Best Shop In The Multiverse

Explosions lit the broken walls of Castle High Point. Vampires fled like cowards, burning as they leaped down to the moat below where the spikes impaled them or the beast desecrated their bodies. He felt a breeze, the only sign his giant bat passed him, finding a perch with its prey held firm in its talons. Up high, the sniper blinds were empty. Solari loved the sound of their screams before they died in the wind. Darien watched through the eyes of his familiars as the vampires in charge of sending messages fell one by one. He heard a loud crack. Pieces of the castle crumbled from the structure, taking a powerful tool from an enemy and losing it forever for the Basin Lord. The vampire hunter relished striking at an enemy and weakening a rival in one move.

Darien had expected help from the Basin Lord. Any moment, he imagined a horn blow, the cavalry would charge, and his part in this war would be over. His sister would be saved as the land's chivalry would do its duty.

He only heard of castles tightening their garrison within their walls leaving villages to rot on the vine.

It felt like he was the only one fighting to free these lands from tyranny. If not for the priesthood, he would have fought the war alone.

Men screamed, and chaos reigned. The king refused to pressure Lord Vrynos Noctvalen.

His target was absent.

This no longer felt like justice; it was only butchery. Pulling the trigger on his crossbow and watching the world explode was too easy. What he held in his hands was a truly evil weapon made by a greedy man. The shopkeeper had a lot to answer for.

The vampire who rebelled against the gods was still at large, turning entire towns in the name of his demon, the sun and moon damned Beast Hermes. The monstrous rebel could revive any day, but the lord of Basin City refused to lend aid. The goddess, Lunethra, descended to the mortal plane to rally the people.

She told him the Hermes spies had poisoned the Basin Lord's mind to her divine words.

Darien fired his crossbow, spending precious ammunition before returning to Basin City. That was a walk he wasn't going to like. He may need to apologize to the shopkeeper before bestowing his blood to maintain the man's loyalty. Then, he would command the man to stop selling crossbows.

Anyone could have purchased the crossbow. Red had built an evil weapon, and no one could keep someone from stealing the next one.

The shopkeeper wasn't solely to blame for his prices. According to Solari, taxes placed on the shops burdened the people. He could have given the man his blood and freed him from the Basin Lord's yoke. Darien could have been the man's conscience and kept him on the divine path.

Instead, Darien burned a bridge he had not needed to. It was going to be a rough apology and a rougher blood bestowal. Solari and Lunethra agreed he should do it for the good of their cause. If needed, he would see it done to save his sister and the people.

So he watched Castle High Point crumble under the might of seven explosive bolts as the sun's light kissed the night and had its way aggressively with the old castle's crumbling towers. He moved in the commotion; there were more towers to the castle, but it would take months to fix the damage he had done to the structure.

A bat flew down with his prize, and he risked his life to damage the castle. A trunk fell, and Lunethra stepped behind him. The goddesses were something else. They seemed to be able to come and go as they pleased from the earth and the higher realms where they lived.

He turned his head away as the goddess bent low, and her skirt rose as she yanked the lock off the trunk and opened it. Under the moonlight, she read through numerous documents until she found one that interested her.

"So this is why the old man is so confident in his position." The goddess snorted, and he felt like he was hearing something he wasn't supposed to. "No wonder no one wanted to make war upon Basin for his seat." The goddess shook her silver curls. "I'm sure he's let every rival know and even allowed them full access to his city's nether regions."

The documents in her hand froze before crumbling into ice chips. She looked him up and down, assessing him with her silver eyes.

He coughed lightly and clutched his spear more firmly. "Did you find the location of where they are keeping my sister?"

She looked up at him sadly, and Darien Wolfe felt his undead heart freeze in his chest. "It's shameful to say I can't find her. Not even a goddess has the resources when the sitting lord refuses to cooperate."

"Please, there has to be a way to find her. I've destroyed so many of their camps. Someone has to know you've taken so many souls into their bosom. Some must have known."

"Sadly, not even my children know after you give them their final rest. But maybe, no, it's too dangerous. Maybe you should give up on seeing your sister. Lord Dainak has taken her as his bride. She will only be forced to bear his bastard children. It isn't a terrible life."

Darien felt his heartbreak at the thought of some pale-skinned fiend forcing himself on his sister.

"It doesn't matter how dangerous I'll do it."

Lunethra held up her hands, and moonlight sparkled off her skin."Then you must insight a rebellion and take the lord's seat from City Lord Vrynos Noctvalen. If you become the new lord and take responsibility for the city, then you can set the forces of this state against this rebellion. I know just where to strike first." Lunethra said.

…

Maybe he hit a dead end. Red stared up at a towering tree on a hill. It was as good a place as any to sit and watch the gatekeeper to the next area. Small rocky paths with numerous monsters made it clear he wasn't getting through easily. Well, where would be the fun in an easy victory?

Wendigon Puppet (Uncommon++): A puppet piloted by a wingless fairy broken and embraced by dead wood. It has battled many of its kind and devoured their bodies, mutating and growing, adding its wooden puppets, and becoming a gestalt puppet. It retains all the speed and deadly grace of the Wendigo with the aggressive territorial nature of a dragon. Fight this creature at your peril. 

He wasn't in the common or even uncommon tier attribute-wise, so why bother going a step further? Red ached all over from his earlier fight, and his throat and lungs were still burned from the smoke. So why take that next step that would lead him over the edge? It didn't make any sense to him. The skills at the end would be nice, but he wasn't out fighting the Wendion Puppet.

Red focused on it and got a look at its HP.

HP 1050/1050

He looked at his crossbow and changed the settings to see what kind of damage it could do.

Verdant Pump Crossbow (Trash+++) 

Damage 50 + 1D20

Fire Damage 20 + 1D10 

Durability: 20 + 1D8 

Red could potentially deal 100 damage from a single bolt. That was a nice amount of damage for a trash-tier weapon. But he couldn't reliably hit one of the Wendigo. He was sure he could hit the Wendigon once, but could he do it more than 10 times with the way those monsters seemed to vanish from his senses? Then he had to ask himself whether his will was strong enough to outpower the Wendigon's territorial rage and lock all the monster's wooden joints. He would be doomed if he couldn't manage that before it caved his chest in.

So, was it time to pack it up? Knowing when to turn his back on something was important. This wasn't going to be his only uncommon instant dungeon. There would be many others. This had been a rousing success compared to before when he hadn't even stepped outside his shop.

So why did he feel defeated? Was his greed too great, or was it something else?

Red looked up at the tree he sat under and down at his work, the many runes he collected from brownies and those he copied from the wendigos. He was sure the Wendigon had even better runes he could copy. He glanced up at the towering tree waiting for it to make a move, and at a butterfly landing and fluttering its wings on the orange bark. The insect popped and fell down the tree that was radiating solar energy.

He touched it with his skill, and it didn't fight him or freak out, but he wasn't making changes; he only pushed his will into the tree. Red's fight with the Wendigos had done something to him. He had crossed some threshold, and it felt incredible to use the skill. The expected resistance from using it was gone, which left him wondering if he could push it even further. What were the limits of the skill?

Red had roughly 10 hours left until the instant dungeon faded, and he started feeling tired. He should already be on his last legs; there were breaks in his wooden chainmail and so much worse, but he didn't feel like he was running on fumes.

So that left him with a quandary: What should he do? His hand still touched the tree, and he felt its content. With all the sunlight it was soaking up, it wasn't desperate for resources—maybe it was a little thirsty, but not enough to want to move. It was happy lazing about soaking up sunlight. Trees, after all, could turn sunlight into energy, and uncommon trees capable of driving themselves were no exception.

With bark like steel and hardly any problems except a body that needs lots of energy, the tree had nothing to worry about. It didn't care if Red touched it or even pushed some of its will inside of it. The tree was unbothered.

He scratched them in the dirt at first. He learned this dungeon's reservoir, star, and many other runes from weapons and the Wendigos' bodies. He learned that the runes like to be linked through circles, but Red could link things regardless so long as they were part of a whole object and didn't stray far from the image of that object.

Ultimately, those skills fell under Enchantment's broad umbrella, just as etching fell under wood crafting, and wood crafting would eventually fall under crafting.

Red looked up at the tree and the fairies battling the wasps in the canopy. Did the fairies have access to the skills Red had in wood crafting, and if they did, was there a reason they weren't using it? He was looking for a reason besides the obvious danger, but he was confident he could move before the tree could react.

He kept his back to the tree before touching it again and getting a feel for what made it feel good and what made it feel bad. Trees were really simple, even the ones that fed on warm-blooded creatures. They had all the tools they needed to be predators. The massive orange tree had been aware of his presence since he stepped over its many roots that stretched through the hill.

Why take a risk? It could be his biggest mistake or what he needed to turn the tide. Enchanting a tree and then manipulating it through those same runes sounded like a terrible idea. Maybe he should try something smaller.

The tree seemed docile, with the fairies and wasps dying in its branches in a never-ending turf war. He felt he was about to do something stupid that could make him incredibly powerful.

Red was a shop owner, not a summoner. This was a bad idea; maybe he should go instead. The option was there: He could leave, abandon his only chance to move further, and take the instant dungeon by the balls. There would be others; he didn't have to do something crazy. No one would blame him if he didn't enchant the living tree and use Pavlovian techniques to tame it like a dog.

For three hours, he dedicated himself to determining whether his plan was viable, working out the runes he wanted, and considering how it could go wrong. Such a large tree could instantly kill him, but it felt so docile. That could be his epitaph. Red smirked and shook his head.

Would it work? Some runes increased the tree's natural absorption of solar energy. Store what the tree couldn't absorb automatically using runes, then use it when needed. There were reservoirs for blood and water, too. Some runes would allow the tree to use its resources to heal itself or grow when required. He also found a set designed to help with communication among the Wendigos.

Runes had tiers. From what he could tell, he even had a few uncommon runes mixed in with what he had learned. He looked up at the great tree and couldn't help but wonder again if he was about to make a stupid, needless mistake.

Maybe he wouldn't think this if Darien hadn't kicked him in the chest and his trouble with the Wendigos. Before, he might have returned, but he didn't want to live in fear. Red wanted to be the badass laying his dick on the table for once in his life. And the giant tree was a lot of wood.

He acted quickly, and it was done just as quickly.

"What?" The tree's question was weird. The rune used energy from the filling reservoir that the tree's consciousness watched intently. It then reached in and pulled a little. "That's tasty."

"Yeah, you can thank me for that."

"What?"

He was dealing with a tree and didn't think they would be very smart.

"Rude." He didn't expect it to be able to read him when he wasn't focused on communication. Maybe he would have made it optional to toggle the communication off. "You aren't nice."

"I'm the nicest person you ever met."

"You're a sac of delicious blood that I would suck dry if this bigger heat weren't tastier."

"I'm the one who made it tastier," Red said.

"Liar," to think his biggest problem wasn't that the tree would be angry with him but that it wouldn't believe he was the one who helped it. All he wanted was some help with a few problems in exchange. "What is this?"

"That would be the third eye I added so you can see the world and interact easier."

The tree shifted, bending back and forth, moving the etched eye runes around. "Are you the big fairy without wings?"

"You could say that."

One of the branches raised and splattered a giant wasp into a meaty paste that blocked one of its new eyes. The energy it took from that action was less than it gained from the sun. Since it had an avenue of storing energy more effectively than its own body, it already seemed to move more quickly. Roots rose, and he watched them dab up the wasp's remains. It was the freakiest thing he's seen.

"I'm not a dumb tree, so take that back."

"Ok, you're a smart tree that knows I helped you."

"But not for free. You aren't like the birds who make nests in my limbs and send my seeds far away or the bees that carry my pollen. Oh wait, you're exactly like those things." More branches whipped and casually wiped out the wasps and fairies one by one. "It feels like I'm saving the blood I can't use for later. You aren't like the others, but you are more. The warmth gives, but we don't give back, so you are not like it."

Communication was difficult even with a rune that streamlined it. "I want your help, and by helping me, you will naturally gather more nutrients to help yourself grow. Helping me is in your best interest."

"Interest, yes."

"Well, my friend, I can also make your branches even deadlier," Red said.

"Friends, is that what we are?" The tree said.

For some reason, he pictured himself sitting on a mobile throne while the tree stabbed, slashed, and eviscerated untold legions of enemies, growing larger from its blood thirst.

"Yes, we are friends, and friends help each other with problems. There is the winter court, and they hate the sweet rains of spring and warm rays of summer." Red said.

"They are cold things who sit in the cold and want us all to feel cold." The tree said.

"Yes," Red said.

"Then, friend, I have only one question: what are we waiting for?" The tree said.

…

Viviane knew she wasn't the original. After leaving the place she knew to be a copy of what was once the wilds where fairy courts competed, she became aware of her fragility. She would cease to exist if she remained in the false world. By agreeing to the shopkeeper's request for a teacher and aide in his shop, she had gained permanence, something she only became aware of after she left the instant dungeon.

She stepped into the workshop and flipped a switch. For a moment, she marveled at the shop's use of lightning. Her daughter still zipped around, marveling at everything in their new home, and that was fine. Viviane, as the shopkeeper's master, needed to hold herself to a higher standard and maintain a certain amount of dignity.

A customer entered, so she would need to see him soon. It wouldn't do to lose business while the owner was out gathering materials, so she didn't feel bad for her lack of warning. The young man needed to know when to pull back and when to charge. Viviane thought he might get slapped around but would ultimately retreat. Her magic gave her certain advantages that others lacked.

Viviane placed a minor blessing upon the human that would scare off most denizens and give him friendly interactions with the more agreeable types. It would help with any nature-related abilities he possessed as well.

She should have been at the front, but her daughter was likely already there. And she was close enough to sense the customer's intentions. The child was curious and almost as hyper as her daughter. There was no need to interfere.

The tools were well used but organized in a mess that was too inefficient for her taste. Prototypes lay in pieces that she happily put together until they formed a duplicate of Red's favored weapon. There was no steel, only wood, even the screws and henges, and there was a small rope made of tightly bound wood fibers instead of the silk of the weapon she saw. He was like the opposite of herself. She was a fairy naturally allergic to iron and obsessed with using it. At the same time, he was a human who should naturally be inclined toward iron and steel and focused on woodworking.

Viviane rolled her eyes at the wooden screws and their tiny etched enchantments. She picked one up and placed it on a wooden board. The screw turned quickly under her control and drilled through the same wood it was made of with little effort. It gave her ideas for her craft. Due to his limitations, he was forced to solve problems creatively. Perhaps she should learn from his example. Just because a hammer was built to deal with nails didn't mean it couldn't do so many other things.

Hey guys I hope you're enjoying the chapters I have more on my patreon. There are 3 up and I might get 4 up tomorrow. But 1 ahead is only $1 and 3 ahead is $5. Don't feel pressured I have a day job this just helps and its a little something for ya'll. Link