Ember of Invention

Once they had calmed Thalia down and reassured her that, no Nothing wasn’t a monster sneaking up on her, Lindle and her sat down by the tree with Nothing’s lantern in his lap as he filled her in to a greater degree. Lindle’s mom had left them to it, going to open the store, better to be a few hours late than to miss a full day's worth of profits.

“So you found them in the dungeon, but they aren’t a monster,” Thalia confirmed after he gave her an abridged version of the story.

Both Lindle and Nothing nodded in unison. “Nothing is a homunculus. They’re like artificially made helpers for crafters. Oh, but Nothing is unfinished, which is why they’re kind of goopy and can’t speak normally.”

“Well, I guess that’s okay?” Thalia seemed a little unsure but gave a little wave to Nothing. “It’s nice to meet you Nothing?”

Nothing returned the wave before curling back up in their flames.

I’m happy that she doesn’t seem too disturbed by me. I do hope everyone else I meet is as polite as the people you’ve introduced to me so far if we’re going to keep informing people.

Thoughts of Thalia’s grandmother flashed through Lindle’s mind. He wasn’t sure how she would react to Nothing, but he had a good guess that being polite was one of the less likely possibilities.

“Huh, your class seems a bit weird. I don’t really see how being able to make little creatures like Nothing connects to making magic bracelets and gardening tools.”

“Artificer is kind of about making magical things in general, it lets me take something called Ethos out of already magical stuff like monster parts or herbs, and then I sort of mold it to turn it into something else.” Lindle made a vague gesture with his hands as if he were crafting.

Thalia leaned back and hummed, an impressed look on her face. “That sounds really useful. Just magic items in general is a really broad specialization for a class.” She looked at the tree and put a hand on it again. “And you made an entire tree grow in your house after having it for less than a day. I’ve had my class for months and I’ve only learned a spell that could make plants grow that fast in the past few weeks.”

“Well, it more was like my mom did it, and she used 500 MP and a journeyman class skill to do it, so I wouldn’t call it that impressive.” Lindle picked up the Hungry Trowel from where his mom had left it on the table and handed it to Thalia, who looked down at it and blinked in surprise when she saw the status screen appear.

“An item with a status screen? Is it alive? like Nothing?”

“I- What? No, it’s just a trowel. I think it’s just how items I make work.”

“Well however it works, this seems really useful. Why are you keeping it secret?”

“Well, Rosato said there was a risk that if certain people in Soarstrum heard about my class, they might cause trouble. So they don’t want anyone coming on the raid on the dungeon to learn about it since they might send word back.”

“Rosato? That’s the adventurer with the fox tail right? Wait, is the dungeon that the Soarians are going to raid the same one you found Nothing in?”

“Yeah.”

Thalia let out a puff of air as she giggled for a second. “Oh wow, Humphrey would not be happy with you if he knew that you’re why the Soarians are coming.”

“It’s not just because of me.” Lindle defended himself. “The dungeon was all weird even without me finding Nothing, full of books and high-tier monsters.”

“Do you think he’d be any less annoyed with that excuse?” She said with a smirk. Lindle could see a hint of Madam Holly in the expression and he scowled, not being able to refute what she said. She chuckled again when he remained silent.

“Fine fine. Well you’re not going to be an alchemist, what are you going to be doing?”

“I’m still going to be a wayfarer, remember?”

Thalia frowned and looked to the side. “I almost forgot about that, you didn’t really go into why, are you sure?”

“I mean, yeah. I want to get as many levels as possible, I don’t want anyone to be able to go after me for my class.” Lindle shrugged. “More than that honestly, I want to see what I can do with a class like this, I like discovering things a lot more than I thought I would.”

Thalia looked back at him. “Well, you seem serious enough about it. So you’re just going to keep crafting items to get as many levels as possible until the raid happens?”

“Pretty much. Maybe go hunting or take some jobs with adventuring parties to get materials.” It might be nice to try to out [Flow] and see if it did as Madam Holly promised and helped keep his instincts out of the equation in a fight. It would also probably be a waste to not take advantage of [Hunter Gatherer], which probably was Madam Holly’s whole motivation in making him get it, but it didn’t make it any less true.

Thalia seemed to think about something for a few seconds, a shy look on her face. “Do you… have any items that could help with druidic magic? My spellcasting during lessons isn’t as impressive as some of the other students. I can pay you, I have some gold saved up.”

“Wait wait.” Lindle stopped her. “I don’t really have anything like that, but I’d be happy to try and make you an item that helps you with your spellcasting, I don’t need any gold.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. We’re friends, I’d feel weird making you pay for something like that. I’d get XP from making it anyways.”

She laughed. “All crafters make XP when they make something and they still charge for their work Lindle. I pay whenever I buy something from your mom’s store, even when it’s one of your potions.”

Lindle shrugged helplessly. “It’s just different, I don’t know why. Look, how about this, you could help me go hunting for materials instead sometimes.”

She considered and nodded. “Fine, that works for me.”

Lindle got up and gestured to his workshop. “You want to watch while I make it?”

Thalia blinked and stumbled to her feet. “Wait you’re going to make it now?”

“Yeah, no reason to wait. So?”

“Yeah of course I do!”

They grinned at each other as Lindle picked up Nothing’s lantern, walking to his workshop together.

“Hey, anything I should use in particular for some kind of spellcasting item?” Lindle quickly asked Nothing.

Hmm. Well, you want it to be a focus of some kind. A wand or a stave maybe, though the latter would be too big for now. You could make it jewelry but it’s less likely to be specifically for spellcasting that way. Try to use a material that naturally uses Mana too.

Lindle nodded and started going through his shelves for something that fit the bill, Thalia looking around curiously at the wide variety of items he had stockpiled.

Try not to overdo it by the way, you’re mostly recovered from the Ethos strain, but just be careful for now.

“Okay okay, Fine.”

Thalia looked at him in confusion for a moment before seeing he was talking to Nothing, not saying anything, but she kept an eyebrow raised.

If he was doing something for Thalia specifically, it would make sense to go with his tried and true strategy of using a magic plant or plant monster of some kind. Druids didn’t only cast nature and plant based spells, using many more elements of nature, but it did represent a sizable percentage of the types of spells they learned.

Lindle picked out one of the more powerful items he had, Lotus Keepers used mana to create a domain where they took command of and manipulated the plants around them to attack intruders. They were extremely dangerous, but their petals could be used for powerful arcane potions, so Lindle had bought one extra for himself for a discount when purchasing for the store.

The oversized petal was dark pink and wider than both of his palms put together, but thin. He took a seat and Thalia started looking over his shoulder as he activated [Artifice Crafting].

He plucked the Ethos from the petal and Thalia made a small gasp as it crumbled to dust. He took the flat mass of Pelos and started to roll it up into a rod. A wand would be an easy shape, so he put the majority of his focus on picking the right aspects. He ignored the aspects of defense and territory and pulled the nature aspect to the forefront.

Alongside it, Lindle focused on the aspect of Mana and magic present. It was a bit odd to Lindle that Ethos could include an aspect of Mana or Aura, but it did, so he made it the dominant aspect of the wand, using the nature aspect to create a small twist to it and act as a secondary.

It seemed to work well enough for the Hotpond Band, so Lindle took his pinky to start putting in a basic artistic design. He needed to use the nail to get a precise enough line, but he made a nice looking series of flowing lines from the base to spread out and circle at the tip. For the structure, he tried a mix of the Lotus Keeper’s petal and a shifting towards wood, feeling it was more appropriate for a wand than the soft floppiness of a flower petal.

He made sure to make his intent known to the Ethos, conveying the idea of a wand, before solidifying the Pelos. It transformed into a small dark pink rod with the designs he engraved in wood.

Lotus Thorn

Effect: Increases the power of Spells cast by the user through the wand a slight amount. Spells with aspects of plants and nature are amplified by a much greater amount.

Thalia looked with wonder as Lindle presented the wand to her, reading the wand’s status. “This is amazing… just being able to throw together something like this.”

Lindle smiled, hiding a wince as he sensed his Ethos near its limits from strain again. It didn’t hurt, but he definitely probably wouldn’t be able to make anything else for the next few hours. The wand was certainly on the level of the Hotpond Band, and it seemed not letting his Ethos recover in its entirety before straining it again cost a lot more than otherwise.

“Come on, I know how you test it out. You’d be doing us a huge favor if you could get rid of that tree in the living room.”