I
With everything progressing well, James, his mercenaries, and the other villagers went to sleep, hoping to make strong progress the next day.
The next day James decided to look into how the Smithy was progressing. When he entered the Blacksmith shop, he saw a small stack of misshapen pointed coins.
Name
Misshapen pointed Coins
Class
Blacksmithing
Quality
below-average
Description
This appears to be a purposefully distorted pointed coin. Hopefully it will find a coin purse that won’t judge it.
It was exactly what James was hoping for.
Earl noticed him, and though he seemed happier, he was still very grumpy.
“It turns out your idea had a bit of merit. I had to derange a coin to make it work, but I think it came out well. I’ve also got some good news,” Earl smiled menacingly.
“I’m afraid what that might be,” James said based entirely on how scary the smile was.
“It turns out I can make these from our iron coins, cutting the time from 200 per unit, down to 40,” The smile was still far from pleasant.
“Does the village have plenty of iron coins?” James asked innocently.
“No, but if you ever find any, I can make heads quickly for you.” He growled.
James thought that might be good news for the future. He searched his pockets, and found he had 20 iron coins he could donate to the cause.
“It’s only 2 copper, but we will need more of those arrow heads soon,” James said as he handed the coins over.
Earl unenthusiastically took the coins.
“If you can get that lazy bastard Carl to ever figure out how to get enough iron ore, and maybe some coal, I could probably come up with a faster way to make the iron heads.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” James waved as he left.
II
James entered the inn where he found Mace writing on a piece of paper where it appeared he was doing math.
“What are you doing Mace?” James asked.
“I’m trying to figure out what task will prevent us from being ready on time.”
“Any ideas?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what our problems are. Right now we have Tom and his son making wood shafts and the outlines of the bows. Tom decided to focus on the bows first, while his son focuses on the wood shafts. Tom currently is making 1 bow-form an hour, then spends 30 minutes making a bow to fit on the form. He will eventually have 3 forms allowing him to make around 9 bows a day. He should be finished within just 2 days. However the bows are not the problem. Arrows are.
Right now Will is making 1 rod every 12 minutes. That's 5 shafts an hour, and after 10 hours, he’s able to make 50. If we are facing 20,000 slimes, there’s no way that will be enough. We should have, what, double the shafts as slimes? So nearly 1,000 arrows per person?”
James started to chuckle.
“I think its worse than you think. At the beginning you can’t miss with the horde this size. You also have us mercenaries killing many of them by hand. However once the slimes start thinning out, everyone will start to miss a lot more. Add in the need to hit each slime around twice to take them down, I think we will need around 3 arrows per slime.”
Mace sighed.
“Right now we are on task for around 1,000 total arrows produced. We need to make 30 times more arrows. This doesn’t include the spear shafts you want Tom to make as well as the tips and fletching for the arrows. There’s too much to get done in time.”
“How is the fletching and arrow attachment going?” James asked.
“It’s coming along. Raine the mender is able to tie on the feathers every minute. Laura is able to prep the feather every minute as well, so they can pump out arrows quickly. Your mercenary Dara literally takes a sponge with Laura’s glue, passes over the sewing and feather for 1 minute, and calls it good.
The strings for the bow are much more time consuming. Laura has provided Raine with the sinew. It takes around 600 units of work to complete the string. Luckily Raine is level 15 in sewing, so he’s able to make 1 in less than an hour. He stops just before the end and lets Mark finish so it becomes something usable for a weaponsmith.
We still need to figure out a better process for the arrowheads. We don’t have a good solution for that right now.”
“I think we have ideas for that,” James said as he tossed the misshapenned coin to Mace. “How about the construction of the fortifications?”
Mace distractedly replied as he started inspecting the coin. “We are lucky Bo and his people had cut down the reeds earlier. It normally takes 2 weeks for the reeds to dry. With what we are planning we can use reeds that have only been dried for 1 week. We have 3 weeks of work that we can use which I think will just barely be enough, especially now we are only doing 15 feet. Honestly, it’s the one bright spot in whatever is coming.”
“At least we have something positive going for us,” James sighed. “I think if we can collect iron coins from the people we can solve the arrowhead issue. Any ideas for solving the arrow shaft problem?”
“None right now, though now that I see what we’re missing I can start focusing on it.” Mace said.
“Why did you even start looking into this?”
“I’ve alway found myself compelled to focus on whatever is needed to make things work. When I’m running the inn I have to make sure I’ll have enough food and drink for the next couple of weeks. Hearing your plan and talking with the rest of the village just got my mind going.”
James’ felt a tingle in mind. It was like he had found the solution to a problem he didn’t even know he had. It was also the wrong problem right now. He decided to put these ideas away for later.
“I’m glad you shared your thoughts. I think it has helped me to know where to focus. On a different note, I wanted to see what you thought of using the Inn as our backup fortress?”
Mace took on a pensive look.
“It could hold everyone easily, and with just the one entrance, it would be easily defensible. With the second floor, we could have people shoot arrows from the top.” James continued.
“And we need a backup in case the front gate doesn’t work or gets overrun,” Mace finished.
“I’m not excited about the idea, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to save the village.”
“At this point, I don’t think there are any ideas that make what is coming anything other than extremely difficult. Hopefully we can string together enough not exciting ideas to make what is coming at least possible.” James said with a grimace. He started to leave.
“If I come up with any other ideas, I’ll let you know.” Mace said to James’ back.
III
James made his way over to the Woodcutters Hut. He approached Rob with a smile.
“How did the communing go?” James asked with an excessive focus on being polite.
“The forest and I conversed for hours. It was both spiritual and elevating.” Rob said with his eyes closing in fond remembrance.
James waited patiently. Then impatiently he said.
“So smaller cut wood?”
Rob slightly jumped as if he had been surprised by James’ presence. He then responded with deep annoyance in his voice.
“The forest is willing to contribute to the protection of the village. I will make smaller pieces to help in the defense. I have also contributed bigger pieces to the construction of the barricade.”
Rob handed James what appeared to be square arrow shafts. James immediately changed his opinion of the man. Kooky SKILLED woodsman.
“How many of these can you deliver to the carpenter?” James asked with the exuberance only a 12 year old could match. Probably because James looked 12.
“I’m able to make 10 of these for each log I have. I can probably deliver 20,000 in the next 5 days.”
James whistled.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Tell me more about being wood touched.”
“It’s called tree touched.” The woodcutter muttered, annoyed with James.
IV
James skipped over to the Carpenter. James felt it was a very mature skip, and not one that looked like a little child frolicking. James was wrong.
As he entered the Carpenter’s workshop, he presented the square arrow shafts to Tom. This immediately brought a smile to Tom’s face. He stopped his work on the bow he was working on and took out the shaft finisher. After a few turns of the wood chipper, his smile grew feral.
“My weaponsmithing skill increased to 2.”
He handed the shaft to James.
Name
Shaft
Class
Weaponsmithing
Quality
below-average
Description
A shaft used in producing arrows with a notch at one end
“The quality also went up.” Tom commented.
Tom got his son’s attention and had him come over and use the machine. Mark, who had been working on finishing some shafts also came over to watch.
“It worked for me as well!” Will exclaimed excitedly.
“Wow, I got the weaponsmith skill and the militarizer skill! It says I was taught by a master as well!”
James got a little annoyed by this comment. He was good at what he did!
“What level of weaponsmith are you now?” James asked.
“Level 3!” Will shouted.
This left James speechless. How was this boy already a higher level than him in Weaponsmith? No time to worry about it.
“I have thousands more of these that will be coming your way soon.”
V
James left the carpenter shop with Mark in tow. Now that Will seemed as capable as Mark, there was no need to waste the man’s skill there. Instead they headed to the blacksmith, where Mark was tasked with finding a way to drastically increase the production of tips.
After showing Mark the misshapen coin, Mark suggested Will try to get as many iron coins as they could. Mark also suggested James should try and find a way to get more iron.
After Dropping Mark off, James made his way to the “Mine”.
James found all the farmers and the miner there along with Jusuf.
After exchanging money with everyone who had any spare irons, James asked for a status update.
“The stones are being used to keep all the wood and reeds in place. The project is going well due to my big strong muscles!” The man said with his heavily accented voice.
Weirdly enough, none of the farmers rolled their eyes. Probably because the bravado was merited this time.
James then directed his attention to the miner.
“What exactly are you doing here anyway?”
The miner, who had been lounging comfortably, suddenly took on a strained air of working hard.
“I’m helping the miners with my waste rock! I’m making sure they have enough to be able to finish everything they’re working on!” He said like a school child defending why he skipped school.
Jusuf snorted.
“He thinks he’s helping so much, but all he does is tell us where the rock is, and we already know that!”
James put on a wicked smile.
“Well, Carl, I think your vacation is finally over”
VI
After getting Carl away from the group, he started questioning the man.
“So, why can’t you get more iron to the blacksmith?” James asked too directly.
“You see… Well… You know” Not one word Carl said was meaningful.
After a few moments, Carl gathered himself and started over.
“We just don’t have a big iron vein.” Carl seemed to push out every word as if it burned on the way out.
“I think that was rather clear. Is it completely out?” James questioned.
“No, it still has plenty of ore left, but…” Carl hesitantly said.
James was quickly losing patience. He began to glare at the man who was acting how James looked: Childish. This fact didn’t make James feel any better.
“Out with it already!” James could help the frustration that accompanied the outburst.
“The big problem” Carl rapidly said.
“Is that I’m too low level to be able to harvest anymore ore in the area!”. Carl said nearly too fast to understand.
“What level are you in mining?”
“I’m level 5.”
“And how is your level getting in your way?”
“The less dense the ore, the higher the level required to refine it. Right now I can dig plenty, but I can’t turn it into anything usable for Earl.”
“What level do you have to be in order to refine it better?”
“Level 6! It’s so infuriating to be so close, but until I get there, I can’t give him anything useful!”
“Have you talked with Earl to see if there might be a work around?”
Carl looked at James sheepishly. “Nooo” Carl dragged out the word slowly.
“Bah, I’m going there now to see if we can figure something out,” James let out with exasperation.
He dragged Carl with him
VII
James entered the blacksmith hoping to find a solution quickly with Carl in tow.
Earl looked up from the forge where he was showing Mark how to sharpen the misshapen coins into arrowheads.
James quickly jumped into the dilemma with Earl. Earl began shaking his hand.
“These young boys don’t even think when they run into a problem. Yes, he might not be able to use his skill to directly extract the iron, but he can still use more mundane processes to refine the ore.”
“What do you mean?” James was confused
“Blacksmiths used to BE the class that would refine iron. We wouldn’t use skills to drain the iron from the ore. No, we would POUND the slag out of the ore. I’ll have him work on refining the ore he mines.”
The explanation brough relief to James. He took a look over at Carl. James did not envy the man his long future in the blacksmith with the cheerful (or not) Earl. He also was happy that they might have a potential future source of iron for the arrow heads.
James took a look over at Mark.
“How are things going with the arrowheads?”
“Earl has been having me just sharpen them. Even with my basic skill at Weaponsmithing, I’m able to finish sharpening them in less than 5 minutes.”
“That’s not fast enough to keep up with the rest of the arrow parts…” James mused nearly to himself.
“Keep looking into it. We need things to pick up here, or this will stop the whole operation.”
James went over to Earl and handed the rest of the iron coins he had. He had been able to scrounge up another 43 from everyone else.
“Here’s everything I’ve found in the village.”
Earl snorted.
“I guess we can make 80 arrows. I’m sure that’s enough to take care of the slimes.” Earl deadpanned.
“I’m trying! What else can we do?” James suddenly didn’t feel so relieved.
VIII
Once James left, Earl began training/berating Carl. It wasn’t what Earl said, but how he said it that made the process more painful than it needed to be. It was like a bear half growling at a piece of salmon it was about to eat. When the Salmon flopped, the bear would roar in earnest.
Eventually Carl began banging on heated pieces of ore, extracting all the impurities under the careful and belligerent purview of Earl. With a missed swing, the berating began again.
Once back on track Carl began pounding the ore until it had the semblance of usable iron. After nearly 2 hours of work, Carl looked down and analyzed his work
Name
Bloom Iron
Quality
Trash
Description
This Iron has not been completely refined, with a high content of slag
Congratulations! You have raised your mining skill by 1 to 6.
Congratulations! You have been instructed by a knowledgeable instructor and have learned Blacksmithing- Level 2.
Eyes going wide, Carl looked around to see if Earl had noticed the change. Luckily Earl was focused on his own project.
Carl took some untouched ore and used his mining ability. Immediately all of the iron was extracted from the ore and formed into a usable iron bar. Carl quickly replaced the bloom iron with his iron bar in the forge and heated it up.
“I did it!” Carl exclaimed with his best attempt at showing joy.
Earl, grumbling, looked up from his work and came over to inspect Carl’s work. Suddenly his grumbling stopped. Earl looked even closer at the metal.
“This looks surprisingly good,” Earl begrudgingly admitted, nearly not sounding annoyed.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill- Acting Level 1.
“Guess I’ve learned enough here, I’ll be on my way.” Carl rushed to the door.
“Wait, what is this trash on the floor?” Earl shouted as Carl quickly left the forge behind.
IX
James walked towards the entrance of the village. He found the place bustling with activity. Jusuf was front and center carrying a large boulder.
“Is too light for true exercise,” Jusuf exclaimed as James approached
“We can leave exercise for later,” James said.
“Without exercise, big muscles become small muscles. Is too big of risk,” Jusuf continued, oblivious of James’ eye roll.
“Well, keep focusing on getting the fortifications ready,” James said as he took a look around.
He was thrilled with what he saw. The wooden posts were used as a structural outline to allow the reeds to lean against them. The stone was placed behind them to ensure the reeds would stay in place. James saw some of the farmers working on extending the fence, placing the reeds, and some at the end pushing sand down to create platforms that would be used by the archers.
“This is great!” James exclaimed as he saw the finished platform look nearly level.
“With these platforms, the archers can fire without fear of the slimes overwhelming them. This small gap should make it easy for us to keep the large number of slimes from overwhelming us,” James said excitedly.
“Now all we need are arrows,” James said with less enthusiasm.
“And a way to create some space so we can rest and recover,” James said sullenly.
In his newfound sullenness, he began to look around pensively. At first he was just venting his frustration. Then his mind seemed to notice something. He began to pay attention to what he was looking at. He began observing the farmers as they rhythmically took their hoes and moved the sand down behind the reed structure. It looked extremely similar to some of the motions he used when thrusting with a spear. Okay, not at all and not even close. But he saw control over the hafts, and familiarity with body movement that he didn’t have when he first learned the spear.
“Maybe if we stretch out the motions a little more…” He started musing to himself.
He began frantically working on a plan.