Battlecraft (Doors of the Dreamer, Chapter 12)
Fragments of Hyperborea
Author’s note: For the month of July I am challenging myself to write and post one chapter a day every two days with minimal planning and outlining. You can read the first chapter of Doors of the Dreamer here.
David held up the crystal. Its ivory color seemed to shimmer if looked at from the right angle.
“Sounds like you got pulled in to a side quest,” Lance said.
David looked at him. “I guess I did. So if this is a quest reward, do you think it’s special somehow?”
“Maybe. What name does it have in your inventory?”
“Pure quartz shard.”
“Hm. Sounds like something that could be used for crafting. Want to try making a wand?”
David smiled. “Let’s do it.”
Lance proceeded to explain every detail of the crafting system. Some of it David had already known or inferred, but he listened without interrupting.
The basis of crafting in Doors of the Dreamer was the combination of any arbitrary number of items. Most combinations yielded no results, but the ones that did could be saved by the user to create a reusable crafting recipe. These recipes could, of course, be shared online. Long before David started playing, most recipes had been discovered by players, but occasionally someone stumbled upon something new. In the game, the primary use for crafting was creating potions, but some equipment could be crafted as well.
“Adding real-world items into the mix makes this all the more complicated,” Lance said. “Retrieve water gunblade.”
The item that appeared was, as David realized eventually, the fusion of a water gun and a sword. The sword was single-edged with an orange gun barrel attached to the blunt side. A tube connected the barrel to a small water tank embedded in the blade itself. The trigger to fire it was beneath the hilt.
“Does it work?” David asked.
“Technically, yes.” Lance gripped the blade with his fingers, careful not to cut himself, then pulled the trigger. A stream of water shot out of the barrel. “Obviously it’s not very practical, even if it shot bullets instead of water.”
Lance went on to demonstrate a few more results of his crafting experiments, though all were similarly absurd and useless. His biggest discovery was realizing that the final item added was sometimes treated as a tool and was not consumed during the process. This was how cooking worked, by placing something like a frying pan in the last slot after raw food.
“So the order of items matters,” David said.
“Correct. You can get different results from the same crafting inputs by simply changing the order. I figured that out when I noticed potion-related recipes that used a mortar and pestle always put it last.”
“What happens if you don’t?”
“It tries to combine the items with the tool, and the tool is lost.”
At this point, David was itching to try it out himself. “What kind of tool do I need to make a wand?”
“Actually, for weapon crafting, no tool is necessary. You’ll need another wand to use as a base.” He began scrolling through his inventory “Here.”
A short wooden rod materialized, and Lance handed it to David. It was perfectly smooth and had no distinguishing features.
“I like to hold on to low-level weapons for crafting purposes. Put that in the first slot and then the quartz, and see what happens.”
He did. “The button is still grayed out. Do I need another item?”
“The recipes can be difficult to predict. Let me see if I have anything that could help.”
Lance and David fell quiet as they searched for a third item. David was tempted to try something ridiculous, like a pair of socks, just to see what would happen.
“Okay, let’s try this,” Lance said eventually. A golden orb the size of a baseball materialized in his hand. “It’s a fragment of Hyperborea, a rare drop from Doors of the Dreamer. Whenever I craft with one, it seems to have an amplifying effect on the results.”
David wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but turning the orb over in his hands he sensed that it was a powerful item. Inscribed on the gold surface were long strings of unfamiliar symbols. Along its circumference was a thin groove, through which several concentric wheels could be seen spinning inside the thing. He stored it, added it as his third item, and tapped “Craft.”
“Well?” Lance said.
“Equip wand of the dove.”
The shaft of the wand was made of a smooth, marble-like material complimented by golden stripes that twisted around its length. At its tip was the quartz crystal, embedded snugly in the marble.
“Bizarre looking thing. How are its stats?”
David held up his phone, and Lance’s eyes widened.
“I’m surprised you’re able to equip this,” he said.
The wand was heavier than David expected, but it felt good in his hand. “Now this is battlecraft.”
Lance looked at him.
“Used to play World of Battlecraft with a friend, Oliver. We would always joke about how they kept updating the game but never added ‘battlecraft,’ whatever that is. Every time we played a game with a crafting mechanic, we would bring it up again. ‘Is this battlecraft?’” David grinned.
“I see.” There was a softness in Lance’s voice that David had never heard before. “I’m sure your friend is fine.”
“I want to get stronger,” David said. “I want to get strong enough to clear a raid so we can both go home.”
Lance nodded. “I have something else for you. Looted it from the dungeon and forgot to give it to you.”
He retrieved a silver shortsword and held it out.
“It’s not as powerful as your fancy new wand,” Lance said, “but clerics can equip it, and now you have a better weapon for close range. Although, you’ll have to train yourself to use a sword left-handed.”
David swung the sword around a bit.
“One more thing. Wanting to get stronger is good. But at some point you may encounter an… unusual fiend. I call it Faust.”
David frowned.
“I suppose the more correct name would be Mephistopheles, but that’s a bit of a mouthful.”
“I don’t know what you’re referencing.”
“Nevermind. This fiend, Faust, will find you when you’re at a low point and offer you a bargain. It’s very important that you do not accept, no matter how tempting it is.”
“What kind of bargain?”
Lance’s expression was stony. “One with short-term gain and long-term consequences, to put it mildly.”
“Like a deal with the devil.”
“Something like that.”