The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Page 9

  “I think if you can get the stuff for her, she’ll take care of it on the down low for you.” Sally gave me a hopeful smile. “Look, sometimes substitutions can be made in recipes. I’ll see if I can come up with someone. Remember, it’s all about equivalent exchange. A lot of the time in Alchemy having a hundred pieces of breath is equal to having a loaf. It may be possible to substitute something.”

  I didn’t believe her, mostly because I could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe it. That was probably because if there was a work around, someone would have already come up with it. “Yeah, you work on that.” I nodded to her, but I wasn’t feeling good about it. “I’m going to talk to Annabeth about it. Maybe she’d have a better idea.”

  “Okay,” Sally said, touching my shoulder. “I feel really bad I couldn’t do more.”

  “It’s really not your fault,” I said, taking a deep breath. “This is the kind of item that if we were united, we’d have made in ten fucking seconds. The problem is we’re not united, and Hell is a bunch of squabbling sycophants.”

  “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” She kissed my cheek. “You’re the Builder of Legend, and already you’ve done more than any Builder before you. Remember that.”

  “I will, thanks,” I said, moving to find Annabeth. Sally waved to me before setting back to work.

  It didn’t take long to find Annabeth. The sculptor was sitting next to the remains of one of the statues. This one’s head, arms, and legs had been severed. Only from the way the sculptor had laid out the pieces, it almost seemed like she was trying to put it back together again.

  “What are you working on?” I asked, sidling up to her, but the sound of my voice caused her to jump.

  She looked at me, wide-eyed with one hand clasping her chest like I’d given her a heart attack.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” she said, sucking in a lungful of air.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, kneeling down next to her and looking at the statue. It was as finely detailed as the others but didn’t seem particularly special. “I wanted to chat with you about something.”

  “Oh?” she asked, turning away from the statue and looking at me. “Okay.” She glanced back at the statue and a thread of annoyance spread across her face. “What do you need?”

  “Are you upset I’m bugging you?” I asked, gesturing at the statue. “I can come back later if you think that is a better use of your time.” I paused and ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry, that came out sarcastic. It wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “No, it’s fine. The moment is gone.” She shrugged. “I’d just wondered if maybe I could put some of these back together again. They wouldn’t be pretty, but maybe it’d be enough to bring them back. Then we could heal the injuries.”

  “That is an excellent idea,” I said, suddenly pleased. If we did that, we could get some more people, which was something we were in desperate need of. “Do you think it will work?”

  “I think it’s likely or I wouldn’t be trying.” She waved off the statement. “What do you need, Arthur?” She tried to smile and failed. “As much as I love our chats, you know I’d rather be working.”

  “Right, okay, sorry.” I took a deep breath. “Do you know about the Heart of the Storm?”

  “Yes, what about it?” she asked, giving me the same look someone would give me if I asked about Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

  “I need one.” I opened the book and showed her the recipe for the gauntlet. “This is one of the Armaments, so we have to figure out a way to make it.”

  “The only way to get one is for Freya, that’s the head of the Sculptors’ Guild, to craft it, and she won’t. Even if she did make it, she won’t make that and the Stairway for us.” Annabeth looked at me for a long time, and I could see the gears in her brain turning.

  “It’s starting to seem that the only way we’re going to get the Stairway done is to actually put our own people at the Heads of the Guilds,” I mused. It hadn’t been the first time I’d had the thought, but something told me that would be next to impossible.

  “Perhaps,” Annabeth said, and I could tell she was thinking about something.

  “Do you have an idea? Or are you just agreeing it’s time to dethrone the heads of the guilds? Is that even possible?” I asked, suddenly taken with the idea. That she hadn’t just decried the idea outright was intriguing, to say the least. After all, I was the Builder of Legend. I could augment her stats well above the competition.

  “Oh, the guild thing? No, that’s silly. I don’t know how it is for the other guilds, but for the sculpting one, I’d have to beat her in a series of trials…” Her eyes went wide as she trailed off. “That’s it!”

  “What’s it?” I asked, suddenly hopeful for the first time in a while. It had seemed like lately for every step forward we took, we got shoved two steps back.

  “The Annual Sculptor’s competition. It starts next week.” She smirked. “It’s difficult, and I’ve never placed before, but Freya will sculpt something for the winning team. I’m sure that if we won, she’d sculpt either the Stairway piece or the Heart of the Storm. You’d have to pick one though.”

  “There’s a lot of ifs in that statement, especially considering you’ve never placed.” I looked at her. “Can you do it?”

  “I think I can. I’m much better than I was before. I also know what the events will be.” She shut her eyes for a second, and for a moment I got the impression she was having some kind of inner debate. I was about to ask her about it when her eyes opened. Her golden orbs were filled with determination, and she nodded sharply. “I’m going to tell you what I need upgraded, then you’ll do it, and I’ll practice until then, okay?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. While most of the girls enjoyed when I increased their stats, Annabeth definitely did not. That she wanted me to do it spoke volumes.

  “Yes.” She stood then. “Tell me what I have, and we’ll go from there, okay?”

  “Alright,” I said, opening her main stat window.

  Name: Annabeth

  Experience: 47,773

  Health: 80/80

  Mana: 167/167

  Primary Power: Sculpting

  Secondary Power: None selected

  Strength: 10/100

  Agility: 70/100

  Charisma: 28/100

  Intelligence: 70/100

  Special: 97/100

  Perk: Rank 2 Sculptor

  “Okay, well, you have an assload of experience,” I said, smirking at her. “And yes, that’s a technical term. So, you may as well tell me what I’m doing, and we can go from there.”

  “Ah, um, okay.” She took a deep breath. “After the qualifying rounds, which shouldn’t be too hard, there will be three events during the competition. That’s where the real action happens.” She paused, staring at the sky lost in thought.

  “Okay, we can work with that, what are those events?” I asked, already scrolling through her stat trees. I definitely needed to earmark experience to raise her Agility and Intelligence, but it would only cost about nine thousand experience to raise both to ninety-five. That left me about thirty-six thousand experience points to play with.

  “The first event is realism. Basically, the sculptors are to create something as real as possible. The second one is an abstract meant to bring about an emotive response from those who gaze upon it.” She shuffled her feet. “Even if I can get through both of those, there’s still the last round.”

  “Why is that?” I opened up her Emotive Sculpting and Realism Sculpting skill trees. Like I’d thought, she knew both of them already.

  Focusing on the Realism tree, I opened the base skill from which the others all were based upon.

  Sculpting - Realism

  Skill: 6/10.

  The user can create sculptures that appear realistic. Increasing this Skill increases the degree to which the sculptures appear lifelike.

  After reading the message, I stared at t
he experience cost for the upgrade. Well, this wouldn’t cost a lot at all.

  Do you want to upgrade Sculpting – Realism to Skill level 7? Base cost 700 Experience. This price can be reduced by attaining an overall Rank of 1 in Sculpting.

  After looking a bit more at it, I realized that I could upgrade her to rank nine for only 2,400 experience, but to go from skill level nine to skill level ten was almost ten thousand experience on its own. It was also highlighted in red, letting me know the exorbitant cost had to do with her rank in the guild.

  I made a quick mental note before opening the Emotion Tree. That’s when I realized why she always failed.

  Sculpting - Emotion

  Skill: 1/10.

  The user can create sculptures that make the viewer feel certain emotions. Increasing this Skill increases the degree to which the sculptures generate an emotive response in the viewer.

  After reading the message, I stared at the upgrade tab. Even though it was a base skill and Annabeth was relatively high ranked in the guild, it was really expensive to upgrade because, well, she sucked at it.

  Do you want to upgrade Sculpting – Emotion to Skill level 2? Base cost 1200 Experience. This price can be reduced by attaining an overall Rank of 1 in Sculpting.

  “Holy crap, you’re really terrible at the emotive thing,” I said, turning my eyes back to her. She’d been speaking the whole time, but I hadn’t heard her because I’d been focusing on the trees, but what I’d said must have embarrassed her because her cheeks flushed.

  “Yes,” she said, casting her eyes at her feet. “I usually skate through the prelims on my other skills, and I can typically get past the realism stage. Then I lose at the emotive stage.” She grumbled. “It’s infuriating.”

  “Well, I can fix it. Gonna cost a bundle, but I can do it.” I did some mental math. “The upgrades I have will cost us twenty-three-thousand-one-hundred Experience Points. You won’t have any of the skills in the tree leveled up though. We can do some of them, but the cost is really bad.” I looked at her. “What’s the last category?”

  “It’s a freestyle competition. Basically, I can do whatever I want. I’ve always felt if I could get there, I could win.” The way she said it told me she really did believe that, and as I looked at her skill level, I was inclined to agree. She probably could win because her other skills were reasonably high. She was just getting knocked out on the emotive part of it.

  “Okay, well, in that case, I’m going to spend these points to upgrade your skill sets and stats. Practice for a bit and let me know what you want me to do. Hell, we can save the rest of your experience for the competition and use it there, if need be.” I bumped both her Realism and Emotive skills to nine and altered her stats so both her agility and intelligence were ninety-five, only as I did, a new ability appeared under her realism tree. It was at the very bottom and would cost me about five thousand experience to get once I factored in the requirements for preceding skills, but I was going to do it, anyway.

  “You have a weird look on you face,” Annabeth said as I eyed the new skill.

  What is Life?: This Ability allows the user to create a sculpture so lifelike it is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

  Requirements: Special: 95+, Agility: 95+, Intelligence 95+

  Cost: 3,500 Experience

  That in itself wasn’t so interesting on its own since the whole tree was based on making realistic sculptures. No, it was when I looked at the grayed out skill at the bottom of the Emotive tree that I had an idea. She needed a lot of prerequisites, and to buy the skills outright was impossible, but if she could gain at least one point in each on her own, maybe I could figure out a way to get it…

  The Cost of Love: This Ability allows the user to infuse her feelings into the sculpture in such a way that all who look upon it will feel the sculptor’s true emotions as though they were experiencing it themselves.

  Requirements: Special: 95+, Agility: 95+, Intelligence 95+

  Cost: 3,500 Experience

  If that was combined with the other skill, it would create a sculpture so magnificent, we’d surely win. And we needed to win more than anything.

  “I want you to do something,” I said, taking a deep breath. “There are six types of emotive skills you need to learn for me to have you learn the penultimate skill. I can’t just buy them because we don’t have the experience. I’m hoping that between you doing this and the experience you gain from practice, we’ll have a fighting chance.”

  “Oh?” she said, raising an eyebrow at me. “That feels like cheating. Making sculptures specifically to learn skills. That’s not what this is about.” She touched her chest. “This is where sculpting comes from. Not from numbers.”

  “Look, we can do this or not, it’s your choice, but if it were me, I would. I need the Armament to stop the Darkness.” I gestured at the horizon. “That doesn’t care about us. It wants to kill us. I will do anything to stop it. Will you?”

  Annabeth looked at me for a long time, and while I’m not sure what she saw on my face, she nodded. “Okay. Tell me what to make.”

  14

  “This isn’t going to work,” Annabeth grumbled, throwing the half-finished sculpture to the ground and shattering it into a million pieces. “I’ve been trying for the last six hours, and these are all terrible.” She flicked her hand out at the pieces she’d made over the last three days. They were arranged around her in a crude semi-circle.

  I couldn’t tell what any of them were in particular, though the one closest to me sort of resembled a winged-squirrel wielding a trident.

  “I think you’re doing fine,” I said, picking up the squirrel and giving it a once over. It was kind of cute in a creepy sort of way.

  The Squirrel Champion

  Class: Sculpture

  Material: Stone

  Grade: D

  Use: None

  Flaw: It is clear the sculptor has tried to impart emotion into this piece and failed, twisting it into an unloved monstrosity.

  A quick glance at the rest of the sculptures revealed similar messages. There were a couple that looked more realistic than the others, but near as I could tell, they failed on the emotional level. They were prettier, sure, but they didn’t make me think of anything other than the creature depicted.

  “I’m not doing fine,” Annabeth snapped, glaring at me. She picked up the closest sculpture, a deranged looking duck thing, and held it out to me with bloody fingers, and I realized she’d quite literally worn her flesh away from carving so much stone in such a short period of time. “I’m a failure.”

  “Maybe you need to take a break?” I said, putting the squirrel down. “I think that might help.”

  “It won’t help,” she shouted, throwing the sculpture in her hand to the ground and shattering it too. “I can’t do this, Arthur. I thought maybe I could, but I can’t.” Tears began to fill her vision. “I’ve been working all day and night, and I’ll keep working, keep trying, but it’s hopeless.” She swallowed. “You need to think of another way or find someone better.”

  “Look,” I said, sitting down next to her. “No one can master a skill like this in one day.”

  “You think this is the first time I’ve tried this?” she asked, glaring at me. “I’ve sat with the emotive masters, studied with them, and I still can’t do it.”

  In her eyes, I could see thousands of failures. I could see her loss every year in the sculpting tournament and the shame it brought. I could see how that loss compounded itself until it was an anvil of doubt around her neck.

  The worst thing was she was sort of right. Even a cursory glance at her emotive tree showed me she’d gained precious little experience this whole time. She’d yet to gain one skill point in any of the categories she’d worked on, and that didn’t bode well at all. At the end of the day, I could only augment her abilities with her own experience. There was just one problem with that though. She was a real person, not a fictional character who magically knew how t
o do things once I had her learn the skill.

  No, Annabeth had to actually do the work, and even if I put the recipe in her head, if she didn’t think she could do it, it wouldn’t matter. Based on her tree and her stats, she ought to be better at this, but she wasn’t, and now I knew why. She didn’t think she could do it.

  “Why can’t you do it?” I asked, moving next to her and raising her chin, so she was looking at me.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, snuffling at me. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I can’t do it because I’m terrible.” She pulled away from me and pointed at the sculpture of two people entwined together. “That’s supposed to be love, or lust, or something… but tell me, do you feel anything looking at it?”

  “No,” I said, taking a deep breath. It was true, I didn’t, and I didn’t need to read the tooltip to tell it wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do.

  “Exactly,” she said, clasping her hands together and leaning forward. “I just don’t think this is going to work. I’m just not good enough, and if we go there, all I will do is bring us shame.”

  “Can you carve that?” I asked, picking up a piece of stone and holding it out to her.

  “What?” she asked, looking at me quizzically.

  “Shame, can you carve it?” I shook the hunk of rock. “What does shame look like?”

  “You want me to carve shame?” she asked, looking at me like I’d gone batty.

  “You seem to be feeling a lot of it.” I gestured at her. “Look, I don’t mean it in the wrong way or anything, but well, you seem to feel like you aren’t good enough, which is crazy because I think you’re amazing. So maybe it’d help if instead of trying to carve love or happiness or whatever, you let your darker emotions out on the piece. You know, anger, hate, those sorts of things. There’s nothing that said you had to sculpt happy things.”