[D'sP] No Goat Shoes - Chapter 458

Doyle already had metal horn coverings. Those would not work even if worked from mithril. Now, admittedly, such a piece would still be better for the cyclone goat’s and their Spiral Blast skill. Not because it would empower the skill, but rather because the skill would pass through the armor with little interference.

In other words, not better than just using the skill. However, they would get to wear armor. Which, if given a choice to wear armor without being negatively affected, take the armor.

There was one important detail in relation to Doyle already having the helmet pattern, because that was the actual source. While he is incapable of making a stave adjacent horn covering. The craft magic behind such things would not recognize this. That did not prevent the kobold smiths from taking the next step.

Or rather, the elder void kobolds smiths. They could craft his patterns, at least to an extent and they already had familiarity with casting implements in the form of wands. Except the skill level was still short.

Thankfully, upon gaining the cyclone goat pattern, he had received 20 adjustment points to pay for some additional skill. Well, Doyle didn’t actually Need those 20 points as the little display to the side showed.

{

Monster Pattern Adjustment Points: 706

}

Yeah, he had a decent number of points kicking around. In fact, it was nearly a hundred higher than expected. That is, until he realized he hadn’t checked the total after gaining the patterns for razor foxes, cyclone goats, or the elder void kobolds.

Whatever the case, Doyle has a magnitude more adjustment points than needed. Though purchasing the Blacksmithing skill cost a decent chunk. The skill itself cost 10 and then another 10 to allow the elders to use it, thank goodness the elder void kobolds inherit from regular elders kobolds.

Then Doyle pumped another 30 points into it so the skill started at level 4. While the actual level didn’t technically matter all that much since what is just the starting point. Those three extra levels are enough to alter the ratio compared to their other skills.

While the system would never let things be so simple as direct ratios. The Blacksmithing skill at level 4 compared to their other two skills being level one puts more than enough focus on it. More importantly, it gives the elder void kobolds the skill needed to craft the metal horn coverings.

And while Doyle couldn’t micromanage the elders, he could push them. A leather helmet with metal horn coverings? Well, just don’t attach the leather part, don’t even make it. Or rather, make the helmet part in such a way that the horn coverings slot into place instead of being built into the rest of the helmet.

It was a simple enough design concept that even dungeon monsters and their complete lack of creativity could be convinced to do it. At the most basic level, just flare out the base of the coverings so the holes in the helmet would keep it in place. Though, admittedly, the last design was slightly more complex to keep the horn coverings held tight.

This left Doyle with a blank slate. He already has the pattern for wands. Good for punching through saves and such. Except the point of this was to make a stave equivalent, not a wand equivalent. Though Doyle did float the idea of having one horn be a stave and the other a wand. It just wouldn’t work to get both effects that way.

So instead, Doyle had to dive into the inherent complexity of the wand, which technically isn’t a “true” wand, what with how his wands can’t store spells. Useful as you don’t accidentally use all the charges and have the wands crumble on you. Annoying because it provides only a fraction of the functionality that a true wand has.

And the same would be true for his staves. For a long time. At one point Ally had compared crafting the various implements to a popular RPG that separated out crafting into various packages. All with their own level requirements to take. 

To craft a proper wand was obviously more complex than scribing a scroll or brewing a potion. Then there was crafting a proper staff, which is over twice the level requirement of a wand. Though to be fair, a staff is a permanent magical item, while a wand crumbles away once you use all the charges up.

Except when people still haven’t figured out magical scrolls yet? Yeah, even wands are a distant dream. Still, if a faux wand could show a fraction of the power a proper one has, Doyle kept the hope alive for the stave.

This, however, ended up with him going down the rabbit hole and spending a good bit of time trying to figure things out. Which, on one hand, had decent results. Doyle managed to figure out the quirk that made a wand, a wand. Except that, on the other hand, he took so long that Ace and company had made headway on getting to the twentieth floor.

Doyle felt this was a decent trade off with the only caveat being that it didn’t mean he could instantly make weird wands of different form factors. Or rather, no matter how much he felt like it should be possible, this was still craft magic and Doyle couldn’t do that, no matter if he literally manipulated a hammer and beat some metal in the right way.

Nevermind the contradiction of his own monsters being capable of it. Which frustrated Doyle to no end, but he sort of got it. Even if they weren’t sapient right now, they technically had the chance, no matter how unlikely. So there was something going on there for the craft magic to hang its hat on.

As it stood, his elder void kobolds managed to get part way there. Their best attempts yet at mithril horn covers had a structure to them that felt almost there. As if all the rough work had been done to make a stave and all that was left is the finishing details. They were one bit of inspiration away from managing it.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? Dungeon monsters don’t DO inspiration. Oh sure, maybe a sapient one could, but Doyle didn’t have a smith boss. Besides, even with a sapient monster working on it wouldn’t guarantee anything. After all, it isn’t like handing this off to someone outside would get things finished, either.

It would be like handing someone with no knowledge on the subject a bunch of electronic parts and a breadboard without any instructions and expecting them to stumble upon the exact combination needed to make a calculator. Sure, given time and a build up of knowledge, someone might eventually get it, but that’s the “spark of inspiration” part. More likely, it would take a bunch of smart people some time to put it together. Yes, with the parts in front of them, they’ll figure it out a lot quicker than without. But as it stands, Doyle might as well be tossing all the parts in a box and shaking it in the hope they magically assemble correctly. Doyle was just going to have to hope that close enough was good enough.

Not that this was the end of his preparations. Other things had been going on in the background as Doyle had banged his head against this particular wall. The armor itself needed some work.

In particular, goats don’t take to horseshoes. Which, given the whole “horse”shoe nomenclature, makes some sense. Though Doyle took a closer look at the issue and came to two conclusions.

First was that the goats cloven hoof would require two mini-shoes. The separation being an important part of the goats dexterity and what not. Second and more important is that a goat’s hoof was simply too thin for a horseshoe nail to hold and they are generally too small for shoes, anyway.

Which is really annoying when you’re trying to outfit them for war! Whether a critter has two or four legs, their feet are critical to keeping them going. Yes, the armor pattern had an overshoe of sorts for the goats. It was basically just a sheet of metal beat into shape to cover the top of their hooves. Except, that wouldn’t protect said goat if someone got smart and brought caltrops to the fight.

Doyle could only put the issue on the back burner and hope a solution was found or developed. Besides, a horseshoe wasn’t actually a solution against caltrops. They would simply provide some protection. There has to be something out there because Doyle knew there were sapient beings out there that had hooves.

Well, he didn’t know, know. But presumably given how much of his planets myths and legends had a grounding in reality? It would be the opposite of a shock to find out things like minotaurs, centaurs, and satyrs adventurers existed. Doyle just didn’t want to wait for the world to open up and a satyr tank to not only come to the world, but delve into his dungeon and manage to lose their shoes one way or another.

If only because it would suck to have a reputation of killing anything novel that showed up in his dungeon. Maybe it would be a simple matter of leveling up the boot pattern enough that it broke into non-human options? Whatever the case, Doyle felt this line of testing had even less chance of success than staves because at least he had a starting point for what a staff should look like.

Doyle was thankful that the rest of the armor was much more straightforward. While the pattern provided options weren’t perfect, this wasn’t because what was provided sucked. Rather, the cyclone goat has certain needs that a regular goat did not have.

Such as jumping straight up quite a distance and then jumping again while mid air. That not only required some changes to be made. It also requires careful lightening of the armor. After all, the skill only does so much and too much weight would hold the goat down.

Doyle was quite thankful for all his previous armored goats as they provided quite a bit of information on how to handle this. Information untainted by survivorship bias as the information could be collected during the fight. Which only took some of Doyle and Ally’s time to watch delvers fight them. After which Doyle adjusted the armor to be thinner or thicker depending on how it performed.

Though the most helpful change was to the bronze alloy. Which since Doyle was already using pure mithril horn guards, he didn’t feel anything in adding some of the metal into the rest of the armor. Not that mithril was magically light as shown in so much popular media before magic came.

It was however quite light comparatively. Which when you are scraping off a bit of metal for any potential gain, is important. Besides, this allowed Doyle to use his new elder smiths for something they were quite suited for.

As while yes, they couldn’t do innovative work, dungeon monsters had no problem with the incremental. All it took from Doyle was to set his smiths to trying various ratios of copper, tin, and mithril. Though it certainly helped that he wasn’t looking for an all around better alloy, instead focusing on simply a bronze equivalent that happened to be lighter.

A task that the elder void kobolds has been more than up to. In the time it took Doyle to figure out what he could of staves, they had prepared a silly amount of samples. Among which was one sample in particular that drew Doyle to it.

This sample wasn’t the strongest, though it was better than his normal bronze mix by a smidge. And yes, it was lighter, though obviously not the lightest, as regular physics still worked and so the alloys with more mithril were lighter. Rather, what drew Doyle to it was the color.

You would think adding a buttery silver metal would give an alloy a butter silver tint and you wouldn’t be wrong. Until you let a patina form. Doyle also knew that this shouldn’t have worked as before the system, such a patina required boiling chemical baths or some such to form. Which was easily ignored by Doyle in favor of such a pretty shade of bronze with a black purple finish.

The Basic Beasts - Chapter 457

Various Realms - Chapter 459