The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (15 page)

Mining influenced Stamina and Strength. At level 10 it gave these stats a 5% boost, and at level 50, 150, 250 and 500 each time added another 5% to the current base level of the stat. That's a pretty handy specialisation: I should run to a Mining trainer right away and get Hardiness.

In Cooking you had specialisations based on the type of food prepared and its subsequent stat bonuses. None changed my main stats. A pity.

Cartography came with Influence on World Perception, scrolls of some kind and extra Intellect! At every five levels in the profession Intellect increased by 5%. I'll start levelling up in Cartography right away! I went into the settings and set myself a reminder every evening that I had to draw the map of the places where I had been that day. This was another levelling-up opportunity, which only depended on my diligence. There was no way I'll be missing out on it.

Trade did not have any specialisations.

"Yes, I would like to choose my specialisation," I replied, handing over the money to the expectant trainer. A nice fact: although I spent quite a lot of time looking around the manual, the NPC didn't seem to notice it at all. All Imitators have it in their settings to monitor the behaviour of the players and not interfere with them reading the manuals. "I would like to pick the ring specialisation," of all the specialisations rings seemed to me the most neutral speciality.

"Are you sure? Keep in mind, that you would not be able to change your specialisation later. Only the Emperor would be able to remove it."

"No, I am not sure," — What was I saying? "I would like to specialise in precious stones." "I see." Time to do as Antsinthepantsa said on the forum: I am completely switching off my brain as a process and starting to work only on the level of emotions. Rings are more profitable, effective and worthwhile, but I wanted gemstones.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, absolutely."

You have chosen the 'Gem Cutter' specialisation. The speed of cutting gemstones and the chance of creating a Rare gem has increased by 10%.

"Congratulations. Now let’s settle the matter of your training. I can offer you five scrolls which you do not have. They cost two hundred gold each. Would you be taking them?"

Levelling up in Jewelcrafting will cost me a pretty penny, by the looks of it. A thousand gold was gone in a flash. Never mind, we'll put it down as an investment in the future. I bought all the scrolls that the trainer had and immediately learned three of them.

Copper Gem Ring.

• Description: Copper Gem Ring. Durability: 40. 3 random Stats from the main list: (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Stamina, Rage). Crafting stat bonus: + (Crafting level) random Stat from the main list: (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Stamina, Rage). Minimum level: 12.
  
• Crafting requirements: minimum Jewelcrafting level 12.
  
• Ingredients: 2 Copper Ingots, Ordinary Cut Malachite.
  
• Instruments: Jeweller's tools. Casting mould.
  

Gemstone: Ordinary Cut Malachite.

• Description: initial cutting of Malachite, though crude, still makes it look attractive. 1 random Stat from the main list: (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Stamina, Rage). Crafting stat bonus: + (Crafting level) random Stat from the main list: (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Stamina, Rage). Minimum level: 10.
  
• Crafting requirements: minimum Jewelcrafting level 12.
  
• Ingredients: 1 piece of Malachite.
  
• Instruments: Jeweller's tools.
  

Malachite Jewellery Box.

• Description: A neat and sturdy box or jewellery. Can carry 5 items. Crafting stat bonus: The Box can carry an additional (Crafting) number of items. Item class: Uncommon. Minimum level: 10.
  
• Crafting requirements: minimum Jewelcrafting level 12.
  
• Ingredients: 2 pieces of Malachite.
  
• Instruments: Jeweller's tools.
  

I put two more recipes for cutting of Lapis in my bag. They required level 16-17 in Jewelcrafting, and were of little use to me yet. The copper gem ring was a disappointment: despite the stats added by the socketed stone, the ring would only give a +3 bonus by default. I would get a better result simply by combining a wire ring with cut Malachite. But the Common Cut Malachite and the Jewellery Box made my day. Each Malachite cut with Crafting gave +5 to a stat, against the +4 from the Stone Fang and Stone Diamond. Again, a very pleasant bonus. And if the Jewellery Box takes up only one slot in the inventory, it's practically priceless — I would put all the chess pieces there and free up a lot of space. The only downside was that it would be hard to sell it. It could only be used by Jewellers — for everyone else it would be no more than part of the scenery. And buying something that you can make yourself... Is stupid and wrong; I was sure that all Jewellers could make such Jewellery Boxes for themselves. It's decided then — when I get back to Beatwick, I would be making one of these for myself.

"One more thing. I want to make you aware of one restriction straight away. Until you gain the second level in the specialisation, you cannot craft items where the sum of the bonuses raises the stats by more than twelve. I am warning you because I can see that you have a rare stat like Crafting. It isn't every day that a Jeweller has a visit from a free citizen with such a speciality."

"Thank you, honourable sir, for the teaching and the warning," I tried to be polite, but inside I was outraged. I already made plans, picturing in my imagination extensive sales of items with +50 stat bonuses and mentally swimming in gold, but they turned out to be doomed from the start! It was all training and levelling up instead. This was a direct hit on my pocket — until level fifty in Jewelcrafting the stat bonus of my items would not exceed 12. What a snag...

The Mining trainer was an almost square-shaped dwarf, who taught me the Hardiness specialisation for three hundred gold. He even presented me with a patch for my cloak: 'Swinger'. No stat bonuses, just Attractiveness increased by 1. Considering my standard value in that, this is a very relevant addition.

At the Cooking trainer's I managed to learn only five recipes: Roast Wolf Meat, Deer Meat, Hare Meat, Fox Meat and Boar Meat, which restored between 30 and 120 Hit Points. There was nothing else available until level 5.

The last trainer I decided to visit before leaving Farstead was the Smithing Trainer. I did all I could to avoid this profession at the mine, but it still caught up with me. I found the trainer, an enormous orc, sitting by the smithy, from which some player was being carried out. I didn't get it — did that player collapse? If the character had to be carried out, it meant that the player had lost control over him. That was possible only in one case — complete Energy loss.

"He overdid it a bit," said the orc, seeing my interest, "This blockhead was told several times — take a break! But oh no! He's all strong and tough! Now he won't be able to set foot in the smithy for a week — he just won't have the strength. Why are some free citizens so brainless? It's not like anyone will do the thinking for him. What did you want?" The last question was to me.

"I would like to be trained. To end up like that guy," I nodded in the direction of the player, who was being put down by the wall of the smithy. He would regain his Energy in an hour, so nothing really terrible would happen to him. However, the fact that an overworked player would be landed with a week-long 'Weakness' debuff, as the manual helpfully pointed out, was news to me. With a debuff like that you could not work on any profession — whether production or gathering-based. That would be a serious hit on the finances of the careless player. So I won't be removing the Energy loss warning, it can stay where it is.

"Training is simple enough if you have the money. Ten gold for the training and another five for the instruments, said the orc, periodically glancing at my headband. Damn! What stopped me training in Smithing at Pryke?

"Here you go," I gave the orc the money. "My resolve is firm and I would spare no expense."

"Hrm," snorted the orc, accepting the gold. "Maybe there's some hope for you yet, if that's the way you see it."

You gained the 'Smithing' profession. Current level: 1.

You received an object: Smith's Tools (Attention! Does not take up inventory bag space).

I opened the page with the Smithing skill and began to study it.

Smelting ingots.

• Description: This ability allows you to smelt 5 pieces of ore into 1 ingot. The speed of smelting is determined by the player's Agility and level in Smithing. Crafting stat bonus: when smelting ore you have a (Crafting) percent chance of discovering a Precious Stone, corresponding to the level of ore.
  
• Ingredients: Copper ingot (from level 1 in Smithing): 5 pieces of Copper Ore; Tin Ingot (from level 10 in Smithing): 5 pieces of Tin Ore; Bronze Ingot (from level 40 in Smithing): 4 pieces of Copper Ore and 1 piece of Tin Ore; Silver Ingot (from level 60 in Smithing): 5 pieces of Silver Ore; Iron Ingot (from level 80 in Smithing): 5 pieces of Iron Ore. Recipes for ingots of level 100+ are bought separately.
  
• Instruments: Smith's Tools.
  

My heart missed a beat when I read about the Crafting bonus and I immediately went to the manual. The chance of a Sapphire Vein appearing — one thousandth of a percent. Sapphires are mainly obtained by sifting through Elementhrium Ore, from where the drop chance is already half a percent. If I level up my Smithing to 260, I would be able to smelt Elementhrium Ingots, even at my current level of Crafting, I would have a 4% chance of getting a Sapphire. I looked up other rare stones. Emerald: the chance of a vein appearing — two tenth of a percent, drop rate when sifting — two percent. Diamond — one ten thousandth and one thousandth respectively. My palms were sweating from excitement. You needed level four hundred and sixty in Smithing to smelt Phantom Iron, from which you could get a Diamond, but Diamonds were worth enough to cover any levelling-up expenses. I started to pace nervously by the Smithy — now the main thing was to make sure that no-one found out that Crafting and Smithing could combine so nicely. I was sure that the leading clans knew about this feature, but were in no hurry to share this information with competitors. Doing so made little economic sense. Even the manuals and the forum only said that Crafting was a stat that influenced production professions. That's it. The search didn't turn up any other results for 'Crafting', as if all other information on this was removed on purpose. Come to think of it, that made sense — considering the money that circulated in Barliona, bribing or even getting hired as a moderator of the forum or the manual was pretty easy. This meant that I had to keep very quiet about my Crafting and begin to...

My train of thought was interrupted by a quiet cough from the orc.

"Why are you running around here, kicking up all the dust? Did you come here to learn or do laps? If it's the latter, take a hike, we don't want any loiterers here!"

"I beg your pardon, sir. I'm at fault here," you had to be respectful to NPCs, a rule I established while I still had my Hunter. "I was just so glad that I could become a real smith now that I got lost in daydreams for a minute."

"You will never become a real Smith if ingots is all you end up doing. And right now you don't know how to make anything else. Being a Smith is a calling," the orc said solemnly. I had a strange feeling that our conversation was beginning to resemble an introduction to a quest. I had to keep the orc talking — what if there was some bonus at the end of it.

"I bow my head before your wisdom, honourable teacher. Can you tell me how to become a real smith?" after being addressed in this manner the NPC would hand me a quest for sure, assuming he had any to give. Of course, this also depended on the reputation, but in that case the NPC had to reply that he did not trust me sufficiently yet and couldn't share such a secret with just any stranger.

"Don't you get it? You have to work, you dolt!" the orc pointedly turned around and went into the smithy. Nice 'quest' — right to the point.

Just before leaving Farstead I dropped by the Alchemist's shop. There I sold the things set aside after sorting and also bought a few instant potions for restoring +300 Hit Points and +300 Mana. Now I could confidently set out in search of treasure. After checking my purse I whistled — that's some shopping spree I went on today! I had just ten thousand six hundred and eighty-four gold left. No matter, Swiftbel will reimburse me!

I began to suspect that getting my hands on Swiftbel's treasure might come with slight difficulties when I was just a couple of kilometres from the spot marked on the map. My path was blocked by an enormous bog, which the map entirely omitted. I settled down by a branching tree that grew right by its edge. I had very little desire to be snooping around a bog in the middle of the night — who knows what creatures might be lurking in this place. Losing twelve hours to a respawn on account of my own stupidity... I think not. I still had twenty-six hours left until I had to return to Beatwick and a short rest wouldn't make much difference. I will find a way to get across this obstacle in the morning — with a fresh start in the sunlight. I opened the map and began adding to it the ground covered during the day. Cartography was a great thing. Even with my non-existent drawing 'talent' you could still draw good precise maps. The main thing was to remember, preferably in detail, the entire route you'd travelled. Then the quill in my hand would itself sketch in the necessary marks — in all the scales at once. I closed the map and, immediately gaining level 2 in Cartography, took out two pieces of Malachite and looked up what I had to do to craft a Malachite Jewellery Box. It didn't require any specific instruments; everything I needed was in my bag. Not much point in wasting the evening being idle.