Chương 19: Chapter 18: The Artificer and the Anthem

"What about the kids?" I asked, leaning forward over my empty plate.

"Besides the baseline combat skills from our yard training, what did they actually end up with on their sheets?"

"Isadora has high Intelligence and Charisma stats, very similar to mine," Denise stated.

"She pulled a basic Light spell that allows her to summon a floating orb of illumination that can follow her around or be anchored directly to physical items. And she got another one called... Verse of Warding?" She pronounced the words with a thoroughly puzzled tone.

"I'm not entirely sure what the mechanics are, but the description says she's supposed to sing it, I guess."

"Hold on a second," I blinked, a grin tugging at my mouth.

"Sing it?" It made perfect sense. Isadora had been a dedicated choir student for years and possessed a deep, lifelong passion for music of all kinds—especially if it was pressed on vintage vinyl. She loved theater, plays, and musicals, always demonstrating a deeply artistic mind. I used to tease her constantly, asking,"How did you manage to get so incredibly cultured living out here in the middle of the farmlands surrounded by us yee-haw country folk?" She would always just smile and shrug her shoulders.

I clamped a hand over my face, slowly rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"What other passive skills did the interface log for her?"

"Well," Denise continued, "she unlocked a decently high rank in Animal Husbandry, which undoubtedly pulled from all her years in 4-H and FFA raising and showing livestock. Oh, and a high-tier skill called Vocal Mastery." My head dropped straight down onto the kitchen table with a heavy, dramatic groan.

"She's a Bard."

"What on earth is a Bard?" Denise asked, looking at me blankly.

"In most classic role-playing games, it's one of the most aggressively annoying character concepts in existence, and probably the most universally mocked," I explained, quickly raising my hands as I saw Denise's forehead scrunch up into a protective mother-bear scowl.

"BUT! I say that with love, baby. It is also secretly one of the most underrated, incredibly powerful support classes in any game. I'm positive the System isn't going to force her to sit in a medieval tavern plucking a lute and singing cryptic melodic songs that barely rhyme. It adapts to reality. As far as her Verse spell goes, 'warding' is a defensive magic term. It means she can project kinetic or environmental protection buffs over our entire squad. That is a massive win for our survival matrix."

"Moving on," Denise said, giving me a pointed, warning glare that told me to stop criticizing her daughter's fictional archetype.

"Travis pulled incredibly high starting marks in Strength and Constitution."

"I guarantee you that pulled directly from him playing sports year-round since he was a little kid," I responded, thoroughly relieved to steer the conversation away from the Bard topic.

"I'll bet his raw, unbuffed Strength score is actually higher than mine right now, even though I'm sitting at Level 6." I didn't even need to use Inspect on the kids to verify their progress; I knew for an absolute fact they were all still locked at Level 1. There was a zero percent chance Denise would have allowed any of them to step past the deadbolts to hunt monsters or engage in dangerous activity over the last forty-eight hours.

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"Indeed," Denise said, her scowl softening into pride.

"The System awarded him an active ability called Hot Hands, where he can drastically increase the thermal energy of just about anything he touches."

"Oh, wow, that's awesome," I nodded, my tactical brain instantly spinning the data.

"He could probably channel that heat through a cold steel blade to manifest a temporary flaming sword, stacking massive fire damage on top of his slashing strikes." Receiving another sharp, narrow-eyed glare from across the table, I quickly cleared my throat and pivoted.

"Or... you know, he could use it as a completely seamless, fuel-free heat source for welding or metallurgy. He did mention before the world ended that he wanted to look into a mechanical trade or technical skill after high school." I coughed into my hand.

"And... moving on."

"He also has an active modifier capability called Enlarge," Denise continued. I raised my eyebrows, giving her a sheepish, knowing look.

"Does it temporarily expand his physical mass and muscle density for a short duration?" She just nodded silently, clearly refusing to engage with whatever nerdy tactical breakdown she knew was about to fly out of my mouth.

"Okay, look," I said, holding my palms up defensively.

"I'm not saying this is a definitive blueprint he has to follow. I'm sure it's just the System analyzing human potential and placing people where their baseline attributes flourish. But... if it were me looking at a character sheet with high Strength, high Constitution, thermal imbuement, and a physical growth modifier? That is a textbook Vanguard Warrior build."

"AND... moving on," I added hastily as her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch further.

"What did Jace end up pulling?"

"Jace," Denise replied after a brief pause, her expression shifting to one of genuine curiosity, "got some very decent starting stats in Intelligence and Wisdom."

"Wisdom? Seriously?" I exclaimed, a bit surprised. My fifteen-year-old was incredibly smart, but 'wisdom' isn't usually a word associated with a teenager. Denise shrugged, throwing her hands up in a classic'I just report the news, I don't write it' gesture.

"That's what his interface displayed," she continued.

"He unlocked an active Detect Magic spell, which seems completely self-explanatory, and a unique passive ability called Tinkering." The second the word Tinkering left her lips, I almost exploded straight out of my wooden chair.

"Wait a second," I said, my voice rising with sudden adrenaline.

"What does it do?"

"He can take a mechanical object apart, she replied, see exactly how it fits together, and the System automatically generates a digital schematic for it that he can review on his screen" Denise finished, completely missing the massive industrial implications of that statement.

"And my mom has forty years of professional electronics manufacturing experience, a mountain of raw components, and a fully functional, completely un-fried workshop shielded inside a grounded steel shipping container," I finished, the realization hitting me like a freight train.

"Do you have any idea what this means, baby? It means we can systematically reverse-engineer and fix a massive chunk of the machinery the EMP ruined!" Unable to contain the sudden burst of nervous energy, I shoved my chair back and began aggressively pacing back and forth across the linoleum kitchen floor.

"Okay, give me a minute here," I muttered, more to myself than to Denise or Mamo, my mind racing a mile a minute as my boots clicked against the tile.

"High Intelligence, high Wisdom, guaranteed baseline ranks in Crafting, and a literal Tinkering blueprint acquisition metric... OH HOLY CRAP!" I spun on my heel, pointing directly at Denise.

"He's going to be an Artificer!"

"A what?" she asked, blinking.

"An Artificer," I breathed, the sheer scope of the potential clicking into place.

"It's a bit complex to break down if you haven't played the campaigns, but think of a master craftsman who can seamlessly fuse advanced technology with raw magical energy, specifically when constructing survival gear, defenses, and weaponry. Come to think of it, Travis actually built his own high-end gaming computer from scratch right before this whole shitshow kicked off. I'm willing to bet his secondary Intelligence score is incredibly high, too.

If he and Jace can collaborate with my mom out in that shipping container to repair our broken electronics, both of those boys could potentially unlock the Artificer class path. Two high-tier engineers who can synthesize technology and magic while restoring our lost grid infrastructure... Honey, that wouldn't just be an advantage. That would be completely epic."