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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ralo_ramone on 2024-11-15 20:42:13+00:00.

Ilya and I sat outside the tent, sipping tea from our enchanted mugs. Besides fighting the occasional wave of undead, there wasn’t much to do in Umolo, so I focused on enchanting. Carved in the mug’s base was a Fire enchantment. With a little bit of mana, we could warm up the contents without the need to start a fire. There was a difference between the things I could enchant and those I should. At full power, I could make a Fire rune to boil water, but it wouldn’t be safe to touch, and wood wasn’t the safest material for engraving fire runes. However, as long as I kept the Mana Threshold—the enchantment power—below 50, Fire runes were harmless.

There was more to power graduation than I initially thought. The enchantment behavior drastically changed according to the Mana Threshold used. The Fire rune, at its maximum power, 300 Mana Threshold, released a basketball-size fireball or a slightly smaller fire vortex. At 100 Mana Threshold, the Fire rune could turn metal or stone into a cooking surface. At the 50 Mana Threshold mark, it could make warm clothing.

I could ‘underpower’ enchantments before getting [Rune Identification]—I enchanted my Warm Stones hot enough not to burn down the forest—but having a visible numerical value made the process easier to follow and reproduce. It helped, especially when I wanted to keep the enchantment below an item’s Enchantment Threshold.

The daggers we had scavenged from the Sentinel’s watchtower had an Enchantment Threshold of 600. Although finely crafted, the daggers couldn’t fit a Vampiric-Fire enchantment without degrading over time. I had considered turning the kid’s weapons into Leechflame Swords, but that worked against our new fighting style. 

“Vampiric arrows or blowgun darts seem to be the best options,” Ilya said out of nowhere.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the problem either.

It was the fourth day since our arrival at Umolo, and my attempts to make an anti-Chrysalimorph weapon had fallen short. Luckily, no Chrysalimorphs had attacked Umolo, but it was only a matter of time. The longer the Monster Surge went on, the more bodies the Forest Warden could turn.

“Maybe we should settle for Vampiric Arrowheads and distribute them among Pyrrah, Hallas, and you,” I said.

“I don’t trust them,” Ilya grunted.

The matter of the Forest Warden Seed had come up again, and the elves swore they wouldn’t use it for nefarious purposes, but that was all we had—a promise. I suspected the Seed was related to the Holone Grapes and the secret methods elves used to exploit magic. Ilya thought the same. We couldn’t tell how they’d act after obtaining the Seed, and Vampiric Arrowheads were the quintessential mage-killer weapons. We couldn’t risk them turning them against us.

We could technically bind the arrowheads to prevent Hallas and Pyrrah from using them, but that raised another set of problems. For starters, orc arrowheads didn’t have an exceptionally high Enchantment Threshold, so wasting space in a Bind enchantment would weaken the Vampiric effect.

Ilya channeled mana into her cup, and the tea inside steamed again. 

“We don’t have time to get everyone else’s bow skills up to par, the blowgun’s range is laughable, and we don’t have access to your so-called rubber,” she said.

A slingshot would’ve been nice, but I had no idea how to make vulcanized rubber.

“It seems we are in Ginz’s hands,” I said.

“Not a thing I wanted to hear early in the morning,” Ilya replied, sipping her tea. “I might have forgiven him, but that doesn’t erase the fact he left us after Risha and Astrid disappeared.”

Distrustful as ever.

“I wonder if I’m also listed in Ilya’s Huge Book of Grudges,” I jokingly said.

“You have been shattering my childhood dreams lately, but you are in the clear for now,” Ilya replied. “Do you think Ginz could make us guns?”

“I hope so.”

The conversation died, and we sipped the tea in silence. Now that I had access to the Bind rune, I was ready to create more dangerous weapons. Suddenly, a loud crash came from inside the tent. Ilya and I jumped to our feet and rushed inside. Wolf was lying on the floor with a wooden bucket on his head. He grunted and rubbed his lower back.

Firana laughed on the floor, curled into a ball.

“It came loose,” Zaon announced.

Bind’s effect also varied wildly depending on the Mana Threshold. At maximum power, the rune served to identify its rightful user. However, from 1 to 99 Mana Threshold, the rune just ‘glued’ items, almost like a magnet. Wolf applied [Regeneration] on his back. A 99 Mana Threshold Bind enchantment could support Wolf’s weight for a few minutes before failing. In practical terms, I had discovered magical superglue. I would wait for Ginz’s input before deciding how practical the binding effect would be for crafting.

“Swinging was a bad idea,” Zaon said.

“I was limit-testing,” Wolf replied.

I couldn’t decide if the Rune’s variant effects were genius or just spaghetti code in action, but one thing was for sure: I had a blast enchanting stuff for the kids. Firana wanted instant-drying socks, so I combined the Wind with a low-power Fire rune. The enchantment worked most of the time, leaving the socks nice and warm in a few seconds.

I tried to activate the Fire and Wind runes separately so that the enchanted socks would double as warm and instant-drying socks, but it was one way or the other. While I tried to devise a convenient power source for the socks, I discovered I could combine the Absorption and Recharge runes. Absorption gathered environmental mana and stored it inside the Recharge rune. Still, the process was so slow that a standalone Recharge rune was a better pick for most mana-intensive enchantments. Absorption-Recharge worked well with the instant-drying socks because it was an enchantment needed once or twice a day.

I wasn’t making progress with everything, though. Ilya’s Cooldown Bow hadn’t revealed any new runes. The runes it used had to be too high of a level for me. The lack of an elemental rune in the Cooldown Bow caught my attention. It wasn’t the wind that propelled the arrow forward, but it seemed like the bow drew kinetic energy from somewhere.

It didn’t take an expert to realize the potential of such a rune.

On the bright side, the Twin Rings had revealed something interesting.

Force. Elemental Rune. Rank I. [Rune Identification]: This rune represents the primal magic energy. Affinities: Bone, Iron, Silver. Mana Threshold: 1500.

Guide. Effect Rune. Rank I. [Rune Identification]: This rune represents the essence of insight and direction. Affinities: Tin, Gold, Paper. Mana Threshold: 100.

Link. Effect Rune. Rank I. [Rune Identification]: Copper, Pewter, Wood. This rune represents the unseen connection between faraway entities. Affinities: Mana Threshold: 100.

The Force rune ignited my interest, but I only dared to use it in its weakened form. It was similar to the Wind rune, although its range was shorter and the blow much stronger. After some experimentation, I concluded it had the same effect as wrapping a blunt weapon, or even my fists, in mana.

The Link rune allowed me to entangle the effects of an enchantment across two objects; however, the strength of the enchantment seemed to be capped. So far, my most powerful invention was the Linked Mugs. It required four times as much mana as two self-heating mugs and couldn’t be activated separately, so it was far from efficient. But it worked.

The Guide rune was the most underwhelming of the set. When used in a circuit with Link and an elemental rune, it pointed towards its ‘twin’ using the elemental rune as the signal. I thought of enchanting a complex communication device, but all my attempts had failed so far.

“Stop fooling around and eat your breakfast. I want everyone ready if monsters attack,” I said, turning around and exiting the tent. 

Several wooden bowls had appeared on a workbench by the side of the tent.

“They did it again,” Ilya said, standing beside me.

Since the day after the first Ghoul attack, orcs have given us gifts and offerings. They’d leave wooden bowls with spices, flowers, charms, and small carved animals outside the tent. All of our needs were already covered. However, the offerings had little to do with basic sustenance. 

“They call Wolf the Thunder Warrior,” Ilya said.

Wolf had become the de facto shotgun user since we arrived at Umolo. He had shot it only a few times, but the sound was impossible to conceal, even on the battlefield. Orcs were keener than I initially credited them for, and the stories of the ‘thunder weapon’ spread like wildfire.

“Wolf has become quite the celebrity,” I said.

A System user who fought without using skills was a strange sight.

“I’m sure some of these are for you,” Ilya said, grabbing a bowl of spice and bringing it near her nose. She sneezed. The sound was cute, like a tiny mouse, but I didn’t mention it.

Although orcs didn’t have inner commerce—they just shared their stuff to optimize the group’s survival—they still showed gratitude with gifts.

My enchanted armor had emboldened Dassyra’s warriors. Warchief Callaid and the other chieftains weren’t pleased with Dassyra’s daily haul of trophies. However, they were wise enough to keep their warriors within Umolo walls when undead System-users appeared. Orcs were too pragmatic to risk their lives in a losing fight, and no amount of competition would get them to make a rash decision. Survival always …

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