HC: Handyman | Ch. 218 - Harmonics

After a satisfying workout and a hearty breakfast with his parents, Jack rushed back to his room. Even after a quick shower, sweat clung to

After a satisfying workout and a hearty breakfast with his parents, Jack rushed back to his room. Even after a quick shower, sweat clung to his skin. He toweled off as he logged into the meeting.

His face flickered onto the screen, joining the mosaic of video tiles.

“Hi, guys.”

“Hey, Jack.”

“Hello!”

Amari sat up straight, his usual poise intact, but the tight set of his jaw betrayed a simmering tension. The Breach event had rattled even him.

Horace looked unusually subdued. Since triggering the event, he hadn’t quite been himself—quieter, more withdrawn. Instead of cracking jokes or hogging the mic, he stared at his screen, nodding occasionally.

Rob and Marie, meanwhile, chatted easily, bright smiles bridging the distance. It was their first time “meeting” face to face, and both looked a little delighted.

Not that the safety filters left much to the imagination. The developers had hardcoded avatar restrictions to match real-world appearances—no catfishing allowed, especially in a game crawling with kids.

“I thought for sure you'd have pigtails in real life,” Rob said, tilting his head as if trying to match Marie’s avatar to her face.

Marie smirked. “No way. It’d make me look too girly.”

“Then why use them in-game?”

“Because I never get to outside it.”

Jack leaned back in his chair, mirroring Horace’s silence. He wasn’t sure why the meeting hadn’t started yet, but Amari would take the lead soon enough.

He glanced at the screen again. Everyone was here. No one else seemed in a hurry—maybe they were waiting for Amari to say something, too.

“All right, guys.” The chatter hushed as Amari’s voice took over. “Everyone’s here. I was just exchanging messages with an information broker I trust—there’s a real chance we’re the very first to trigger this event.”

“No way,” Rob breathed. “That’s wild.”

“The rewards must be insane!” Marie added, her eyes lighting up.

Amari glanced around. “So. Any ideas on how we’re going to tackle it?”

Marie shrugged. “I mean… what is there to say? We blast whatever shows up. Same as always, right?”

Amari shook his head. “Not quite. There are a lot of decisions to make. First—what do we do with the Breach Points from waves 31 to 40? Just the achievement from the last wave gave us 50. That’s more than enough for a serious upgrade.”

Jack imagined another aid package on par with Tramontane. The idea made his pulse quicken.

Amari wasn’t done. He raised a finger. “Second, what do we buy from the market? Are we going all-in or setting limits? How much gold can we afford to burn?”

A second finger. “Third—what boosts can we grab to increase our odds?”

And a fourth. “And finally—we’ll have shorter downtime between waves. How do we want to use that?”

Marie blinked. “Okay… yeah. I guess there’s more to this than I thought.”

Jack sat forward before he could second-guess himself. “I say we spend all the Breach Points on an aid package.”

Even he was surprised at how certain he sounded.

“Oh?” Amari raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t we save those for end-of-run rewards?”

“Yeah, cousin,” Rob chimed in. “This run’s ending soon. Spend it all now and we might walk away empty-handed.”

Jack shook his head. “No. I stand by it. We should spend it now.”

He couldn’t explain it. He just knew it was the right call. Maybe it was the momentum they’d built. Or the way he’d faced down the last boss solo. Or pulled off the impossible with Horace to save Rob from IronIre.

And he’d faced Piri before. Sure, it was exasperating—but he’d always found a way through. And this time, he wasn’t alone.

He had a team now. A good one.

“What are you thinking, Jack?” Amari asked.

“Many of us make a living off this game. We can’t throw gold around carelessly,” Jack said, “but if we want any real shot at this event, we have to go bold. Piri didn’t hand us 50 points out of generosity. That’s the floor. The minimum it takes to survive. So let’s use it. Spend everything and get ourselves another aid package.”

Amari sat back, considering. Then he nodded slowly. “Even if we don’t walk away with a ton of loot, the video I’ll make from this will go viral. An unprecedented event? That’s great exposure. I’m in. What about the rest of you?”

Heads nodded one by one around the virtual table.

“Great. We’ll spend the Breach Points as soon as we log in,” Amari said. “Now, next topic…”

The meeting rolled on, every conversation orbiting around a single priority: survive this event, no matter what it cost them.

By the time they wrapped, most of the morning had vanished.

“One last thing,” Amari added. “Jack, how are you planning to use your time between waves?”

Jack let out a breath. That had been on his mind. “I won’t have much—maybe an hour, tops. Most of it will go into cooking for all the NPCs and you guys. Any thoughts?”

Amari waved him off with a chuckle. “I’m not asking because we need to decide it as a team. Just thought it might help us coordinate better.”

Jack nodded slowly. “I’ll need a bit more time to figure it out.”

“Fair enough,” Amari said, stretching. “Take a break, everyone. Be back in one hour. Come sharp—we’ll need everything we’ve got for whatever Piri throws our way.”

Jack smiled. His nickname for the pyramid had stuck. Everyone called the AI Piri now.

One by one, their video tiles blinked out.

Jack leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting across the room. His bright blue helmet sat on the bedside table. In the corner, his guitar case lay untouched, a soft layer of dust dulling the surface.

“What should I make?” he murmured.

The mead was aging in the cellar. As for food, he’d cook the best meals he could with what he had. If they needed stronger ingredients or consumables, they could always buy them from the market. No need to waste time there.

Then there was gear for the soldiers. He’d done everything possible with the materials and time he had. So far, the soldiers hadn’t done much—Tramontane alone had been more than enough to handle the marmosets. But if, after a couple of battles, their equipment started to falter, the ptero-peddler could handle it. They could just buy new gear.

No—if there was one thing worth crafting now, it had to be something for himself. His class limited him to using items he crafted personally, and that restriction narrowed things quickly. Whatever he made had to help the whole team. And soon.

Out of all his blueprints, only one stood out as having the potential to make a real difference in a short amount of time:

The blowing horn.

He already had a special horn ready to work with, and the recipe came from a synergy between the Butchering and Bard professions. Synergistic recipes and skills tended to be powerful.

Jack opened the in-game auction house and searched for blowing horns.

Nothing. Not a single listing.

So it wasn’t a common item.

He picked up his phone and opened the New Earth companion app, navigating to his avatar’s inventory. With a tap, he activated the projector.

A soft, bluish glow filled the room as a 3D hologram materialized above his desk. The black horn dropped by the shagrat boss slowly rotated in midair.

Obsidian Shagrat Horn (Rare)

A horn that only grows in the alpha male of a large shagrat herd. From the apex of the Black-Horned Shagrat. Its structure is dense, and the tip is razor-sharp.

Durability: 97

Even as a projection, the sleek black horn was mesmerizing.

If he was going to shape this into something useful, he needed more than just inspiration for a beautiful engraving pattern. He had to understand the instrument itself—how it worked, how it was played.

While the horn hovered above his desk, gently rotating, Jack pulled up a browser on his laptop and typed in a few keywords: blowing horn.

The results flooded in—mostly orchestras and French horn players. He sighed and added filters: -orchestra -French.

The refreshed list looked better—reenactors at historical forts, medieval fairs, hobbyists, historians. Some wore modern clothes; others, full costume.

The first video he clicked featured a reenactor at an old American fort, playing a brass bugle. The man sat on a horse in a blue uniform, boots polished. He brought the brass horn to his lips and played a battle call—a simple melody of four quick notes.

Jack paused the video and squinted. The bugle had no buttons. No finger holes. The man’s hand wasn’t doing anything except holding it.

“Uh? How is he even making the different notes?”

He tilted his head, puzzled, but shrugged it off. He only had an hour before they jumped back into the game. If he let himself chase every interesting detail, he’d never find what he needed. The bugle was metal anyway—not bone.

He refined the search: animal bone blowing horn.

This time, the results narrowed. He clicked on a video featuring a gray-bearded man holding a goat’s horn. Skipping the intro, he landed mid-sentence.

“...show you the different sounds this cow horn can make.”

Jack leaned in. “Good. Let’s hear it.”

The man raised the horn to his lips. “Here’s the first one.”

What followed wasn’t music. Jack wasn’t even sure it qualified as a note. The streamer blew variations of raw sound through the horn—one short and fluttery, another long and mournful. A third was harsh and stuttering, like an alarm. No melody. No scale. Just... texture.

Jack leaned back, arms crossed. “This can’t be it. Can it?”

He kept scrolling until a thumbnail caught his eye: One Hour of Relaxing Medieval Music. Curious, he clicked. The video opened to a girl in a green dress, wearing a crown of flowers, standing in a meadow and playing what looked like a bone flute. She blew through the wide end of the horn, and it had finger holes. The melody she played was lilting and wistful.

As he watched her fingers move across the holes, Jack gasped. “This is… an ocarina. A bone ocarina!”

The tone was lighter, more ethereal—ghostly, even. Where the clay ocarina was earthy and grainy, this one felt like it echoed through mist.

He checked the description: gemshorn.

Is this what I have to make? A gemshorn?

Jack opened the in-game recipe for the blowing horn.

No mention of keyholes.

He tapped his foot, frowning. This wasn’t the right instrument. If he deviated too far from the listed materials and steps, the system might not recognize the item at all.

“It would have been too easy, huh?”

He adjusted the filters, excluding any results with the word gemshorn, and dove back in.

More videos. More hobbyists making war horns and Viking horns—most producing just a single roar or tone.

Until finally, he found something different.

A man stood in a workshop, holding a curved, spiraling horn. He blew into it and played a B-flat. Then, a few moments later—without touching anything—he played an F.

Jack sat up. “Oh?” Same hand position. No valves. No holes. Just like the reenactor at the fort. How is he doing that?

He scrubbed back to the start of the video.

“...harmonics. This takes some practicing, but by adjusting the pressure on the mouthpiece, you can produce variations of the fundamental note. Here—” The man played a B-flat. “Now I tighten the lips, adjust the pressure—” An F rang out. “And if I push it further…” His cheeks puffed, face reddening, and a second B-flat followed—an octave higher.

OK! Now we’re getting somewhere, Jack thought, leaning forward.

This was nothing like playing guitar or ocarina. No frets. No finger holes. Just breath and lips.

He added harmonics to the search bar. Sure enough, he found more skillful players—some coaxing actual melodies from bone horns.

Four notes. Five, he concluded, if someone has an exceptional horn—or ridiculous breath control.

He opened the notes app on his phone and began typing:

– The more curved and irregular the horn, the harder it is to control airflow.

– Wall thickness affects pitch. Thinner walls = higher tone.

He was just starting to read about mouthpieces when he glanced at the clock and nearly fell out of his chair.

“12:47?!”

His lunch break had practically vanished.

He bolted downstairs. His parents were in the kitchen—his dad holding a mug, his mom slicing cucumbers.

“Done for the day, son?” his dad asked.

“Nope, sorry. I’m working all afternoon. Just need to grab some quick lunch.”

Jack yanked open the cupboard, grabbed bread, peanut butter, and jelly, and slapped together a sandwich. He fished a liquid yogurt from the fridge, shook it, and started chewing like a man on a mission.

His parents exchanged a glance.

“Son… I never thought I’d say this,” his dad said, “but aren’t you working too much?”

Jack gave an apologetic smile, still chewing. “Sorry, Dad. No pain, no gain, right? Haha.”

“You’re not even going to sit?” his mom asked. “Lunch’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“I’d love to,” Jack said, fumbling for a way to explain. “But I can’t. We’re at a crucial point in a… project.”

He nodded, mouth half-full. “Thanks,” he mumbled, and bolted upstairs.

He brushed his teeth, slid the helmet over his head, and looked at the clock. He’d made it just in time.

Ch. 217 - Catastrophe

INDEX

Ch. 219 - 71 points