Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“Oh, hey Quilith, wasn’t expecting to see you so soon,” Ben said, casually giving him a wave. “Isn’t there still a few days before we’re supposed to meet up?”

“Given the nature of the situation you find yourself in, I assumed it would be better to come early. It’s nice to see you’re somehow in good spirits despite everything.”

“Legs, what the hell is going on,” Greed asked in confusion as he looked between Ben and the alien, not understanding how he had appeared.

“You probably heard about the race that one of the groups of summoned individuals was helping the world, right? He’s one of them. Stops by every now and then to teach me some stuff.”

“Just what sort of freaking connections do you have?” The crab asked as it shook in disbelief, an act Ben ignored to focus on the grey before him.

“Well, I appreciate you stopping by, but unless you have any info that could help me I think I’m going to need to skip on lessons this month,” Ben told him before his eyes lit up. “Unless of course you could peek into the next sections of this trial and give me some spoilers? It would be really helpful for this whole not dying thing I’m trying to do.”

Unfortunately, things were never that easy and the grey shook his head. “We’ve already checked. It needs an actual person to go through it to activate. Without that it’s just an empty room, no bigger than a closet. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Ben told him as he deflated. “That really would have been too lucky, wouldn’t it? So what brings you here to this little nightmare?”

“Compassion I suppose,” Quilith answered. “We’ve spoken enough that I have some fondness for you. Since I’m the only one who can, I thought I’d collect your last words, to be passed on to whoever you’d like. Of course, since I’m here I’ll do my best for you as well Greed.”

“Really, in that case great cause I got a lot,” The ruby crab began as Ben stood stunned. It was something he never did on his last world, something he should have done rather than spending his last night alive on the planet doing a little drawing, but Quilith was right. He was facing his end, since he had the chance, he needed to pass on just what he wanted to say.

“-and to Wizzley, Tretru, and Jaspl, tell them all I’m sorry about the whole running away the next morning and not stopping by again,” Greed finished while Ben was in his thoughts, leaving Quilith looking far more exhausted as he did.

“I feel like you should have solved some of these issues long ago, not waited till your death approached,” Quilith said, getting a shrug in return.

“Hey, it’s a lot easier to forgive a dead guy. If I go in person they’ll be out for blood.”

The alien only shook his head as he turned to Ben. “Well?”

“If you could tell Thera, Falk, Sonya, Steph, and Will for me that I love them and I’m sorry I won’t be around to see the end of the world with them, it would mean a lot,” He said with a small bow of his head. “Also, I guess you can’t do it since you’re not really in this universe, but if you could ask one of them to pray to Myriad and tell him I say thanks for everything, I would appreciate it.”

“I can do that.”

“Thank you. But since I know you have eyes on me, do me one more favour and don’t pass it on until I’m actually dead. No matter how hopeless it seems, I haven’t given up yet.”

“Very well, many of us are watching with great interest so do your best. For what it’s worth, I hope you make it through this.”

With that he was gone, leaving Ben alone with Greed again. He took a deep breath as he turned to the crab, thinking about what would come next as he did.

“Alright, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live than have any goodbyes so let's figure out what to do from here,” He began as he took stock of everything they both had. Greed was far easier than him. He had his amplifier and that was it. As for Ben, he had sixteen rings on his fingers, the ten level nine affinitied rings, a level six charm ring, level eight barrier ring, and then the four rings he’d gotten from Pelenia to improve Thera’s brace.

He had worn them over dinner, fully intending to put them to use that night, but now they were just another resource to take advantage of as he moved on from there. Aside from that, he didn’t have much. He had the clothes on his back, a couple blank skill rings as well as his cursed ring in his pocket, along with his job crystal, a small disc of white mana crystal with a little bit of mythril set in it, and most important of all, he had his coat, the first church of Myriad.

It had already helped save his life on the last section of the trial so he immediately got to work stripping the defensive enchantments already on it in favour of adding all of the higher-level skills he now had access to while he spoke to Greed.

“Alright, so one of my skills lets me enchant with the skills other people have. I won’t be able to use anything over the eighth level so your awakened skills are out for me sadly, but other than that can you tell me what you have?”

“Er, sure,” He said, immediately becoming shifty at the question. “They’re all very normal though, not sure how much help they’ll be.”

He listed everything he had and Ben had to admit, they did sound exceptionally normal. He was sure there was nothing he could use at all until Greed got to the last one.

“-And finally I’ve got shell enhancement at the fifth level.”

“Shell enhancement?” Ben asked as he perked up. “What’s that? A defensive skill?”

“Yeah, it’s a passive one to strengthen it. As tough as the one I already have is, since I walk around you giants plenty I’ve been stepped on more than once. It’s handy for me at least, but I’m not sure how well it works for you. No offense, but you’re kind of fleshy.”

“None taken. It wouldn’t be used on me, it would be blended into my barrier enchantment to enhance its effects. This is a great find, I don’t suppose it has any magical resistance tied to it as well, does it?”

“Nope, just physical.”

“Darn.”

As nice as it would have been to have stumbled across something that he could have used to help Thera, it was still something that could help him immediately, so he put on his blank rings and touched Greed, connecting with him to try and get the skill onto one of them, only to receive a huge shock as the new effect that came with his ninth level of enchanting activated, letting him see the skills and levels he had as he did.

He couldn’t stop a smile from breaking out across his face as it happened. The interaction between connect and enchanting just kept bearing fruit for him. Before he’d have to feel each skill and grab onto it before he copied it, making sure he didn’t accidentally go back to grab the same one or miss one. It helped if a person actually used their skill as he was doing it, letting him pick it out as he went, but now they were all clear before him, with their names and levels displayed.

It wasn’t like he’d gained access to Greed's full status. He could see no other information, the affinities, resistances, titles, and even his name were all hidden away from him, but at the same time this was more than a lot of people would ever actually want seen. That didn’t keep Ben from commenting on the one skill Greed hadn’t listed after he’d gotten shell enhancement on a ring though.

“You left out your zeroth level of sacrilege,” he said offhandedly as the crab looked to the side guiltily.

“Well, what was the point of asking for my skills if you could just tell what they were,” He said awkwardly before breaking into a mutter. “Honestly, you seduce one priestess in a church and suddenly the gods get all grumpy.”

“I’m not judging,” Ben said with a shrug. “You're talking to a sixth-level sacrilege holder. I just think we need to be honest with each other since our lives are on the line.”

“Sixth level!” He asked, filled with shock. “I’ve never heard of anyone with it that high! Aren’t you an apostle?”

“Not a very good one,” Ben told him before finishing up altering his jacket, blending the effects he needed from shell enhancement into the barrier magic on it. “Anyway, next we need to worry about your food issue. It’s been four days, how are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” Greed admitted. “Even if I can live for weeks, it’s not going to be fun and I’m going to be basically useless by the end of it. Depending on how long this is, you might need to toss me into your pocket for at least a few sections of this. We can only hope it won’t be too long.”

“...I have a bit of a worry about that,” Ben said hesitantly. “From the outside and the way the trial is built, it looks like it’s eleven floors high. That might mean eleven different challenges, or at least that’s the guess I’m working off of. I guess we could always get lucky and the last floor is where we accept the reward, or we could be ridiculously lucky and each of these rest zones is a floor too, meaning there’d only be five sections, but honestly I don’t really want to count on luck. If we keep getting breaks between trials and the time we have doesn’t shrink, we might be here for a while if we don’t die.”

“So you're saying we need to rush through it or I’ll starve.”

“Or we find a different option for you.”

“Ha, legs I appreciate the thought, but there isn’t exactly a ton of food up here. If I can’t eat the bit that’s provided then I’m shit out of luck. I guess I could try to keep healing myself to force it down, but with the way that one bite made me feel, I don’t know if that’s really viable.”

“There’s one more option,” Ben told him as he stood up and walked to the pile of items, picking up the sharpest knife he could find and applying an enchantment to it as he walked back, seeing Greed begin to panic as he did.

“Hey legs, let’s not do anything crazy here. I’m light, worse to worst just toss me in your pocket, it will be fine!”

“Alright, no clue where your head’s at but desperate times call for desperate measures man, just relax. I’m going to like this a lot less than you are,” He told the crab before dragging the knife across his palm.

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