Bored with repeatedly creating the same useless items over and over just to level his crafting branches, Levi dumped out his collection of items in hopes of finding something new to tinker with. One item caught his attention immediately.

It had been a while since Levi thought about his beast-sight lens contraption. Pulling it out, it really did look like a mess. A mangled wand barely forming a connection between the lens and the power stone, a torn headband made of stained jean fabric... yeah, now that he wasn't just grabbing it to use in the heat of battle, he could see that it looked terrible.

Since he was out of patience with the crafting grind, Levi decided to do something about this instead. He'd originally planned to swap it into the monocle he'd found, but since delving deeper into item creation rather than just combining pieces, he found his ambitions had grown.

Over the past weeks, he'd gained a better understanding of crafting items in general. He'd even unlocked his first tracing recipe, though its pattern was too complex for him to freehand it.

In this case, the lens itself already contained tracings, so all he needed to do was connect it to the power stone. A basic power conduit wasn't difficult to craft, just required tracing catalyst and a token of the appropriate element. (There was probably a recipe for universal connections somewhere later down the line, but Levi hadn't reached it yet.)

It would be a waste to lock in something this powerful to a single slot. It had three options for settings, and there was no reason Levi should have to choose between them. He'd left it at a single Beast stone in the past because he had no real way to combine it with other options, but if he was going to create a whole new item? May as well go all in.

In the process of disassembling the mess he'd made before, he ended up shattering the original Beast stone, as well as rendering the twisted remnants of the wand completely unusable. But power stones and blank wands were infinitely more replaceable than the lens itself.

He spent a few hours searching through his equipment and item storage in case he'd obtained the perfect frame and forgotten about it, but he didn't have anything appropriate.

That was fine. He wasn't sure he wanted something premade anyway. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to make something specifically for it.

Ironite was the most commonplace material in the right family, though whether it bore much actual resemblance to 'iron' or if it was something made up entirely by the dungeons, Levi couldn't begin to guess. Regardless of its realism, it could be refined and reforged into a variety of shapes.

Refining it took another several hours - long enough that he paused to revive Pierce before resuming work. The chunks of ironite he'd collected from Destruction dungeons over the past weeks were rippled with rust and stone. He finally gave up on trying to pry it apart and added a Destruction stone to the smallest knife he had in storage, then cut away anything that wasn't metal. Even that took time, shaving bits of rock off the ironite, or scraps of ironite off the stone.

He'd already used his only refined ironite in unlocking another recipe, but at least he knew how to use the ore once it was extracted.

Some of the first recipes in each line were for necessary tools, so Levi had a good assortment of crude equipment by now. Taking the chunks of ironite, he threw them into his cauldron. Well, a stone cube that he'd hollowed out in the middle, but the system recognized it as a cauldron.

Cauldron (Implement, Basic) Abilities: None

The next step was to melt the ironite, which was much simpler than whatever blacksmiths had to do with mundane iron. Levi simply cracked a Fire token in half and dropped it in, giving the cauldron a quick shake to combine everything. It wasn't quite instantaneous, but in under a minute the ironite had liquefied and the fire token dissolved to nothing as its stored power was released.

Levi poured the liquid ironite out into an uneven line on the table, using a greatsword as a straight-edge to force it into shape. It ran thin, since he'd poured it out almost immediately, making a long flat strip. He used the frayed scrap of denim as a guide, cutting it a few inches longer. The extra section, he picked up with his knife and set down in the center of the main strip, pressing it together until there was no sign of a seam.

More than sufficient.

He waited, watching as its surface lost its heat, then dulled to grey. That was the time to strike. He picked it up, carefully wrapping it into a circle. The ends didn't seal as cleanly as the extra section he'd added, which looked as though it had been poured that way, but they did hold together.

That was fine. The next steps would fuse them fully and eliminate any lingering possibility of it coming apart in mid-battle.

He hadn't technically unlocked any recipes for power sockets yet, and he certainly wasn't going to try to make his own power array, but he'd found the basic elemental connection recipe. It could only be used on a single element, but that wouldn't be a problem. Since he was planning to finish this item entirely today he could decide on the elements before beginning to lay in the conduits.

He traced a space for the lens in the section he'd added, a panel that currently completely covered one eye when he tried it on. He shifted its location twice before settling on a final placement, erasing then redrawing the guidelines each time.

Before he'd finished carefully carving a space for the lens to be inserted into his new creation, an alert popped up. Followed almost immediately by another. And a third.

'Drok' has reached the edge of your control radius and cannot proceed in its current state.

Would you like to unbind 'Drok' at this time?

Unbind Cancel

'Ward' has reached the edge of your control radius and cannot proceed in its current state.

Would you like to unbind 'Ward' at this time?

Unbind Cancel

'Becca' has reached the edge of your control radius and cannot proceed in its current state.

Would you like to unbind 'Becca' at this time?

Unbind Cancel

Well, that shouldn't be happening.

The convention schedule they'd worked out curved south and east across the country. He'd specifically chosen this dungeon circuit because it wouldn't take them too far from any of the venues. His tether range only covered maybe a third of the country, after all, so if they'd been attending events in California or Nevada he may have run out of range.

Warning: Drok has left your control radius.

Re-establish control to resume normal command. Warning: Ward has left your control radius.

Re-establish control to resume normal command.

He frowned, trying to remember what they'd planned for Texas. Was that convention center too far south, perhaps?

"Looks like we're going to have to wrap things up sooner than I thought."

"Something happen?"

"Yeah. Either my tether range has shrunk, or something went wrong in our planning. I can fill my other slots later, we need to get back into range. Call Pierce over, we're loading everyone and heading..."

He frowned and trailed off as he instinctively tried to say 'west' though his memory of the plan insisted it should be 'south'.

Levi didn't know what would happen when a dead monster was left outside its control radius, and he didn't want to find out.

Gordon's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Heading...?"

Levi closed his eyes and tried to focus on whatever feeling it was that had caused that thought, but it was gone now. Drowned out by the dungeon ambience. Too much interference. He shook his head, but his brow remained furrowed in concern. "Heading out," he said at last. "I hope everything's okay."