“The first step is always design. Nothing else matters if you don’t know what you want to make. This is too early to know everything about what you’re going to make, but you need to have a pretty good first idea before you start. For example, this.” Emery waved at the fire-heart. “I asked Daryl to get me a fire-heart because I needed the Fire Essence, but if I didn’t know what I was making, I wouldn’t know I needed it.”

Emery returned to her slow trimming of the fire-heart as she spoke. “There are a lot of things I could use it for; that’s why I’m going to keep the residue. It’s far less useful, since it’s inherently harder to purify as the secondary product, but there’s no point in being wasteful.”

Serenity nodded; that made sense. He had to know what he wanted to achieve before he built a ritual or a runeset.

“That takes us to the second step; materials. Oh, I could break it up more, and you will want to do that for any particular creation, but the idea’s the same. What Daryl did, actually getting the fire-heart, is only the first step in that. The second part of materials is that you have to prepare them. Sometimes that’s as simple as getting a leaf off a bush at the right time or even using something you were able to pre-prepare or even buy that way, but most of the time you’re going to have to do the steps yourself. Of course, sometimes there are things you can’t get; in that case, you have to go back to the design and see if there’s an alternative option or another way you can make something that does what you want, even if it’s not your original plan.”

That made sense to Serenity; in fact, the mention of leaves picked at the right time reminded him that he wanted to check the markets and see if there were any ritual supplies he could pick up here that would be useful back on Earth. He’d done some shopping while they traveled, but different places always had slightly different things. Sometimes the differences weren’t minor, even on trade routes.

Emery set her knife down for a moment and picked up the syringe. “Preparing a fire-heart’s not as hard as many things, but if you don’t do it, whatever you make with it will have odd currents. Most likely, whatever you make will just fail, but poor preparation is the real cause of a lot of the item failures that people call cursed items.”

Serenity shuddered. He definitely knew what she was talking about; there were literal cursed items, but there were far more items that just didn’t work quite right. Most were inconsequential, like the boots he’s once used that turned your feet bright red temporarily, but they weren’t all that minor.

A more bothersome but still not horrible one was the wand that held a healing Skill that also left you drenched in slime. Serenity couldn’t remember the face of the man who used it, but he still remembered the man’s insistence that the slime was good to eat. However nutritious it was, Vengeance hadn’t wanted any. He wasn’t starving at the time; there was no shortage of ordinary food, even if high-Tier food was harder to find.

Vengeance had also once seen a suit of armor that was supposed to be size-adjusting with an enchantment flaw; it adjusted once someone put the armor on, just like it was supposed to. Smaller. Then it kept adjusting until it was at its minimum size, regardless of the dimensions of the person who put it on. It hadn’t been deadly; they’d had a good enough healer to keep … the man Serenity barely remembered … alive. Serenity was pretty sure he’d never delved again, however. That suit of armor got labeled “cursed” even though there was no curse on it that could be broken. Serenity still didn’t think that was unreasonable.

Emery chuckled and grinned. “I see you know what I mean. Also, you have absolutely no ability to keep your emotions off your face, do you?”

It should have sounded insulting, but somehow it didn’t. Serenity shrugged. “I’m not trying. People can read me whether I try to hide my emotions or not, so it’s not worth the effort.”

Emery chuckled again. “There are times when it’s important. This isn’t one, I’ll agree with that.” She was silent for a moment as her hands worked. “The third step is what I call layout; others call it preparation. Either way, that’s when you make sure you have enough of what you need for each step in the process and put it near where you’re going to want it. Some people skip that step and try to do it in the materials step and the making step, but they miss out on the benefit of one last check to make sure you’re doing the right thing and that it makes sense with what you have. I’ve caught more than one error during layout that would have been a problem later.”

Serenity thought she’d skipped a step in there somewhere; he always spent time working on multiple possible variants of a ritual, because while there were usually several options that would work, he could usually come up with something better than his first choice if he took his time. Perhaps she was counting that as part of the “design” step?

He completely agreed with her about the need for a layout step. To some extent, it was forced on all rituals since they had to be established, but he’d long since found that a preparatory step where he sketched everything out before starting the actual ritual layout helped immensely. As one of his professors had told him once, the most accurate scale for a model was one-to-one. It sounded silly, since a model the same size as what it represented wasn’t much of a model, but there were things you just didn’t see until you saw the thing in reality. Even something as simple as the way volume and length scaled could cause wildly different effects at different scales.

Emery nodded her head. Her eyes were on the fire-heart as she worked on it, but Serenity didn’t miss the way she kept glancing at him. “The fourth step, of course, is actually making whatever you’re going to make. Most people would tell you that’s the last step, but it isn’t. If you stop after making something, not only have you failed your customer but you’ve failed yourself. You’ll simply keep making the same mistakes. The real last step is making sure that what you made is what you wanted to make. It should do everything you intended and not do anything you didn’t intend.”

Serenity didn’t think Emery had actually told him anything he didn’t know in that entire speech. He’d seen almost exactly the same set of steps in multiple different project planning presentations and classes in his time with Bright Futures. “Those are the same steps you take for any project. It’s good to know that crafting’s the same as anything else, but it doesn’t really teach me anything.”

Emery grinned. “Well, you’re in luck because I’m just about done with this part of preparing the fire-heart. Take a good look at it; what do you see?”

Serenity took a good, long look at the item. It was roughly spherical now, instead of lopsided the way it had been originally. It hadn’t really looked like a heart before; it definitely didn’t look like one now. “Fire mana and Essence at the center, only hints of any other Affinities. It feels wispy and insubstantial but still there, I’m ont sure why it feels insubstantial with that much mana and essence. The outside is a sort of a crust, though. It’s Earth, I think? It’s definitely not as clear.”

Emery nodded along with Serenity’s description. “That’s how it should be, though I don’t sense anything other than Fire in the middle. You certainly have the senses for crafting; that’s usually one of the things people have trouble with.” She stopped and waited until Serenity nodded reluctantly.

“The fact that I can’t see anything to clean out of the essence means I can’t refine it any farther. For what I’m going to use it for, that’s fine, but it’s one of the big reasons that making items for people over your Tier is next to impossible and why higher-Tier goods are so much better; the refinement really matters for some things. Anything used in combat has to be highly refined; in fact, making things at your own Tier is highly skilled work, at least once you’re past Tier Two. That’s where the refinement penalties really start to hit you, and there are half a dozen different Skills you need to be good with or have item assistance with. Usually both.”

Serenity tilted his head. “You know, you never told me what you’re working on.”

Emery laughed. “I figured Daryl would have. I’m going to repair the heating system in the Silver Blades’ Guildhouse. It’s a trade; they get me the fire-heart, I repair their heat and get to keep whatever fire essence I don’t use on the repair work. That’s most of the work that I do, ordinary everyday enchanting. I don’t have good Fire Affinity, so I need the fire-heart to supply what I don’t have.”

“Speaking of trades, why are you so willing to teach me?” Serenity had at least half expected to be told that essence was a secret; barring that, he had expected to have to pay. In his experience, crafters always wanted Etherium.

The grin on Emery’s face broadened. “Two reasons. First of all, Daryl’s my brother. Would you like to guess when the last time he brought someone as good looking as you around to meet me was?”

“Uh.” Serenity was pretty sure he looked like a deer in headlights for a moment. How was he supposed to respond to that? “I’m not looking for, ah, anyone. Rissa and I have a daughter.”

Emery’s grin faded a little. “Can’t say I’m surprised. It’s too bad; there aren’t many young men who are high Tier around here. I don’t want to date someone who’s both younger than me and going to die long before I do.” She huffed. “So I guess I’ll just have to content myself with looking. That’s not altogether a bad thing. Even if the attractives ones are always already taken.”

Serenity stared at Emery. He was pretty sure that the last time he’d met anyone this blunt was when Rissa asked him out, and Rissa had tried subtle first. At least, she said she had; Serenity hadn’t noticed.

Emery’s grin looked a little strained, but it was still there. “So, yeah. Anyway. I said there were two reasons. The other one is really two. You were with Daryl when he got the fire-heart for me, so I owe you something.”

Serenity shook his head. “Daryl made sure I got a fair share.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.” Emery barely waited until Serenity finished to speak her piece. “Plus, it’s partly selfish. You said you can work with essence and that you aren’t a crafter.”

Serenity nodded. He was starting to get the idea of where she was going. She wanted the same thing from him that he wanted from her: information on the use of essence from someone who did something similar but different. Was it as rare in enchanting as it was in spellcasting?

Emery’s next words confirmed Serenity’s guess. “I figure we can trade knowledge. If I learn anything about how to use essence better, it’ll be worth more than the time I’ll spend teaching you about what I do. Plus, it means I get to talk about what I do. Daryl never wants to listen; it’ll be fun!”

Well, at least she was going to enjoy it. Serenity wasn’t confident he would; crafting had always been a disaster for him.

Lillene

Well, THAT wasn’t awkward at all.