Indecision

John, burdened with indecision, paced about the house. Repeatedly, he assured himself that the differences between the two choices were minor. ‘They are only starting recipes,’ he told himself. ‘I’ll get whichever I don't take eventually.’ By now, he had weighed the possibilities a half dozen times or more.

‘Assuming popular depictions of alchemy are accurate, I should get recipes for potions and maybe metal transmutation, but that’s probably not included in basic recipes. Health potions would be great after an encounter with Frank, and mana potions would let me power level any skill with a mana cost.’

As John wandered through the living room, he took a pen from a side table and clicked it at a rapid pace.

‘I can’t predict what artificing is with any real certainty. In some games it’s just a crafting profession dedicated to mage weapons like wands and staves. It’s full blown magitech in others. Staves might make some of my Skills better or cheaper, but that’s probably not good enough to take it over alchemy. On the other hand, I don’t think I could afford to pass up magitech which might enable power armor or automatons. Of course, I can’t expect those to be basic recipes either.’

The pen was abandoned on the kitchen counter and replaced, absent-mindedly, by a pair of rounded magnets from the fridge door. Repeatedly, he rolled them over in his palm, let them come together with a clack, and slid them apart again.

‘Artificing does have a logistic advantage over alchemy. Any potions I make would probably be one time use which would **** me to constantly replenish my stocks. Whatever artificing lets me make, I can safely assume that it will survive for more than one use.’

The magnets disappeared into the chaotic folds of John's unmade bed. He retrieved an old ragged baseball from his shelf and tossed it between his hands.

‘Of course, that raises questions about where I’m supposed to get ingredients. Ignoring the fact that I’m broke, getting my hands on anything caustic is going to be a nightmare. I could probably use my Inventory to sneak some ingredients from the chemistry lab at school, but someone is bound to catch on sooner or later. Trying to buy the chemicals honestly would probably get me put on a government watch list. Artificing materials should pose less of a problem. Staves probably need wood. Magitech probably needs metal. Both will need crystals or gems, probably. I should be able to order that stuff without raising suspicion.’

Rubbing his temples, John attempted to soothe a budding headache. “They are only starting recipes,” he muttered. “I’ll get whichever I don't take eventually.”

John found himself standing in the long, picture lined hallway connecting the bedrooms of the second floor. Deeply engrossed in his analysis, he hadn’t even noticed he’d climbed the stairs. His frustration swelled. For the umpteenth time he tried to open one of his tool tips, hoping that they may provide more context to his decision, and again he was met with the same notification.

This feature is still installing. Please stand by.

“Fuck this!” he shouted into the empty house. “I can’t keep wasting my time like this. I grabbed chemistry first; I’ll take that one.” As John whipped around to storm back to the kitchen, the dozens of photos blurred around him. One caught his eye.

In a washed out polaroid, in a too large frame, a four year old John and his late father toiled in their old kitchen. A partially disassembled lawnmower engine sat on the table between them. Its excised components chaotically scattered over the ragged, stained towels protecting the tabletop. Grease smeared Ben Newman, a bear of a man with broad shoulders, muscular arms, and notable gut, stood hunched over the engine, examining some obscured fault while contemplatively scratching his bristly beard. Next to the engine and a small, red toolbox, little John sat on the table, holding a flashlight over his father’s work. Neither had noticed his mother's presence until they heard the snap of the camera’s shutter.

John tore himself away from the picture, returned to the kitchen, collected his textbook, and cast Observe.

New Skill: Craft Level 1
New Crafting Recipes: Basic Artifice

Immediately, he cast Observe on his chemistry textbook, and frustratingly, the minimum Intelligence requirement had jumped again, this time to fifty. “I can’t say I didn’t see that coming, but I was really hoping I was wrong.”

“Seems simple enough. I might as well try it out.” Casting the Craft Skill created a new menu laden with recipes. John browsed a seemingly endless catalog of mundane mechanical components, each with customizable materials and geometry. Slowly, an understanding of their applications bubbled up from his subconscious.

‘So, the effects of the Skills are subtle, and I can draw it out by applying it. This should make studying for that biology exam relatively easy.’

Sorted separately from the common mundane components were the uncommon artificing components. In contrast to the scale of his mundane selection, this catalog was quite small consisting of only four mana manipulating components: a siphon, a battery, an emitter, and a focus.

Siphons, smooth metallic disks slightly larger than a quarter, passively drained the mana from any creature they touched, which could then be captured in a mana battery. Unfortunately, siphons could not **** mana to flow uphill. Although the one foot square, three inch thick, lead lined, bronze plate encased slab of quartz could store a maximum 200 MP, siphons would limit it to matching John’s mana supply.

Emitters, luckily, didn’t suffer from the same limitation. The carefully calibrated geometry of these six inch long, wrought iron obelisks could emit mana to their surroundings as quickly as they were charged. From the siphon’s perspective, emitters were infinitely empty vessels.

Ideally, enchantments engraved into the emitter’s surface would regulate and shape the mana flowing from it, but John didn’t have any enchantments yet. He wouldn’t be making staves suitable for a wizard any time soon, but he could create respectable magic spears if he could supply a high enough mana flow.

Some variety could be imbued to this mana flow by implementation of foci, gemstones capped by a pair of hemispherical brass filigree and bound by a thin bronze band about their equators. Acting as a filter of sorts, the focus would resist the flow of mana through its core with the exception of its favored attunement. Although this lowered the mana flow through the system, the skewed mana composition would empower elementally aligned enchantments. Absent an enchantment, raw emission of this mana may produce elemental effects.

‘Well, for now it’s pretty limited, but it looks like this may lead to magitech. I’ll need to find a book for enchantment, but I have a while before I can even use it. In the meantime, I should try to power level the skill by making a bunch of magical components. Who knows, maybe I'll get enchantment Skills just by messing around with them.’

John stuffed his books back into his bag and made for the door. “That will all have to wait till later. I need to get outside before I miss…” he trailed off, in shock, as he glanced at his phone and saw that the time was 9:42.