Chapter 24 (Patreon)

The iron node below the town wasn’t the only resource node on the map; regrowing resources that existed outside the dungeons scattered the territory around the city.

“Is this even feasible?” I said, looking up at Gerald over the map. “I mean, we would need tools, a way to carry the iron back to town, then you would have to smelt raw iron from the wild…”

Gerald help up a hand. One moment it was empty. The next there was a pickaxe in it. The pickaxe disappeared and was replaced with an iron bar.

Purple light flowed around the iron.

“Oh, wait — “

The iron bar slipped out of his hand like a piece of soap, floating up to the ceiling. Gerald reached for it, sending it tumbling like there was no gravity attached to it. 

“Oh shit!” Gerald said as it rolled away through the air.

Sandy caught it with both hands, lowering it back to Gerald, who stored it back in his inventory sheepishly.

“Does everyone have an inventory skill?” Sandy grumbled.

“You don’t have one yet?” Gerald asked, seeming genuinely surprised. Then he turned to me. “Did yours come with your class?”

“What? No. Had to spend a stat point on it.” I replied.

Gerald nodded and turned back to the map.

“Tomorrow.” He said. His face fixed into a harsh expression as he looked at the map. It was odd to see him so deadly serious. “Let’s go scout the node.”

“Alright.”

I changed back into my mundane outfit, storing my stealth outfit in my inventory, and headed home. I spent the morning working with my mom. I had been making slow but steady progress on a Null hunter outfit, the materials so basic that they imbued no magical properties onto the finished product.

“Do you want to try it on?” Mom asked. “It’s all yours.”

I tried to offer her a genuine smile. The outfit gave a bonus to my stats — a pitiful one, even after being boosted twenty-percent by my Seamstress bonus.

“It’s great.” I said, folding my arms and feeling the rougher sleeves. The work wasn’t my best. It was still something we could sell with the next shipment out, but my focus was on what I made at night. “It feels good to have something that’s yours.”

“Do you want to start on the next one right away?” She asked.

“No. I have plans for tonight. This is good. Actually… can I borrow you to help me make a mining pattern?”

Mom leveled at me, staring without comment.

“What?” I asked. There was something wrong.

“What did you see?” She asked.

“I… didn’t see anything.” Was she asking about the memories from the patterns? The ones that were supposed to tell us how to sew? What would I have seen from them?

“You don’t have the miner pattern.” She said.

I nodded no to confirm.

“Sit down, please.”

My mind set on fire. She knew. She knew. How could she not know? What gave it away? Did my lack of reaction to the stats confirm something for her? Was my smile not genuine enough?

I sat. It was fine. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. I was doing what I always told her I would growing up. I would kill the monsters. I would save the town. The walls of the room were pressing in on me. This workshop used to be gigantic.

She kept staring.

“I — ” I started to speak and didn’t know what to say.

“It’s okay.” Mom said, dragging a chair across to me and sitting down. “I know you’re helping Sandy clear the dungeon. But I… don’t want you to get any ideas. Not from anything you see.”

“Anything I see in the patterns?” I asked, the question rushing past my thoughts and escaping my mouth before I finished processing it. What had she thought I saw?

“Yes.” She nodded once, curtly. “Some of those patterns are old. Very old. Before our way of life. They don’t show the way things are anymore. There comes a time for every crafter to have this talk. You cannot trust the memories imbued in the patterns.”

She stared at me as if she was trying to read my thoughts.

“It’s fine that you’re supporting Sandy. It’s great. Your crafting will help keep her safe. But you don’t need to kill anything yourself. Seamstresses shouldn’t have to fight.”

Shouldn’t have to.

I nodded, feeling my face flushed. She thought it was just Sandy clearing the dungeon.

She didn’t know I was. Why would she think so? She knew that Sandy’s mom had cleared the dungeon. She probably even knew that Sandy had been a year ago. I picked my words carefully, slotting them into a sentence that wouldn’t reveal anything.

“So… you’ll help me make a mining pattern?”

Mom leaned back. I didn’t realize she had gotten so close, leaning across the table. She finally relaxed.

“Yes. And have Sandy bring by something to make it out of.” Mom said, tapping her fingers on the table. “Maybe I can help too.”

“What?” I asked, reeling.

“If I had helped her mom, maybe things would be different.” Mom stood with a groan. “There’s no point obsessing over the past. Run on. You’ve got lots of work ahead of you still.”

Mom left. I sat staring in the workshop for minutes, tapping my fingers along the desk.

She didn’t know, after all.

I picked up my outfit, changing into the hunter set and meeting Sandy at the edge of the town.

“You’re both late.” She said, leaning against a tree and staring out. She was wearing her hunter outfit too, staring out into the wild.

“My mom knows you’re clearing the dungeon.” I said, following her gaze. She didn’t say anything for a moment.

“She knows I’m clearing the dugneon? What about you?”

“She knows your clearing the dungeon.” I repeated, sitting on a large rock. Reality bubbled outside the border of the town. It was like trying to make out objects underwater. Wind blew the trees above us.

“Okay? So do we need to do something?”

“She said she’d help.” I replied.

Sandy choked, pausing for a moment to consider

“Help how?”

“We’re going to have to bring her supplies and find out.”

Sandy folded her arms, staring hard at the ground and thinking. Gerald arrived a few minutes after, waving excitedly.

“Guys!” He said.

“You ready?” Sandy asked.

Gerald looked to the edge of town. His face said he was unsure.

“Let me just…” He said, then reached out. He must have been activating his inventory skill, because metal started to crawl from his finger tips and up his arm. Heavy gauntlets swirled with green light, the metal clunking together as it covered him. The steel must have been nearly an inch thick.

It continued up his arms, heavy plates glowing purple beyond his gauntleted forearms. Sandy recoiled at the growing sight. Huge pauldrons grew from Gerald’s shoulders, then a breastplate decorated and etched and softly humming. Metal locked into place around Gerald’s face, his eyes recessed deep in pitch black.

“Ack — ” he said, fumbling around with his helmet. He touched a hand to the side and a blue light glowed between his eyes, complex white lines crisscrossing them.

A shield appeared in his hand, as big as he was, also engraved with metal.

“Ready!” He said, his voice muffled by the metal.

“Can you stop glowing before the whole town sees you?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, yeah.” The enchanted glow faded from his armors, the eyes of his helmet dimming again. “Wait, no — “ Gerald swiveled, slamming his shield into a tree, Leaves fell around them. He dropped the shield, clunking it onto the ground, and tapped his helmet again. His eyes lit back up.

“Alright!” He said.

The tree featured a massive dent where bark exploded outwards, the metal shield having cut into the side of it. Gerald reached for his shield but struggled to bend at the waist.

“Let’s go before someone investigates.” Sandy said, reaching for the shield and visible straining as she tried to raise it towards Gerald. “Is this solid steel? No wonder you ran out of metal.”

I switched to the Spiderscale Dress, using my increased strength to help Sandy lift the monstrous shield. We got it just high enough for Gerald to scrape the edge of it, storing it.

Panting, I switched back. Sandy stared out towards the town. Most of the view was blocked by dense foliage.

“Hello?” Someone asked, walking closer to the clearing. “Someone out here?”

“Shit.” Sandy said. Then she turned and ran, slamming through into the Wild.

I looked at Gerald, eyes wide, then followed.

The kids in the town used to play chicken at the border. We would jump in and out of the Wild, stepping beyond the border of what was safe and what was out there, and then our parents would yell at us when we came back with new holes growing in our clothes and shoes.

We didn’t have a system then. I don’t know if I just forgot what it felt like a single step beyond the border of the town, or if gaining the system made me aware of it; the constant pressure etching at the edge of my awareness, the furious rage of the world itself encroaching on me. It hated me. It hated us.

We ran.

Gerald edged past me, every step of his landing with a thump, the sound of metal slamming onto the earth.

We stopped where the forest opened beyond the trees, Sandy having turned around and waiting for us there.

There was a shadow where there were no trees, a foundation of brick covered in moss and grass. The shadow of a building. A house, maybe. I stopped next to her, staring up at the opening in the sky.

Gerald failed to stop in time. He tried to slow and slammed face first into the ground, shattering brick in a loose impression of himself.

“Are you alright?” I asked, leaning down next to him. He pushed himself up off the ground.

“I’m fine.” He said.

“How heavy is all of that?” I asked.

“I didn’t weigh it.” Gerald said.

Sandy pulled out the wooden tube containing the map, unfolding it for them.

“Is it safe to bring that out here?” I asked.

“It’s survived a few generations. It’ll survive a few minutes out here.” She said, orienting herself in the woods before stowing it again. “This way.”

Sandy pointed a direction that led off the shadow of a road and through the woods, a straight line toward the iron mine.