Setting down the third cogpistol since lunch, Pellex surveyed his work. Thirteen cogpistols and seven cogrifles – given the varying states of disrepair and the tools he had to work with, not a bad start. Especially considering the time he had taken to clean the place up, sorting the haphazard piles into… organized piles. Pellex would be proud of his work, but he was aware what the weapons would be used for. He knew refusing to work wasn’t an option. Julian would just squash him, and the arders obviously still had gear. This was all probably just serving to save the bandits a few pems, but Pellex knew how flimsy of an excuse that was.

He had thought about making the guns explode in the user’s face or jam at inopportune times, but that would get him found out and killed just as quickly. And Pellex couldn’t discount the possibility of whoever had installed that door double-checking his work at some point, so less obvious traps weren’t going to cut it. When it came to constructs, however, Pellex was a master of subtlety.

Inspired by the first cogpistol he had repaired, some of the guns had just slightly more fragile firing systems, silently waiting to crumble if an arder got panicky. Others had the gear ratios barely adjusted, ruining thi accumulation, making the weapons simultaneously more draining and less efficient. Pellex knew that Julian wouldn’t be trusting him at all, though, and reports of weapon failure, however innocuous the individual incidents might seem, would add up if someone careful was watching. And Pellex was quite sure that Julian was a careful man.

Thus, the other things he had been working on. Carefully concealed in the mounds of junk, Pellex had hidden a pair of thi transmitters, basic units, but they would do. The best Pellex could do with his limited materials and skills, but they would do. The main problem was getting one of them to Holia. Pellex was no [Enchanter], and the spatial runes were infamously finicky, so getting them past the guards in the first place would be a problem in and of itself. He’d think of something, though.

The transmitters weren’t the only extracurricular project Pellex had, though. After sharpening up the only halfway-decent runeneedle he could find, he had rolled out a flat sheet with [Metalshape] and started writing the runes necessary for a proper [Artificer]’s runeneedle. Though, with the modifications Pellex was making, it was quickly becoming what might well be the first [Cogseer] runeneedle. The thought sparking some inspiration, Pellex turned to the half-finished sheet and inscribed a rune-chain. Feeding the sigils with a touch of thi, the chain linked to the rest of the sheet in a flash of multi-hued light, the metal crinkling a bit under the strain of excess thi leaking. Pellex didn’t notice, however, as his attention was taken up by a blinking notification.

Level up! You are now level 6!

12 ability points available! (6 Mental, 3 Social, 3 Physical) 2 skill points available!

Finally. He had been sitting at 14 experience left for about an hour. After a bit of deliberation, he assigned his ability points, and then moved on to the exciting part. Skills. He hadn’t let himself look at the new skill trees yet, knowing that they’d just be a distraction, but holding back had been hard.

[Augury]

Tier 1

[Definitive]:

Learn the most common definition of any word.

Cost: 10 thi

(10 – (skill rank / 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Nomenclature]:

Learn the name of a named entity. In the case of a person, will return the truest name accessible, based on a Mental Power versus Mental Fortitude contest if resisted. Digs deeper and is harder to resist upon upgrading.

Cost: 40 thi

(40 + skill rank/2 thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Edibility]:

Learn whether something is normally safe to eat or drink. Cannot detect deliberate poisoning.

Cost: 60 thi

(60 thi – (skill rank * 2) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Toxicity]:

Learn whether a serving of food or drink has been deliberately poisoned. Cannot detect if the food itself is inherently inedible/deadly.

Cost: 100 thi

(100 thi – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Greater Locate]:

Learn the location of any object or person you know fairly well, to within (5 + (skill rank * 5)) erafesures.

Cost: 200 thi

(200 – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Objective Damage]:

Learn how much damage a weapon will deal, to within (100 – (skill rank * 2)) points. Weapon is defined as anything not a skill that deals damage – traps, fists, swords, etc. Ranged weapon damage will be based off of the type of ammunition they were last loaded with when calculating, and will return an estimate of damage variance based on range, subject to the same accuracy scaling.

Cost: 300 thi

(300 – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Augury] appeared to be focused on learning things, and Pellex was very impressed just by what was in tier 1. [Greater Locate] was a big upgrade from [Locate], and its range was quite impressive. [Objective Damage] was an unimaginably useful skill. Weapon damage was mostly calculated by going out and hitting things with it, then watching how much their phi bars dropped. It was a resource-intensive and dangerous process, with flaws that introduced dozens of inaccuracies. Being able to just wave a skill at the problem and get a System-approved answer? That would completely upend major economic sectors overnight, not to mention how useful it would be for prototyping. All-in-all, Pellex wanted every skill in the tree, but he had three more new trees to go through.

[Chronologing]

Tier 1

[Minor Details]:

Remember the last time you performed any simple task, such as cleaning a specific room or contacting an old friend.

Cost: 60 thi

(60 - skill rank thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Timeline]:

Learn the proper chronological order two recent events occurred in.

Cost: 200 thi

(200 thi – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Time of Death]:

Learn when the late owner of a fresh corpse died. More accurate the fresher the body is.

Cost: 300 thi

(300 thi – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Recognition]:

View the last time you saw the target of the skill, so long as that time was within (skill rank * (skill grade + 4)) days. Does not require that you are aware it was them you were seeing.

Cost: 100 thi

(100 – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Reunion]:

Learn the next time you will meet another person, so long as that time is within (skill rank * (skill grade + 2)) days

Cost: 300 thi

(300 thi – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Prophecy]:

Learn (skill rank) words related to the future (within ((skill rank * (skill grade + 4) * 2) weeks) of the skill’s target. Can only be used once per (100 – (skill rank * skill grade)) days per person. Cannot be self-targeted.

Cost: 500 thi

(500 – (skill rank * 8) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

This tree wasn’t as useful as [Augury], but Pellex was pretty sure the higher tiers would have more powerful stuff. The skills here were certainly fascinating, just more niche, and not as immediately useful. From what he knew, [Prophecy] was the [Oracle] class skill, and reading the description he finally understood why the ancient soothsayers of legend were always so vague.

[Runewinding]

Tier 1

[Basic Runeworking]:

Understand the basics of working with runes.

Cost: 2 thi per 5 seconds

(2 thi per 5 - skill rank seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Unshaken Runes]:

When writing runes, fine motor control is greatly increased, and the chance of making mistakes is drastically lowered.

Cost: 5 thi per 5 seconds

(5 thi per (5 – skill rank / 2) seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Runesight]:

See nearby runes highlighted, with visual indicators such as color and brightness linked to properties like power, position in a runechain, relation to nearby runeforms, etc.

Cost: 5 thi per second

((5 – skill rank / 4) thi per second)

Select for 1 skill point

[Rune Library]:

Perfectly remember the precise form of any rune you have seen. Cost is incurred when the rune is retrieved from memory.

Cost: 10 thi

(10 – (skill rank) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Rune Transfer]:

Transfer power directly into and out of a rune at 1 / (10 – skill level) efficiency. Adding power will cease functioning before it could exacerbate instability, and removing power will render the rune inert rather than incur the penalties of improper deactivation.

Cost: Variable

Select for 1 skill point

[Rune Guide]:

Perfectly remember the function of any rune you know the function of, and become far more proficient at discovering the function of unknown runes.

Cost: 3 thi per 5 seconds.

(3 thi per (5 – skill rank / 2) seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Runewinding] wasn’t as flashy as some trees, but its skills were invaluable for Pellex’s work. [Runesight] had some overlap with [Detect Thi], but its focused nature gave it a lot of unique and highly useful abilities. [Rune Library] and [Rune Guide] were a matched set, of course, and anything that made the infamously complex sigils easier to keep straight was welcome. Pellex didn’t need to take [Basic Runeworking], but if he didn’t have so many good skill choices, he might have taken it anyway, to smooth a few rough patches and help him keep up to date. [Rune Transfer] was undoubtedly the biggest one, though. Powering runes was a horrible process, and deactivating them even more so. [Rune Transfer] made those activities extremely easy, and was a must-have for [Artificers] who worked in runic construct prototyping. Pellex had always planned on getting it, but he wasn’t sure when he would be able to, now.

[Gearfitting]

Tier 1

[Basic Gearfitting]:

Understand the basics of gear constructs, thi accumulation, and ratio influence.

Cost: 2 thi per 5 seconds

(2 thi per 5 - skill rank seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Gear Adjustment]:

Marginally alter the size of a gear within a construct. When the gear is removed from the construct, it will return to its original size.

Cost: 50 thi

(5 thi per (5 – skill rank / 2) seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Clockwork Inspection]:

See a construct’s inner workings, ignoring casings and other obstacles.

Cost: 5 thi per second

((5 – skill rank / 4) thi per second)

Select for 1 skill point

[Greased Palms]:

Produce a small amount of moderately effective lubricant on your palms.

Cost: 50 thi

(50 – (skill rank * 2) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Isolated Rest]:

Cancel the rotation of (skill rank * 2) linked gears without affecting other parts of the mechanism.

Cost: 100 thi

(100 – (skill rank * 4) thi)

Select for 1 skill point

[Imparted Motion]:

Channel thi to make a gear spin. Speed depends on how much thi is channeled; spin direction can be changed at will.

Cost: Variable thi per 5 seconds.

(Variable thi per (5 – skill rank / 2) seconds)

Select for 1 skill point

[Gearfitting] tended to be thought of as a less useful tree, but [Greased Palms], [Isolated Rest], and especially [Clockwork Inspection] were staples of construct work. Pellex would have loved to purchase all of them, but he only had two skill points to work with.

Looking over the lists, Pellex finally came to a decision. The [Oracle] trees had a lot of good options, and there were some interesting skills in [Divination] and some of the basic trees that he would want in the future, but what he needed right now were things for [Artificer] work. Selecting the two skills he wanted, Pellex brought up his notifications.

Are you sure you wish to select

[Construct Activation]

Yes / No

“Yes.”

Are you sure you wish to select

[Runesight]

Yes / No

“Yes.”

With the level up dealt with, Pellex opened his character sheet to look over his new and improved stats.

Pellex Audenry

Level: 6

Class: Cogseer

Ability Scores:

Power: 14 Physical: Agility: 14 Fortitude: 14 Power: 22 Mental: Agility: 22 Fortitude: 16 Power: 14 Social: Agility: 16 Fortitude: 15

Stats:

Phi: Maximum: 140 Regeneration: 17.5/hr. Endurance 0.07% Thi: Maximum: 880 Regeneration: 110/hr. Stability: 0.16% Sci: Maximum: 140 Regeneration: 20/hr. Skepticism: 0.075%

Skills:

Basic Artifice (Iron Grade I)

Locate (Bronze Grade III)

Foresight (Bronze Grade IV)

Material Evaluation (Bronze Grade III)

Metalshape (Bronze Grade III)

Cogsight (Bronze Grade II)

Construct Activation (Bronze Grade I)

Runesight (Bronze Grade I)

Pellex nodded to himself with approval. [Material Evaluation] had gone up one rank and [Metalshape] two, just from using them both so often today. The synergy between the two seemed to help as well. All of his thi stats were preposterous in the best possible way, proper First Echelon numbers.

Eager to get back to work and try his new skills, Pellex dug through the piles for a weapon to work on, and, finding one that seemed salvageable, placed it on the workbench. He was just about to begin disassembling it when the door burst open, and an arder in mage robes burst in. Pellex noted a silver insignia before the man caught his breath, and immediately used it to shout at him.

“Bring everything that works! We’re under attack!”