An Unwavering Craftsman

"I still don't see anything," commented Fleta, staring to the south, where the source-light shone unmolested.

"It's been days already. No visible activity at the western source-light, and it hasn't come back here. On top of that, the adamantite pool has frozen over. Did Brenhin-Tân lose?"

"You could jog over and check," suggested Shigeo, not at all joking.

Fleta considered it briefly. "Not yet. I'd rather not draw attention to us until we're all level capped and the kids have finished crafting everything they want to."

"Yeah. Because I've merely embroidered you a one-hundred times physical stat booster so far," grumbled Damien, slightly annoyed at being called a kid. "Someone sneezes too loudly, and bang, there goes your head."

They'd done some tests, and the one-hundred times multiplier didn't let them carry a hundred times the weight, or move a hundred times faster. There seemed to be diminishing returns of some sort, but it was still massively better than any enchanted item Fleta had used before. It remained to be seen whether the diminishing returns would effectively cap what was possible, but there had to be some reason why the Five wanted them dead, so Damien was still hopeful.

"No need for the sarcasm. Until we can fight the demon that destroyed Thale and the forces of the crusade, I'm not going to relax."

"I wonder if a sufficiently powerful potion of regeneration could be used to survive a beheading?" pondered Greenhair.

"Now that sort of question is exactly the sort of thing we need an immortal test subject for!" exclaimed Damien, glancing over at a black, featureless, human-shaped statue positioned in the corner of the room. It sizzled faintly as its prisoner repeatedly suffocated and was reborn, still trapped.

"I still think she must have learnt her lesson by now. We can't leave her like that forever," mumbled Lana.

Four of the five occupants of the room glared at her, Grace the only one who didn't approve of Valerie's predicament. "You could at least give her a bigger room, if you still think she's a threat," she suggested.

"Yeah, we probably should, but again, we have more important things to do first."

Damien embroidered a new trio of perk-boosting bracelets. Lana wore one and engraved a new trio of perk boosting amulets. Greenhair wore both and brewed a new set of perk-boosting potions. With each cycle, their abilities grew higher. A couple of days later, they had million times boosts to perks, experience gain, physical abilities and resistances, which of course allowed them all to reach level one hundred. Even Grace.

The diminishing returns of the physical abilities boost had caused it to flatten out a while back, while the experience boost was already enough to hit level one hundred with ease, and resistances high enough to render them more or less immune to everything an enchanted accessory could protect against. Even the perk boost was inconsistent, with things that might have been able to benefit from a million times boost once again showing diminishing returns. There was simply no point in going higher.

"Well... Now what?" asked Damien. "The world hasn't ended. The thing with too many tentacles and eyes hasn't shown up again. No-one appears to be trying to kill me. If we were still back in Thale, I'd be getting really excited about seeing all our level hundred feat choices, but right now, I don't even care about that."

Despite the current quiet, he was still expecting something to happen at any moment. Arach-achanol had shown an unerring ability to predict the future, and in its last communication, it hadn't told Damien that he would call it. It had simply said it was coming. Soon.

"Can we please free that poor woman? It wasn't her fault Murill tried to use her as an assassin, and it's not as if she could hurt any of us anymore."

Shigeo glared daggers at the sizzling black statue. "It's more mercy than she deserves, but fine."

He stomped over to the Valerie statue and used his bare hands to peel back the adamantite that covered her head, revealing a tear-stained face with dead eyes, which burst into coughing and gasping the moment it was exposed to air. With her tier and level, she was able to survive almost an hour without oxygen, but that hadn't made her imprisonment any more pleasant.

"You ever try to touch my family again, and I swear I'll not just dip you in adamantite, but I'll toss your statue into the sea. Do I make myself clear?"

Valerie nodded desperately, as best as she could with her limited range of movement. Despite overhearing them talking about the adamantite pool freezing over, and knowing it had been Brenhin-Tân that made it, the logical part of her brain that insisted Shigeo couldn't follow through on his threat took a back seat to the part that had just been trapped in a skintight prison, suffocating to death repeatedly, for days on end.

Shigeo tore open the rest of Valerie's shell, causing her to collapse to the floor in a trembling, naked mess. Lana grabbed a blanket to throw over her, and helped her to another room. Damien watched them leave blankly.

"I'm not sure what I'm feeling here. Lana is helping a tier nine, given a divine mission to kill me, and who is apparently completely immortal, and I don't care. I'm not worried at all, for myself or for Lana."

"Just don't leave any of your enchanted creations lying around where they can be stolen."

"Yeah. That's fine for mine and Lana's, because we can wear them, but protecting Greenhair's potions will be harder."

"I can avoid mixing them until they are needed," he suggested.

"Your potions offer a wider range of possibilities than equipment, though, and there's a bunch of useful effects we might want on standby."

"And they have only a temporary effect. All options have their own advantages and disadvantages."

"True. I suppose we should look over our second feats. Maybe there will be something interesting there."

"Go with Greenhair and Fleta. I'll keep an eye on Lana and our guest."

Leaving Valerie alone in the house seemed like a bad idea, so Damien agreed to split their party into two, heading to Ariana's home.

"You lot aren't half working me hard. I even gained a level," she commented on seeing them turn up yet again.

"You should gain a few more today if you wear this," said Damien, tossing her his million times experience multiplier bracelet.

She looked at it, presumably activating an item appraisal skill. Then she froze up.

"Hey, at least zap us with your appraisal before you break," laughed Damien.

"How in the... No wonder our protector took such an interest in you."

"Speaking of the dragon... We have reason to suspect it fell while attacking the southern source-light."

"Fell? You mean they managed to injure it?"

"... Worse than that. We suspect it was killed."

Ariana stared, the thought of any dragon being killed far-fetched. Brenhin-Tân had never advertised itself, but everyone in Sanctuary knew it was an ancient dragon, even if they didn't know it was the ancient dragon.

"What do you mean, suspect?"

"A permanent casting it created failed."

"And my eyesight was good enough to see parts of the fight," added Fleta. Had it been now, she'd have been able to pick out individual fighters, but alas, her increased abilities hadn't come in time.

"I don't believe you. Our protector has watched over this village since before the time of my grandfather's grandfather, and will watch over my grandchildren just the same. Your eyes must have been mistaken."

Damien found himself hoping she was right. The dragon had rescued him from Thale, and did seem invested in the safety of this village. It had provided him with materials and strategies for reaching his goal so rapidly. It would be unfortunate if it died.

"In any case, here's your appraisal," added Ariana, activating her skill. She gasped as she gained thirty levels at once, the gradual strengthening that was usually unnoticeable from level to level hitting her all at once.

"Looks like you can join us in looking over your final perks and feats," giggled Damien.

"If our protector really is dead, and you had items like that you could have provided..." she answered, not laughing at all.

Grant whistled as he headed towards a heavy stone door, decorated with beautiful filigree. Three separate keyholes were arranged in a triangle, in which three keys needed to be turned simultaneously to release the locks. Doubtless there were countless enchantments and defences hidden. Knowing the paranoia of the temples, the corridor could probably be turned into a death trap with the flick of a switch. It was, in short, a door which very much existed to divide the inside from the outside, and ensure they stayed divided.

Grant, who very much belonged on the outside, gave the contingent of six high-tiered guards a polite nod. The leader of the guards looked at his face, the token of the Five pinned to his shirt, and then the broom slung over his shoulder. His bag was searched, and found to contain only cleaning utensils. A body search found nothing.

"In you go," said the guard, inserting a key into one keyhole while two other guards handled the others. The door opened, and someone who very much belonged on the outside made his way in, resuming his tuneless whistle as he went.

He spared a thought about what the Cardinals would think if they knew the defences of this sanctum, designed to hold off a party of elite tier eight fighters, had just been breached by a tier one [Tourist]. They obviously hadn't considered that anyone wanting to break in would politely walk up to the front door dressed as a cleaner, devoid of weapons, poisons or anything else illicit.

Such people had not witnessed the damage that could be done by a spray of bleach to the eyes, or the conjunction between a mop and a groin.

Grant wasn't intending to do either. He was simply here to use his level fifty feat; [Photograph]. The perfect compliment to his [Tourist] class, it let him capture his field of vision at any point and project it back later.

He politely knocked on another door, with another pair of guards standing outside. They pointedly ignored him, considering the social status of a cleaner too far below them.

"Yes?" called Kari from within.

"I'm just here to give your room a quick clean," answered Grant.

"Again? You really don't need to clean every day. Well, come on in."

"Gaia would want one of her greatest servants to live well," answered Grant, entering her room and closing the door behind him.

"You aren't the usual cleaner," pointed out Kari.

"He had a family event to attend. I'm just here to cover, although, if you really think there's no cleaning needed, I could show you some photos instead."

"What's a photo?" asked Kari, curiously, so Grant showed her.

He was under no delusions. While he knew his illusions were perfect replicas of things he'd seen, Kari didn't. She would assume the illusions were invented. Lies. After all, why would templars of Gaia go around murdering so many of the people she'd saved?

Fixing naivety and ignorance was a difficult task, or often impossible. Most people didn't want to be fixed. In this case, his patron, Grungle the Maker, had sent him here specifically, so there must have been some hope of breaking Kari out of her delusions.

An angry Kari chased him from her room, but not before inspecting every photo in detail. She didn't inform the guards of the intrusion, and was looking very thoughtful as she poured herself some tea.

Damien glanced at his available perks without picking any. Physical boosts? He had enchantments for that. Boosting his embroidery further? It was already theoretically infinite. Incremental boosts had been rendered useless.

What he really needed was new abilities. Things that couldn't be replicated by enchantments. He shifted his focus to look at his available feats.

There were a bunch that hadn't been recorded in his textbooks, newly unlocked at level one hundred. A bonus plus one to the tier of any item produced. Options that to higher tier tailors would likely be skills, like dying fabric or adjusting the fit of finished garments. Powerful abilities, but things that would only be useful if he decided to become a tailor. Despite his class, that wasn't really on his agenda.

He wasn't really sure what he was expecting, but given the reaction of the Five, he'd had suspicions there would be an apotheosis option, or something to aid in demon summoning, or that would just outright blow the world up. As far as he could see, there wasn't.

He took [Mana Weaving], a feat to let him produce outfits out of pure mana with no material required, on the basis that mana boosting enchantments would let him abuse the heck out of it. That unlocked a perk that increased his weave density. Again, his enchanted items would push that further, probably letting him produce mana-fabric that was tougher than adamantite. He took it. That left him with three further perk slots.

He took a perk for increased environmental resistance. Given the general nature of tier one perks, it protected from heat, cold, acid and poison. Again, his perk boosting items would mean he'd be rendered practically immune to the effects. He took a perk for faster healing, then hovered over a physical defence booster for his final pick. He decided against it; the endurance boost from his physical booster made him tough enough already.

After staring at the list, he left the last slot open. Perhaps something else would come up, but for now, there was nothing he needed.

"All done," he declared. "What did you both get?"

"[Permanency]," said Greenhair. "I can now make potions with permanent effects, albeit at a substantial penalty to effectiveness. Not a drawback that matters to me."

"[Drag Elision]," answered Fleta. "No more running into brick walls when I sprint, hopefully."

"I picked [Class Enhancement], to let people pick classes a tier higher than what they would normally qualify for, but one of my other options was an alternate version of [Bestow Class]," said Ariana, joining in the conversation. "It would let me pick the class the target was granted, instead of letting them pick themselves. Think that's what the Five use?"