Faber

All of a sudden, once the vines pulled back enough so only have of the size of the original box remained a massive explosion of wind and green particles that smelled strongly like cut grass hit them and it didn't stop.

"AAAaaahh-hah-ha" Tarud leaned forward as much as he could and tilted his body forward so that he wouldn't be blown back. He waited there for just 10 seconds but it felt like several minutes as he was trying to come up with solutions. His only solution was to get out of there and come back with a wind and water magician to control the setting before he could stop the box. He took a step forward, and after a long time of balancing himself just right, took another step and repeated this until he got to the door where he could grab hold of a ledge and punch in the code to let him out. He had to make sure he came out fast enough to not let the explosion affect Lady Eviry and the cart.

But suddenly, just as he was about to grab the handle, the wind stopped, the powder fell to the ground and he fell facedown onto the ground. He quickly got up to check what monster had come out of it to kill them, but all he saw was Zeeth there holding a tiny green pearl.

"All we had to do was cover it from the light after it reached the midway point. Then it would continue shrinking until this came out." Zeeth turned around to give the pearl to Tarud.

Tarud looked at him for a second, then at the fire, which was still lightly flickering despite the strong winds, 'he was standing in front of that raging wind for that long? The fire isn't even out, he must've been doing it since the start.'

They said at the same time, "Are you hurt?"

"You're asking me if I'm hurt? You were the one standing in front that raging wind for that long, how did you even survive, much less get out without a single scratch? You were so close to it, it must've been twice or three times as strong as the wind I felt."

"Well, I'm young and my body is strong. You're old, I expected you to be blown away instantly."

"I'm not a world-traveling merchant for nothing. My body has been honed by years of hard work and life-threatening situations, despite how my body looks. I can take that much."

"Ok, well let's look at the pearl shall we?" Zeeth just wanted to move the conversation away from how he survived that because he had used a bunch of slimes to create a thick shield to try and block the winds and he didn't want to reveal that he used his slimes. Tarud quickly perked up when he remembered the pearl. Magic protection that strong must've been hiding something really incredible and his curious mind shot him right back into it, to Zeeth relief.

The pearl was about twice as big as one of his compressed slimes and the pattern on the inside was a wavy line that kept changing its shape. Sometimes it was bold, or thin and sometimes it was straight or wavy like a roller coaster ride.

"Oh my god!" Tarud held his face closer and moved the pearl closer to the fire, and the line suddenly started to wave dramatically once it got close to the fire and it seems to get spikier as if it was imitating the moving flames. "Oh. my. God. Zeeth. You are a hero!! Look at this!! This is a Fluctu Pearl! The outside is made up of a precious stone called cristallinus. It is a see-through gem that's almost impossible to break. But what's important is the inside.

The inside is a hollow sphere containing pure mana that changes with the natural mana around it. When cristallinus is forged like this, it allows us to see the mana inside it and since the mana matches the mana on the outside, we can determine where it has a strong flow of mana and where has a weak flow. It's like a compass for mana, almost priceless at the right times. But because of how rare cristallinus is and because of how hard it is to forge it like this and trap pure mana inside it, there are very limited numbers. Hardly any blacksmiths can even make a hollowed-out sphere as perfect as this with cristallinus, not to mention capture pure mana in it.

It's fluctuating so hard right now because it's next to flames, which is a very violent and unpredictable form of mana.

"Hooah. That's so cool. It's kinda mesmerizing to watch."

"Yeah, it is." As he was watching the pearl change along with the mana of the fire out of the corner of Tarud's eye he saw that there was a small green thing where the chest was found. "Wait, there is something here. The vines that crawled back formed it."

They both looked over at it and Tarud snuffed out the flame and created his own light magic on his finger so he wouldn't have to feel the heat. The light spread far larger than the light from the fire and they noticed words on the box. Tarud picked up the vines, which had now bound together to form a letter, and read, "To my dearest wife, Hugos. I am nearing death. In my last moments, I have come across a heavenly land, with all the materials needed to create this last gift to you. The air here is so fresh it is blending with the air of the afterlife as we speak. It seems so unreal but it is as real as my love for you. It seems not a single human has come across it yet and the air feels like nothing I have ever felt before.

A plan to spend the last of my days here making as many wondrous miracles as I can. I have finally made our design for a long-distance communications tool real with what is here! I have only made one and I believe I won't be able to make another with my time left. Find my resting area and you shall find all of these creations. I will likely be dead by the time you get here, but that doesn't matter.

I will not bury my body in this holy land and taint it of my blood and body, I will be in our usual meeting area.

Love, Faber." and in the corner was an unmistakable and beautifully engraved insignia of Faber.

"Faber? I feel like I heard that name before."

"Faber! Ah boy, it's no wonder you've heard of Faber before! Faber is a magical blacksmith, known worldwide! Everyone bows down to her incredible creations! Oh man, there is so much to tell you about her, but the important thing is that she can easily design some of the best weapons the world has ever seen with just concrete! Her legendary creations shake the world! You know, she made the first functional mechanical giant!"

"Oh! Faber! Yes, my master mentioned that name before!"

"Of course he has! Who doesn't know Faber?!"

"Yeah, he said she was a good friend of his that helped to make this table."

"Yeah, of cour- WHAAT?!? A-are you for real?? This table?! Your master?!? Seriously, who is your master?! May-may I please have a closer look at it?"

"Sure."

Tarud bent down to inspect the table. He slowly walked all around it and inspected every last detail and didn't notice even a single scratch or imperfection. He was too scared to touch it now that he knew this was a creation of the legendary Faber. The bent under the table to inspect the underside and all of the legs and noticed at the very corner, two names. The same beautiful insignia of Faber that looked just like the insignia in the letter and another, cruder etching of the name "Rifa".

"Oh, this truly is Faber's creation! No one could replicate the insignia down to all those details. But, Rifa? Who is that?"

"Oh, I think that's my master's name backward."

"So it's Afir? Hmmm… Afir…" Tarud sat there thinking for a bit, concentrating hard on the floor. Then, suddenly, "Afir! Yes, I know of him! The very same one who had made Jarlon what it was today. Weren't there some rumors that he had killed his own wife and destroyed a city? He sounds violent, how was he as a master?"

"Oh, Afir told me the truth about those rumors…" Zeeth proceeded to tell the story but left out the part that he was a dragon to Tarud and when the story ended he noticed that tears started to well up inside his eyes.

"That is so sad, I want to kill the Vonnears myself! How could they do that to a man like him! I even traded with them before. I'll make sure to make my goods a little more expensive for them, I always knew they were up to no good, with the way they sneer at their own servants and peasants. But what's more surprising is that Afir is still alive. I heard that this story was even before the Apocalypse. He must be a breed of a longlasting creature."

"Yeah… well, do you want to use this table? I still want to experiment with what it can do." Zeeth jumped up and clapped his hands together to draw the focus away from Afir, he didn't want to reveal too much about him.

"Oh-oh, the table!" and his efforts worked seamlessly, Afir immediately forgot about Afir and wanted to jump at the table. "Can I really use this? I've only ever held her incredible items before, and for not even that long. Her creations are always held by the strong and I am just a merchant. Famous, but not strong."

"What animals do you have that you want to cut up? We can cut it up and feed it to the people for dinner."

"Yes, yes! Oh, but remember," Tarud got really serious again, "this is all the more reason why you must never ever let others know about this table. And especially don't let them know that your master even slightly knows Faber. I know it's hard not to brag about knowing all these famous people, but it will bring you lots of trouble. Greed leads the eyes of many people and they will stop at nothing to get their greasy hands on a Faber item." The only reason Afir himself wasn't jumping at the table trying to buy it for cheap off of someone who doesn't know much of the world is because of his integrity as a worldwide merchant and his bond with Zeeth that he had formed over the trip. He wasn't about to try and fool this guy for a table. He truly only had the best in mind for Zeeth.

"Oh, the stone! I forgot I was holding it in my hand. Zeeth, I will have to thank you grandly for opening this box, although I feel bad for taking this Fluctu Pearl that wasn't even meant for me. I didn't even know Faber had a wife. I didn't even know she was lesbian! Everything I learned about her suggests that she was single because her life was so full of her works. Who is this Hugos? Oh, there's something at the back of the letter." Tarud picked up the letter again and flipped to the back.

"To whoever may receive this if you are not Hugos, yet you have opened the box before her, there is a good chance that she has left this world. If you were able to open my box then it probably means that you are smart or lucky enough to use it properly. You may keep the pearl for yourself but be warned. I have gifted this pearl with a bit of knowledge and if it finds that it is being used for intentional mayhem or harm, it will explode. I believe do not need to warn you what will happen if a Fluctu Pearl explodes."

"It's a Fluctu Pearl with knowledge. That is seriously dangerous. When a Fluctu Pearl explodes the natural mana within it will drag out all of the mana surrounding it because of how pure it is, even from the humans and living creatures around it until it is as saturated with mixed mana as it's surrounding. This means that it will suck the literal life out of anything around it and because the cristallinus is a stone it will shatter and impale things with tremendous force. This is why it is so hard, an improper and unstable Fluctu Pearl is a danger to anything around it. There have been far too many accidents with these things and the people near it all look like raisin corpses riddled with holes."

"Huu," Zeeth backed up a bit, "It's that dangerous? Umm, you should handle it more carefully."

Tarud playfully waved it around in front of Zeeth as he tried to hide behind boxes until Tarud gave a hefty laugh and stopped. "Haha, you don't have to worry about this breaking. This insignia and the box proves that it really was made by Faber, I can even scan the insignia but no one else can forge the insignia like this." He lifted up his monocle again and looked closely at the letters and the pearl. "It's real. I don't see any cracks or imperfections on either of these. But how is it that you were in here for ten minutes and found this thing? I have personally inspected all of these with professionals and got nearly nowhere. We never thought to use firelight and then to block it again."

"Thank you. I have really good luck because of this necklace."

"The necklace? I assume it's another item that no one should discover?"

"No, this one is different. It has binding on it."

Tarud lifted an eyebrow at him, "Binding? My experiences with binding haven't been good.

They're usually a curse, although if used properly they can also be good. A hated classmate of mine a few years ago put a weak bind of a strong magnet to me a few years back. It was easy to break, but it put me through a lot of trouble. May I know what the necklace helps you with?"

Zeeth was a bit hesitant to reveal even the necklace, but he decided that Tarud was someone he could trust. He had been warning and doing what seemed to be best for Zeeth. "Sure, I don't remember the details, but it boosts my luck a lot and it has a shield that can block one physical attack of any kind that recharges every 24 hours. I've tried it a few times myself with my master, and it's powerful."

"You don't remember? Would you like to know? I can inspect it for you. My monocle is pretty impressive. I can then upload it to an S.S."

"Whats an S.S.?"

"A Stat Screen." Tarud didn't even miss a beat, he was already used to how clueless Zeeth was. "It's a transparent screen that helps to show what things like my monocle can see. Basically tells you the properties of a magical thing. Here, let me see the necklace. I promise to keep its stats a secret."

Zeeth lifted the necklace but he didn't take it back since it would just get sent back and showed him the chain.