Cat With a Raygun

Joe decided to take a break from combat training and instead wanted to train some of his utility spells. He started by finding a moderately sized rock, about the size of a person's head. Next he would smash it with his fists into pieces, use Meld Stone to put them back together. After it was back together Shape Stone was cast to turn it into a tube that was then fashioned into a spiral shape. The stone spiral was turned into wood with the Transmute Material spell, and finally Straighten Wood cast multiple times to remove all the curves from the spiral.

Once Joe had a nice long stone tube he would break it into pieces with his hands and start the process again. He repeated the process for several hours, gaining one level in all the spells except for Straighten Wood which gained two. Transmute Material could now turn things into clay, which included raw clay as well as baked clay. The other spells all got their level 5 enhancement.

Meld Stone (Level 5). This spell allows the caster to combine multiple pieces of stone or brick together to form a single structure. Stones can be melded together in an area up to 1 cubic meter per spell level. Multiple castings can add additional stone or brick to larger pieces or existing foundations.

The resulting product of the spell will be slightly stronger than the material's normal strength.

Stamina cost: 150 stamina per casting

Shape Stone (Level 5). This spell allows the caster to reshape an area of stone equal to 1 cubic meter per spell level. The stone can be connected to other stone not affected by the spell, or it can be a separate object all on its own. The spell requires five minutes to cast.

Alternatively a different version can be cast that affects only 1 cubic meter of stone. Instead of a permanent change to the shape, the stone is malleable while the spell is active under the direction of the caster's mental commands. At the conclusion of the spell the stone reverts to its original shape, as best it can.

Mana cost: 50 mana per casting for the permanent version, or 150 mana as an initial cost and 50 mana for each additional minute for the temporary version.

Straighten Wood (Level 5). This spell will straighten any unwanted curves or bends from a wooden object or log. Full straightening may not be achieved in a single casting depending on the severity and size of the object. The higher the caster's Vitality, the more straightening can be achieved. Two wooden objects can be targeted for every 5 levels of the spell.

Stamina cost: 25 stamina

By the time Joe was done with his spell training, he knew that Tess would be available to help him with his next project, leaving the animals to Jonny for the evening. She taught him how to weave cloth out of plants like flax and cotton. Their sheep wouldn't be ready for a shearing for several more months, so he'll have to wait to work with wool unless he wanted to buy some fleece. Thanks to his familiarity with leatherworking, Tess didn't need to show him how to make clothes from the fabrics, as the process was similar enough that the books he read were enough to bridge the gap.

Even after the assistance getting started, Joe didn't unlock the Weaving skill until midway through the next day. He spent more time spinning the fibers into the long threads required for the fabric than he did actually making the fabric. Still, both actions were part of the Weaving skill, so despite how much he wanted to skip the thread making portion of it, he kept at it.

Weaving (Level 1). This skill is for spinning fibers into thread and interlacing threads to form fabric. Higher skill levels produce threads and fabrics that are stronger as well as softer to the touch. To practice this skill create more thread and fabric from either plant or animal products.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

The next time Joe visited the library in Trenos he'd see about finding schematics for better spinning devices. Silk was relatively easy to spin into thread, and that was Tess's primary medium, so she and Malcolm never needed to improve their efficiency on that front. He also planned to dump his flax stalks and cotton bolls into the Harvest Box to do the prep work before spinning for the future. There was so much prep work that took a lot of time but ultimately wasn't part of any skill. After two more days Joe had new spinning tools, three more levels in Weaving, and a lot of linen and cotton fabric. He was ready for the next part.

Since he was using Illusory Rendering to project the patterns onto the cloth of each piece of the garments he was making the CGS recognized his actions a lot faster than when he first started his Weaving.

Garment Making (Level 1). This skill applies to sizing, cutting, sewing, and shaping cloth or similar fabrics into garments or other sewn objects. Higher skill levels will allow you to produce better products with more durability and more comfort for the wearer. To train this skill continue to make clothes or other objects from fabric.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Joe decided that he wanted to see what enchantments he could put into his clothes, so he started making a new shirt while casting Imbue Fabric Object. He ended up with a Cloth Shirt of Self Cleaning (Uncommon). As the name of the enchantment implied, it would remove stains, dirt, grime, and liquids over time, depending on the severity of the impurities. After dunking the shirt in a tub of water he found it completely dried after 10 minutes.

Joe took the shirt to Tess to ask her about its enchantment. “Tess, look at what I made here. It cleans itself. It's such a useful enchantment, but I can't recall seeing anything like this in Trenos. Why don't they sell these?”

After examining the shirt Tess looked shocked. “I've never seen nor heard of this kind of enchantment before. I imagine it's due to your very high Intelligence giving you a mana pool several times larger than other Clothiers or Weavers. I suggest you experiment and see what other enchantments you can come up with. The typical clothing enchantments are Color Change or Durable. Durable stands up to normal wear and tear, but does nothing to prevent damage from any combat. I'm sure your Strengthened enchantment would hold up just fine, however.”

After thanking her for her input, Joe went back to his workshop and continued to make more shirts with Imbue Fabric Object. The results were quite good. He learned several new enchantments. First was Self Repair, which could convert stamina into restoring lost or damaged parts of the object, up to a 49% loss. Next was Thermal Regulation which could maintain a constant chosen temperature for up to 8 hours for the low cost of 50 stamina. That will go great on sheets and blankets. His last big one was Change Style. It would temporarily produce an illusion around the item to make it appear like a different form of the same type of item for the cost of 100 stamina for a 2 hour illusion. He also got the Change Color and Durable enchantments Tess told him about.

For all that work his Garment Making skill went up to 4 and his Imbue Fabric Object spell went up to 3. His goal for the next day was to perfect the techniques needed to create two very specific types of fabric from all of the cotton he had: denim and terry cloth.

He had assumed it would be difficult, but on the contrary it was actually easy as the loom he had created was adjustable enough to allow for the different weaves necessary. Denim required a tight, stiff weave, with the warp yarns dyed first, and the terry cloth required pulling loops out of the warp after weaving to produce the surface area needed for the water absorption. His terry cloth wasn't as soft as most towels he remembered from Earth, but it was pretty close, and with practice they would get better.

Joe made himself 2 Towels of Self Cleaning, one for home and one for in the workshop.

Next, using the denim Joe made 4 sets of overalls, one for each of the farmers in town. He used shiny bronze rivets and clasps, just like he knew from back home. That let him use both Imbue Fabric Object and Imbue Metallic Object, which let him add two different enchantments to the matrix. He added both Self Cleaning as well as Strengthened so they would be impervious to any kind of damage that could occur during work in the fields and they would always clean themselves of the dirt, grime, fertilizer, and whatever else encountered in the course of farming.

The Advanced Imbuing ability ranked up to three, making it easier to use different enchantments for the different imbuing spells that went into a single craft. That was fortuitous, Joe felt resistance trying to do add both enchantments to the overalls, but after the second set he got the new rank and it was easy.

Of the three different farmers that Joe sold the overalls to, only Kleo was unimpressed with the outfit. She had only been a farmer for months while both Ferrite and Tyrik had been farming for years so they knew precisely how much time would be saved from not having to clean their clothes all the time.

After that Joe went to Otto's shop just before he closed for the day. Joe handed over a couple of more Towels of Self Cleaning as well as several pairs of nonmagical denim jeans he had made. Otto wrote him a receipt, payment to be delivered after the items sold, which was the system most craftsmen in town operated under with Otto. He'd first try to sell things to the traveling merchant of the week, and if that didn't sell, he'd take things to Trenos or Mankerin with Joe's help.

“Not sure about the pants, but these towels should sell really easily. They aren't terribly expensive but I've never seen this enchantment. You may encounter a lot of demand for it in the future,” Otto cautioned.

Joe chuckled at that, “Yeah, that's quite alright. More practice with spells will let me do more with them. Sorry again for coming right a closing time.”

“Don't worry about that. I'm about to go to The Rusty Cup, though. Care to walk with me? Or are you going back to the grindstone?”

Joe thought about it for a moment, “Well, I've been going pretty hard the last couple of days trying to get my new skills established. I guess I could use a break now.”

As the two walked through the now cobbled streets of Rust's Edge Joe couldn't fight a feeling of something being off. It was like half of his brain told him that he was in danger, but the other half told him that everything was fine. He couldn't figure out where the supposed danger was coming from. Sometimes it was behind him, sometimes to the side, other times in front of him.

Finally Otto stopped. “Joe, does something feel off to you?”

Joe nodded, “I thought it was just me. Maybe we should seek out Barney? He might-”

Joe was interrupted by the appearance of a man dressed in black right in front of him wielding a longknife, the blade of which was buried to the hilt in Joe's chest, piercing his heart.