Ms. Gwyn did not want to accept my answer at all and started pestering me about my 'maybes' until I had told her about pretty much everything but the fact Poniard ate a human heart. The ax itself was a loose mana stone of sorts when Poniard retrieved it, so I used that to try and convince her he was just innately a magic goblin. She already knew about the hearts feeding my goblin's strength, I let her believe his lack of competition aided his rate of development.
I did not think eating a human heart would really be some form of catalyst for being a dark magician, or some shit, but there was definitely something different about Poniard afterward. He became much calmer than he already was as well as more observant. He probably became smarter, so maybe hearts also gave goblins and creatures of this world characteristics of the owner or owner's species?
In the end, Ms. Gwyn had no choice but to let it go because I simply had no solid answer to give her. I simply did not have one, myself! However, the others were not so easily pleased and crowded around Poniard to try and talk to him and get him to show them some magic.
At first, Poniard was scared and confused but after Fred and Frank started pointing at the staff while making exploding noises and gestures he seemed to get the idea. Pointing his staff out to the side, Poniard lightly touched the tip of his staff's linear geode to a stalk of grass. On contact, the geode crackled with something like electricity that struck the stalk.
Even though it looked like what would happen if you wore socks on carpet and touched a doorknob, the effect it had was like that of a full-fledged lightning bolt. Not only did the entire plant vaporize into mist and ash, the electric-style magic jumped to the next targets in multiple directions. Then they did it again, and again, vaporizing everything.
When the magic display was over, the ground within fifteen feet of my goblin was black with steamed soot from the water content in the plants as well as the disintegrated plants themselves. The entire area was one thin cloud of steam like a casual sauna. Even though it was just a little purple lightning and overgrown weeds, the implications were incredible.
By the same scale content, Poniard could probable one-V-one a mature troll or ogre and win with one or two taps. "Poniard, love, may I inspect your staff?" Karen asks in a sickly sweet manner, giving my familiar and ingratiating smile. Poniard was having none of it and only narrowed his eyes at her.
Stepping up with an uncertain smile, Leo kneels down like he was talking to a child and says, "Poniard, may I hold your staff? I will give it back when I am done, promise."
Poniard probably did not know what he was actually saying, but the goblin had a better impression of Leo than Karen after watching her take the death stone from me. So, after looking to me and receiving a shrug, Poniard unwillingly let Leo hold his new staff. Karen took a step closer to Leo to also get a closer look at the item, but Poniard hissed and she stopped.
After witnessing his uniquely trained punishment skill, she probably did not want to get on the wrong side of my familiar.
Nodding his head in appreciation, Leo says, "Not bad at all, the grade is the same as the death stone cube but the quantity of mana is definitely less. Well, maybe I should say this mana is thin where the stone's is thick. It might be related to the density of the materials and the creation processes. The stone was pure mana but the staff was basically synthesized from a flint weapon."
"I'm the craftsman, here," Karen seems to pout dejectedly, probably the only person here who could give the best answers about these items. "It's not just the materials, its the mana itself that is different. The death stone is the accumulation of life and death in this area from over who knows how long. The stuff in the staff is the impurities that could not make the stone."
"But have we decided what we want to do with the cube?" Ms. Gwyn asks seriously, bringing everyone back to the main issue at hand. "As far as I'm concerned, Poniard made the staff thing so even if it's not Poniard's it's definitely Malcolm's and he already opted out of his equipment share. What do we do with the real rock?"
Briefly flicking his gaze toward Karen while looking at his wife or fiance, Leo says, "Gwyn, dear, Karen made a very valid point. She's the craftsman here and if she became a more permanent part of the party she'd be just the person to have part this cube out into equipment for us and sell the rest as accessories or material. Just the faces alone would make three shield bosses for Fred and Frank each. The corners can make wand tips for us, these original twelve edges can be transmuted or synthesized into blades, half the remaining mass can be used to make arrowheads and bullets and then what's left can be parted out or sold as a bulk."
"We should totally go with that," Karen says excitedly, finally looking away from the mid-grade magic items in the area and hopefully at Ms. Gwyn. "Eliza and I still have the contracts you offered us and you guys are lots of fun to work with. let's party?"
Giving Leo a look that was probably unique to their relationship, probably one of those looks that said, 'tonight', Ms. Gwyn openly says, "We'll set it in motion once we're back home and have time. Since we emptied a revenant field we probably do not have to stay in the portal but we can still hunt with the allotted time. For now, I want everyone running around looking for where the rest of the impure death stone pieces disappeared to. Poniard only got a few of them."
"I'll go look in the direction of the bait trap, maybe there are some bones and stuff left," I say, wishing we had been able to get that one giant pigorilla's hide last night before the undead ate it. Seeing me turn to walk away, Poniard also snatched his staff back before hurrying off to follow me.
If we did decide to stay and continue hunting, I could still make plenty of money in resources to not worry about an equipment upgrade from the cube. The money, though, I was pretty sure I would still get some of. If not then I would just have to find a way to make up for it in another portal.
While appreciating the fact that Lucinda would not sign any contracts concerning me prioritizing services to any particular parties besides the Bureau.
The ground was an upturned and trampled mess of ruined plants, dirt, and root systems pointing in every directions where the bait carcasses had once been. The ground was still dark and the some plants still carried dried fluids from the bodies. However, there was nothing left but broken bones. That much, at least, was worthwhile.
Even if all of this boned material were ground up and mixed together, it was more pigorilla bones than anything else and thus would make D grade 'ivory material' at the very least. The only problem was raking it up into a pile and bagging it like yard trash. I could only send Poniard to fetch some bags and a rake and set to work, hoping he remembered the brief yard cleaning training the hobs had received.
When Poniard returned, thankfully with a retractable rake and his own rucksack, I had him start bagging the bones while I continued raking up the small and large chunks. It took about twenty minutes but we eventually cleaned the bones from the area and even turned the ground a bit in search of more. There was nothing more.
Carrying not only Poniard's ruck but my own that he had to go fetch, we returned to camp where the others were going over their own finds. Most of what they found were random fragments of bones left over from last night revenants that looked like normal bone. There were also a few other larger pieces of what looked like shiny black stone but turned out to be shiny black ivory.
Picking up one of ten pieces gathered together on a table, I find that it actually has a surprising amount of weight to it despite only being twenty inches long, two thick, and three inches broad with rounded ends. Where a similar leg bone of the same size with wet marrow would weigh a little less than this solid ivory, the ivory weighed more than ten pounds. That meant this thing was incredibly dense.
"Some of them have like dots and lines on them," Leo says from the other side of the table where I was looking at the piece in my hands. "We thought they might be like a puzzle or something, but they all have smooth edges and are different but solid shapes. They were found all around outside of camp, Emilia and he people are still looking for more."
There were some circular pieces on the table of similar sizes, more rectangular portions with varying lengths and depths, one large half circle piece, and some smaller miscellaneous triangle pieces.
After considering the things that could be made with them, I say, "I couldn't tell you where or what they came from or how they were made, but I CAN tell you that one would be a perfect ax head, those two would be swords for our swordsman, those could be shield bosses, and the rest could be scrapped into arrowheads and bullets like the death stone."
"What about the one you're holding?" He asks with an arched brow similar to the looks his wife gave people.
Smiling innocently, I pick up Poniard's spear from where it lay across the top of his ruck and began comparing the sizes of hits ivory spearhead and the black ivory length in my hands. "You're spoiling the damn thing," Leo says while rolling his eyes. "If the others don't come back with more, that'll be both the stone and the ivory that you did not get anything out of."
"Have you seen the shit Poniard has been doing lately and does normally?" I ask while returning his arched eyebrow. "If I don't spoil him, he'll sell himself to somebody who will and leave me in the dust. Plus, he's half the essence of my familiar business right now. The better he looks, the better I look."
"Fair enough, just don't regret it later," Leo replies, then waves me away when I go to put the ivory down. "Just take it and go, everybody knows we owe you for at least a third of what went down last night. Believe it or not, you're the only person who actually took any real injuries last night. Even the tankers only had some dark bruises here and there."
"Last night… oof, I was a mess," I say while quickly turning around and hurrying away to my tent to drop off the ivory before dumping our rucks in a large wooden trunk. The sound of all those bone fragments and chunks clinking together was actually kind of satisfying to listen to slowly, as if showing off how many bones had been collected.
About enough to fill two feet of the trunk.
Next I went off to find Ms. Gwyn, hoping to use what Leo had said to my advantage. When I found her, she and Karen and Fred were discussing what the make the rest of their shields with. Because their current shield had a magic ability, if the new shields were to replace them they would also need such an effect and this became an issue.
Even though Karen was a lower D grade craftsman with 'low' combat capabilities, there were some things she could not do. The expansive of an energy wall that can fill common tunnels with a single shield? Not so much.
Can she make shields that do things like attaching to an opponent's weapon and body with dark element or corroding anything that touches them with death energy? Yes. As for the old methods for dealing with certain underground chambers, they would have to wear those shields for back protection and circumstantial use.
There were a few more options for various effects, but what Fred liked was the idea of a pair of shield weapons that caused corrosive damage. His idea was wearable weapons he could use in tandem with his current shield, probably a bar or sheet of metal to wear around his forearms like some tankers did but pointed and encased by synthesized death stone.
Upon stabbing somebody from around his normal shield, the corrosion would take effect and he would be able to free his weapon with ease to continue striking. With his flanged mace, there were times with the flangs would get caught in bone or slime tissues and draw the enemy around for a moment. Corrosion and a point were what he was interested in.
I had already seen that it was not uncommon for tankers to wear arm protection specially for actively blocking, even Carlos and Emile had deflective arm guards. There were even people who used the same or similar equipment because they preferred the practices of unarmed martial arts. Maybe Fred was secretly a Kung Fu junkie.
When they finished discussing how to divide Fred's portion of the stone into what kind of pieces, I asked if Poniard and I could have leave to go hunting and gathering. "Eliza is already wandering the bottom of the hill for things we might have missed yesterday or anything that might have fallen down," Ms Gwyn informs me after a brief moment of consideration. "Even with Poniard, if I can't let Eliza go far out then I can't let you go much further. Go together."
"Yes, ma'am," I say solemnly, going back to my ten to equip my full regalia before taking Poniard down the hill. There, I put my thumb and forefinger in my both to whistle loudly and sharply two in the same breath. After a few moments later, there was what sounded like two rocks or two pieces of metal banging together twice in quick succession from further around the hillside.
At the base of the hill about eighty yards around one side I found Eliza in her own equipment carrying a large rope and wood basket on her back as well as a large burlap sack. The sack was already darkly stained from its large amount of time spent being used but it was currently trailing frequent drips of blood from where she held it our away from her body. From some of the plant parts sticking out of one side of the basket, I could tell she had done well so far.
She had probably gone out further afield than she was supposed to, even with a bag of bait in her possession.
"Any luck with the black ivory?" I ask as Poniard curiously hurries forward to sniff at the sack. Some of the animals probably still had their bits in them.
"I found a piece on the way down," she replies simply, watching Poniard blankly as she sniffs at the sack and then looks at here with his hands clasped together. Was this guy BEGGING? Luckily, Eliza simply ignored him except to stare at him until he stopped. "I'm not his owner so I don't want to give him any treats."
*