While Wingcraft slept, an enchanter toiled. One needed to remember that for every shot Daniel fired, he spent about 15 minutes of work. Time was always a well-supplied Artificer's bane, and that was doubly true for Daniel. He had made slight improvements as he became more used to the mana patterns of his various bullets, benefiting from the same practice he'd had earlier with the bags of holding which had allowed him to make the blast bow in the first place, but it was still a lot to do given that he might also need to make other things.

In complete contrast to combat, one power reigned supreme here: Craftsman's Repose. At level 2 it cut the time he needed to sleep in half, so long as he spent the majority of that time enchanting. That, in addition to being able to advance instantly, was the only reason he could sustain an active hunting lifestyle alongside churning out wings, boots, and bullet after bullet.

The addition of the ice element to his repertoire was fantastic, a promising find for the future, but it also posed a problem. Variation cascade, as he started to internally term it. Every new formulae or affix that could apply to his ammunition was another dimension added to what he could make. Before he could choose either lightning or fire for the jacket, and then either use the element he didn't choose for the bullet or leave it as a 'blank'. That 2x3 grid had just become a 3x4 grid, and there was one for every base formulae.

Regular ammunition, spineshard detonating ammunition, and splitting ammunition were his current options. Quick math from Quick Mind tallied that to 36 different ammunition variants, and that was if he didn't make any with the jacket and the bullet as the same element. That required 9 hours of straight work to make one of each style, which included final assembly of one while the next was cooking. Ammunition Surplus helped, but it only triggered around 10% of the time.

Daniel's guilt over how he'd handled Khare was lessened slightly as he realized that he never could have realistically given the gestalt a blast bow that they could independently use. It was hard enough making the rounds for himself, and that was before he threw a third element into the mix. If he wanted to prepare for every encounter possible, then he'd ideally have two magazines of every type he'd want. That included both 'pure' magazines that only had one kind of bullet, and those that used the same elemental jacket while alternating which element the bullet used.

It added up to complete madness when each magazine was nearly two hours' worth of work. Also just under six days assuming Ammunition Surplus triggered optimally. Six days, not counting sleep, and that was just to make two magazines of every kind he could make now. Daniel didn't even want to assign Quick Mind to do the math for how long it would be once he got a fourth and fifth element. He was starting to see how Arpan had ended up enchanting alone in a basement.

He'd be happy to get two done tonight and then turn in, and it wasn't like he'd enchant endlessly until meeting that quota. There was time, and for most things every element he had damaged them equally. If I'd been confronted with this at the start, Daniel thought, I might have given up. But I get it now.

It sounded insane when you just put it in one sentence, but Star enchanting Hunter's body into a tooth that was physically connected to him had opened the door in his mind. He could spin mana into physical objects instantly, if only he could learn every nook and cranny of what he wanted to make. Someday, years, decades, or centuries from now, he'd get so good at enchanting ammunition he could just generate it in his blast bow and forgo all the prep work entirely.

That wouldn't be now, but with every successful enchantment, he felt a little closer to understanding a basic rule of reality. Not a fundamental law per se, but insight into how one of the domains that the world was built upon worked. If Bekali ever became lucid again, she might even be able to give him tips.

With all the practiced diligence of an enthusiastic lab student turning on a Bunsen burner for the hundredth time, Daniel invaded the piece of bone in front of him with his mana and began to contort it to his will. When the process was started he tasked Quick Mind with observing the process, this being less helpful than if he'd remained in deep concentration, but there was stuff to go over in his Focus.

First, he'd only received one advancement potential from the wyvern fight. Fair, considering Tounaki had handled the toughest one and he had otherwise been the strongest by attribute total that had directly fought the others. Daniel was now getting the short end of the training advantage he'd had back in the Thormundz, but that was ok. While getting to level 3 had been briefly tempting as he considered that the raised affix limit would let him enchant with bonecut and two elements, the thought of how that would affect his bullet math had made him once again put off the decision.

Everything else was at 24, and there wasn't an obvious direction to go. He doubted he'd get a power since he was hitting the point where awakening one with every other advancement potential started to fall off, and he'd gotten two from four potential from his last advancement. It'd just be a straight improvement to his attributes. Helpful, but in a less dramatic fashion than it'd otherwise be.

Putting that aside, he turned to assess the two formulae he'd gotten from the wyverns. Two, not three, as the scalebound shield had been a true duplicate to the one he'd kitbashed way back from the greater skink. While it was surprising that that hadn't been a unique formulae, he knew he'd run into this problem more with the more he unlocked. Especially considering everything in Threst was flight-based.

Frostfang (Formulae: Enchanting, Melee Weapon, Domain: Enchanting, Quality: Standard, Level: -)

A weapon with intrinsic Element: Ice properties ideally suited for piercing attacks. In addition to its elemental damage, this Item has a chance to inflict Effect: Freeze on its target, scaling with the total damage done and the wielder's Attribute: Luck.

Creation of this item has no special requirements.

Daniel's smile grew a bit pained as he kept reading. Initially it read as a good dagger or shortsword formula, though he couldn't stop himself from thinking of another use. If I just make a cylindrical 'dagger' with a sharpened end, that could be a pretty good bullet. That being said, it wouldn't be strictly better than regular ammunition enchanted with the ice affix because, as a melee weapon, frostfang wouldn't be able to benefit from any enchantments on his barrel. He could still shoot it toward enemies, but it wasn't worth making this exclusively over the other version, which meant a few more magazines of ammo if he wanted to benefit from whatever this freeze effect would do.

Using this for Khiat's arrows was likely a no go for similar reasons, he wasn't sure how the melee weapon tag would interfere with her powers because his Focus refused to identify them. Mixing in other elements was possible, though because of how the spineshard formulae handled those affixes he doubted adding the fire affix would let him stack fire and ice damage. What would happen to the freeze effect, though?

His second formulae at least didn't lend itself to another bullet design.

Circlet of Cooling (Formulae: Enchanting, Item, Domain: Enchanting, Quality: Standard, Level: -):

A band of material that allows for anything placed inside it to benefit from ambient temperature reduction.

Creation of this item has no special requirements.

The formulae was clearly intended as some kind of mobile personal air conditioning, though Daniel wondered how intense the effect could get. Was he looking at the formulae for a magical refrigerator, and oven for that matter with the fire affix? What would happen if he added lightning? If he tripped over the bodies of a hundred weird monsters tomorrow and got a strange affix, what might that do? Daniel shook his head as he thought back to Hagain and his utter boredom with some amount of amusement. A 10 hour marathon enchanting a set of armor might get dull, but enchanting itself never would be again for him.

The first fire jacket clunked onto the table as it separated from the rest of the bone, forming a piece about twice as wide as his thumb and as tall as the first knuckle. Daniel checked his stash before starting the next one and grimaced. Still more relative to how much fur he had left, but the ammo was taking a toll considering he still made a dozen arrowheads for Khiat now and then. He did benefit from level disparity as the wolf bone was level 3, but as the math attested, he made a lot of bullets.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Daniel was only half a minute into the next fire jacket when there was a knock at the door. "Hey, got a minute?" He recognized Shuni's voice despite the absence of an aura, which wasn't too odd. She could remove his identification power whenever she used one of her bigger stealth options, and might have done that for one reason or another before coming here.

The Artificer looked at his pending creation and knew that Shuni would have to do something pretty dramatic to ruin what he was doing. "Yeah, I'll be up for a few hours enchanting anyway. Door's unlocked."

"Good to know," Shuni said, her voice now coming from directly behind him. That did almost make Daniel fail, but he held on and metaphorically pulled up right before the nose hit the ground. "Ah, sorry," Shuni apologized, the earlier puckishness about her dwindling. Daniel moved and rotated his chair so he could both maintain eye contact on the bone while making sure the Rogue wouldn't jump scare him again.

As he did, he caught the nervousness in her posture. "Everything alright?" he asked carefully.

"I just, I need to ask you something." Shuni took in a breath, startling Daniel as he wondered if this was leading to what he hoped it wouldn't, but his fears were unfounded. "Am I getting kicked off the team?"

"What?" He furrowed his eyebrows, not seeing where this was coming from at all. "No, why would you think that?"

"It's, I mean," Shuni briefly stammered, and there was relief mixed with the real fear that had been in her voice. Like a true Rogue, she'd been hiding these emotions well earlier only to reveal them now. "There was that talk about how this was a larger team than normal earlier, and in that fight, I know Evalyn wasn't happy with how I did. Then she ends up getting frozen along with a bunch of you, and someone could have died if Tounaki hadn't shown up."

He'd never seen her this insecure. Granted there were all those times she qualified that she wasn't the kind of Rogue who stole and how greedy she wasn't, but there'd been an almost annoyed confidence. Right now it seemed she'd come into the room half-expecting Daniel to give her the bad news so Evalyn wouldn't have to. He saw the problem pretty quickly. "I know you don't really know Evalyn, but trust me when I say she's not the kind of person to just kick someone out because of one bad run. Hell, I'd stick up for you, and so would everyone else on the team that fought with you in the ruins."

A sigh escaped Shuni's beak as she took in that news, collapsing onto the edge of his bed as she rubbed at her forehead with one hand. "Shit, I should have known. Sorry, I just heard what she said when we got back and got worried with how serious she was being. It was like someone had died."

"She was just putting up a strong front for the Commander," Daniel assured. "Shuni, you're fine, really. Evalyn's not used to having a Rogue on the team, is all, and I'll easily admit she's a better leader than I am because she tries to coordinate better than 'go there, kill that, and try not to die.' I mean, I left you completely alone for at least two of the fights we did in the ruins."

That only made Shuni grimace. "Honestly, I preferred that to last time. I can't just shout out where I am and what I'm doing at the drop of a feather, or else I might as well start shining like that night sun. That's not how my class works."

"And we can tell her that tomorrow. Having fought with Evalyn before, I can tell you this isn't a dictatorship." The next jacket clattered to the desk, briefly undergoing mitosis as Ammunition Surplus triggered. That drew Shuni's eye but she didn't comment, and Daniel didn't immediately start another one. "Good leaders adapt, and Evalyn's a good leader. We'll need to talk things out and see how we can improve communication without spoiling your powers, but it's not the end of the world."

That got a laugh, Shuni now covering her eyes before rubbing one and doing the weird kind of sniffle avianoids did. "See, this is why I like you."

"Apocalypse humor?"

"No, you're." Shuni waved a hand for a moment before she found the words. "Shit, you trust me. Most people hear 'Rogue' and palm their coin purse. We either get rotated through teams or luck out and find one that likes working with us, then an asshole gets caught with their hands in the team's seed jar and everyone goes on high alert. But you straight up told me all this stuff about you that no one else would have in a thousand years."

"Well, yeah," Daniel said, not exactly sure how they'd arrived at this point. "You were risking your life to help Hunter, and at that point I felt anyone who did that deserved the truth. Especially when my Spoke became relevant in the ruins."

"But to most people, I'm not just anyone," Shuni countered. "They'd be worried I'd sell the secrets, or pop up later and use them as blackmail. It's not like I was on your team full time, but that didn't matter to you. After knowing me for only a few weeks, you even let me stay here with your sister and all the things that happened to her." She held up a hand before Daniel could comment on that. "I know you'll say that I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I don't have anyone in my life who's been so comfortable so quickly around me, not until I met your team. Pretty sure Dakalos and the rest checked their coin when they were leaving and they liked me."

Damn, I didn't know Rogues had it this bad, Daniel thought to himself. Or is it just here, or just Shuni? I don't think there's anything about her that screams untrustworthy, but then again seeing her appear out of nowhere and eviscerate a monster did make me a little apprehensive. The team had also had the same reaction to Khiat's class for the most part, and hadn't he done a sniff test to make sure she hadn't stolen anything when they first met? Without that encounter, Daniel might have been more skeptical if it was just some random Rogue named Shuni joining them for a ruins run.

He did notice an odd discrepancy though. "What about your family? Actually, wait, where is your family? If they're back in Aurus we can try getting them moved to the compound like what we're doing with Khiat."

"This is going to sound like the most stereotypical thing in the world, but, yeah. Orphan," Shuni said, pointing to herself. "Back when we were fighting that poison elite, Sigron tried to use his bond on me, but whatever it was looking for it didn't find."

Someone else who can never see their family again. Hell, she never had one in the first place. Part of Daniel wanted to ask how orphanages in Threst were run, and if they were tossed out of the nest when they came of age, but he knew that would be the wrong move. "I'm sorry."

"Can't miss what you never had, right?" Shuni replied with a sad smile. "I'd say I'm better off than you or your sister."

"Still, that's rough." Daniel felt the mood plummeting and tried to correct it like he had his earlier enchantment. "Well, it's like I said. Evalyn isn't going to kick you off the team, and even if she got replaced with an evil twin, or uh, clone while on my world, I own this place so you have a room no matter what. You should just get some rest and tomorrow we'll work things out."

"Thanks, again." Shuni made to stand but stopped halfway to the window as she looked at his desk again. "All this time I've never seen you enchant. You do it this late?"

"I have a power that lets me count a few hours of it as sleep each night." Seeing her interest and no reason to not explain, Daniel started enchanting another fire jacket as he continued talking. "The basics are that I'm pushing mana into material over time to change its mana structure into the pattern of the formulae that I want. That, by the way, could be considered a secret of the gods considering it's the only magic Star knows."

She laughed again, a little more incredulously than before. "Another major secret that you just freely share with me."

"Might as well drop one or two while you're here." Daniel smiled, thinking of his internal musings earlier in the night and finding a more poetic way to put them. "I do love it though. I didn't at first, it just seemed boring, but there's a kind of music to it. With practically infinite notes, some so hard to hear they might as well not be there. But if I can learn to play it perfectly, I can do what Bekali was and make things on demand."

"Sounds beautiful. I wish I could hear it," Shuni sighed. She opened her beak, paused after the first syllable, and then committed to what she wanted to say. "I hate my class. When I was young I just wanted a way to be better, have a better life, but I didn't think it would be like this. All the mystery and adventure I thought I'd find turned into hard looks and emptiness. I get by and it's gotten way better now, but I still freaked out when it sounded like I was getting the boot even though now I get I was being stupid."

"It wasn't that stupid. Not compared to some of the stuff I've done," Daniel said with an attempt at humor. "And hey, at the very least I'll give that you're good at your class. If you don't like it now, then all you might have to do is hit level 3. The Octyrrum's unrestricted a lot of new ones, you could evolve from Rogue into something that fits you better."

Shuni gave him a complicated smile with that, full of gratefulness, lingering tension and sadness, and a few other things that were hard to pin down. "Why couldn't I have found someone like you years ago?"

"For starters, I wasn't here years ago," Daniel said. "And it's not like the rest of the team is waiting for you to slip up so they can throw you to the wolves. Hunter's sold on you and I honestly can't tell you what it'll take to make Tak completely hate you. Give Evalyn a chance to explain her side and you'll see it isn't as bad as you think."

"Yeah, but…" What Daniel was trying not to see in Shuni surfaced again as she looked at him. The interest was still there. She was clearly trying not to say anything, respecting his choice even if it hadn't been a complete no. At the same time, his words were coming back to him. What Murdon and Tounaki's eyes had suggested earlier today was also coming back to him.

He wasn't fixated on them or anything, but they were the most readily available reminder at hand of what he was missing out of life. After Claire he'd had several things to keep him off that road, from the memory of her to the thin hope he'd somehow find a way back home, but by this point Daniel had accepted that this was where he belonged. And, you had to move on, didn't you? It wasn't like they were expecting things to get better, and there was no one else he was both familiar with and possibly interested in.

Willow was right out. He respected her, admired her even, but not in any romantic way. Evalyn was a more muddled picture, but he had far more surety in his heart that nothing would happen with her than compared to Shuni. There had been, but as he'd told Hunter, as the hunger grew, so did the urge to sate it. Would he be betraying every assurance he gave the ringcat if he didn't take a chance on someone? Should he care about Shuni's species, was Alex more right about him than they'd known, or did it even matter now that he was technically quarter cat?

It all ran through his head at once as the implication in Shuni's hesitation reached him. He wasn't about to ask her if she wanted to jump into bed, but at the same time, should he be outright rejecting her? They could explore what may or may not be between them without needing to skip right to the end. I'm actually considering this, aren't I? I was so sure, but was that just me holding onto the bad memories from Claire? It's not like I don't like her, I did the first time we met. Ah hell, I need to talk to Quala about this don't I? And maybe Alex if I can get through my thoughts without her laughing her ass off.

"You alright?" Shuni asked after Daniel had continued to stare for a few seconds longer than normal.

"Uh, yeah, yeah." Fuck it. "Hey, Shuni, you can stay if you want to talk some more. Like I said I'll be up enchanting for a few hours and the company would be nice, though I'll pretty much have to go to sleep right after," Daniel said, taking pains to make it clear that the bone would be the only thing he would be working on tonight. "You can dip out whenever you get tired."

Shuni took her own extended pause as she considered that, before her smile got a little brighter. "Yeah, that sounds fun."

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