After letting the dummy beat the ever-living shit out of me for a full hour to earn my three constitution bonus points, I queued up a quick meal from the cookpot, raised my cooking skill to four, then settled down in front of the forge.

Ezzie said.

she said,

I swallowed a mouthful of fish stew and grinned.

Ezzie said.

I deflated a little.

Ezzie said.

I said.

I brought up the first recipe:

Recipe: {Bronze Breastplate}

Requirements: 13 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 8 Leather Strap.

{Bronze Breastplate of the ??}

Grade:F

Item level: 10

Slot: Chest

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (primaries will be generated upon item creation).

Armor: 18

Durability: 40/40

Modifier available: {Mysterious Scale}

Result: ??

Chance of Success: 50%

Chance of Failure: 40%

Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10%

I said, confirming my choices. The forge lit up, the many belts feeding the components into a central mold. I held my breath as a progress bar appeared and started to fill.

25%

50%

75%

Success! You crafted {Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution}!

Your skill in Armorsmithing increased by 3!

Progress to Intermediate Armorsmithing: 78/100

Ding!

You procced a random upgrade!

{Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution} has increased in quality to rare!

Ezzie said.

I said. I brought up the item.

{Iceshard Breastplate of Constitution}

Grade: F

Item level: 14

Slot: Chest

Type: Plate

Quality: Rare

Durability 75/75

Primaries: +5 Constitution

Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance

Armor: 22

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Set}

2/8 piece bonus: ??

5/8 piece bonus: ??

8/8 piece bonus: ??

I said.

Ezzie said.

I said.

Recipe: {Bronze Greaves}

Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 3 Medium Flux, 7 Leather Scrap.

{Bronze Greaves of the ??}

Grade: F

Item level: 10

Slot: Legs

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Armor: 12

Primaries: Random combination of Str/Dex/Con (Primaries will be generated upon item creation).

Durability 50/50

Modifier available: Mysterious Scale

Result: ??

Chance of Success: 50%

Chance of Failure: 40%

Chance of Catastrophic Failure: 10%

Ezzie said. Ezzie said.

I confirmed my choices.

25%

50%

75%

The bar halted at a little under ninety percent, then disappeared.

Catastrophic failure. All materials have been destroyed.

I said.

Ezzie said.

I sighed and cued up another pair of greaves. Which failed ten percent into the creation process.

Thankfully, it’d just been a regular failure, so I hadn’t lost the scale I’d used, and I had so much bronze on hand between the bars I’d forged before the invasion and the raw materials I’d farmed up via the golems that losing raw materials wasn’t worrisome.

I kept at it, eventually getting my Armorsmithing up to eighty-four and forging the greaves as well as a helmet:

{Iceshard Greaves of the Wildfire}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Legs

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity

Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance

Durability 65/65

Armor: 16

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Helm of the Mountain}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Head

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution,

Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

Durability: 45/45

Armor: 12

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

I said.

Ezzie said.

I said.

Ezzie said.

Damn. I’d forgotten about that, too. The idea of being able to specialize made want to hold onto my scales even more.

Wait…I didn’t need to use a scale to level up, right? I’d learned the bronze pieces pretty recently, so it seemed like they’d still give points with or without the use of modifiers. I queued up another helm, since that was the cheapest of the three pieces I had.

Ezzie said.

The helm finished successfully—the bronze items themselves didn’t seem to have a chance of failure—and I earned two more points in Armorsmithing, bringing me up to eighty-six.

So the scales hadn’t been accounting for all that much of my growth, then. Interesting. I made two more helms and bumped my skill up to ninety, unlocking the recipes for five more pieces of gear:

Recipe: {Bronze Epaulets}

Requirements: 12 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 1 Leather Strap

Recipe: {Bronze Gauntlets}

Requirements: 9 Bronze Bars, 1 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap

Recipe: {Bronze Boots}

Requirements: 8 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 3 Leather Strap

Recipe: {Bronze Belt}

Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap

Recipe: {Bronze Bracers}

Requirements: 5 Bronze Bars, 2 Medium Flux, 2 Leather Strap

Ezzie said.

I looked down at my gauntlet, where my throwing knives were still lodged.

Ezzie said.

I shrugged.

I went to work…in that I watched the forge go to work. Two more failures occurred before I completed the set—both failures being of the normal variety—and I also hit ninety-nine in Armorsmithing.

Unfortunately, I’d also received a series of profession prompts:

Congratulations, you’ve hit the Grade F Armorsmithing cap!

Progress to Grade E to unlock Intermediate Armorsmithing.

All further Armorsmithing gains are now disabled.

I said.

Ezzie said.

I did my best to tamp down my irritation. It wasn’t all bad, really: I’d managed to unlock the recipe for the bronze shield—so I went ahead and made one of those—plus I’d procced another rare upgrade for my bracers.

The upgrade was a little bittersweet: the stats were just about perfect, but it seemed like it would have been a lot better to proc an upgrade on a piece of armor with a higher stat budget, like the greaves or the shoulders. I threw the bracers as well as the shield on with everything else I’d just crafted.

Ezzie said,

{Iceshard Set}

2/8 piece bonus (active): +20 Frost Resistance

5/8 piece bonus (active): 20% chance to absorb frost-based spells/abilities (100% of spell damage is converted into health, but this effect has a fifteen second internal cooldown).

8/8 piece bonus (active): Absorbing a frost-based spell/ability grants you 5 seconds of immunity to subsequent frost-based attacks.

{Iceshard Bracers of the Mountain}

Grade: F

Item level: 14

Slot: Wrist

Type: Plate

Quality: Rare

Primaries: +1 Strength, +2 Constitution

Secondaries: +6 Frost Resistance

Armor: 8

Durability 35/35

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Shield of Constitution}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +5 Constitution

Secondaries: +15 Frost Resistance

Armor: 40

Durability: 80/80

{Iceshard Belt of the Mountain}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Waist

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Constitution

Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

Armor: 9

Durability 35/35

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Boots of the Wildfire}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Feet

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity

Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

Armor: 11

Durability 35/35

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Gauntlets of the Volcano}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Hands

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +2 Dexterity, +1 Constitution

Secondaries: +7 Frost Resistance

Armor: 12

Durability 35/35

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

{Iceshard Epaulets of Strength}

Grade: F

Item level: 12

Slot: Shoulders

Type: Plate

Quality: Uncommon

Primaries: +5 Strength

Secondaries: +10 Frost Resistance

Armor: 15

Durability 50/50

This item is part of the {Iceshard Set}

Ezzie said.

I couldn’t agree more. The set was midnight blue, so dark that it was verging on purple, and the smooth surfaces were etched with tiny white snowflakes.

Ezzie said.

I said. I had no doubt that the snowflakes would resemble stars from a little way out.

Ezzie said.

I winced.

Ezzie laughed through the link.

{Silas}

Level: 9

Base Class: Brawler

Gear level: 80 > 163

Grade: F

Strength: 31 > 46

Dexterity: 15 > 20

Constitution: 23 > 39

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 7

Charisma: 8

Physical Attack: 22

Magical Attack: 13

Health: 330 > 490

Stamina: 230 > 390

Mana: 80

Armor: 75 > 145 (57% physical mitigation)

Magical Resistance: 37 (24% magical mitigation)

Frost Resistance: 20 > 104 (52% frost mitigation)