Chương 31

"The belt," Sid and Fritz said together, meeting gazes then looking away awkwardly. Bert chuckled then asked, "Why the belt?"

"Well, it's the strangest of the equipment and we have a vague idea of what the ring might do. And I'm sure that, in time, you'll find out what secrets your garments hold," Fritz reasoned, stretching to grab the belt and hand it to Sid. She took the belt and put the know-note to its white scales, then writing glowed into being as if carved by fire onto the paper. Sid smiled at the results, saying "Wow, that's pretty useful."

"What does it say?" Fritz inquired, leaning closer to catch a glimpse at the know note. Sid just handed it to him so he could read it himself.

Treasure Belt of the Moon Serpent Alignment: Boon, Poison, Primal.

Capacity: 3/6 Abilities Imbued Aspect of the Serpent Sly and slither, scales bright, fork ing tongue, deadly bite. Grants a minor increase to Agility, Grace, Speed and R e flex. Alignment: Boon, Primal. Cost: Two. Duration: One minute. Refresh: None.

Venomous Strike Dripping deadly, a subtle threat, cuts induce, a deep regret. Your strike inflicts a deadly venom on contact. Alignment: Poison. Cost: One. Duration: Strike: Three seconds, Affliction: Nine seconds. Refresh: None.

Fritz repeated Sid's "Wow," then continued with "Well now all we have to do is decide who uses it."

"Let me see," Bert demanded. Fritz handed it off to him and he whistled in appreciation.

"It would be great for any of us," Fritz sighed.

"Less useful for people with strikes already, I don't think you can combine two Strike abilities together," Sid espoused.

"Really?" Fritz asked, he hadn't heard that before, "But I heard one of the premier climber strategies was to attain as many strikes as possible?"

"Oh yeah, that's different though. Your own magic typically doesn't interfere with itself, but magic from an item is different since it doesn't come from your Sanctum."

"Huh," Fritz said, glad that he wasn't the only one who had been doing research and annoyed he had missed that particular fact. It made him wonder how many other gaps in basic knowledge he had left to fill and a certain sense of worry bubbled in his gut.

"That and you might be offered evolutions that combine your strikes leaving you with more Ability slots," Sid said using the vulgar term 'slots' instead of the proper academic description of Ability Channels. Fritz was about to chide her for her thuggish tongue but was distracted by Bert asking "What's this Capacity thing on the belt?"

"Well, the belt uses magic from itself, not from you, so it takes the cost of casting its Abilities from its Capacity," Fritz supplied as he got the bright idea to start sorting out his gear, so as to repack it in his new traveller's pack as they talked. Sid saw him start to unpack his ragged bags and followed suit.

"Oh, and it had three of six, how does it get more?" Bert asked. Fritz paused bag in hand, stunned by the question and suddenly feeling less worried about his lack of learning. Didn't everyone know this?

"Gold, Bert. Gold is a non-reactive-mana-reservoir. One gold triad will fill one Capacity to an item," Fritz explained, honestly still flabbergasted that Bert didn't know this.

"Oh," Bert pondered the implications.

"Can we gain mana from draining gold?"

"No, we're not Treasures," Sid stated.

"S peak for yourself. You'll find I'm considered quite the treasure," Fritz stated with his most charming wink, which just caused Sid to scoff and Bert to nod gravely.

"But we can s ort of drain gold for mana," Fritz contradicted, then continued as Sid gave him a quizzical stare.

"Well, you use gold and all sorts of other materials in potions, forging and other magical object creations. So if you drink a potion of mana restoration you might be drinking gold in an abstract sense." Sid sighed.

"So no. We can't eat gold for mana," She summarised obviously exhausted by his sophistry and fopistry.

"What happens to the gold when you use it to fill a magic object?" Bert asked, also joining in on the repacking of gear.

"Well, we can test that once we get the bull's heart out," Fritz said, "Should be an interesting lesson, and if it's interesting maybe you'll remember it." Bert nodded sagely, then not willing to wait any longer, abandoned packing his things, took up the hammer and chisel and strode to the green glass bulls statuesque body. He placed the metallic black wedge to the bull's translucent hide and started thwacking away with the steel hammer. Flecks of the green and gold glass spat off the bull as he struck repeatedly.

He pounded the chisel into the construct, driving it towards the bull's great golden heart like a black spike of spite. The chisel stuck unmoving, not able to be hammered further. Bert grinned as if he just had a brilliant idea. He wreathed his hammer in the power of Concussive Blow and struck, the rippling waves transferred smoothly into the black metal causing it to vibrate rapidly. Small cracks formed, then grew larger stretching all across the bull.

He struck again with Concussive Blow and the entire bull shattered into pieces, large chunks of glass clunked to the floor rolling away in all directions. From the middle of the pile of glass chunks the heart of gold sat there, glinting deliciously. Now that it was no longer as obscured by its glassy home, Fritz could see that it wasn't an orb or nugget of gold as he had guessed but an honest to the God's oversized anatomical bull's heart made entirely of the precious mana-rich metal.

It was bigger than Fritz's head and nearly the size of Bert's torso. Bert cleared away some of the glass rubble and moved to lift up the heart, his eyes dancing with greed. He seized it and grunted, only succeeding in pushing the heart over causing it to roll ponderously across the stone for a few moments finally coming to rest in front of Fritz.

"Heavy?" Fritz mocked with a smirk.

"Very," Bert admitted rubbing his lower back.

"Well, let's see what happens when we fill these objects with mana," Fritz suggested, grabbing hold of the white scale belt. He pressed it to the heart and... nothing happened. He focused on the belt and heart and activated them like he had with his Abilities. The heart and belt glowed with a golden luminescence and he could almost feel the magic flowing from the heart to the belt. There was the faint sound of sizzling and a deep humming coming from both the objects.

The belt stopped accepting any more mana and the glow ceased, and a fist-sized portion of the heart had gone pale and began to flake away. The pale flakes disintegrated into fine dust and the dust barely floated to the ground before disappearing entirely.

"Whoa, it just disappears?" Bert said in amazement.

"Yeah, destroyed. Try it with your clothes, oh and Sid you try it too with the ring," Fritz suggested. Doing so would destroy more of the gold but he reasoned if they couldn't carry it around then what was the point of having it in the first place? Plus it might shrink down enough to be able to move it. Bert hugged the heart rubbing his face on it in an overplayed act of affection, his pants and vest siphoning off the golden mana. The ring also drank its fill quickly and the heart lost another two, smaller, chunks.

"Do we want to test them?" Sid asked eagerly putting on the dull steel ring.

"Go ahead," Fritz agreed. Bert was first of course, and yelled out "Vest activate!" There was a glow around the blue vest, especially the closed fist sigil, then the light subsided, doing... nothing at all.

"Well, that was anti-climactic," Bert groused, "I thought it'd light on fire or something, that would have been so fearsome. Did any of you see what it actually did?" Sid and Fritz shook their heads and Bert uncharacteristically sighed. He motioned to Sid saying, "Your turn." She activated the ring, a low and soft hum reached Fritz's ears and he could see a clinging translucent bubble or something more like a second almost invisible skin hover just over Sid's body and armour.

Fritz jumped up, approached her then reached out a hand to touch her breastplate. Which she instinctively stepped back from. Fritz almost slapped his forehead in reproach. What am I doing, reaching at that area? He blushed and stammered out an apology, "Uh.. sorry Sid forgot about the whole… you know... I was just trying to test the bubble around you. Trying to see what it does."

"Uh, huh," Sid said in a disbelieving tone.

"Fritz has graduated from groping statues to real-life ladies, I'm disgusted," Bert proclaimed unhelpfully.

"I'm not a lady," Sid stated glaring at both Bert and Fritz.

"Yes, of course," Fritz agreed amicably, trying to diffuse the sudden tension.

"What bubble?" Sid asked, directing the question at Fritz.

"Can't you see it, it's subtle but it's like that invisible dome on the third floor," Fritz shivered as memories of the third floor's horrors assaulted him.

"Oh," Sid held out her arm and looked over it hard.

"Yes, I can see something now that I'm looking for it. It''s faint but it's there." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"You could see it from where you were standing all the way over there?" Sid questioned frowning at Fritz.

"Yes," Fritz tapped a finger near his right eye.

"Perception, and possibly A wareness," he guessed. Sid nodded.

"Okay test the bubble out, do it on my arm though, Fritz," Sid said with a tight smile, one that said 'don't think about grabbing at me like that again.' Fritz gulped quietly but complied, reaching out and attempting to touch her upper arm. His hand met resistance, as he suspected it would, and he pressed down hard but was still unable to get a grip.

"Seems to be some sort of barrier, can't grab you," Fritz announced his findings.

"Good to know," Sid replied side eyeing Fritz. The bubble winked out of existence, dissipating with a subtle blue glow and then a quiet last hum.

"It just deactivated, so it lasted for what? Thirty seconds?" Fritz asked. Sid nodded as did Bert.

"We should test how well the barrier takes a hit," Bert stated.

"Using Fritz this time," He amended when Sid looked at him askance.

"Why me?" Fritz groaned, already taking the ring and slipping it onto his finger.

"Because you're the one with the least S trength," Bert explained like Fritz was an idiot.

"Fair enough then," Fritz agreed then activated the ring, feeling the bubble close over him. He noticed a slight pressure on his skin and the minute muffling of his surroundings. Sid punched out a jab which was repelled by the invisible second skin. She struck again this time with a sweeping kick that popped the barrier. Fritz had to dodge the next attack, crouching under another kick to the chest.

"It broke from the kick!" He shouted in mild panic.

"I know," Sid said coolly, "Just keeping you on your toes." She smiled at him viciously. Payback was it? Was she still angry about my gaffe? Or maybe it was that thing about survival, make them regret it and they won't do it again? Fritz mused, feeling as though he w ere on the right path.

"So thirty seconds or a moderate hit?" Bert summarised, not getting involved in whatever spat Sid and Fritz were having.

"It's safe to assume it will take some of the force from a heavy hit too," Fritz said.

"Is it? Safe to assume I mean," Sid asked.

"We could test it again, plenty of gold." Fritz sighed.

"Well I can't test it, a heavy hit might just kill me," he pointed out.

"Fine. My turn then," Bert offered taking the ring from Fritz's outstretched palm.

"Sid, hit me with a Wind-Punch, don't hold back." Bert opened his arms wide, turning his chest into a huge target and activated the ring.

"Wouldn't even think of it," She replied. The wind whipped and spun around Sid's fist and she struck his gut with a clean, straight punch. The barrier popped, dissipating in an instant, and Bert was blown off his feet but managed to recover in a roll, quickly springing back up and standing. He patted his stomach where she had hit him and wincing said, "Yep, blocks some, but not all of it, definitely gonna bruise."

"Good to know. Now, how do we divide these things?" Fritz asked.

"Well I already got the vest and pants, I'm happy with that," Bert said spinning and showing off his blue and white garments in all their clean glory.

"I'm leaning towards the belt, Aspect of the Serpent could help when scouting or running," Fritz stated, eyeing it greedily.

"Plus a strike spell wouldn't go amiss with my fish- with Quicksilver."

"Hmm, it's also great for me," Sid argued.

"Switching up Strike types and Aspect of the Serpent would help my archery immensely as it is a boon ability and those tend to interact well with already aligned Attributes."

"Why don't we flip a triad for it?" Fritz offered slyly. She frowned, seeming to know his game and replied, "Even if we had one you can tell which way it'll land with Awareness or Perception. How about paper, scissors, rock?"

"And what? Lose out to your high Reflex and Grace?" Fritz argued mildly offended now that Sid was the one attempting to scam him. She clicked her tongue in annoyance, then smiled a mischievous grin at him that he mirrored instantly. She's not so bad.

"Well, I broke the bull's leg," Sid pointed out.

"And I tripped it, and saved your life when the spears fell," Fritz rebutted.

"I would've handled it," Sid proclaimed gruffly as if her mere statement could make something true.

"I'm the one who landed the killing blow, with my mighty uppercut," Bert regaled.

"It goes better with my outfit," Fritz said, retreating into the absurdity of a fashion value argument.

"Does not, the white scales and the silver breastplate go together like cheese and bread," Sid countered easily. Frustratingly Bert seemed to concede that point to her, with a smiling shrug-like gesture.

"This argument is getting us nowhere, and quickly," Fritz groused, sitting down.

"Bert as the unaligned arbiter who should get the belt?" Sid scoffed at the suggestion Bert could be unaligned, she was right to, of course, Bert would always back Fritz.

"Well how about we look at who has the most magic objects already," Bert suggested, looking them each up and down.

"Sid has none and Fritz has one, seems only fair she gets to pick first." He said surprisingly reasonably.

"I don't have any, Quicksilver shouldn't count," Fritz protested.

"He's talking about the dagger fishwit," Sid chided.

"I... uhh… f orgot about the dagger," Fritz ended lamely, then as a gambit popped into his head he continued in an overly gracious voice, "You know what Sid, how about you pick first, it's only proper you see. Ladies first." He thought she'd take offence at the Lady comment and give up the belt out of stubbornness, but instead, Sid gritted her teeth and didn't rise to the bait. She snatched up the belt, removed her own 'belt' of coarse rope, and slipped the white scaled thing through her pants loops.

She did up the jade fang-like clasp tightly and stood there, hands on her hips. Now she's just showing off. But she does look good in it, Fritz admitted to himself grudgingly.

"Well I guess I'll take the ring then," Fritz said forlornly, looking once more at the belt longingly.

"Eyes up here, Fritz," Sid admonished, smiling a hard smile.

"Was looking at the belt, you know that," Fritz said sourly, slipping the steel ring onto his right hand's middle finger. Sid just continued smiling with a mischievous joy dancing in her bright blue eyes. Fritz decided to fill his ring's capacity and so strode to the heart and pulled the mana into it. While he was there he also refilled his cursed dagger. He wondered how Steve had managed to combine Gloom Strike with the bone dagger's Strike. Maybe curse and shadow aligned abilities didn't have much interference?

There was no way to really tell how much capacity it had but he guessed it was around three, it was always a safe bet to count on threes. It was also not possible to tell what it actually did except some sort of curse strike that stopped wounds it inflicted from healing. That's what he remembered The Dawndove saying at least.

The heart was slowly being chipped away by their greedy use of its mana, and it was just light enough that Bert was able to place it, gingerly, into his Traveller's pack to test if that would make it easier to carry around. Th is led to the discover y of something new and wonderful about their packs, they made things within them lighter, not weightless or even half as light, but maybe one-third lighter. Which was a lot for a huge heart of gold, even when it was pocked with holes from mana extractions.

Bert was able to carry his pack on his back with some effort. It was still a huge win in Fritz's book, he didn't want to leave behind so much gold. Bert also insisted on taking the bull's horns, Sid thought it was dumb but he just ignored her comments. He ended up putting them through loops meant to hold bedrolls or rope. They readied their packs and gear, transferring everything important to their new traveller's packs.

"How should we distribute the potions, one stamina each and the health potion for Bert?" Fritz suggested, holding the four valuable vials in his hand.

"I don't know, Fritz, you always seem to get hurt, you should take the health potion," Bert argued clearly worried for his friend's safety.

"No way, Bert, now that I have more tricks I'm much harder to catch, you're the one who's going to be right there in the monster's reach, what if you take a hit your vitality can't heal?" Fritz argued back. They both seemed determined to give the potion to the other so Sid piped up, "How about I take it, as the fastest I could apply it to either of you in a pinch?" Fritz thought that sounded reasonable, if Bert was so hurt his new Abilities and Attributes couldn't keep up then he was likely also unconscious.

That and he could trust Sid to apply it to herself, Bert or himself, and only if needed. She wasn't one to squander resources and had a level head. When she wasn't furious that is.

"Agreed," Fritz and Bert said together, then Fritz doled out the potions, slipping his own into a hidden compartment within his shirt sleeve. Bert's pants seemed to have special reinforced pockets just for potions so he stuck his in there, while Sid put them in a pocket on her shirt beneath her breast plate where it would be safer. As they were repacking and discarding the ragged bags and sacks that had outlived their usefulness, Bert let out a mournful groan, "Fritz, do you know what this means?"

"What?" Fritz said confused and worried at his friend's sudden outburst.

"If we abandon our bags, we will no longer be bag-brothers," Bert opined.

"No!" Fritz shouted, "It's not true, we can still be bag-brothers, even without the bags," He contested hopelessly, joining in on the insane act and watching for Sid's reactions out of the corner of his eye.

"Without the bags, what would be the point?" Bert wailed, also keeping an eye on Sid.

"What are you two doing? Who cares?" Sid asserted, annoyed at their performance. Perfect.

"Bert, I have an idea, it's crazy, but it might just work," Fritz continued ignoring Sid's increasing ag itation.

"What is the plan, former-bag-brother?" Bert asked in mock despair, gripping Fritz by his shoulder.

"We form a Pack-pact," Fritz boldly pronounced, placing his hand on Bert's shoulder in reciprocation.

"Genius! A divine intellect! The Architect born again!" Bert cried out.

"Sid, quickly get over here and join us in the Pack-pact!" Sid looked at them like they were mad or had rabies, or both. She was about to refuse when Fritz also called out to her.

"Sid, you must join us, three packs for a three pact," h e pleaded. With trepidation she approached, she probably thought the whole thing mad, but Fritz knew there was a method to this madness. Anything they could use to bring themselves closer together, to make them into a team who could trust each other through thick and thin, even a n insane concept like the Pack-pact would be worth it. She made her way to their sides, her traveller's pack on just like Fritz and Bert.

"Clasp our shoulders, Sid, and we'll do the same, then the Pack pact can be sealed," Fritz intoned ceremoniously as if this were some mighty sacred ritual. She stared at him in disbelief, then sighed and clasped their shoulders. They clasped her back.

"With this, the pack-Pact is sealed, we shall be a crew until the stars go out or the Spires fall, so say I," Fritz called out.

"So say I," Bert repeated in sombre tones. Then they both waited for Sid to repeat. She rolled her eyes and spoke the words, "So say I." Fritz and Bert, unclasped shoulders and acted as naturally and normally as they had been before.

"Right, should we be off to the next floor then?" Fritz asked as if they were just talking about the weather rather than doing some strange rit e.

"Think so, got everything. Sid?" Bert inquired blandly. Sid took a moment to reply, stunned by their sudden return to normalcy, "Yes, got everything."

"Where's the door out?" Fritz asked.

"I thought you knew?" Bert said surprised. Fritz spotted a Door-like shape some distance away from the Treasure chest hole they created and pointed it out.

"There it is behind that glass wall, get the hammer and chisel out again. Bert your arm is needed!" Fritz ordered imperiously.