Chapter 23 (Patreon)

AN: SORRY FOR SLOW CHAPTERS LOVE U GUYS

We didn’t see Gerald again for a few days. Sandy was still mad even if she acted civil, taking days to calm down. She took out her frustration on the monsters in the dungeon, swinging with manic ferocity the next day.

When the last wolf was dead, she swung again, splattering blood across the floor before lifting the blade back up.

“Aren’t you upset?” She had asked. The question caught me off-guard.

“No.” I replied after too long of a hesitation.

“It should’ve been you or me. Not someone who squanders it spending all day making toys.”

Sandy calmed down after killing the final spider. In a way, I was glad she wasn’t a noble. She was terrifying enough while angry, without the kind of power Valjean demonstrated; I didn’t want to imagine what Sandy would do with the ability to level forests in single swings.

I didn’t tell her that, though.

While Sandy calmed, the dungeon only seemed to grow angrier, the wild mana pulsing through more like an earthquake than a heartbeat now. It sent leaves tumbling from the canopy above us.

The door didn’t open. But we cleared the entire floor only using two mana split between the two of us, becoming more and more proficient. Most of the spiders died in a single hit, my needle sheering through the side. The easier it became, the more the rewarded experience diminished. Across the clear, I only leveled twice, the reward diminishing to a single point per spider. I upgraded warddrobe piece by piece, crossing my fingers that the Thread Manipulation skill I had skipped would reappear.

It didn’t.

The days flew by, the pulsing of the dungeon as it grew closer to opening growing louder and louder. The set was almost done, and I was burning with the desire to find out what skills it would give.

On the third day, I leveled again, stopping in my tracks on the second floor.

“Two skill points?” I asked aloud.

“Just hit level ten?” Sandy asked.

My system had rewarded me two points instead of one. Now I could invest every other point into upgrading my own skills, and the other into gaining new ones, if I ever rolled anything worth picking again.

I leveled Emebellishment and Warddrobe.

On the fourth day, the dungeon gate half opened. It was a window; not a door. We could see the next floor. It was a forest too, channels of crystal clear water cutting through a canopy in a rainbow of colors. Trees with leaves in purple and red and yellow and green coexisted, a menagerie of colors. All of this nested within a circular pit, a straight cliff surrounding the forest. A waterfall poured a slow current into the channels of water.

I pressed my hand to the window, feeling the cold, transparent wall that blocked us from going further, the vines of the second floor curled around the emerging gateway.

Then we saw the monster inside. It just looked like a hill at first, covered in decaying leaves with a back of mottled orange and brown. When it stood, it became clear that was just fur.

There was a bear as tall as one of the trees. It rose from where it drank at the river, lumbering backwards and away, the image soft and fuzzy.

“We need to bring some rope.” I said, staring at the cliff face.

That night, I finished the shell dress. We had stolen one of Gerald’s mannequins, decorating it kindly. The head had been broken off at some point — I couldn’t remember if it came that way or if Sandy had beheaded it at some point — so it sat on top of the body tilted at an angle.

The dress was entirely scales. Despite its shape, it was armor, lined with hard chitin that caught the light. The left side of it hung below the shoulder; the right side stretched to the elbow, covered in armor. I had stuck to the white color all throughout the body, using metallic red pieces of chitin for the right arm. The matching red chitin bracelets were on the ground, carved into complex patterns of web.

The earrings took days to carve. The standard pattern called for little more than hanging loops made from chitin. Embellishment sent me the extra mile, carving them in the image of spiderwebs out of metallic red.

Ear rings contributing as much as boots seemed illogical, but then again, magic. Another class probably wouldn’t gain anything from ear rings even if they were made from monsters of apocalyptic proportion.

I reached out and activated [Quick Change] rapidly. It had a limit for how fast it could change clothes; not more than once a second. My mundane outfit swapped with me one piece at a time.

“I feel like it’d be faster to just change at this point.” Sandy said, lazing on her bed. The stack of books she had already read piled up. Three books claimed a haphazard place on the crooked table that served as Sandy’s nightstand.

“I paid for the whole spell.”

I rolled my shoulders. The Seamstress crafted goods magically expanded here or contracted there, making a perfect fit. I stared down at the earrings with uncertainty.

My ears weren’t pierced.

Screw it.

I activated [Quick Change] and brought the set together for the first time.

There was no pain. I reached up and touched them before sighing with relief. I was ready for the next floor of the dungeon to open. With the set unified, it finally began the process of generating its skill, practically burning with power. The more I raised the quality, the more skill shards the outfit gained.

[Cleome I]

►[Earrings: 100%][100% Light Aspect][+3 skill shards]

►[+40% Quality]

►[Dress: 100%][75% Light Aspect][+5 skill shards]

►[+30% Quality]

►[Bracelets: 100%][100% Light Aspect][+3 skill shards]

►[+40% Quality]

►[Boots: 100%][75% Light Aspect][+3 skill shards]

[Generating Skills…][14 Skill Shards]

►[Thread Sensing II] ►[Thread Manipulation I]

[4 shards left over… Enhancing Skills]

I watched as the skills glowed inside of my vision. [Thread Sensing] and [Thread Manipulation] both leveled another time.

Thread sensing from an outfit. My mind shook a little as the ability washed over me; memories rolled unsteadily in my mind, trying to find footing somewhere. They were hazy images still, vignetted with fog and confusion. They were images of a dungeon. They couldn’t have been anything else; a hundred monsters crawled across a ceiling in the memory. Then it was gone, slipping out of my hands like a dream and leaving behind still images I could barely recall.

“Gwen? Are you alright?” Sandy asked.

“Yeah.” I said. I was doubled over, leaning against the wall. I hadn’t even realized. I leaned back against the wall, the boots stiff and pressing into my legs, and pulled open my system.

[Gwendolyn Tailor][Human, Lv10][Seamstress]

[Health: 52/52][Mana: 9/10][XP: 6/10]

[ATTRIBUTES]

►SPD: 24 ►WIL: 5

►STR: 5 ►DEX: 10

►CON: 26 ►PER: 9

[SKILLS]

►Crafting I ►Running Stitch I

►Hand Spinning I ►Thread Mastery IV

►Wardrobe V ►Quick Change I

►Embellishment II

[PATTERNS]

►[Hunter Pattern] ►[Shell Dress Pattern]

[RESISTANCES]

►Light: 10

[TEMPORARY SKILLS]

►[Thread Sensing III] ►[Thread Mastery II]

Thread sensing from an outfit. Fifty-two health. What did that even mean?

The system raised my health to its cap instantly. Could I abuse that to heal? My gut told me no.

I poked at my arm. My skin felt normal, not like it was made of steel or anything. I let out a nervous laugh.

“So?” Sandy asked.

“Does my skin feel like its made of steel?” I asked her.

“What?” She asked, walking over to me. I held out an arm. She grabbed it, fingers dimpling my skin. She frowned. “No. Are you going crazy?”

“We have to be a little crazy to do this, right?” I pulled my hand back and spun in the dress. The chitin scales clicked as I turned, lamplight dancing off the shining surfaces.

“Yeah. You’ve always been crazy.”

There was pounding on the door. I panicked, reaching up and shuffling my clothes into my inventory, swapping them out.

My Hunter set was in my inventory, which didn’t help. My mundane clothes hung on a rack. I didn’t feel any pain from suddenly losing this much constitution, but my focus was on who was pounding on the door. I crept back to the corner of the room, preparing to activate stealth.

Sandy raised an eyebrow at me.

“Gwen? Sandy?” Gerald called, voice muffled by the door. “It’s me!”

Sandy’s expression soured. I relaxed, though adrenaline still made my heart pound against my chest. I was emotionally on edge. Getting caught in the hunter outfit was something I could explain; showing up in a dress of spider scale was something else entirely.

Sandy’s expression was begrudging when she opened the door. She grabbed Gerald’s shoulder and dragged him in.

“What do you want?” Sandy asked Gerald.

Gerald looked between me and Sandy, confused for a moment. I stepped forward from the wall, pulling open my system for just an instance to see my health total.

[Health: 52/10]

“I’m out of metal.” Gerald said, sounding anxious.

“So go buy some more? Sell one of your toys. You can afford it.” Sandy said.

“I’d have to explain why my weapons are magical. And I’d have to explain why I can’t break them down.” Gerald shook his head no.

“You mean you haven’t told your parents?” Sandy asked.

“No! Who can I trust to tell this to? I even told you first and how did you react? How do you think they will?” Gerald asked.

“Guys.” I said, stepping forward.

“Sorry.” Gerald said. He swung a backpack around, pulling out a piece of paper and walking over to the table, bumping into a chain and sending it swinging. He spread the paper on the table. It curled at the edges, threatening to close in on itself. It was thick and covered in markings.

“What is this?” I asked, staring over his shoulder, but I knew what it was. It was a map of the town, showing a ringed city that used to stretch outwards.

Sandy begrudgingly crossed the room, looking down over both of us and reading the map.

“Huh.” She said. “Didn’t know it used to be that big.

“Me either. I looted this out of old records passed down. But forget the city.” Gerald said, pointing at one of the distant markers on the map. It was an image of a stack of ingots with a pickaxe over them, clearly labeled “IRON” beneath.

“Is that supposed to be Gwen’s house?” Sandy asked, pointing to a spot in the inner city that was depicted with an icon of a needle and scissors. “And… there’s yours…” Gwen said.

The map was covered in symbols of buildings that used to be here. Potion shops, mining guilds, carpenters and architects and crafters of all kinds. The most interesting detail though, by far, was the collapsing circle that showed the towns border and where the next two rings of dungeon entrances would arise.

As I watched, the ink circle slowly moved. I reached out and picked it up.

Two foot prints appeared in a cleared section of the map that wasn’t marked for any house, showing where I was. Sandy stepped back. Gerald stared.

“It’s enchanted?” Sandy asked.

“Uh… yeah.” Gerald said.

“So… you want us to go mine raw iron in the Wild.” I said, staring at the metal resource node south of the town. It wasn’t the only one on the map.