, 0%] and said the magic word.
“[Funnel].”
The chunk of crystal Logan was holding sucked in the magical blue energy, until it brimmed with a strong blue hue again.
[Skill Level Up!]
[Funnel level 2]
Logan grinned to himself. “Oh, we’re going to get a lot of levels here, Tumor.”
