Ember of Invention

Once he was done, Lindle stuffed all three Frostgreed scales into his pack. He might be able to carry around items like his rings or Hotpond Band on his person without anyone paying attention, without the status they were fairly unassuming, if a bit odd on close inspection, a bracelet made out of wood was pretty strange, but his latest items were a lot more eye-catching. He definitely wouldn’t be wearing it unless he was in private or out in the Glacial Reach.

He and Dorothea said their goodbyes to Nothing and left his house. The homunculus still seemed to be stewing a bit in their own thoughts, so Lindle tried to send over some reassurance and comfort over their link. He wasn’t as good at intentionally conveying emotions or ideas as Nothing, but they seemed to appreciate it nonetheless.

They made their way down to pick up Humphrey first. Lindle used [Trek] out of habit, almost stopping himself once he realized that Dorothea wouldn’t have the Technique, but she sped up to match his pace before he could. He supposed even as a mage, her journeyman-level stats let her move through the flat ground in town quicker than him easily.

She skipped up next to him, with an eyebrow raised but a small grin. “This is kind of fun. We don’t get to draw on our stats to move around except outside of cities and towns very often.”

Lindle blushed a bit at moving ahead without warning, but he gave a little nod and smile back. “Really? Why not?”

She shrugged. “High-tier People tend to get harassed about being public disturbances or nonsense like that when they draw too much on their stats or use a flashy Skill or such in public, it’s generally not worth it.”

That seemed odd to Lindle, but he shrugged back and led the mage to Humphrey’s house. When the ranger opened the door, he smiled when he saw Lindle, which fell a bit flat when he saw Dorothea standing behind him.

“Oh… hey Lindle, what’s up?” Humphrey greeted him in a slightly dull tone.

Dorothea seemed to pick up a bit on the awkwardness, shifting a bit.

Lindle tried to ignore it. “Hey Humphrey, this is Dorothea, I think you two met during my celebration?”

He nodded, looking at Dorothea. “Hello, the wizard, right?”

“Yep, that’s me, it’s nice to meet you again.” Dorothea tried for an inviting smile.

Humphrey just nodded again. The atmosphere felt stifling as Dorothea sent him glances of confusion at the stiff reaction coming from Humphrey. Trying to cut through it, Lindle spoke again.

“We’re gonna get Thalia, and see if we can register at the guild outpost, Dorothea wants to see if she can help us out a bit, maybe help us look for a first quest or job.” Humphrey’s mood didn’t seem to exactly improve, so he added, “I also made us something, for all three of us. We can test it out at Thalia’s.”

That seemed to get Humphrey excited, his eyes lighting up as they looked over Lindle, searching for the items. “Really? What did you make?”

“I’ll show you at Thalia’s, come on.”

“Fine, fine.” Humphrey reached over and grabbed his bow from his wall.

“Why are you bringing that?” Lindle asked.

Humphrey raised an eyebrow. “I figured they might want us to show what we can do? If we’re being registered at the guild, our classes and stuff right?”

“Oh… can’t we just tell them and they’ll write it down?”

Dorothea interrupted. “No Humphrey’s right, they’ll want a little demonstration. It’s actually a good thing you’re doing it here, the branch here is so small they don’t have anything or anyone to directly appraise your statuses. Just to see that you have ways of protecting yourself on quests.”

Humphrey looked conflicted as Dorothea agreed with him. “Yeah… You’re going to say you’re an alchemist right? That’s why you brought your potions?”

Lindle blinked, looking down and seeing his alchemy pouch on his waist. He had been keeping his pouch on him every day for lessons with Madam Holly at the training yard out of habit; he had brought it with him when he left the house without thinking about it. The healing and aura potions had been crucial to keep him going under her instruction. That… was probably a good habit to instill in him if he was being honest, considering his plans involved getting in a lot more conflict than a normal crafter class, so he couldn’t be too annoyed that he was being driven to exhaustion often enough that keeping potions on him was an unconscious habit now.

Lindle sighed. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”

They ran down to Thalia’s place, which was closer to the center of the village. If he had only been to Humphrey’s a few times, this was the first time he had been to Thalia’s outside of just in passing. It backed the True Grove as one of the homes in the opening left by the White Hall where the elders lived. There were some perks to being an elder’s granddaughter it seemed, the ice that made it up a lot more extravagantly sculpted and with multiple floors.

Before they could reach it, Thalia opened her door and ran out to greet them. “Lindle, Humphrey! I didn’t expect you guys to come by, I saw you from my window.”

She cocked her head when she saw Dorothea, but gave her a friendly wave. “Hello! You’re one of the adventurers that were at Lindle’s party right? Dorothea?”

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Thalia.” The mage smiled at the much brighter reception, reaching out a hand to shake, which Thalia took. “You’re a druid correct? It’s nice to meet another caster.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too. What are you doing with Humphrey and Lindle?”

“Lindle wanted to get you guys registered as adventurers today, so I asked if I could help you get started. But I think Lindle had something he wanted to show you first?”

Thalia looked at him curiously, and Lindle pointed a thumb at his pack. “I made some pretty cool stuff earlier this morning, do you have somewhere we can test them out? In private?”

Thalia glanced back at her house. “Well, my family's home right now… don’t think I’m ready to go through that conversation, but I know some of the training rooms in the White Hall are empty. No one from the cycle below us is going to be using them today, so we can use the spellcasting room.”

Thalia led them to one of the back doors in the White Hall and all four of them stepped inside. Lindle had a strange nostalgia seeing his old classrooms, Humphrey and him pausing and looking inside as they scanned the rooms, Dorothea joining them if only for curiosity. Thalia, however, seemed unfazed as she walked straight to their destination.

“Do you come back here a lot?” Lindle asked.

“Oh? Well yeah, I guess, if one of the cycles isn't around sometimes I do it if I want to be alone. The True Grove is great, but there are other circle members. If I’m here, my family thinks I’m in the True Grove, and everyone else thinks I’m home.” Thalia hummed as she opened a set of frozen doors with a small spell.

“You got access to everywhere huh?” Lindle commented.

“Huh, didn’t think about it that way.” She shrugged as they walked into the training room, a simple area except for that it had bare dirt instead of the normal ice flooring and reinforced blocks of ice on the walls and ceiling.

“So!” Humphrey clapped his hands together, an excited look on his face. “Don’t keep us waiting!”

Lindle looked at Thalia and held in a snort, as she looked at him in anticipation, eager but being a lot quieter about it. He reached a hand into his pack with intentional slowness, grinning wider as he pretended to rummage around.

“Where is it… I swear I had it right here…”

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “Children. You’ve got nothing else in there Lindle, don’t tease them that much.”

The snort escaped as Lindle let out a short laugh, pulling out the brooch and holding it out for the two of them to see. “Pushed me over to level 3 when I made it, pretty awesome huh?”

They both made appropriate noises of appreciation as they read the status.

“Frostgreed Scale. You made this from the Zmey you killed on your rite? This seems like a great way to protect yourself” Thalia asked

“I’m pretty into the same too, I’m almost jealous,” Humphrey remarked.

“Yep! And that’s not all! Turns out I can make multiple items with the same effect, so I made all of us copies!” Lindle said proudly. He grabbed and pulled out the wrist guard version of Frostgreed and handed it to Humphrey.

The beastman looked down at his hands in surprise, before grinning and immediately putting it on his hand. “Hey, this actually fits pretty- woah!”

He flinches as ghostly white scales shimmered into view around him in places over his arms, chest, and legs, hovering a few inches over his clothes. They were almost completely transparent, but they still provided an impressive effect. It kind of looked like he was a lizard beastman instead of a reindeer at certain angles.

“Oh wow… that looks cooler than I expected it to,” Lindle said, walking around Humphrey to get a better look. He poked a finger against one of the scales and felt it stop, though it sunk into the scale. He pulled his finger away, as it was also frigid, the cold biting into his skin, though not enough to hurt.

“What about mine?” Thalia asked, looking excitedly at Lindle.

Lindle grinned and proudly pulled out the amulet. “I’m pretty proud of this one. It has the same effect as the others, but I managed to make it the strap of the necklace out of hide, it’s stretchy so you should be able to wildshape while still keeping it on.”

Thalia paused and looked over the amulet, scanning the amulet and running a finger over the design of the scale. “This is actually really nice… Thank you Lindle.”

She sounded a lot more earnest than Lindle had expected, so he faltered before quickly nodding. “It's fine, it was fun to make, I’m glad you like it.”

She put it on and Lindle pinned the brooch to his jacket. They each got their own set of ghostly scales to match Humphrey, though curiously they were in a few different places on each of them.

Lindle pressed down on some of his own scales over his thigh and felt no resistance as he passed through them. “Cool. The effect isn’t very powerful right now, since it’s meant to get stronger in the cold, like in the Reach.”

“If you want to get colder,” Dorothea said, a look like she had just gotten an idea coming over her face,” I think I can help.”