SNAPCRAFT | Ch. 12 - Flint Knapping
Added 2023-10-16 14:29:53 +0000 UTCAuthor's Notice:
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Winter of 345, A.D.
It had only taken Kai a couple of minutes to get to the museum. As he approached, he was surprised to find the lights on. Who could be visiting the museum this late at night? How odd that in a sector the size of a country, with a population that could be counted with one’s fingers, he had run into someone in this place at this unlikely time. He found the door unlocked and entered.
The museum seemed more exciting at night for some reason. Maybe the darkness outside added to the mystery of the building. Maybe it was the way the building lights bounced off artifacts and glass cases.
“Hello?” He called out. Although the lights were on, he hadn’t seen anyone yet. After a few moments, from one of the side rooms appeared Ariel.
“Kai?”
“Ariel?” He felt his mouth go dry, and his knees began trembling. As the only teenagers in the whole sector, everyone saw them as a couple already, and the worst part of it was that he did like Ariel. But that only made their encounters more awkward. On top of that, Ariel just seemed unfazed by the whole situation. They never talked about it, and to Kai, that was a sign that she didn’t want to talk about it because she didn’t like him.
“What are you doing here?” She asked.
His mind had become a tangled mess, and a million thoughts went through his mind. What came out was a mumbled mess. “I-I… Albert gave me the keys, and I… like… I came to…”
“Never mind. Come here! I could use a hand to move a couple of boxes.”
Kai followed her, anxious about being alone in a building with the girl he liked. Did she not care? Why was she so relaxed? He followed her into a side corridor he hadn’t seen before and then to a storeroom full of crates and boxes. As she located the box she wanted, she started making small talk.
“So, Albert gave you the keys, huh?”
“Uh… yeah. He did.”
“Awesome. Do you like it here?”
“Sure. But I’ve never been in this room.”
“Yeah… most of the museum is dedicated to the exams. But there are some artifacts we have from way back. There. It’s that one. Can you bring it down for me?”
Presented with the opportunity to show his manly strength, Kai took in a deep breath, puffed up his chest, and rolled up his sleeves. “Of course, piece of cake.”
“Cool. Bring it down here. Careful.”
Kai put his arms around the crate and shuddered. The box barely moved. “What’s in this thing? Rocks?”
“How did you know?” Embarrassed to ask for help, he applied all his strength, but the box barely moved.
“I’ll help you. Here.” They both dragged the box and carefully put it down on the floor.
She opened the lid. Kai admired how elegant all her gestures seemed to be. She made even something as mundane as opening a box or passing her hand through her hair look heavenly.
Ariel caught Kai staring. “What?”
“Uh. Nothing. You have something in your teeth.”
“What?”
“Just joking.”
She rolled her eyes, and Kai wanted to run and throw himself out the window. Why did he only speak stupidly when he was around Ariel? As she lifted the lid of the crate, there was straw and, in the middle of it, pieces of rock.
“You weren’t kidding. It’s a box with rocks.”
“Oh yeah!” Ariel was so excited that her voice became higher and giddy. She sounded like a little girl.
The rocks were all pointy and had pronounced edges. “What is this?”
“These are artifacts. Thousands of years old. It’s from when humans used to knap.”
“Nap? How did they use rocks to sleep.”
She let out a melodious giggle. “No, silly. Knap. K-n-a-p. Flint knapping.”
“Haven’t heard of it.”
“People used to make tools out of these rocks. They would hit the rocks and then fashion them into tools. You can sharpen flint to make knives, arrows, scrapers, you name it.”
“Really? From rocks?”
“Yes.”
“And why are…” Realization hit Kai. “I see… you’re about to turn 18. Your first lesson is coming up.”
Ariel blushed. “Yeah… I thought I’d make my first sunrise fire about flint. What do you think? Is it a good idea?”
“I think you’ll do great. I can’t wait for it. Why don’t you tell me what you’re planning on doing? Maybe I can help.”
“Really?”
Kai nodded.
“So, here’s my plan…”
*
353rd Daisy Exams, Round of 256.
Knowing the challenge's rules in more detail only made Kai feel more nervous. There was much at stake here. He stepped toward the crafting table, opened his inventory, and grabbed all the cards. The thirty cards in his hands were light but still weighed heavily. There were many possibilities here and fierce competition.
His opponent had proven to be resourceful and decisive. He was unsure of how far ahead they were. He refused to assume that his opponent was lagging behind. Pride came before the fall. Self-assurance and presumptuousness were not his allies. It was time to get to work.
He lay all the cards on the table. He appreciated that Daisy had made the table big enough to have space for every card without him fearing putting them too close to the crafting station. The worst thing that could happen was to waste two hp in an accidental crafting attempt that didn’t work. He wondered if that had happened for any of the other trial runners.
He studied the cards he had collected in the quarry.
2xBlock of Granite (Common)
Hp: 1
Vp: 2
2xShadow (Common)
Hp: 0
Vp: 3
2xLichen (Common)
Hp: 0
Vp: 3
Stonerock Succulent (Common)
Hp: 1
Vp: 2
2xMoss(Common)
Hp: 1
Vp: 2
1xPond (Uncommon)
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
2xWater (Uncommon)
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
2xFlintstone (Uncommon)
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
Gaslamp (Uncommon)
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Rusty Pickaxe (Uncommon)
Hp: 4
Vp: 0
Train Tracks (Uncommon)
Hp: 0
Vp: 4
2xMirror (Rare)
Hp: 4
Vp: 3
Mining Wagon (Legendary)
Hp: 1
Vp: 12
He thought for a few moments and put to the side ´~[Lichen], [Shadow] and [Train Tracks]. They all had 0 hp and would be useless at this stage. He had to focus on the cards with hp. They would be the most useful in the crafting arena.
He also looked over the cards that he had secured in the first round.
Pine Tree (Common)
Hp: 0
Vp: 1
Dry Pine Needle (Common)
Hp: 2
Vp: 0
Pine Bark (Common)
Hp: 1
Vp: 1
Pine Trunk (Common)
Hp: 2
Vp: 0
Bear Bread (Uncommon)
Hp: 1
Vp: 2
Wound Dressing (Uncommon)
Hp: 5
Vp: 0
Yellow Honey Agaric (Uncommon)
Hp: 0
Vp: 2
2xHallucinogen (Rare)
Hp: 1
Vp: 5
Light (Legendary)
Hp: +∞
Vp: 2
He picked up [Pine Tree] and [Yellow Honey Agaric] and put them next to the other 0hp cards he had set aside. Even though the other cards lost one hp at the end of the last stage, they still had some hit points left and could still be used in crafting.
With this, he had a better sense of all the building blocks available. He cracked his knuckles. There was no point in holding back. The more points he got now, the more upgrades he could get, and the stronger he’d become. He had to make the most of every little advantage. Only then could he be victorious.
Kai separated cards into what looked like good combinations. After looking over the combinations, he chose the recipe he would start with. After some deliberation, he grabbed [Rusty Pickaxe] and [Flintstone]. He was fairly certain that [Rusty Pickaxe] could be used with [Flintstone] and [Block of Granite]. It was only logical. After all, they had come from the same map, and miners used pickaxes to harvest rock. Right? Or they used to before Cyber-moles came along, anyway.
He went for it. As the cards approached the engraving patterns, the table buzzed to life, and the circuitry was set ablaze with sparks and light.
[Rusty Pickaxe] + [Flintstone]
Rusty Pickaxe | Hp: 4→3
Flintstone | Hp: 3→2
Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Big Flint].
New recipe added to your recipe book.
Big Flint (Uncommon)
Hp: 4
Vp: 0
Kai frowned. On the one hand, the merge worked. His hunch had been correct, and he had secured one more recipe and card. What bugged him was that this new card offered no victory points whatsoever! And it had such a high hp! It was almost begging him to be used in crafting. Kai frowned. What did this mean? Could he use a card he had obtained from crafting as an ingredient? What should he do?
A smile appeared involuntarily on Kai's lips as he recalled when Ariel had been the firekeeper for the first time. She had done such a good job. She had proved there and then that she was born to teach.
His mind went through the lesson she had taught about flint knapping. As the historian's successor, she had taken up his mantle and often taught about old civilizations or historical figures. He could perfectly remember her class on flint. It was hard to forget someone's first time as a firekeeper. She had wanted to start at the very beginning of mankind’s history.
Kai recalled that flint could be shaped into knives, scrapers, axes, and many other tools. When flint was flaked at the right angle, it could be worked to some degree. All that it required was for it to suffer a blow at the right angle. He paused momentarily and slowly moved the two cards he wanted to try next toward the patterns on the table.
[Big Flint] + [Flintstone]
Big Flint | Hp: 4→3
Flintstone | Hp: 2→1
Crafting successful! You've crafted [Small Flint].
Crafting successful! You’ve crafted [Small Flint].
Crafting successful! You’ve crafted [Spark].
New recipe added to your recipe book.
New recipe added to your recipe book.
New recipe added to your recipe book.
Small Flint (Common)
Hp: 2
Vp: 1
Small Flint (Common)
Hp: 2
Vp: 1
Spark (Common)
Hp: 1
Vp: 2
He stared at the three new cards that had materialized in his hand. No way! From one crafting attempt, he had produced three cards. This was insane! How had this happened? He tried to understand Daisy’s reasoning behind each recipe, hoping to gain insights that would aid him in future rounds. There was much to learn from this attempt.
When he had merged [Rusty Pickaxe] and [Flintstone], a big piece of flint ‘came out’, so to speak. When he hit a [Big Flint] onto the [Flintstone], he had flaked both to a smaller degree, producing two [Small Flint] cards. Since hitting flint against another flint or iron creates sparks, he had also gotten a [Spark] card.
Kai scratched his head. If that was so, why hadn’t he produced a [Spark] card when he had merged the [Rusty Pickaxe] with the [Flintstone]? From what he remembered, when flint hit metal, it produced sparks, too. He paused for a few moments, thinking of possible reasons. Crafting had just become much more exciting but also more challenging.
He decided to conduct an experiment. Whatever he did, he was still stacking up points, and he thought it was important to clear his doubts now.
[Rusty Pickaxe] + [Flintstone]
Rusty Pickaxe | Hp: 3→2
Flintstone | Hp: 1→0
Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Big Flint].
He frowned. One of the [Flintstone] cards was finally used up in this attempt. He threw it next to the other cards that had been zeroed out and grabbed the other [Flintstone] with full hp. He tested his theory one last time.
[Rusty Pickaxe] + [Flintstone]
Rusty Pickaxe | Hp: 2→1
Flintstone | Hp: 1→0
Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Big Flint].
Crafting successful! You’ve crafted [Spark].
Here it was. It was just as he suspected! Some cards only had a probability of being crafted! The first two times that he had used [Rusty Pickaxe] on [Flintstone], he hadn’t produced any [Spark] cards, but now on his third try, he did. Interesting. That meant that, potentially, other recipes wouldn’t work all the time. Chance was involved in the decision-making process, too. He wiped the sweat off his brow.
He traced the events that led to creating his first two [Small Flint] cards. He had used [Big Flint] and [Flintstone], and a [Small Flint] had flaked off each of them. That also told him that there were items with more than one recipe. That was very meaningful. If he ever desperately needed a specific ingredient card, he could always consult his inventory and maybe just craft it using different ingredients. This only added even more complexity to the grand scheme of things.
He put the [Rusty Pickaxe] card to the side, berating himself for not having taken one more picture of it. How good it would have been to get another [Pickaxe] to use it with his [Flint] cards. They had such good synergy.
He now had one [Flintstone] with full hp, three [Big Flints] and two [Small Flints]. He had also gained two [Spark] cards. Did he want to discover what happened when he combined small flint with their bigger counterparts? He couldn’t think of anything that would come off of it. He remembered that flint could be used to make tools. How was the process again?
Ch. 13 - The People of the Bonfire
