It was odd the way that the contracted mana flowed. It could be a steady flow into me like a slow flow from a faucet, or I could have it dump into me like a bucket. What I couldn’t do or didn’t know how to do was cast directly from it.

Imbuing the necklace of cores was fast and easy for me. I dumped my 40 mana in, passed out, and refilled from Lannah’s mana. Now the odd part was how Lannah reacted to the pull of mana.

With the slight pull of mana the first time, she showed signs of potentially being slightly lightheaded or out of breath. However, with the massive dump of refilling my mana, I could tell it was the former. I wasn’t sure how this was to work in a combat situation, as she mentioned that people in adventuring groups had this same link. Yet, she had almost doubled over when I refilled.

By far, this was the oddest set of circumstances that I could remember ever finding myself in. The additional power was absolutely something we needed; however, the reactions she gave made me question everything.

I was going to have to figure out a way to use this mana without it causing her problems. I could only think what it would be like if she was working and I got into a fight inside town. I go to use my mana and need more, so draw it so that I have it, and she is in negotiation. Or worse if she dropped something because of this. It was such an odd link.

As it was, I had to pull a total of three times to get the cores we needed. Eight cores in under an hour. It was more than I could have hoped to make on my own and should help in everything we were doing.

I dropped a core into the bow.

Weapon core created

Weapon core!

Max level 5

As your Weapon levels its helpfulness increases.

General

Showing up in all Orange.

Arn's Magical short bow

Level 0

Type Weapon core

Class Enchanted uncommon

Durability 100/100

Weight 2.5 lbs

Weapon type: Blunt if swung,

Damage: 2-5 non-magical, 1 Magical

>Growth

To level your weapon you must provide for it proper care and material.

Hardwood 0% Mana 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your Weapon has.

Durable- Your weapon is durable, it will not wear out from normal wear. Durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. Well cared for- Arn's Magical short bow always looks well cared for and freshly oiled. This bow’s string will not become weak because of water.

Then the part which I hoped would help get us out of the mess. I needed to see if I could link cored items and create something more significant. I needed this to work to start attacking the goblins at range. The waiting was hard.

I dropped a core into the quiver, then one into each of the five arrows. As I did, I saw magical links start to show up and got a pop up asking me if I wanted to link everything. I answered that I did. I saw a bright flash of pink light that all of my arrows were linked to the quiver. It was just a question of what did I make?

Cluster Item/weapon core created

Item/Weapon core!

World’s first Quiver Cluster

Quiver level uncapped

Arrow

Max level 5

As your Item levels its helpfulness increases.

As your Weapon levels its helpfulness increases.

Normal Quiver cluster cores will be capped at level 10

To create new quiver cluster cores the correct building must be used

General

Showing up in all Gold with an Orange glow.

Arn's Quiver of 5 Ice arrows

Level 0

Type Weapon core

Class Enchanted Unique

Durability 100/100

Weight 1 lbs

Weapon type: Arrows

Damage: 2 impaling, 1 magical, 1 cold

This is a Unique core creation. It is not uncommon to find cores contained inside other cores when dealing with larger cores items. However, this is the first time in which a several weapon cores have been linked and bound to an item core for a magical item. This tying of several weapon cores to an item creates a cluster core that is guided by the master core which is an item core.

As this is a worlds first your quiver will continue to level uncapped however your Arrows will be capped at level 5 because they are weapon cores.

>Growth

To level your weapon you must provide for it proper care and material.

Hardwood 0% Mana 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your Weapon has.

Durable- Your weapon is durable, it will not wear out from normal wear. Durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. This quiver is of 5 Arrows of Ice. All five arrows are tied to this quiver and the quiver will guide you to the arrows. The arrows will also slowly draw to the quiver. If an arrow breaks or is missing from the quiver for one full day you must feed the core for a new arrow to be made. Ice strike. Your arrows have been enchanted with Ice strike. This will do 2 mixed ice and magic damage to the target

I passed the quiver over to Lannah. “So what do you think of this?”

“My inspect spell, is telling me that the arrows are magical and that they can do ice damage. I see that they all have cores but I am not sure what that will mean in the long run.”

“Can’t you open the traits screen and look at what the cores do?”

“I see where it is called Arn's Quiver of 5 Ice arrows and that it is an enchanted unique item but the only properties I get are from my inspect spell which just tells me that the arrows do ice damage.”

“So you don’t see the growth and traits menu?”

“Growth menu and traits menus? No I know that cores can grow but no one knows how.”

“Can you look at things and see how much health they have?”

“With my inspect I can.”

“Okay, so one of the things that I can do is I can see little green bars over everything if I focus on them for a few moments. Those green bars express to me how much health something has. I can do that with other people too. I just have to be within about 20 feet.”

“Is that something that all wild humans can do or do you have another skill or something that does that?”

“It is the visual interface. Lets see if I can remember it to walk you through.”

Lannah and I took a few minutes with me trying to walk her through getting the visual interface active, only for her to get an error message that said that she was restricted in use.

Lannah sighed. “Seems like I am unable to access it, might just be for those who were brought here.”

I stood up, grabbed my bow and new quiver, and smiled. “I am going to see about messing with the goblins now that the sun has set. I figure that I am a little less likely to be hit now.”

As I headed over to the ledge, I reached out with my bond again for Blink. I hadn’t seen her or felt her all day. She was either far away for some reason, or something was blocking our link. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I should have at least been able to feel her direction. Her stats screen still showed she was alive.

I went away from the waterfall. I wanted to work from one side to the other. I got to the edge of the trees and moved forward in a crouch. The last time I was out here, they started taking potshots at me, so I wanted to be very careful. As I got close to the edge, I was able to start making out gremlins and goblins at their fires.

If I only had five arrows, I never would have tried this. However, with the new quiver as slow as it was, I was now able to reach out and hopefully kill some of these guys. It wouldn’t be a sure thing as if I didn’t kill the one I was aiming at, then they were likely to just get healed.

I nocked the first arrow, stood, aimed, and loosed it. If I hadn’t been shooting into a group, I would have missed as it was my arrow hit something, but I couldn’t tell what. There was yelling, and the monsters around the fire I was shooting up stood up. I let loose the second arrow, then I ran.

While I would love to stay and shoot from one place now that I hit once, I needed to move so that I didn’t get hit by lightning. I ran to the tree line and then across the landing and out the trees near the waterfall.

This adjusted all my angles. I wasn’t as close to my enemies' fires but I was still within range. I aimed at the same group which was still standing. In some ways, this should have made it easier to hit, but they were jumping up and down.

I missed with the first arrow by enough that no one looked at me. I breathed in deep and tried again. This time I watched as the arrow hit a gremlin right in the chest. It stumbled backward and into the fire.

Then I saw the unmistakable light of summoned lightning growing from across their camp. I turned tail and ran toward the waterfall. I wasn’t about to jump in but I did drop myself off the short ledge into the river bed and lie down.

I saw the bolt pass overhead and strike the waterfall.