Chapter Seventeen
The first order of business upon her return was a new weapon. The rotting venom had deprived her of the Vicious Thorny Whip, which was what she’d been using to kill the high-level mobs after her minion bloats bled them sufficiently.
She was adept at making large-scale traps involving nets and falling logs, but it was laborious work and wouldn't always finish the job. It didn't help that she lacked a knife, or access to metal.
"Not even a single vendor to buy from, not that I have any money," she said.
Her only access to other materials had been through Ethel, and she didn't have enough Worthless Baubles to trade and hadn't seen the Great Raven in quite some time.
Sitting on the throne of her furs, Alex laid everything she owned onto the cave floor, in hopes she might get a moment of inspiration.
1 Exquisite Cooking Pot
1 Handysack
17 Water
23 Various Meats
14 Worthless Baubles
3 Rhinoboar Hide
2 Giant Moth Wings
1 Ethel's Adhesive Ointment
1 Shiny Black Feather
1 Acceleration Bar
2 Electric-Python Skins
3 Indigo
7 Hemp Ropes
2 Hemp Net
1 Goat-Bull Tail
The meager display left her crossing her arms and staring with a frown hooked on her lips.
"What I wouldn't give for some metal, or even bone," she said.
Alex thought about making an expedition to the Plains in search of materials, but Bucket and Martina had warned her away. She'd be more likely to die over there than gain anything useful. Not that she even knew how to get over the chasm. Climbing down using her ropes was one thing, getting up the other side was another.
Her options seemed limited, but she didn't stop thinking about it. A lack of resources forced creativity. Alex decided to use the ropes much as she had against the cobrawasp when it'd gotten its stinger stuck in the soft tree.
Alex took her rope and tied it into a makeshift lasso. She knew a few basic knots but had never needed to learn more than that. Her father had trapped for fur and meat in the early years, but he’d used manufactured metal traps, not ones handcrafted from basic materials.
When she had a workable version, Alex went up top to practice throwing it on a saproling. It only took a dozen attempts to realize that it would never work. She couldn't get the opening to go around a stationary object consistently, so how would she get it to loop over a dangerous creature's head while it was trying to kill her? Sure, after she tracked down and drained one, it would be easy to put the loop over its head, but not all of her fights were that planned out. She needed a weapon she could use when ambushed, and not just by the cobrawasp. The smaller critters of the Warped Forest were just as dangerous when she was unprepared.
Alex tried making a whip out of a rope, but it was too flimsy. The tough vine had provided the perfect snap to the weapon, augmented by the thorns, which dealt the majority of the damage.
Feeling like she had to get really creative, Alex added Ethel's ointment to a contraption of ropes and tree branches. To get the ropes into the proper shape, she hung them from a line tied between two trees. As she was applying the glue, she spilled a little, which stuck the rope to her forearm.
"Oh crap, that's not good," she said, tugging on the rope, but her skin bulged away, indicating it was stuck fast.
Secondary to her immediate problem was that the rope was tied to the line between the trees, which meant she'd leashed herself in place.
Alex tried yanking on the rope to free it but nothing moved. Her minions, drawn by the struggle, took roost in the nearby trees.
"Not my best work. But do I really need an audience?"
Her minions stared back with wide eyes. Realizing they weren't going to be any help, Alex climbed the tree to free herself from the crossline. She could figure out how to unglue her arm later.
But the tree had few handholds, which meant she had to hold onto the trunk with her thighs while she tried to untie the rope. Tired from the exertion, Alex slipped, and in trying to grab the support line, managed to get tangled up, falling headfirst towards the ground.
She would have welcomed the accidental death, if only to escape from the contraption, but the ropes cinched around her feet and she stopped half a foot from impact.
"Wonderful," she said, trying to do an upside down sit-up so she could reach the ropes around her ankles, but she couldn't reach.
Alex let her body resume its hanging position, her arms resting against the ground.
"Foiled by the inability to do crunches. Who knew gym class would ever be useful," said Alex.
She was wracking her brain for ideas when Axo scurried up, sniffing and lifting up on its legs as if it couldn't figure out what was going on.
"Tell me about it, Axo. I'm as perplexed as you are how I managed this," she told the little shrew. "Think you can crawl up there and chew me to freedom?"
The shrew wriggled its whiskers before scurrying back the other way.
"Hmmpf, a lot of help you are," said Alex, making another attempt at reaching the ropes around her legs.
When she returned to the hanging position, she found Axo waiting for her. She was getting a little dizzy from the blood rushing to her head, so she didn't quite see what was in the shrew's tiny hands.
"Whatcha got there?" she asked.
But she didn't get to finish the sentence as halfway through, Axo leaned onto her face and shoved a dead spider directly into her mouth. The dead hairy spider lodged against her cheek, and it took five horrible seconds to spit it out.
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"Aughh, Axo," said Alex. "I need help not food!"
The shrew tried to grab the spider and force it into her mouth again, as if it thought she'd mistakenly rejected it, but she twisted her head back and forth until Axo gave up.
Dejected, the shrew took its offering and carried it to the log. The tiny hunched shoulders of the shrew told its sad tale, followed by a pathetic crunch as Axo decided to eat the spider itself.
"I'm not sure why I'm feeling guilty about being force-fed a spider, but here I am."
She glanced to her minions, who were patiently watching on their perch.
"A lot of help you are," said Alex. "Next time, I'm going to make minions out of cats. They'd be way more helpful than you are right now."
After a few more minutes of struggle, Alex decided to try fire magic to burn her way out. That way she wouldn’t have to do a full crunch, only halfway, and hope the flames would reach the ropes.
It took a dozen tries, but when she finally caught the ropes on fire, they dealt eight points of damage before she was released from the tangle.
Finally back on her feet, she said, "Oh thank god Ethel wasn't here to see that. I probably would have lost all reputation with her for that disaster." She paused. "Or gained rep, I guess."
After burning the rope from her arm, Alex put the ointment back into her Handysack, before seeing what else she had that she could turn into a weapon. The other unique materials in her possession—the rhinoboar hides, giant moth wings, electric-python skins, and a goat-bull tail—were too precious to use unless she knew it was going to work. Her earlier work with the rhinoboar hide had proved fruitless, using up two of them without benefit.
The goat-bull tail was enticing, but it was too stiff, barely bending when she applied pressure. The electric-python skins gave her static shocks every time she picked them up, but she didn't know how to wrap them around the rope to make it effective.
Her breakthrough came when she was holding an electric-python skin around a hemp rope, applying faez randomly. A spark of lightning jumped from the skin, traveled into the rope, and was followed by a pop-up.
You have learned a new spell: Transference
"Whoa," said Alex, immediately grasping the implications.
Spell: Transference – Tier One
Faez: Varies ? Duration: Permanent
Effect: Transfer magic from one item to another.
The amount of faez required would be the limiting factor on what she could transfer, but the spell opened up a whole new window of possibilities.
When she examined the electric-python skin, she noticed it'd changed.
Item: Animal Skin
She'd taken the electrification from the skin and applied it to the rope. But the hemp rope was still a mundane item, though it now had the "electrified" modifier on it. Anxious to make her weapon, but not wanting to rush into failure, Alex went back up top to find suitable items to practice on before she attempted to use the other skin she had.
Alex made copies of the hemp rope, then tried to transfer things from a piece of wood and other items, but there was no magic to move, so she got a [Not Valid Target] message.
Back in the cave, she pulled out one pair of giant moth wings and a brutal rhino hide. If she could transfer the flight ability into the hide, she could fight the cobrawasp in the air and make the journey to the Warsong Plains easily, plus receive some much needed experience for quest completions.
Alex set the two items side by side, placing her hands on the flimsy gossamer wings. She took a deep breath and cast the Transference spell, concentrating on the rhinoboar hide.
The magic grew in her mind, building behind her forehead, but instead of the spell completing, ghostly lines formed over the giant moth wings and the Brutal Rhinohide, almost like a circuit pattern. Sparks of light shot through the lines.
Alex stared at the pattern, trying to understand what it was trying to tell her. The giant moth wings had many lines crossing over each other, in a strange configuration that reminded her of a Mobius strip crossed with an octopus. As she stared at it, the pressure built up, making her squint. She wanted to release the faez, but it appeared she wasn't finished casting the spell.
"Come on," she muttered, "what do I need to do?"
The Brutal Rhinoboar hide had a less complex pattern, looking like the lines of a chessboard had been knocked askew. Aspects of it reminded her of a mathematical matrix, which had been a favorite of hers in Algebra. Except this matrix was jumbled up and set at cross purposes. The nodes where the lines crossed pulsed with greater impetus, as if they were urging her to act.
Wanting to do something—anything—to release the faez from her mind, Alex ran her finger along the lines between the wings and hide as if she were drawing in midair, to help make the connection. When she finished the motion, the lines filled in with light.
Her actions changed the way the faez felt in her mind, but it was still trapped. It felt like her head was in a vise. Alex kept connecting them until a pair of nodes lit up with a flash of light and the magic burst through her hands like a warm rush. The giant moth wings disintegrated into ash.
You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference
The relief was palpable. Alex pressed her fingers against her temples and massaged away the ache.
"That was unpleasant."
While she'd improved the spell by one point, the giant moth wings had been annihilated. She had one more pair, but decided she didn't want to use them yet because she didn't quite understand what the nodes and lines were trying to tell her. It appeared the Transference spell was significantly more complex than the others.
She waited until her faez bar refilled then grabbed the rhinoboar hide. Even though she didn't understand it, the pattern seemed less difficult than the one on the giant moth wings. Maybe trying to use two items that had abilities was too difficult for her skill level. She hoped to apply the toughness from the hide to her Cloth Breeches, which had been hanging onto their last point of durability for quite some time.
"Come on," she said, "work this time."
Alex cast the Transference spell, being careful to make the gestures as crisply as possible. In real life, the tiny details of spellcasting mattered—one wrong gesture could turn disastrous—but she didn't know if Gamemakers Online was the same.
As she worked, the ghostly lines and nodes appeared on the hide and breeches. The breeches had one simple node, while the hide had four different ones, each connected by the light-filled lines.
Alex stared at them, hoping to understand the purpose of their construction, but no spark of insight came. Eventually the pressure behind her eyes from the trapped faez grew to be too much and she filled in a couple lines randomly, hoping to connect the circuit between the two items.
As the warm rush of faez released, the rhinoboar hide poofed into dust without adding its magic to her deteriorated Cloth Breeches.
Alex slumped back into the furs with her hands over her face. The smell of burnt ozone from her failed spells filled the cave. She lay still for a while after that, trying to decide if she should wait until she'd gotten more skill ups, or take a chance with the final skin.
Alex decided that a new weapon was more important than anything else, so she used the other giant moth wing and two rhinoboar hides, each time tracing lines randomly, hoping to discover the secret of the spell.
The goat-bull tail was going to be her final practice item until she remembered there were multiple ways to use items included in her Minor Creation spell. The tail would make a good handle for her weapon, so using the adhesive ointment, Alex stuck the goat-bull tail to the bottom of the rope.
When her faez bar was full again, Alex concentrated on the last electric-python skin. The pattern was more familiar to Alex, though she couldn't pinpoint where she knew it from. The whip had two connecting nodes while the skin had four.
She looked for a path that would connect all six nodes without crossing each other. When she saw it, Alex quickly traced over the path. As the spell completed, a tingling sensation traveled over her body and into the rope, followed by a flash of transformation light.
You have gained a skill point: +1 Transference
The pre-whip shimmered with unresolved energy. As soon as her faez was refilled, Alex cast Minor Creation, hoping that would be enough to finish the job. When the whip snapped into view, as if it were coming into focus, she cheered.
You have received: The Shocking Strangler
Quest Completed: Create a magical weapon
You have gained experience: 5,000 XP
You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device
You have gained a skill point: +1 Minor Creation
She quickly dismissed the pop-ups in excitement to view her new weapon.
Item: The Shocking Strangler
Dmg: 10-22 ? 35/35 Durability
Effect: 15% chance of Electric Damage (Dmg: 20-40)
Special Attribute: Strangulation (Only on restrained creatures / Cannot affect more than 5 levels above)
Don't lose this weapon too
The rope and goat-bull tail had turned into a silky black leather weapon with a gnarly end. As she swished it around her body, the whip moved with sensual grace like a snake greeting its master.
Her first instinct was to rush into the forest to find a creature to test her new weapon on, but she didn't want to get killed by the cobrawasp before she had a plan. Before she could resume hunting, she needed to deal with her stalker, or at least find a way to avoid it. Alex had an idea, but it was going to require retraining.
