Huff. Huff.

  Okay.

  I needed to step away from the damn needle and get a grip of myself. I can't just spend so much time playing dress up. Even though that simple dress looked fantastic on me- NO. No.

  Ugh, I owed a massive apology to Kai. I'm sorry friend, I didn't know this was your game. I will never doubt your genius play ever again.

  Argh, it was hard, but I think I found a good way to motivate me to keep at it. Because while all these clothes did look great, do you know what I really wanted to try out?

  How would this darling puppet body look like if clad in some proper plate armor?

  I had to know, which meant getting those ores I so yearned for.

  Problem is, the mountains was definitely some distance away. It would have to be an entire trek for Kuch to go out and, while I was a bit more secured now with a magic wall and clothes, I would be left without a combatant doll to defend myself if anything got really dicey. Which meant one thing.

  I needed to make another doll.

  But this time, I would go all out from the start. I had an idea for one from start to finish, with materials that would actually resonate with one another. That would mean compared to Kuch, they ought to be an even more powerful combatant off the start.

  ...Hey, don't give me that look Kuch. Look, you're always going to be my first, but face it. Barring me stumbling across a shadow rift, I'm not going to be able to find the stuff that you would best interact with. And you both would eventually get the best upgrade into puppet porcelain at the end of the day. See? No reason for you- me- to skulk.

  Fine, as an apology, here. I'll make you a little loincloth with this red cloth. Oh, moving a lot faster now are we? I can't blame you, it might give you a bit more personality. Maybe you'll look just as fantastic and cute as me one day-

  Well now. Wasn't that a thought.

  Okay, but returning to what would be their new little sibling, I had the perfect crystal in mind and retrieved it from my vault. An earth crystal, one I believe which came from a Tremor Golem that emerged from the mine Ironfist had claimed as his hold. I had been the one to defeat it then, so he had shrugged and tossed it my way afterwards.

  Good times, though not the best with that dwarf. I'm never popping open that keg of ale he made that one wild night.

  "[Infuse]."

  Earth Crystal (Item Quality: 359) (Infused Level: 552)

  Oh, a fantastic roll! This definitely would be a great fighter- No Kuch, don't mope! I promise, you're still amazing! I promise, this one is going to be a vanguard defender for me. They'll ideally stick around the manor and make sure I don't kick it first. Defeating the enemy, that's still your duty. You should be the executioner with that greatsword of yours.

  Right, so with the crystal prepared, time to make the body. As mentioned, I did have the perfect medium for my latest creation to take shape with. Clay was of the ground, so it absolutely should match up with the crystal source quite nicely. It wouldn't be the most ideal- that would be the doll porcelain- but it would be a cut above Kuch with their wooden armor. Enough to be the tank that I needed.

  New crafting project. First step, clay. The very best I had! Kuch had been collecting a nice bit, and had dug through the upper layer of low quality swamp clay. Now they were bringing back something of better quality, much to my excitement.

  River Clay (Item Quality: 49) (Infused Level: 112)

  A definite upgrade. I wondered if perhaps I was actually quite lucky, the river-swamp seemed to be quite the deposit. I should dig deeper and see if it perhaps had more. For now, this would quite fantastically do.

  Unlike with my other ceramics, I didn't use the potter's wheel. Instead this time, I used layering to make what I wanted. I applied a layer, let it dry, then gently coaxed on another. Rinse and repeat a lot of times. I worked on multiple pieces at a single time, swapping between drying sessions to maintain a neat pace.

  Because what I made was going to be so big, I had to break it down. When each individual part was finished, I gingerly tried to glue it all together for the forge firing. And because it was here where most of my failures unfortunately occurred.

  Sometimes the clay got too wet and failed to adhere all the way, collapsing the moment I tried to lift it up. Sometimes I had done it too thinly in places and when firing, they proved to be glaringly weak points and crumbled. A few times, the dice roll was just wrong and the grade made me discard it. Penance for some of the good luck I'd been getting, I guessed.

  But finally, after probably few days- surely not more than a week, I think?- I lifted the finished product out the forge and found it finally to my satisfaction. A massive ceramic armor piece, one that was quite heavy despite being hollow on the inside. It was inspired and designed after far eastern aesthetics in Shin, or at least what had been such back in FLOW.

  I idly wondered if the far east was the same here too, but thought it unlikely if that fortress city was typical of this world's new standards.

  I repeated the process a few more times to make arms, legs, and a helmet. I glanced at my cauldron, tempted to see if I could add on some additional runes for protection. But I unfortunately didn't have the regents to add on the defenses engravings that would fit. Nor the ornate gemstones necessary to really add flourish. So I guess I'll accept what I had.

  Crude Terracotta Armor (Final Grade: 139)

  Yep, totally acceptable for the moment.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I set the earth crystal within the chest and clapped my hands together, excited. "[Doll Maker]!"

  The armor twitched, then slowly pulled itself together as strings connected. With what was like a low groan, my new doll climbed to their feet and looked down at me with their helmet. I couldn't resist with a grin and held up a hand.

  "Hiya! Nice to meet myself!" I chuckled at the joke and the head bobbed as if in agreement. Yeah, that was me laughing at my own joke. "Let's see. I think I'll name you...Frie!"

  To complete this christening, I went and grabbed the crimson roll. Two long strips of which were cut away and I tied them around each of the heavy gauntlets. That's right, this thing was going to be a brawler and throw hands! That felt right for a tank.

  And because I did make a promise to myself, I cut away another amount and went up to the waiting Kuch. The cloth was tied around the waist, both front and back, and formed that stylish loincloth. While the wooden armor did stand out and need to one day be replaced, I still delighted in the shared little detail between my best dolls. Should I make more, they definitely were going to get their own variant of this indication if I could help it.

  Hopefully it wouldn't be the last if I got really lucky in all things.

  The birds and lesser constructs wouldn't be blessed in the same way, being something I really barely felt any real attachment too. Those were quick crafts with minimal investment. The ones I named and clad, they were my pride. I guess in that way, it helped to differentiate between the two kinds of dolls I used.

  Glancing between the two, I felt sort of hopeful now. Like I knew the two were just extensions of my mind, a bit literally, but hey. They were accomplices still. And with how I was subtly assigning little quirks and personalities to each, maybe my mind will keep at it. I paused, then felt the need to make a statement.

  "Don't multi-box your games at home, everybody. You'll get your account banned."

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  With Frie around now, Kuch could be tasked to make the journey north to collect whatever surface rocks there were. I hastily wove a basket so they could carry more, and gave it a pretty crude bone pickaxe I fashioned from the wolf bones. It'd probably break after a few dozen swings, but that was fine. Less to carry back.

  Now with that done, time to work on something I actually did list as a task but kinda put to the wayside once I got ceramics working. But clean glass was essential to advance my alchemy crafts. It'd also be handy for a lot of other things- I was getting sort of bothered by whenever I went to take a sip of a mana potion, only to realize I drank it all already. I could only check how much was left via the top with the opaque clay, so being able to glance from the side would be much less annoying.

  Right, let's get to it. First, collect the myriad of lesser unaspected crystals from my vault. They were pretty much only good for this, being unusable for more advanced crafts. If there had been an elementally charged area nearby, I could maybe set them up to absorb and become elemental crystals in the process, but I haven't seen any from my birds so far.

  It wasn't impossible I missed them, but if I had; oh well. These things were a byproduct from just digging when you found a good crystal deposit. I wasn't going to mourn their loss. I didn't hesitate when I smashed into them with rocks, chipping and grinding them down to grains. A quick [Infuse] told me what sort of glass I could likely make from these.

  Unaspected Crystal Sand (Item Quality: 137) (Infused Level: 332)

  Surprising quality, but then again, Mikel had collected these from some of the expansion areas in FLOW. So the result should hopefully be quite resistant and durable. Excellent.

  Now, to heat these up. The charcoal I had should suffice and I filled the forge up. But just before I was about to shove it in, I actually gasped and held back at the very last moment. How could I forget, I don't have the necessary blowpipes!

  Normally, those would be made of iron, but I didn't have that yet. Should I wait for Kuch to come back and hope for some ore among the them? Wait, absolutely not, that'd be a waste of my limited iron supply if I found any. Was it possible for me to make a temporary substitute? I needed something that could withstand a fire.

  Wood wouldn't do. Bone, likely unadvised and kind of creepy if it wasn't a flute. Clay...maybe that could work? Worth a shot at least.

  I quickly molded and fired some clay pipes to test the idea. To be sure, I fired the forge up again and then stuck the end of the pipes in. To my dismay, it didn't work as the material began to crack and warp. Yeah, that was a failure. I groaned and once again shelved my glass making project. Ugh.

  Hello failure my old friend.

  I grumbled to myself while emerging from my workshop, almost to nearly run into Frie who had been just standing there. "Oh." I blinked and looked up at them. "I should actually give you something to do. Maybe collect more- no, I've more than enough clay," I murmured, crossing my arms in thought.

  Then I glanced around at my still ruined player home. "Can you lay bricks?" I asked and turned to return to the forge once more, not waiting for an answer. Not when it was just aimed at myself. "Guess you can help start rebuilding the manor."

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