Ember of Invention

For a single moment, Lindle could sense absolute nothingness. No touch, no sight, no sound, it was as if he was floating through an endless absolute void. And then suddenly, he landed on his feet.

Lindle reached out blindly, he wasn’t in a void anymore, but it was pitch dark and he couldn’t see. He fumbled for a moment, calling for the others. “Rosato? Chip? anyone?”

What had happened to him? That door, he couldn’t focus on anything else as soon as his attention landed on it. Was it a trap? Lindle shook his head, he needed to focus. No one was answering his calls. If he was alone then he needed to find a way out.

The first thing that he had to deal with was this darkness. He hadn’t prepared any glow bottles, a decision he now regretted. So much for being prepared for everything. After casting [Ice Slick] earlier he was fairly low on his MP, but he needed light. [Produce Ember].

A small flame came to life in Lindles hand. After seeing things from the light of Chip's golden fire for a while now his own looked painfully mundane and small, but that didn’t really matter, it gave enough to see by.

He was in a big semi-circular lab of some kind, filled with dust and cobwebs. There were various tables pushed up against the walls or forming islands, it was awfully cluttered. He was lucky that he hadn’t walked into something in the dark. Some were filled with glassware that actually seemed familiar to Lindle, as he approached one, it resembled the more complex alchemical equipment that his mother broke out for higher-tier potions.

It kind of looked like there was high-tier equipment for a lot of different craftsmen classes in here now that he thought about it. He recognized a tanning station in the corner and a small forge in the other. It was as if someone had taken the workshops of a dozen different crafters and mashed them together in the same room. There were even a few stranger ones, such as a witch's cauldron and a sacrificial altar. Lindle avoided that one. He didn’t have anything against witches, the ones in Glacerhine were pleasant enough, but after the library, he was wary of curses.

Lindle poked around, but there weren’t any exits, not even any strange stone ‘doors’ in any of the walls. There were a few cabinets and drawers under the tables, but most of the ingredients had rotted or gone bad. Clearly, no one had been in this workshop for a very long time. Lindle tried to push down a flare of anxiety in his stomach. He would be fine, who would build a workshop with no exits?

Unless the dungeon had warped this place as some kind of sadistic trap…

Even if he couldn’t find a way out he was sure the adventurers would find him.

But they’re still trapped in that room because of The Librarian. And I’m separated from the others. Just like Rosato warned me against.

Lindle ignored the thought, taking a few deep breaths, and kept looking, keeping his gaze pointed away from the ceiling. Negative thoughts weren’t going to help him. Besides, this place was pretty interesting. It was a thousand-year-old workshop, he could distract himself for a few minutes. He was sure there were things in here that Dorothea would love to check out.

Lindle poked his head up over the desk. Towards the center of the back wall, there was a station that seemed bigger and in a lot worse shape than the others. While the others were worn down by age, that station appeared physically damaged, with burn marks and cracks in the stone desk. Lindle looked it over, it looked like some kind of pottery studio. There was a wheel, and kiln attached, with several tools hanging on racks and scattered around. No clay, but Lindle didn’t really know how long clay lasted.

He leaned down and shined his light into the kiln, looking to see if anything was inside.

Fire. Awake.

Lindle fell back and scrambled away from the open kiln, as one after another, the thoughts slammed into his mind. He stared wide-eyed as from the kiln as the small pitch-black creature slithered out from the entrance. Its entire body was composed of a dark inky substance, its head formed vaguely the shape of a flattened pair of vulpine ears and canine muzzle on its thick tube-like form, but it was hard to pin down any other defining shapes in the amorphous body. It was all one big black mass, so Lindle couldn’t make out a face, but it seemed to be looking at him, having stopped moving after poking its upper body outside of the kiln.

Lindle tried to calm down. It wasn’t very big, he could likely fit it in both his hands if it curled up. He tilted his head as he inspected it, and it tilted his head in turn, copying his movement. Was it a mimic of some kind? Lindle had been told those were slimes, but it wasn’t transforming or attacking him. He cautiously got up, holding out his hand to keep the spell fire between him and it.

The thing's face turned to follow the movement of his hand. It was interested in the fire? It looked curious. Fire was one of the things it said? He heard? Could he communicate with it?

Lindle searched for the words. What do you say when confronted with a strange pure black melted monster that could talk?

“Good morning! My name is Lindle, what’s yours?”

Lindle promptly shut his mouth. He kept his expression still as he temporarily disassociated to avoid the pure rushing awkwardness flooding his body. This is why he had only ever earned one point of Charisma. The other thing he had heard was the word awake, so he just blurted out the first thing he thought of, and well, if it was a demon of some kind Lindle suppose he just offered it his soul by giving it his name. That would probably be appropriate.

The two just stared at each other, as the small creature seemed to cringe slightly away from him. At least that meant it could understand him? The creature opened its mouth. Oh, it was about to talk after all!

A garbled mess of noises, screeching, and something like steam whistling came out of its mouth all at once. The creature shut its mouth and looked away quickly. Now it seemed embarrassed? Wait, that wasn’t right. Lindle was awful at picking up cues. There was no way he could interpret something as inhuman as this. He could… literally feel the embarrassment radiating from the creature, and he had felt the curiosity and cringe too!

“Looks like we’re both having trouble with our words. Are you okay? What are you?”

The creature looked at him again. It started slithering the rest of the way out of the kiln and onto the floor, approaching him. Lindle stood still. He couldn’t sense any hostility, it seemed more expectant? It was an odd experience, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It crawled up to him and looked up, asking and waiting. Lindle shifted onto his knees. Slowly, he reached out with his other hand and pressed the tip of his finger to its forehead.

Unfinished. Fire. Please.

The foreign thoughts slammed into his mind again, but Lindle withstood them better this time. It was… unfinished? And it needed fire? The last thought at the end had hammered home a sense of desperation. Now that Lindle could touch it, the creature's body felt familiar… was it made out of some sort of clay? It was kind of wet.

“You want the fire?”

Lindle could sense confirmation, so he lowered the hand he was using to hold [Produce Ember] and watched as the creature shoved its head into the fire.

“Wait be-” Lindle cut himself off as he watched as relief came off the creature in waves, it looked perfectly content and happy in the fire, curling up to get as much of itself in the flame as possible. Lindle tilted his head, it looked kind of cute like that. The creature turned its head, another emotion coming through, annoyance.

“Oh. You can sense me too?”

It nodded, and Lindle’s cheeks flushed red. Well, that was great. Another heavy thought came Lindle’s way.

Finish?

This time, the thought felt like a question. “You want me to finish you? Isn’t the fire enough?”

Lindle could feel a yes coming from the first question and a no from the second. So it needed the fire, but it wasn’t going to finish it, whatever that meant. “I don’t really know how. I’m sorry.”

There was confusion now, the creature tilting its head.

You Crafter. Sense Ethos.

It was getting more specific with this strange thought communication as time went on. “Well, I want to be a Crafter, but I won’t have a class for another few months. And what’s Ethos?”

Now it was confusion. It pointed the tip of its tail toward itself. When Lindle still didn’t understand, it seemed to start concentrating, and Lindle felt something different.

This.

Deep in Lindles awareness, Lindle felt the same thing he felt when he touched the door, some overpowering underlying something of him, but instead of at the door when Lindle twisted it to match the inside of the door, Lindle now felt it inside of him as it was, both blank and yet entirely encompassing of him. It reminded him a little bit of Mana and Aura as it sat inside of his pools, blank, needing to be structured and attuned, but this thing, Ethos, wasn’t confined to a pool, it was everything outside of the pools and still inside of him.

Lindle’s eyes reopened. He hadn’t even realized he had closed them. Looking back down at the creature in his hand, he could see it differently now. It was made entirely out of this Ethos material, but it was unfinished, just like it had said. It looked raw somehow.

“Woah. That was… strange.” He finished awkwardly. Lindle coughed. “So you’re made out of Ethos, and you’re unfinished. You need someone to finish making you. I think I understand that, but even though I can see it now, I still don’t know how I can finish making you.”

It seemed to stop and think for a few seconds before answering.

Become Crafter.

Lindle smiled ruefully. “Trust me, I would like nothing more, but it’s not really that easy for me. Unless I can figure something out by the time I turn 15, I’m going to be stuck with some stupid giant warrior class.” As Lindle spoke, he felt something tingling in the back of his mind. The system? It usually only called attention to itself like that when Lindle had a pending status change he hadn’t seen yet, like when he earned a stat point or…

Lindle rushed to open his status and look at the feats menu.

-Ethos Attuned (Feat)

You have attuned to the underlying essence behind reality. You can now sense Ethos present in the world around you.

His eyes flew over the feat and its description before he opened up his class option page.

Class Selection

(Only the 3 rarest classes that you qualify for will be available for selection).

- Artificer

- Giant Champion

- Jotun Shaman