Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 209: No Strings On Me

After advancing through one performance hall after another, we passed by the Ringleader’s Stage with the mid-boss Ringleader Puppet. This was actually a far simpler fight than the one before, as all of the puppets in the arena were controlled by the ringleader. Thus, Diane took advantage of her time in stealth to surround the ringleader with more than fifty traps, setting them off all at once and obliterating the target.

Our loot from this fight turned out to be… quite good, actually. Diane got her Wire Control skill book, and I was lucky enough to get a Puppet Design skill book, which seemed like the first stage of manufacturing custom puppets. I wasn’t sure how much I would pursue this skill, but seeing Diane so hopeful convinced me to at least try it out for a bit.

After some discussion amongst ourselves, we decided to leave the dungeon early, without facing the final boss. For one, we had already achieved our primary goal of getting the Wire Control skill. Even our secondary goal, learning how to manufacture puppets, had been achieved. The only thing left that we could obtain from the dungeon was the Puppet Control skill and maybe, if we were very lucky, a related trait from the boss.

However, after the previous attempted ambush, we realized that it was best to exit early. If the enemy truly was working for the Limitless Guild, they might have another ambush waiting at the exit. If not, then we needed to report this to Roku as soon as possible. Moreover, Roku had already offered us the chance to easily learn the Puppet Control skill.

Thus, we made our way out of the dungeon, finding no ambush waiting. The two guard puppets from before stood idly by, having not moved a metaphorical muscle since we last passed them by. As we had exited the dungeon in stealth, they did not even respond to our presence.

With that in mind, I dropped my stealth, revealing myself and the other two. One of the guards looked over with a blank expression. “You have left the dungeon with more than an hour to spare. Have you acquired everything you seek?”

“You could say that,” I muttered. “Can you pass a message along to Steward Roku, letting him know that we want to meet?”

The guard fell silent for a few moments, before speaking up again. “The Steward has been notified, and responds that he will be waiting for you at the inn where you registered.”

I perked a brow at that, but didn’t question it. I had already guessed that they had some method to communicate amongst themselves when Roku first approached us.

Taking the other two, I went to find him at the inn. There, Roku greeted us with a wooden smile, despite the late hour. “Welcome back, Lord Advent. I hear that you had some success in your dungeon endeavors?”

“Aside from an ambush by other players,” I said, watching his reaction. I knew that it was probably pointless to try to read anything from the face of a puppet, but it seemed like it was better than nothing.

Roku’s already wooden smile twitched, his eyes slowly opening. “Pardon, what was that?” he asked, his tone losing its jovial inflection. “You were ambushed within our dungeon?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “A group of five, consisting of three rogues and two casters, one in black robes and the other white. They claimed to be from the Limitless Guild, and said that the ‘boss’ would smooth things over even if they failed to get my trait.”

I could hear wood creaking as Roku clenched his fists. “Is that so? I assure you, you have our most sincere apologies for this experience. I will have my people investigate the incident immediately. If it turns out that the ambushers truly were a part of the guild, I will see to it personally that they are dealt with.”

That was unusual. I didn’t expect that he was capable of genuine anger, but that is certainly what this looked like. “Aside from that, we managed to get all of the skills that we were looking for, with the exception of the Puppet Control skill itself.”

With the subject of the conversation shifted away from the ambush, Roku visibly appeared to relax. “Is that so? If you wish, I could impart you a simple quest to unlock the skill right now.”

“Not for me, her,” I said, gesturing towards Diane. Still, Roku didn’t seem to mind, issuing the quest without a word of complaint. According to Diane, the request simply required her to spend a few minutes manipulating a simple puppet, which could be bought from the general store in No Strings Attached.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go and arrange that investigation. I assure you, I will inform you with whatever findings I have.” After saying that, Roku left the inn, his fists clenched behind his back.

“In that case, I’ll go get the basic puppet to practice with,” Diane added, a rare hint of excitement in her tone. “Could you see what you can do with the puppet designs while I practice?”

I gave a wry smile, nodding my agreement as Diane rushed out the door, leaving Bella and I alone in the inn. Though, Bella herself was quite tired, and bid me goodnight so that she could go to her room and rest.

While Diane was gone, I did as she requested and began practicing the new Puppet Design skill. As soon as I activated it, it reacted similarly to the Architect skill, providing me a window to design a blueprint.

By default, the blueprint was a simple, humanoid form with basic joints and a blank face. There were nodes noted for where strings could be attached, but no visible weapons. Also, this was simply the skill to design the puppet. Actually creating it would require other skills.

For now, I relied on the knowledge that I had gained through studying the puppets in the dungeon. First, I changed the height of the puppet to match Diane, doing the same for its general build and face. By the time I was done, the puppet could pass as her as long as it was dressed up properly, and given a lifelike paint job.

However, I knew that wasn’t enough to satisfy Diane. This was our party’s ninja fanatic we were talking about. So, I added other mechanisms that I had seen in the dungeon’s puppets. In each of the wrists, I put a hidden blade launcher, and then modeled the hands to be more dextrous so they could hold a sword.

She always kept her mouth covered with a mask, so I took advantage of that to add a dart launcher in the mouth, as well as a speaker for her to talk through the puppet. All of these were things that I had seen previously, and I had been able to get a good look at their inner workings with my True Sight, so reproducing them was easy.

For more intricate mechanisms, such as giving the puppet the ability for the user to cast skills through it, or an internal bomb, those would have to wait until either my skill level increased or I found another one to study.

With that said, this was again only a design. If I wanted to implement it in reality, I would need to do some… additional work. Thankfully, I had an idea on how I could go about that, one that I had been thinking about while working on this puppet.

Taking a deep breath, I held out my arm focusing on a number of skills. Most of these skills needed to be downcast substantially. In total, I elected to use six skills as the basis for this combination. First, obviously, was Puppet Design. This would shape all of the skill’s results into the form of a puppet.

Next, I downcast Walking Fortress down to its very basic level, Material Manipulation. I then did the same for Shadow Forge, Shadow King, Many Faces, and Martial King. Honestly, I probably could have gotten away with just using Walking Fortress and Many Faces, but I wanted to add the other three as supplements in case there were no suitable sources of materials nearby.

I watched as the shadows on the wooden floor rolled, rising up to form a humanoid form. Over the course of more than a minute, the features were smoothed over, a billowing cloak added. Diane’s face appeared beneath the hood, with only a faint wooden feel.

Pleased at the success, I repeated the process three more times, only failing once. On the final try, a new skill appeared, called Puppet Artisan. This was another crafting skill, much like Material Construction, except that it could only create puppets.

As I was mentally celebrating the successful creation of the skill, the door to my room opened. “How’s the puppet training coming… along…?” Diane asked, sticking her head through the door, only to see me surrounded by a group of dolls, all of which had her face.

“...This probably looks a lot worse without context, doesn’t it?” I asked, feeling cold sweat dripping down my back.

Diane perked a brow at that. “Honestly, it doesn’t look too good with context. Are they usable?”

“Should be,” I confirmed, looking at the group of puppets that I had created to test the skill. “I had to make a new skill to actually create the puppets themselves. So, if you have any requests for things you’d like me to make in future versions, let me know. I’ll need to train these skills for quite a bit to make puppets for you mid-combat.”

Diane nodded, flicking her wrist towards one of the nearest puppets to her. Thin wires shot out of her gloves, latching onto the puppet. A moment later, the puppet began to walk with awkward steps towards the door, the soft thunks of wood echoing with each step. “I’m going to take this one to practice tomorrow. For now, I need to log out, and my Chosen needs her sleep.”

With that, she left the room, together with her chosen puppet. As for the others left behind, I had no choice but to destroy them. Unlike Material Manipulation, there was no option to ‘reduce’ the material, only create. And these puppets wouldn’t stack in the inventory, so I couldn’t just keep creating them and storing them away for later.

Thankfully, the puppets were permanent when I created them, even if I had to substitute my own projected energy as part of the process. That was why I added Shadow Forge as part of the skill combination.

With that thought in mind, I decided that it was time for my signature move… pulling an all-nighter to train while everyone else slept. First, I created a sentry to stand guard in my room, and then teleported to the hilltop where Bella had practiced her sharpshooting. This place would give me plenty of room to train in my dragon form.

After that, I simply spent the night creating puppets one after the other, working on new designs in the meantime. Whenever the puppets grew too cluttered around me, I released a burst of flaming energy to destroy them all and start over.

I was so engrossed in this process that I had forgotten entirely just how close my Dragon Shifter was to evolving. Just before the sun crested over the horizon, I received a notification that the evolution was ready.