DTK 27 (Patreon)

AN: Great skill suggestions, guys. I'm going to be adding almost all of these to the ongoing skill list. Maybe next week ill do one for pattern suggestions??? U guys rock.

Minor continuity edit, in chapter 26 Embellishment should be III

***

“Scissors…” Gerald whispered to himself. “Giant scissors. They’re basically two big blades with a flat edge. How does that… screw in the middle work?” Gerald asked, his muttering becoming faster and more incessant as he seemed to think about it.

“I think it just holds the blades together?” I said.

We stepped from the darkened mineshaft into the mid day light. Sandy had separated the bronze monster into pieces, plates of square metal lying to the side, still draining black blood.

“Hey guys!” She said, awfully excited for once.

“Ah no, Gwen! I can feel an inspiration coming on.” Gerald complained.

“Is that bad?” I asked, eyeing him.

“Doesn’t go away until I craft. Can barely sleep while Inspired.” He replied glumly, his eyes still glowing.

“Good thing we got plenty of metal, then.” I said.

“There’s hardly enough to make anything.” He said, summoning a piece of raw material into his hands.

“Can’t you craft new things with the old enchanted metal?” I asked. “Like if you have a sword that swings faster and craft the scissors out of those…?”

“What do you think I made this armor out of?” Gerald asked. “I tried crafting out of some of the trickier pieces. The metal that damages whoever hits it wounded my hand. The piece enchanted with anti gravity caught the roof of the forge on fire.”

“Gerald? How did you do all that without your parents noticing?” I asked, turning to him with shock. Me and Sandy were bad at hiding what we were up to, but we weren’t that bad!

He only shrugged.

“There’s more metal at the furnaces.” I said, gesturing with my head to the stacked brick and mud forges the tiny golems had built outside of the dungeon.

“Oh yeah!” He said, rushing past me despite the heavier armor to lean down and inspect the metal that was left inside of them. With a casual swing, he blew the bricks apart, inspecting the burning hot inside.

Sandy grunted as she pulled at the copper monster’s insides, pulling out an organ that looked like a pipe before throwing it on the ground. It made a hollow ringing noise, oil-like fluid bubbling out of the side of it.

“Hows it going?” I asked Sandy.

“Good.” She smiled, a maniacal look on her face. Black blood stained from her fingers to her elbows, smeared across her face and all over per pants. “I finally gained a level!”

I blinked at that.

“You hadn’t leveled all this time?” I asked. She waved a hand.

“I’m already level nineteen. The corpses my dad bought for me to butcher raised my level a lot. This has to be the first time I’ve raised my level from butchering in like, a year, though! Dad stopped buying the good stuff after we fought.”

“You get a good skill?” I asked. It must have been for her to be this happy.

“A rare one!” She said. “A bonus to all materials that I butcher. Look how much I pulled off the thing!” Sandy waved at the stack of copper leather.

“How are we going to carry all these home?” I grimaced at the pile.

“Oh.” Sandy said, looking over. Then she looked me up and down. “You got a strength bonus from that outfit, right?”

I sighed, resigning myself to my fate.

Our return trip took extra time since I moved slow, my vision blocked by the absolute pile of monster parts I was carrying. We didn’t want to leave much of the corpse behind, afraid that it might attract something even bigger and hungrier to investigate. Between the three of us, we were able to carry most of the body. Gerald balanced a pile of metal flesh on his tower shield, holding out the behemoth piece of metal in front of him. He must have exhausted his family’s entire storehouse of material.

Of course, we weren't brazen enough to bring the entire pile of goods to Sandy’s warehouse at once. There was no way we didn't raise more questions than we had answers for in the day light. Instead, we dumped what we had into the little clearing that Sandy used to watch the town decay in. 

Now it was a staging ground for our progress in revitalizing it. I switched outfits twice, removing the blood that had accumulated on the outfits arms, but I was still covered in the sticky, black, tar-like blood of the monster.

“I’m going to take a bath.” I said, laying out in the clearing. We still had to clear the dungeon again tonight.

“You’re just going to get dirty again later.” Sandy said.

“I don’t care.” I said, sitting up with a groan.

I had to scrub for ages to get the monster blood off.

We met up again later at Sandy’s house. With the mana we spent today, we had to save every last bit, which meant we waited until night to sneak into the dungeon. I stopped right before we entered, glancing around the town square. I hadn’t noticed it, but there were more houses awake at night than before.

How many of the residents of the village knew what was happening and simply chose to say nothing? It was more than zero, that was certain. We slipped inside.

Immediately, I began to change into the Spider Scale dress. It was time to test my strength properly.

“Let me have the wolves.” I said, flipping the needle in my hand.

“Thought they didn’t give you any experience?” Sandy asked.

“They don’t. I just want to… practice.” I said. The fight with the copper mole earlier in the day had highlighting my need to find my limits. I had plenty of tools; I had to learn how to use them better.

We turned the corner on the first wolf, and I readied to kill it. With the Shell Dress, my dexterity was lower, but my strength was higher. My lowered perception made seeing in the dark even harder, having to rely on lamps.

I leaned forward and kicked off the ground, using my enhanced strength to throw myself forward, burying the giant needle into the wolf’s head. It died ignobly, collapsing in a heap, the sudden weight on my needle hand threatening to topple me.

The needle slipped free with what felt like minimal resistance, despite the same act previously requiring so much effort. Its body collapsed in a heap.

“Satisfied?” Sandy asked.

I stared down at the needle in my hand.

“No.”

Strength and speed were separate stats, but I could feel the ability to push my body harder and faster, despite there being no visible changes, just like raising constitution didn’t turn my skin to steel. I ran down the hall, gaining in speed until I slammed into the next wolf, the stab taking it off the ground and into the air where it hung limp for a moment before I dropped it.

Exhilaration filled me. The first time we came here I had to take it slow and warily, watching for threats in every corner. Now I was hunting the monsters like it was a game, fighting them for practice when weeks before they were a threat to my life. I cleared the floor in a few minutes, letting out half a laugh as the stealth wolf collapsed to the ground.

Sandy clapped, and I immediately flushed, embarrassed at my behaviour.

“Gwen the battle junkie. Wait ‘til your mom finds out.”

“Shhh. Don’t joke like that. She would be worried sick. Probably throw up. And cry.”

Sandy laughed.

“Still better than my dad.”

I pulled out the throwing needles from my belt. They still weren’t very useful, yet, but maybe with the enhanced strength I could inflict real damage with them.

We stepped into the forest, the alternating day night cycle of the dungeon meaning that it was daytime here, the sun assaulting us from the canopy. I looked to Sandy.

“You want to rush at them still?” She asked.

“No. Draw their aggro. I wanna give these another try.”

Sandy pushed through the forest, eyes flicking up as the first spider fell toward her. I threw one of the needles, trying to catch it in midair. Without the Dex to enhance my aim, my shot went wide, flying off into the canopy. Sandy’s blade snapped to the side of the spider, batting it across the forest floor. Then she stepped forward and brought the blade down, cutting the monster open and splattering its insides on the bottom of the forest floor.

I sighed as I recalled the needle. This was going to take some practice. I worked on my aim as we fought the spiders, eventually landing enough of the needles to make a difference — though they weren’t enough to kill the spiders, even if they landed in their head, and they often returned to me covered in gore. There had to be a use for them still.

“Hold on.” I said, stopping in the forest. We had a few more spiders to kill. I pulled out a spool of spiderweb-thread I had spun previously, knotting it to the edge of a needle, and reached out with thread manipulation.

The wire-thin thread twisted as I practiced working with the skill. After a moment, it spun at the end of the thread.

“But will the enchantment work if I…” I muttered to myself as Sandy stood over me, staring. Then the needle went flying as I sent it into a tree. It stabbed in with a heavy thunk. With a mental pull, I reached out to the enchantment. It flew back to me. “Magic is so cool.” 

“What are you going to use that for?” Sandy said.

“I… am not sure yet.” I admitted. “Honestly, I can’t throw it that much harder with [Thread Manipulation] than with my strength. Let’s give it a try.”

When the next spider fell out of the tree, I sent the dark forward, throwing it and reaching out with [Thread Manipulation] to control the string.

It landed in a falling spider, and with a tug, I sent it veering off course, crashing into the ground. Sandy blinked for a moment before bringing her sword down. She cleaved the monster apart.

“Alright. Your strings are good for something other than fancy magic dresses.” Sandy said, kicking the dead spider.

The next diving spider, my throw went wide, but I tugged at it with string manipulation, sending the string wrapping around the spider, the thin thread cutting into the leg. I tugged at it, the string sliding down the chitin leg of the spider and into the soft sinew of its joints.

It made a horrifying noise as its leg popped off below the joint. Sandy finished that one too. Now she looked at the needle in my hand wearily.

“It probably can’t do that to a human.” I said. “Not yet. Spiders just don’t have bones.”

When we killed the last spiders, the world shook.

[Gwendolyn Tailor][Human, Lv11][Seamstress]

[Health: 52/52][Mana: 7/10][XP: 6/10]