Shiny, Shiny Keys

Chapter 32

I lost the race badly, but like a good sport, once I caught up with the hounds I gave them victory pets. After that, I settled in for a lava soak. It was hard not to remember what had happened to that poor bastard in the tutorial but to me, the heat was only pleasant. Like a hot tub instead of the distilled essences of nature's fury manifest.

Once I was settled in comfortably, I decided to do some investigating. I could always quiz Elim about things via text, but it was better to do my own research first.

“Earl Savex?” I decided to look him up first as a starting point. Unsurprisingly, I got a stub and disambiguations.

[Earl Savex]

[Sixth generation ruler of the Savex Earldom of Dreddmar.]

The stub offered minimal information about the man himself and no options to find out more personal details. It would have been nice if it offered more on that point, but I didn’t sweat it. I didn’t have any plans to start shit with him, so hopefully, I’d have time to find out less directly.

[Inheritable Noble Titles of Dreddmar]

[These titles generally belong to those who have served a current or past monarch exceptionally well, usually as a family over the course of generations.

“Fallen Royals” will also be found in these ranks. These tend to be branch families who fell out of favor or sometimes descendants of other lineages than the current rulers. Foreign royalty from a defeated or annexed state will sometimes receive noble titles.

Inheritable noble titles include: Earl, Count, and Viscount]

I learned quite a bit from that single entry, but had no idea how I’d make use of it. The map with political boundaries featured in the corner of the Dreddmar entry was more useful to my immediate interests.

Going by it, there was a fair distance between the nearest border of Dreddmar and my little stretch of the Lorrel Mountains. Likewise, the nearest part of the Earldom to me was some hinterlands nowhere near the majority of its cities. It wasn’t so far away that they couldn’t send troops if they wanted to, but I wasn’t in a convenient location.

Next to Dreddmar, separated by some swampland and other inconvenient terrain, was another Kingdom entirely. Stromholt, which wasn’t as large but sheltered on most sides. A few smaller nations existed alongside them, but I was distracted by a lack of information.

Behind the Lorrel Mountains was essentially a blank, despite the continental geography being clearly depicted. It was kind of weird, but not something I could do much about. It was entirely possible no major political entities existed on that side. Hell, it could be full of nomadic elven tribes for all I knew.

I didn’t feel like that was particularly likely, but decided not to dwell. My time would be better spent focusing on learning about my new world. To help with that, it would have been nice to have a full-size copy of the map on hand.

With that thought, a window opened, but it wasn’t the notepad this time. It resembled an old-school image editor, of all things. On one side was a list of tools, on the other a color pallet, undo history, and layers.

Feeling gleeful I selected a fine-tipped brush. I expected to have to paint with my finger, but to my surprise a solid black paintbrush appeared in the air. It looked like it was made of a similar, if not the same, material as I was. All save for a bit of paint on the end of it matching the default color which was a grassy green.

“PAAAAINT!” I squealed aloud. I immediately started painting, excited by how the brush responded like a real one despite the interface. The paint flowed easily, creating a green line on the floor behind the editor.

I felt my orbs flicker, as I took the scene in. I ducked down to look around the window. The line was still there, my brush had painted on the ground, physically. I could edit my physical environment.

“Mistress?” The hounds called together in worry, as I let out an eerie sound. A squeal of glee did not translate into anything comforting or cute with my current vocal configuration.

“I’m OKAY!” I called back and laughed.

“Just found the art interface,” I added. It was all the thought I could spare before diving back in. My art interface could affect physical matter directly. I was going to thoroughly test all my new tools.

It was the only revelation thus far that made me want to kiss the system for one confused and elated moment. I used the undo and found the first paint line I had made disappeared as if it had never been. My excitement ratcheted up a notch and I created a transparent layer.

I painted a messy rainbow of random squiggles on it as I tested out the full capabilities of the brush tool. The brush had classic shape options and I could resize them, so it took a little while for me to exhaust it. Flood fill had its charms as well but I wasn’t excited by it.

I deleted the layer and moved on to the next tool. This one was a set of sculpting tools. I could sculpt stone freely, as if it were soft clay. In normal tile editing mode, I could select a section and raise or depress it as I wished and that worked in the editor as well. I could pull up a pillar from the floor and carve as I pleased.

I was on cloud nine by the time I got to the stamp tool. It could be set to pattern, erase, and emboss. Pattern would place the stamp in a color of my choice. Erase and emboss would add or remove material up to a set depth.

The only thing remaining once I had a handle on the stamp was a box icon. Selecting it my inventory opened. Intrigued and giddy, I selected one of the mine lanterns I’d restored earlier. It appeared in the window and on inspection, I found it was the actual lamp rather than a 3d model.

I went through many layers of junk art before I calmed down. Next, I had to focus and gain mastery of the toolsets. The process would take time, but I understood the basics after a short while. I could have spent days doodling with a carving tool in stone and never gotten bored, but I forced myself to focus.

For the first time, I noticed something a little off. I wasn’t exactly ‘painting’ so much as coloring the material. I didn’t think it was bad but it wasn’t like a powder coating or enamel, the metal was just green and that looked funky. I tried to figure out why by digging through the brush settings but didn’t turn up anything.

It wasn’t until I looked at the color selection more carefully and clicked the pallet tab that I found out why. Under the pallet tab was a drop-down menu that included a list of dyes and enamel paint. These both had drastically smaller selections, but when used actually applied the substance.

Thinking about it, I realized that the color options matched up with what I’d received from dismantling the Savex uniforms and Elim’s sword. Quickly opening my inventory, I started messing around, trying to combine the colors I had to make more. Thankfully, a new window appeared when I did, allowing me to easily mix the existing colors and filling in the intermediate shades automatically.

The only problem was that for the enamel I didn’t have blue. A fraction of a second later, I opened my crafting interface and put the green enamel into it, hoping it was a combined color rather than a single pigment. I got lucky and gave a little whoop of joy as it dismantled into blue, yellow, and white.

I didn’t have cyan and magenta, but I’d make do. It seemed like the system’s pigment mixer was more forgiving than actually hand mixing the colors. If I’d been doing it manually, I’d have gotten muddy garbage using the normal primaries.

I regretted not making a copy of Elim’s locket now so I could scavenge oil paints from it. I consoled myself with the knowledge he could buy me some instead. Now that I’d found the art interface, the list of things I wanted would be a mile long before he reached the post town.

Armed with an expanded enamel pallet, I went back to painting the lantern. I did a basic flood fill of the shade and body then used yellow for some pinstriping and scrollwork. It looked alright at first but I overdid it in the end, making it look gaudy.

Utility items should show some aesthetic sense but there was a limit. I started over with the yellow and kept things simple the second time around. For a little contrast, I painted the wick control knob red along an arrow to indicate what direction to turn the knob. A nice, but simple design in my opinion. Feeling pleased with myself, I put it back in my inventory.

With the interfaces temporarily closed, my eyes caught the refresh countdown. I had ten minutes until it hit. I did a double-take. Oh fuck.