Triple Strength

34. Intimidation: Tabitha

So Wiremu goes swanning off to learn how to use his skills, and I get to be the camp cook. I went to find Ashby, but apparently he was out foraging. I looked around and saw Ulfhildr sharpening a blade and had several tools she was going to inspect and maintain. She also had three lumps of rock set out in front of her she was looking at. I went over and greeted her. I got a grunt as a reply. If I remember correctly she is the team's Blacksmith and metal expert.

I looked at the lumps of rock. They were all about the same size, but my Spatial Awareness was having trouble penetrating them. Spatial Awareness was on all the time but seems to level very slowly, probably because I didn’t consciously use it. I could, and I should use it to penetrate objects and statuses, but I generally didn’t. I thought penetrating statuses was rude when amongst friends, and the bonuses wouldn’t kick in until Journeyman level. Objects I should test it on and these pieces of ore were the first objects I noticed where my passive ability wasn’t enough. I focussed my skill on them and one was not like the others.

I pointed to the different one and asked Ulfhildr, “Why is that one different?”

She looked up at me sharply and asked, “How do you know that?”

“I have a skill which helps me see into objects,” I said. “I know nothing of rocks and metals though,” I quickly clarified in case she would assume I did.

“Those two,” she said and pointed, “are Deep Iron Ore. They can be smelted to Deep Iron which is denser and more durable than normal iron without all the additives and has the advantage of holding certain enchantments better, mostly around durability and darkness. That one,” she pointed to the different one, “is found in the same area, but has been changed by something. That change has altered its core make up and it is very rare. It is Darksteel Ore.”

“Isn’t steel made from iron?” I asked.

“Normal steel is, yes. But this,” and she picked up the ore, “is something else entirely. Don’t let the name fool you.” She looked at me again, “what else can you sense with that ability?”

“I don’t really know as it is a new ability.” I responded.

Her eyes lit up, “Right, well let's test it shall we? Come over here.”

I followed her to the edge of the camp where there were bags of mined material. Some of the material my skill went through with no problem and some were like the ores. The fact that they were in bags didn’t hinder me at all, but I didn't tell her that. She pulled out a selection of ores from various bags and lined them up.

“What can you tell me about this one?” she asked, pointing to the first.

It looked like a lump of rock with a gold vein running through it. My passive skill had no trouble with it but I focussed the skill anyway. There seemed to be quite a large percentage of gold in the rock. My Merchant class was making me aware that I should appraise anything valuable like gold, so I did. Using Appraise with the Spatial Awareness Skill gave me a whole new understanding of the value of the ore, which I would translate to mean the quality of the gold. I didn’t have anything to compare it to, not having appraised a lot of gold. Yes I did. I looked at the sack she got it out from and compared the various ores there and this was one of the better ones.

Wait up. That meant Appraise would work without me seeing the object as long as it was in my Spatial Awareness. That was huge. If I went back to the Merchant Class I would have a huge advantage in negotiations. The Thief Class as well in knowing the value of what was in a safe.

Ulfhildr was starting to get impatient. I picked up the Ore and said, “This is gold right?” She nodded. “There is a lot of gold in this rock, and it is of good quality, from what I can tell.”

“Yes,” she said, “I have tested some from the edge with my skills and it is quite pure. Knowing how much is in there is an advantage.”

We moved on to the next rock. What I discovered was that with ‘ordinary’ material my passive skill had no problem seeing right through. Where there were Spiritual properties like the Deep Iron and Darksteel I needed to actively use my skill to penetrate it. Where there was a defined lump of the key material, like the gold seam, I could pick up how much was in the ore, but where it was mixed more thoroughly with the rock I couldn’t. I am assuming that would come when I levelled the skill and practised.

Ulfhildr was quite pleased with my ability. She said, “That is a very handy skill for a Blacksmith to have. It is a shame you will never make a Blacksmith. Your strength is pathetic and you clearly have no aptitude for it. If you stick around, I might borrow that skill from time to time.” It was said in such a way that she would borrow it, rather than might. I just nodded acceptance.

It was lunch time and Spatial Awareness had levelled and so had Appraise. That was a good morning's work. Lunch was a, help yourself from the leftovers, which I gathered was normal. I didn’t rush to the next task as I had some thinking to do. Erik was going to want to negotiate a contract with us and everything seemed to be in their favour. I was the Merchant with the level 7 Bargaining skill. What Ulfhildr didn’t realise was that when she took me over to the ore my Spatial Awareness could sense everything that they had mined, including the gems hidden at the bottom of the ore. Appraisal had a general idea of the value of the goods. They were doing OK, but they weren't doing as well as Ashby had indicated to me. We could add to that the value of the Maps Thyrrni could produce, which I didn’t really know the value of, but maybe they were talking those up as well. What I was wondering was, how do I turn that to our advantage in the contract negotiations?

Wiremu arrived back mid afternoon with Thyrrni. She immediately went to seek out Erik and Wiremu came to see me and told me what had happened. This changes things a lot. If my Intimidating Aura works on the rock worms everything is now significantly in our favour. I warned Wiremu that we would test this, but we are not doing any more until we have a contract in place and that he should let me negotiate it.

Erik wanted to leave right away to test things. The cliff was about an hour and a bit walk from the camp. We decided to take the horses for a walk and Erik and Thyrrni brought a mule with some mining gear. Ulfhildr and Snøfrid weren't going to be left behind. Snøfrid brought some alchemical supplies. Listening to her and Wiremu talk, apparently minerals have something to do with alchemy and the best way to defeat rock elementals was through different alchemy solutions. Personally, I didn’t understand it but apparently Wiremu did.

When we got to the cliff face I could feel it as a barrier against my Spatial Awareness. I tried to see how far I could push into it, but it was only about half of my normal reach, even when I pushed hard. I couldn’t sense any of these worms. Wiremu said he couldn’t either. His senses had grown and his reach was a lot further than mine in this rock.

We left the horses and mule down the slope a bit. I had described to Wiremu the difference between Deep Iron and Darksteel. When I had tested my skills against the rock I was looking for any sign of Darksteel. I indicated to Wiremu where I thought his best chances were and he spent some time ‘looking’ for Rock Worms in that area. Another piece of the rare material will strengthen our position even more. Demonstrating we could direct the miners to Darksteel would explode our value to the team. Plus, I really wanted a piece for myself if possible as my shadows seemed to be attracted to it.

We discussed a methodology with Erik and Wiremu would start mining, keeping his senses alert for Rock Worms. I would stand close also trying to detect the worms and when Wiremu directed me I would focus my Intimidating Aura and we would see what happened. I was seriously hoping my aura didn’t send them into a frenzy instead of away.

Wiremu was starting off to one side of the area and when Erik asked why he said his Treasure Sense was telling him something was there. Thyrrni and Ulfhildr both looked interested at that. Wiremu started with the hammer. It was too much effort for me to continuously push my senses into the wall so I went back to the passive which was only about a metre in until Wiremu sensed them.

After about ten minutes Wiremu said he could sense two, one coming from above and one from deeper in the cliff. He kept mining and he said when he thought I might be able to sense them and I pushed with Spatial Awareness. I could sense one of them and it felt like something weird moving through the rock. It wasn’t physical, or rather physically it was part of the rock, but it was more than that. I don't really know how to describe it.

I focussed my aura as best I could and triggered the skill as gently as I could. I had never tried to soften the skill before, it had always been blasted as strong as possible. It sort of worked. The elemental turned and went back out of my senses. Wiremu said it was still in his senses and had stopped fleeing, but also wasn’t returning yet. I did the same for the other elemental, but a bit stronger. This one left Wiremus senses altogether.

Wiremu had a pile of rock at his fee, but only a couple of pieces were worth collecting. My Spatial Awareness was good at differentiating between them. Normally this would be Ulfhildr’s job. No Darksteel yet. Ten minutes later Wiremu said there were five incoming and one was larger, about the size of his forearm. I widened my focus to include as much of the wall as possible and gave a ‘half’ blast. Wiremu said all but the largest went out of his range.

Erik, Snøfrid and Ulfhildr were pleased already, as they would normally be using up alchemical supplies by now. At the forty five minute mark there was a constant stream of elementals incoming. I was giving half strength blasts every 2 or 3 minutes. I could tell Wiremu had got to the Darksteel, but I was wearing out. I tried to switch from blasting to a level of constant presence, like I did the first night I had it. It was stopping them at a certain distance but I was wearing out fast now. Ulfhildr came and sorted through the mined rock picking out the good stuff with whatever skill she had.

I warned Wiremu and he moved back and we exited the area before I totally ran out of energy. Then I stopped the skill and we both went into stealth. I didn’t have the energy for Shadow’s Embrace, but Wiremu triggered camouflage and we watched. It was like watching rock punch out of the wall, not leaving a mark, then entering the wall again, or sometimes the ground. They were all different sizes, one was as large as my arm. After about fifteen minutes the jumping stopped, but Wiremu said they were still there just in the wall.

We went back down to Erik and the others by the horses. Erik was all smiles. Ulfhildr was sorting through the pieces of ore and had separated out the two pieces of Darksteel.

“Over an hour and you didn’t take any hits at all!” Erik exclaimed excitedly. Apparently even with the alchemy the dwarves would be taking damage after about half an hour. “We could get three miners in that space and basically keep going with one hour on and four hours off indefinitely,” he continued.

“I am exhausted,” I said. “I couldn’t do that indefinitely. But there is no time limit now as nobody is taking damage and no damage is accumulating.”

“True, true.” He said. “Instead of nine shifts in two days we could cut it down to six, so three a day. If that is the take from one miner for one hour, each hour mining will be three times that. We have twenty mules, three for general supplies leaving seventeen. Basically a mule load full a day, maybe a bit more. We will be fully loaded in approximately two weeks. It will be close to three weeks back to Jern with a full load. This is great!” he said.

It was time to bring the Dwarf back down to earth. “That sounds good,” I said, “but this is only possible with Wiremu’s Senses and my Aura. We don’t have any formal agreement at the moment, and you were reluctant to let us stay long. I am open to making an agreement, but technically we could just take the ore we have mined and be on our way.”

“What!” he said, “no, no, no we definitely want to make an agreement.” he said hurriedly. “We will do the same agreement as everybody else,” he offered. “Equal shares after expenses,” he said. “There are nine of us at the moment but Koza also takes a share for Velikan as we didn’t need a second hunter with him here, and one share for the company, So currently eleven shares, you will make thirteen shares. Everybody will still make significantly more than our best case scenario.”

“I am not clear on what these expenses are?” I asked.

“Well there were the setup costs, like the equipment and mules, and there will be brokerage and blacksmithing fees when we get back.” he explained.

“We were not part of the setup, and everything we needed we brought with us. I don’t think it is fair we are liable for the setup costs,” I said.

“But we are training Wiremu in his skills, that costs us in training fees.” he argued like a dwarf.

“The skills we are using for this are, and always were, adequate without further training. The training is definitely appreciated,” I said and turned to Thyrrni. “Are you contracted to the team as a trainer?” I asked.

She smiled a bit and shook her head, “No.”

“We will be more than willing to enter into a five week apprenticeship agreement with Thyrrni as a separate agreement between us, so that Wiremu’s training is not a burden on the team.” I said with a winning smile. “We will also be keeping what we mined today.” I stated as if there was no argument against that.

He was a bit grumpy now and I could see Ulfhildr was not very pleased. “Ok Agreed,” he said reluctantly.

“Almost agreed,” I said. “Don’t forget there are three of us, not two. Wiremu couldn’t do anything without Pip.” I gave him a sweet smile.

I thought he might explode with how red he went. He sputtered a bit and said, “Agreed,” before storming off, I assume before I could add anything else.

“That was entertaining,” Thyrrni said.

“Indeed,” Ulfhildr added. “It is not often people can get Erik so worked up he splutters. Apparently, you did it the day you arrived, Wiremu, but I didn't get to see that. I am glad I got to see this one.”

I turned to Thyrrni, “So we are interested in negotiating a 5-6 week apprenticeship deal with you. Can we trade you these Deep Iron ores for that?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she said. “That will be very generous. I will be sure to tell Erik how much you paid and see if I can make him splutter too.”

I smiled at that.

“What are you going to do with the Darksteel ores?” Ulfhildr asked.

I picked them up and handed one to Wiremu. “With my one I want to explore how it works with my affinity,” I said. “I will probably need a good blacksmith for that.”

“I will do you a good deal,” she said. “What about yours Wiremu?”

“Mine is already taken, to pay off a debt,” he said, handing it back to me. “My contract negotiator has done an excellent job and deserves every gram. But don’t worry Ulfhildr, my senses picked up two more deposits within reach of our mining and one of them was bigger than where these came from.”