Threadbare complete tr.., p.28
Threadbare - Complete Trilogy, page 28
FORAGE
Level 1, Cost 10 Sta, Duration: 10 minutes Greatly enhances your perception for the purposes of finding food, water, or other natural resources in the wilderness. At higher levels, may be used to locate specific naturally occuring resources. Currently activated through Animalistic Interface, will activate whenever you hunt for natural resources.
GROWL
Level 5, Cost 10 Mox, Duration: Instant Growl at a target to damage their sanity.
HIBERNATE
Level 5, Cost N/A, Duration: 1-3 months Go into a torpid sleep. Requires a cool, dark place and you cannot be affected by the Starving condition. Restores all pools to full, as per a normal rest.
SCENTS AND SENSIBILITY
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 5 minutes Activates heightened smell, greatly increasing perception for that sense and allowing you to catalogue and remember specific odors. Currently activated through Animalistic Interface, and will activate whenever you encounter an interesting scent.
STUBBORN
Level 5, Cost N/A, Duration: Constant Passive Increases your resistance to sanity damaging effects.
TOUGHNESS
Level 1, Cost N/A, Duration: Constant Passive Has a chance of increasing whenever you take serious damage. Raises your maximum HP by two whenever it increases.
Phew! Lots of things. On to the crafting job skills. Smith was first on the list…
REFINE ORE
Level 1, Cost 10 Sta, Duration: Instant Separates any usable crafting materials in a container or dirt, ore, or stone into neat piles of material.
Okay. He’d keep that in mind if he ever found buckets of dirt or rocks. Tailor, however, proved more interesting.
ADJUST OUTFIT
Level 5, Cost 20 Sta, Duration: Instant Resizes any cloth outfit to fit the chosen wearer, and also allows minor alterations.
CLEAN AND PRESS
Level 1, Cost 10 Sta, Duration: Instanty
Instantly cleans the selected item, and removes any wrinkles, stains, or other blemishes. Only works on items that are primarily textiles.
He was happy with those skills. Especially since the first one would let him wear clothes he found along the way. As fun as his earlier clothing creation attempts had been, he’d been interested in the clothes people were wearing before he knew what they were. And keeping clean was good, he’d learned that Celia didn’t like to hug him when he was dirty.
Now on to the adventurer jobs. This was very much a lot of reading for the little bear, but thanks to his newly-sharpened intelligence, he got the gist of most of it. And he was learning so very very much! Most of this would be new territory, as it seemed a lot of these skills required him to say things to activate. Hopefully they were good, he’d need every edge he could get if he wanted to save Celia.
Animator skills first.
ANIMUS
Level 1, Cost 10+ San, Duration: 10 min/level Turns an object into an animi, capable of movement, combat, and simple tasks as ordered by its creator. Must be in its creator’s party to do anything beyond defend itself. The greater the size and mass of the object, the more it costs to animate, and the more hit points, strength, and constitution it begins with. The type of material also factors in, and determines the starting armor rating of the animi.
COMMAND ANIMUS
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: Instant Allows the caster to issue one command to an animi that isn’t currently in its creator’s party. If successfully cast, the animi will follow the command to the best of its ability until it is impossible to do so.
CREATOR’S GUARDIANS
Level 1, Cost N/A, Duration: Passive Constant Enhances animi in the creator’s party, boosting all attributes. The amount buffed is influenced by the animator’s will and this skill’s level. Has a chance of increasing every time a new animi first joins the animator’s party.
EYE FOR DETAIL
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 1 minute Allows the animator to examine the status of any animi, golem, or other construct he looks upon. Also analyzes any object for animation potential and sanity cost. Can be resisted.
MEND
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: Instant Instantly repairs the target construct or object, restoring a small amount of HP, influenced by the level of this skill and the animator’s will.
Okay, that last one was going to come in handy, if only to save him from using up all his tailoring supplies. Good stuff here.
Duelist was next on the list.
CHALLENGE
Level 1, Cost 5 Mox, Duration: Instant Calls out a target to fight you. They suffer combat penalties based on your charisma unless they are actively trying to attack you. Resistible, because some foes are just too cool for you.
DAZZLING ENTRANCE
Level 1, Cost 10 Mox, Duration: Instant Used before revealing yourself to foes, the more dramatic your appearance the better. Boosts your charisma and cool for a short time.
FANCY FLOURISH
Level 1, Cost 5 Sta, Duration: Instant Unleash a fancy set of moves that don’t hurt your foe but look really cool. Attacks their moxie.
GUARD STANCE
Level 1, Cost 10 Sta, Duration: Until dropped, or the end of the fight Assume a guard stance, and gain a bonus to your dodge skill and armor, at the cost of lowering your strength and dexterity.
WEAPON SPECIALIST
Level 1, Cost N/A, Duration: Passive Constant Enhances your weapon skill. Automatically assigned to your highest weapon skill. If you have two or more equal highest weapon skills, you may freely choose which to specialize in at any time.
After looking around a bit, Threadbare figured out that mox was moxie. Duelist had the first skills he’d found that did something with that attribute pool. Could be handy, he supposed. He’d have to experiment with them later.
Enchanter was next.
APPRAISE
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 5 minutes Allows you to see all relevant information about a mundane or magical item.
GLOWGLEAM
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 1 hour per level Infuses any object with a simple light spell. The luminescence is based upon the caster’s intelligence.
HARDEN
Level 1, Cost 10 San, Duration: 10 minutes Increases the toughness of any object or construct temporarily, adding to its armor and/or damage potential.
SOFTEN
Level 1, Cost 10 San, Duration: 10 minutes Decreases the toughness of any object or construct temporarily, reducing its armor and/or damage potential.
SPELLSTORE I
Level 1, Cost 10 San, Duration: Permanent Prepares an object that stores a spell or skill inside of it. Anyone can then read, break, drink, or otherwise use the object in an appropriate manner to activate the spell. Requires and consumes one dose of RED Reagents. The enchanter does not have to be the person storing the spell inside the Spellstore.
Okay, that looked fairly interesting. Harden in particular… he was a construct, he thought, given how the class descriptions and other skills referred to him. Threadbare put that in his ‘things to test later’ list.
Three jobs down, five left. On to the big one. Golemist!
COMMAND GOLEM
Level 1, Cost 20 San, Duration: 1 minute per level Allows the caster to issue one command to a golem that isn’t currently in a party. If unresisted, the golem will follow the command to the best of its ability until it is impossible to do so, or until the command wears off.
GOLEM ANIMUS
Level 1, Cost 50 San, Duration: Permanent Turns a prepared golem shell into a functional lesser golem, that will obey its creator’s commands to the best of its ability.
INVITE GOLEM
Level 1, Cost 10 San, Duration: Instant Used to invite golems into your party. Automatically affects golems created by the golemist, can be resisted by other golems. Will not affect golems in their creator’s party.
TOY GOLEM
Level 1, Cost 100 San, Duration: Permanent Allows the golemist to construct a toy golem shell. Requires a toy, one dose of YELLOW reagents, and a level 1 Crystal.
Wow, okay, those were some pretty costly skills, sanity-wise. And it required stuff he’d never heard of before, to make more toy golems. Maybe he’d look into this later, after Celia was safe.
Now, on to the model skills.
DIETARY RESTRICTIONS
Level 1, Cost N/A, Duration: Until broken So long as you have spent the last week without eating anything with the UNHEALTHY identifier you gain a small buff to all pools. This bonus is cumulative, up to twice your rank of this skill. Eating UNHEALTHY designated food immediately removes all versions of the buff.
FASCINATION
Level 1, Cost N/A, Duration: Dependant upon skill Heal, aid, or otherwise be nice to an enemy in combat. If unresisted by mental fortitude, the foe will become temporarily fascinated with you, for a duration proportionate to this skill’s level.
FLEX
Level 1, Cost 10 Sta, Duration: 1 minute per level Buff your endurance and cool by the level of this skill.
SELF-ESTEEM
Level 1, Cost 10 Mox, Duration: 1 minute per level Buff your mental fortitude and cool by the level of this skill.
WORK IT BABY
Level 1, Cost NA, Duration: Passive Constant
Whenever one of your worn or wielded items creates a favorable impression in at least one onlooker, then this skill has a chance of increasing. All worn and wielded items that confer bonuses have their bonuses increased by a small percentage for each level of this skill. Note that the difference is harder to see with lower level gear and lower levels of the skill.
That job was a lot more useful than he expected. Three of the skills didn’t even require activation, or cost anything to do so! And the downside to dietary restrictions didn’t matter much to a creature that never had to eat in the first place. It was pretty much free bonuses. Yeah, he could live with this. Especially with the defensive buffs that he could whip out. They didn’t look like they’d last long, but that was fine, they’d get better with practice.
Was necromancer as nice? Hopefully.
ASSESS CORPSE
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 1 minute Allows the animator to examine the status of any undead creature he looks upon. Also analyzes any corpse for animation potential and sanity cost. Can be resisted.
COMMAND THE DEAD
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 1 minute per level Allows the caster to issue a command to a single undead creature. If unresisted, the creature most follow its orders to the best of its ability. Can also be used to invite unintelligent undead into a party, at which point they can be verbally commanded indefinitely by the caster.
SOULSTONE
Level 1, Cost: 20 San, Duration: Permanent Creates a soulstone crystal, which can house a newly-deceased spirit or an existing incorporeal undead. A spirit in a soulstone may be conversed with, used to create a new undead, or simply unleashed upon the world at a time of the caster’s choosing.
SPEAK WITH DEAD
Level 1, Cost: 5 San, Duration: 1 minute per level Allows the necromancer to converse with corpses, spirits, or normally incoherent undead. In places with particularly strong spirits, the caster may be notified of the presence of conversable spirits.
ZOMBIES
Level 1, Cost: 10 San, Duration: Permanent Turns a corpse into a zombie. Requires a spirit present in the area.
Threadbare didn’t have any natural revulsion to the dead, or any sort of taboo against messing with them, but he didn’t know how useful this was. Still, he’d had to do an awful lot of fighting in his short existence, so he knew that corpses weren’t too hard to come by. Spirits? Hard to say. He did notice that unlike animators, necromancers didn’t seem to have any way to heal their undead. Animated objects sounded more useful that way… though zombies were evidently permanent, whereas animi needed to be renewed when their duration was up. And golems took special stuff to build.
Mulling over the differences, he moved on to the Ruler skills.
EMBOLDENING SPEECH
Level 1, Cost: 10 Mox, Duration: Instant Buffs all allies moxie and sanity by an amount related to the ruler’s charisma. Only affects allies within earshot.
IDENTIFY SUBJECT
Level 1, Cost: 5 Mox, Duration: 5 minutes Allows the ruler to examine a sworn subject’s status screen. May also be used on people within your party, giving more information than the party status screen.
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Level 1, Cost: N/A, Duration: Passive Constant Buffs all sworn subjects and party members a small amount. The stat buffed is dependant upon your highest attribute.
ROYAL AUDIENCE
Level 1, Cost 10 Mox, Duration: 1 Minute per level Buffs your charisma, but only when dealing with sworn subjects
SIMPLE DECREE
Level 1, Cost 10 Mox, Duration: Permanent until changed Declare a simple command in twelve words or less. All sworn subjects are notified of the decree. Any who do not comply with this decree take moxie damage influenced by your charisma and wisdom, resisted by cool. Only one simple decree may be in place at a time. Simple commands may not be used to inflict suicidal or self-harmful activities.
Threadbare looked over these skills, and… well, there was that one that buffed people in his party, and one that let him restore moxie. That must have been what the rat king used, he thought, remembering back to the desperate fight in the basement.
But the rest dealt with sworn subjects. How did you get those? Maybe skills would show up later on.
The last job was up, and from what he’d seen Mordecai pull, it had some awesome stuff.
CAMOUFLAGE
Level 1, Cost 5 San/Min, Duration: Until dismissed or exhausted Blends the Scout in with his surroundings, buffing their stealth skill. More effective in the wilderness, scales according to skill level.
FIRESTARTER
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: Instant Creates a fire, burning any flammable material it’s used upon. Intensity of the starting flames depends on the skill level.
KEEN EYE
Level 1, Cost 5 Sta, Duration: A minute per scout level Buffs a scout’s perception, effects dependent upon skill level
STURDY BACK
Level 1, Cost NA, Duration: Passive Constant Lightens the burdens of any heavy load carried, making items literally weigh less. Does not apply to weapons and armor equipped. Higher skill level means more weight reduction WIND’S WHISPER
Level 1, Cost 5 San, Duration: 1 message May be activated silently. Sends a message on the wind to any named target within range. Range and amount of words speakable per message increase with skill level.
This now, this was helpful. he could see most of these coming in handy, and soon, too. There wasn’t much except wilderness all around him, and this would help him avoid trouble and find what he needed out here.
Mulling it over, Threadbare flicked a pebble into the river, and watched it splash and sink. It had taken a very long time to read all those entries, and he had Celia to save. He pretty much had nothing to work with here, and nothing to gain by staying beside the river.
He was going to need help, that was the inescapable conclusion that finally meandered its way through the little bear’s mind. The half-orc brothers had vanished, maybe they were still around? It was a long shot, but he didn’t have very many shots right now. Threadbare thought back, to before the long sleeps and endless dark of the basement, and he remembered Garon saying something about meeting back up at Oblivion Point.
Well.
He knew how to get there, didn’t he?
The little bear got up and headed into the woods.
Getting Your Bearings 1
The mountains shivered at the caress of spring. Warm winds blew from the west, peeling away the snow, sending the ice shuddering down the lower parts of the hills, and freeing the trees from their long slumber. Hardy mountain pines stood as solemn vanguard, as leaves and shoots started to poke, testing sunlight, and finding it good.
And below the peaks, on the downslope of a gentle rise, a single teddy bear waddled through the woods, carrying a bundle of tools and cloth in his arms. His name was Threadbare, and he was on a mission.
But after only a few hundred yards, he realized something pretty important;
These woods were really dangerous, and he would probably need his arms free to deal with whatever came.
So he turned back, and found his way to a pile of timber and rubble. From the outside it didn’t look like much… the remnants of a house, fallen to fire, as a few weathered and charred beams attested, poking loose from the stones that had once been a foundation. A wrecked shed nearby, half-buried in an avalanche, seemed an exclamation point and lonely witness to what had once been a stately manor.
At least, that’s what a bard might say. But the bear wasn’t a bard. He was a hell of a lot of other things, but not a bard.
Crouching low, and worming his way through a muddy tunnel that squirmed under the foundation, he found himself again in the crawlspace that had been his unwilling home for the last few years. It was here he’d lost his family, and here he’d sworn to get them back.
But that was a very big thing, and very big things are made up of very small steps. And right now, the first step was to make himself a harness or something to carry his tailoring tools in.
He needed those tools, needed them badly. He had magical means of healing himself, but magic ran out. The spell he knew to heal himself worked from a resource called sanity, and generally the less you had of it, the worse your focus and judgement got.
So he dug around in the darkness, until he found the part of his creator’s apron that remained. And for lack of any better ideas, he sat down and sewed an apron of his own.
It was harder than he thought, and it took a couple of tries, but perseverance paid off.
DEX +1
Your tailoring skill is now level 37!
He watched the words roll by with long familiarity, by now. They came up whenever he did something well enough to improve himself. They did that for everyone.
Slipping on his apron, not quite a twin to his creator’s own, thanks to the proportionate size of the tools to his body, he put the scissors into the back sheath he’d made for them, and nodded. This would do.
