The Knife

As Cynthia and Ilis came out of the back room a long while later, they found John intently carving a few runes into a small piece of wood. He almost pressed his nose onto the wood as he carefully carved out the runes, going utter slowly until, finally, he was done. He blew on the thin strip of wood, sending a small cloud of wood dust up through the air.

“Whatcha got there?” Cynthia asked curiously as she and Ilis walked over hand in hand. Ilis’ attention was drawn to the finished dagger handles that John had delivered. She quickly clambered the table and looked them over.

John meanwhile held up the piece of wood to Cynthia. “It’s a new trick I learned thanks to my second crafting profession. Carving also seems to encompass rune carving. Sadly I can only carve runes manually until I reach a certain proficiency with carving in general, but, you see,” he excitedly started, pointing at the first of three runes on the wood. “This means gather, the next one means fire, the last one means explosion,” he explained. “According to the book, thanks to the gather and fire runes, it will gather fire elemental mana to the slab, I can also manually feed it mana, but it’s nice to see that I can prepare them and let them lay around for a bit until I need them,” he was gushing and almost bouncing up and down in excitement.

“Then, finally when I put a bit of mana into the explosion rune, all of it will explode out. I can even set a timer on it with a fourth rune. And what’s even better than this! I can increase the potency of the runes by crafting better carving knives! Both my skills can complement each other! Crafting is awesome!” John laughed as he channeled a bit of his mana into the runes, then he tapped Ilis’ shoulder. “Ilis, Cyn, watch this.” He flicked the piece of wood across the room and it exploded into a small fireball halfway through its flight, burning up the wood in the process. “I can make trick throwing weapons this way! I just need to gather some special materials for carving knives and I should be able to increase my combat abilities by a huge amount.”

Cynthia hugged him and smiled. “Awesome, babe! I just fucked Ilis,” she grinned. She noticed that John’s eyes shifted from the small pile of ash to her and then to Ilis.

“You, ehm, what? Ok… That’s great.” He laughed, realizing that he might have been acting a tiny bit childish just now by showing off his newest toys.

Ilis laughed softly, her cheeks blushing crimson red. “I mean, I’m sorry for tricking your girlfriend into helping me test something out,” she spoke while looking away.

“Don’t mention it. I mean, I enjoyed having sex with you before and I doubt Cynthia felt pressured to do it; she wanted to have a threesome with you sometime so… Yeah, no harm done,” John tried to reassure Ilis, wondering how it was that he was so casual about his girlfriend fucking a girl he had had sex with before.

“It was fun! You need to build more of those things later when you finish the full designs, I bet John would love to watch us use them.” Cynthia laughed as she stepped up to the busty dwarf and kissed her tenderly. “Thank you. I had fun.”

Ilis looked completely flabbergasted as Cynthia kissed her, her eyes going to John who gave her a thumbs up. “You’re welcome, and I mean, sure, if I… can get, you know, the right materials in the camp and find someone to help me put the gluromisium parts in the right…” she started to ramble a little, tons of words John thought she was making up on the spot falling out of her mouth until he waved his hand in front of her eyes.

“Hello, John to Ilis. You okay there?”

Ilis’ head suddenly turned to look at John and she nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I was thinking… That tends to happen. Sorry. I think we should look at your results now,”

Ilis quickly shifted topics as Cynthia’s hand teasingly groped John’s cock, squeezing it twice before whispering: “Soon,” into his ear.

John shivered as he nodded, thinking that maybe, later, he could talk Cynthia and Ilis out of their clothes again, but for now, it was time for Ilis to judge his crafted handle.

The dwarf took up the pieces of wood, turning them around, inspecting them closely and tossing them up into the air for a moment only to catch them the next. “Fine craftsmanship, a bit plain, but looks decent, won’t slip. I’d say for someone that never did it before, you did a mighty fine job, John.” She flashed him a smile, then took a small drill and made a hole in two places of each handle; after that, she placed the wooden parts against the grip of the dagger, putting two small screws through the holes and fastening them. Finally, she wrapped a thin strip of leather across the middle of the grip, hiding the screws and filling up the little indents.

Holding the dagger in one hand, she held it up to John then. “There, your dagger.” She smiled proudly. “I have left a few parts that can be improved later, there is a crystal you can charge with elemental essence for certain effects for instance, but in general, it should be a good dagger for you. Be mindful, the edge is made from Stygian steel. It won’t dull and has a very strong connection to the river of the dead. Be careful.”

John took the dagger from her, casting observe on it while giving her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Ilis, I am very glad to have helped in making it.”

Gamer’s Reaping Knife (Unique)
A dagger made by combining the crafting skills of Ilis, Fredrick and the Gamer. Designed by Ilis, crafted by Frederick and finished up by the Gamer.
Effects: Execution, Underworld’s Chill

Execution: Enemies below 5% health will die when slashed or stabbed with this knife. Does not work on automatons or undead.

Underworld’s Chill: The knife is unnaturally cold due to the close relation to the river Styx. This knife is hard to melt and does +2% damage to fire elementals.

Just as John was marveling at the knife, Ilis took out a leather sheath for it. “There, now you can carry it around safely. Don’t let it cut you, the blade is quite cold.”

John nodded, putting the knife into the sheath and equipping it in his secondary weapon slot in his character sheet. The knife automatically found its way to his lower back, easy to grab from the right and where it would not get in his way during most normal movements.

John then leaned forward, hugging Ilis tightly and giving her a little peck on her forehead. “Thank you, Ilis. I promise to use it well,” he said with a wide grin on his lips.

Cynthia then added, “Normally, I would say this is cause for a little celebration, but I think it might have to wait until we have Ilis settled in back in the camp.”

Ilis nodded at this even if she was looking at John’s crotch with a hint of desire. “Yeah I think that’s fair.”

John nodded, putting away the carving knife in his inventory after Ilis told him he could keep it. Over the next ten minutes, John and Cyn walked back and forth between the workshop and the car with Ilis’ luggage, Ilis putting the last few items away that did not need special care, and then, with a charm that hid her true appearance, she joined the hunter couple at the car.