It was the first time Kaldalis could remember entering Sivima’s workspace and not finding her hard at work. She was still working, but she was straightening up the shop rather than slaving over a hot forge.

“Slow day?” Kaldalis asked as she turned towards him when he entered. “I wasn’t sure you had those.”

Sivima smiled. “Kaldalis. I wasn’t expecting to see you again for a while. Are you in the market for a new weapon?”

“Uh, kind of,” Kaldalis said, looking around the shop and eyeing the row of spears there. “But that’s not specifically why I’m here. I have some things for you.”

She tilted her head for a moment in confusion before realization visibly dawned on her face. Her excitement bled the years of toil from her face. “You have the materials for my modification bench?”

Kaldalis motioned for her to step back. “I do, but you should make some room, though. There’s just barely enough floor space for this and inventory magic only gets us so far.”

She backed up as he bid and he retrieved the items from his inventory. The White-Blossom Core and Jeotops Frill were sizable items, but the floppy body of the likdon dwarfed them both. The magic of the inventory kept the huge fish from rotting, but the smell of fresh fish filled the room.

“Oh my,” Sivima said, kneeling down to examine the fish. “I had expected an adolescent, not a full-grown likdon.”

“I also have your sanguine diamond right here,” Kaldalis said, holding out the small red chip in the palm of his hand.

“Perfect! Wonderful. That was much faster than I expected.” She stepped carefully over the giant fish-serpent and examined the other three items as well. “This will only take a few minutes, if you’d like to wait.”

Kaldalis winced. “I’m a bit pressed for time.” Despite his words, he found himself already looking for excuses to hedge. “But I’m really curious about how this whole thing works. I could stick around.”

Without another word, Sivima went to work.

It was kind of interesting to watch.

The White-Blossom Core was carved down into a trio of supple tool handles, two solid wooden blocks, and two remaining fragments were attached to a metal frame she had on-hand to act as the gripping component for a vice.

She turned her attention to the jeotops frill. It was broken down to use the crystal elements as the heads of tools, making an edged macahuitl-looking saw with pointed crystal teeth, and a small-headed hammer.

The likdon had large sections of skin removed, and Sivima attached them to the wooden blocks to make sanding blocks. He wondered if some preservatives ought to have been used on the skin, but he discarded the thought shortly after.

Rot and decay didn’t seem to exist in this game world like they did in real life. If they did, the jungle would be littered with stinking gut piles from stripped monster carcasses, after all.

The final tool was the sanguine diamond which was affixed to the final handle, making a very small-headed carving tool. With that complete, Sivima moved to the door at the back of the room, entering her workshop.

Kaldalis followed to see her assemble the tools on a workbench.

Barely five minutes total had passed before she smiled over her shoulder at him. “I told you it wouldn’t be long.” She motioned to the items she’d crafted. “These will allow me to modify your weapons.”

“Great,” Kaldalis said with a nod. “But, uh, excuse my ignorance... What does that mean?”

Sivima wasn’t bothered by his question. “It will adjust the functionality of the abilities granted to skilled users.” She turned and picked a glaive off of a rack by the door, apparently finished but not yet moved out onto the shop floor. “It won’t affect the weapon’s speed, damage, or other attributes, outside of effects to those abilities.”

As if that all made sense, she went to work on the glaive. Using the saw, she shortened the haft by about six inches, and with the hammer and carving tool, added a taper just below the weapon’s head.

After a moment sanding down the edges, she presented him with the glaive.

“On the house,” she said with a grin.

He accepted the weapon from her and examined it.

Loam Glaive [Mod]

Item Level: 11

Acumen: 15

Clout: 15

Vigor: 16

Attack: 41

Earth Affinity: 41

Attack Speed: 1.65%

[Multi-Jump Mod: Reduce Jump Ability Duration by 50%. Double charge count. When incrementing a charge, gain two charges instead of one.]

Kaldalis was struck first by the extra stat on the gear, though it was obviously not part of the mod. He guessed that his gear was desperately in need of upgrades, even before considering the huge jump in actual stats he was gaining.

But the mod itself was by far the most interesting component.

With a mental effort, he equipped the glaive and examined his Jump ability. True to its description, he now had two charges, allowing him to use it twice in succession, but its duration was halved. Effectively, this was no difference whatsoever in the total amount of jumps he would be able to make. But it would allow him to space out activations, giving him more utility and control.

The wording struck him as odd. Was there some innate upgrade that would eventually give him more charges on his Jump? What level would that be acquired at?

“This is interesting,” Kaldalis said, turning the glaive over in his hands, examining the weapon itself beyond the stats. It was very aesthetically pleasing. The head looking like the crescent blade of a scaled-down khopesh, with bronze reinforcements holding it to the haft, which was cut with clear ridges, making it hexagonal and giving him an extremely solid grip and control that had obviously been missing from previous weapons. “What other options do I have than this?”

“As I said, I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she explained, digging out a thin hardback journal, flipping through the notes within. “I will have to assemble a sort of catalogue for modifications, but I don’t have one ready at present. But many are in the same vein as that one. Strictly speaking, it isn’t a direct increase in power, but it offers adjustments in functionality. If you don’t like the Multi-Jump Mod, I have…” She flipped through the journal as she spoke before settling on a specific page. “I have an Extreme Jump modification. It increases the cooldown and duration of the Jump ability by 50%. So it basically does the same thing as Multi-Jump, but in reverse.”

Kaldalis shook his head. “No, I think I like this better. The extra charge gives me more control. It can also be a bit more forgiving. Sometimes I find myself saying ‘might as well jump’ unprompted, you know?”

“Alright.” She flipped a few pages. “You’re not level fifteen yet, so you don’t have slowfall… I guess it’s just…” She mumbled to herself as she combed through the book. “I have similar adjustments to your Sweeping Strikes, if you like.”

“That might be better in the long term,” Kaldalis said, but found himself hedging. It was like he was looking for an excuse to stick around and experiment. He didn’t have time for that, though. With seventy minutes ahead of him on the trip back to Panbu, he couldn’t afford to spend all day here. “But for now, Multi-Jump is probably exactly what I need.”

“Alright,” Sivima said, putting the book down on the workbench. “Just come on back if you change your mind. Or if you get a new spear and need it modified as well.”

“Thanks,” Kaldalis said, returning her broad smile. “Do you happen to know who I talk to to pick up a few charms as well? I’m afraid my gear is dramatically outdated, but most of my acquisitions have been through the dungeon, so I don’t know who to go to here.”

“Of course,” Sivima said with a laugh. “Right next door. Misael can be a bit prickly, but he’ll do right by you.”

Sivima turned back to start assembling her list of modifications, and Kaldalis bid her farewell.

Misael was a Human man, but he was only about a foot taller than the average Suyon. After Sivima’s warning about his attitude, Kaldalis declined to make too much conversation. He didn’t have time anyway. The crafter was more than happy to grab six charms off the racks and push them across the counter in exchange for a few dozen crescents each.

As Kaldalis expected, the charms each had a second attribute on them, giving him a significant increase in power, even if the NPC crafting mechanics meant that they were an entirely random scramble of traits.

Once he had them all equipped, he took a quick glance at his stats.

Kaldalis, Level 11 Bodyguard

HP: 2164/2187

Aplomb: 100/100

EXP: 2899/3000

Acumen: 211

Clout: 222

Vigor: 360

Armor: 262

Attack: 193

His affinities had much improved. His elemental affinities were at 156, boosted by two Resistance charms, except for Earth and Light, earth was improved by his weapon, and Light Affinity was improved by one of his charms, both of them at 197. His debuff affinities were at 131 thanks to the boost of one fortitude charm, with Slow Affinity on another giving him 172 against that debuff. The 1.65 percent attack speed attached to his weapon felt like it might be a bit negligible by itself, and the same went for cooldown reduction on another charm, only at 0.55 percent.

Just the same, the base stats were what he was most concerned with, so he focused on feeling grateful for the luck he’d had on finding a little bit of HP, armor, and attack on some charms, rather than being concerned about the stat allocations he felt were wasted. Considering the only alternative would be hours more of grinding charmcrafting to make what he wanted himself, it wasn’t the time or place to look gift charms in the mouth.

Even if he’d paid hard-earned crescents for them.

Future!Kaladalis could deal with optimization.

With his errands complete, Kaldalis paused just long enough to decide not to hunt down Heluna to try and have lunch with her. If he didn’t have time to wrestle with character customization options - a task that historically demanded hours of his time - he definitely didn’t have time for a date, right?

Of course, that had him thinking about dating Heluna all over again.

She was an AI.

A fucking computer program.

And whether or not the stream service had been updated with the ability to go on blackout, he knew he’d never live it down if he was forever known as the guy who reduced the biggest technical achievement in gaming history down to a dating sim.

He pushed all of that aside. This wasn’t the time to re-evaluate his raincheck with Heluna. He had a boat to catch.

Or he would have, if a large Bhogad’s hand didn’t choose that moment to clamp down on his shoulder.