Finding the remaining steel plates was easy enough, now that several tons of scrap metal lay in a pile so near to the ground. I even netted a few more rolled-up cables of copper wires by stripping electric cords. I filled my bag with various types of scrap that could fit in it. I wanted to at least double the cost of rent at the inn, and another stew.
The walk back was miserable; sweat began to drip into my open wounds, causing me to stop every few moments in agony as it burned. Fortunately for me, a party on their way to the west found me. It consisted of three individuals: Two sword-bearing men, and a woman carrying a shotgun. I was sitting on the ground next to my bag, catching my breath. It was heavy, and I needed to take frequent breaks to catch my breath. I watched people head toward the woods. Watched flocks of birds fly out from the Icewall overhead, and waited for my heart to stop thumping. One of the men approached me as I sat there. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a white scarf over a
“Holy hell, freshie, where are you coming from?”
“Scrapyard,” I muttered.
“Did you come across a Scrapper or something?”
“No. Rats.”
He snickered.
“How many?”
“Twenty-five, I think.”
“That’s...how did you do it?”
“A series of tripwires set up to drop piles of metal on top of them,” I answered.
“Oh, ho. That’s pretty smart.” The woman said.
She was rather plain-looking. At least compared to the woman in the bookshop. If I had never seen the bookshop owner, then perhaps I would find her attractive. Her hair was cut short into a bob and was as black as her eyes. Her skin was a milky white, and freckles danced across her nose. She wore a black scarf up to her chin, and a sky blue petticoat in-lined with thick white fur. The woman dipped her hand into the satchel at her side, and pulled out a plastic bottle full of red liquid, and handed it over to me.
“Here, for your injuries.” She said with a small smile.
“Thanks...am I supposed to drink it?”
“Yes.”
“WE should hurry.” The last of them said, “The rest of the group is already waiting for us at the Pits.”
“Yeah.” The other man said. “Take care, freshie.”
“Thanks, you too.”
“Ah, wait a moment.” She fished around her satchel for something and pulled out her PID for a second. “Add me, yeah?”
I pulled my PID from the front of my jacket and opened up the ‘friends,’ section. Jack had apparently been messaging me throughout the day.
“You’re Mei Yu?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
I accepted her request and slid it back into my jacket.
“What an interesting place to put it…” She muttered as she stuck hers back into her satchel.
“Good luck making it back to town, freshie.” She waved as she ran to rejoin her group.
I unscrewed the bottle and drank it. As soon as it slid into my stomach, all my scrapes and injuries began to burn as if a heated iron had been pressed to them. I hissed and clutched myself as the burning faded. All of my fatigue, and all of the pain I felt from the creature’s claws vanished. I stood up, took the canteen out of the mesh of my bag, and down the last of the water before tossing it on and continuing on the way.
While walking back to New Eden, I read through the messages Jack sent throughout the day:
Hey. How’s the job going?
Bought this weapon:
He sent a picture of a large metal club with triangular protrusions that looked as if they could tear and rend flesh.
Holy hell, have you tried the stew back at the inn? Amazing.
Where’s your job at?
You okay?
I sent one back:
“Sorry, I didn’t see any of these.”
That’s okay. The message came quickly. Going to rest up today, and go out tomorrow to this place called the Scrapyard, do you want to come?
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Just came back from there. On my way back home. Let’s talk then, yeah?”
Ok.
Whenever I felt the least bit tired, I took a sip of the red liquid, and my fatigue would be lifted. I made it back to New Eden in this fashion, in a little under an hour from where I had been resting. Orange was beginning to tinge the sky as I entered the gate.
“Name?”
The guard had changed.
“Lyle Kyle.”
He flipped through the pages until he got to the first paper on his clipboard.
“Where are you returning from?”
“The Scrapyard.”
“Alright.” He scratched my name off the list, “Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
First I went into the nearby inn, just beyond the muddy clearing that opened up from the gate. There, I put my weapons down and pulled out my PID. On the job descriptions, there was a, ‘turn in,’ function. I clicked it, and it showed me the most direct path from my current location to the drop-off point. I switched between the two until I saw which one was closest, and navigated my way there.
The alchemist’s shop was along the same canal that Jack and I followed on our way to the inn. While walking there, I spot Daniel and his crew sitting outside one of the many restaurants along the canal.
“Ay, vato!” He waved me over. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Went on a job. Got attacked by animals.”
“Ay, no shit?” One of the others said.
“What’d you come across, homie. A fucking bear?”
“A pack of giant rats.”
“How giant we talkin’ about?”
“About the size of a greyhound.”
“Shit man. I just did a job here in town cleaning up trash. Why the fuck would you want to risk your life like that?”
“I have a reason,” I answered.
“You know man…” his finger ran along the scar on his brow that I had left during the last fight, “This thing here’s been itching since I ran into you again, know what I mean?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You know, I heard some rumors from some of the people here: you not only scored the lowest out of all of us there on the island but of all time.”
“So? What’s it matter to you?”
He pushed himself off of his chair and walked over to me before draping his arm over my shoulder.
“Well, you see. Living here’s expensive as all hell, so I was thinking...maybe you help us out, ya hear?”
“I don’t see a reason why I have to. You all got your own money, and you can do work by yourself.”
“Man. Don’t be like that. Just 500 dollars a day. Make sure nothing bad happens to you.” He squeezed my chin in between two of his fingers. “Understand?”
“No, fuck you. It’s my money.”
“Don’t be like that, homie. You’ll regret it.” He looked back to his crew and motioned for them to follow him as they left the area, and I continued toward the alchemist’s shop.
The shop itself was tucked into a dingy alleyway. A black awning was the only thing to differentiate it from the back doors there. A single window looked in there, as swirling concoctions sat on the shelves. I pulled open the old wooden door, and a bell above it rang. A crystal hung off an iron hook and illuminated the cobblestone flooring. A man with thick black hair, pulled back and glimmering like the chitin of a spider sat at a mortar and pestle; grinding ingredients together.
“Be right with you in a second.” He called.
I looked around at the various concoctions and picked them up. Most were in plastic bottles, which I had no doubt would have, at one point, been water bottles; those small types that come in large quantities. Among these, I find a large jug filled with the same red, swirling liquid as before. I pick it up. It’ll be useful. Other than that, I also found a handheld mortar and pestle bundle. I picked that up as well, with the idea to eventually make poisons for my traps.
The young man walked up to the counter, and I stepped forward.
“How can I help you.”
“Ah, first these.” I set the two items down on the counter. He scanned them with his PID.
“One gallon of healing potion and one mortar and pestle will net you...5000 dollars.”
“5,000 dollars? Can you do 4000?”
“What can you offer me in return for that 1000? I don’t see a reason why I should knock off that price for you.”
“I completed your job request.”
“Did you know? Let me see the ingredients you got for me.”
I sat my backpack on the ground and pulled out the 14 Rustcaps.
“Rustcaps, huh? Good, the antidotes will be good for the near future...I’ll buy the remaining 4 from you for 25 each. How does that sound?”
“How about 20?”
“16.”
“19?
“17.”
“Deal.”
“Alright, that’s...600 off the cost. Do you have anything else?”
“I don’t know…”
I dug around in my backpack for a time, and he glanced over the counter.
“Are those...moon deer antlers? Dang. Forget the 5000, I’ll just take those.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I set them on the counter as well.
“Six points. That’s pretty good. Do you happen to have its heart?”
“No. I used it for something.”
“Ohh, you’re a Manipulator?”
“What does that mean?”
“An Anima Manipulator? Very rarely do you see those come straight out of Central. Tell me, do you hear voices as well?”
He leaned forward with his elbows on the counter. His soft, angular face was close, and his gray eyes staring directly into mine.
“I mean, yeah.”
His eyes lit up.
“Really? Do you have an Ego attached to you? Lucky. Since I expect great things from you in the future, and I’d love to have you as a return customer in the future...how about, taking another one of these.” He sat his hand on the gallon of healing potion, “For free.”
“Are you serious?”
“Course!”
We finished up the procedures for the quest completion: I set my thumb on his PID, and he set him on mine, and the notification soon came on mine that I had completed the job, along with the payment, and a 2.5% mastery to Foraging. For some reason, I got +1 fame in New Eden as well.
I felt almost guilty when I carried the two gallons out of the shop, all for the cost of a pair of antlers that I came across by chance. I walked back to the inn set the gallons of healing potion on my desk, and set back out to turn in my other quest. This was set in a warehouse at the very edge of the town, outside of the walls, and against one of the legs of the bisected river that ran through New Eden.
It was a warehouse with a chainlink fence surrounding it. Men worked diligently moving coal, vats of molted iron, and a variety of other things; making lord knows that. The PID led me into the warehouse, and into the office with the name, “William Brandt,” on the front.
“Are you the one who accepted my quest? Was quite worried that you wouldn’t make it.” The brunette man said in a posh British accent. He leaned over a cart with some sort of machine on top, turning a wrench; grease and sweat staining his white button-up shirt.
“Yeah, I have them.”
“Well, let me see.”
I take all the plates out of my backpack and set them on the desk.
“Alright, good.” He said after counting them. He picked up his PID and I got a notification on mine that the 100 dollars had been added, as well as a notification that my Strength mastery had increased by 5%
“Do you buy scrap as well?”
“Depends, what do you have?” He led me to a scale on a desk. “Set what you got here.”
I pull out all the nuts and bolts that had been holding onto the scale, and the other spare pieces of scrap that I had collected. 32 pounds and some odd ounces, all altogether. When I began pulling out the copper wire he stopped me.
“Is this all the iron?”
I nodded.
“I can offer you 120 dollars for it.”
“How about 130? I went through a lot to get it.”
“125 is as high as I can go. I’m sorry, we’re running on a budget here.”
“Fine.”
A dollar is a dollar.
He picked up the tray that the iron scrap was resting on, and put another tray in its place. The scale automatically zeroed.
“Now the copper.”
I set the copper in the tray. 2 pounds.
“30 dollars. Best I can do.”
“How about 40?”
“35.”
“36?
“We have a deal.”
A dollar is a dollar.
Once the payment goes through, I got a 2% increase in Personableness. After that was all done, I headed back in, and to the General Store. By the time I got there, I was about near limping. My legs were tired, and I was exhausted. The old lady greeted me with a nod. I pulled my canteen from my backpack and took a swig.
“Ah, back are you? You look like hell, boy.”
“Feel like it.”
“So what are you here for today?”
“Selling stuff.”
“Well, what do you have?”
As I approached the counter the woman looked me over.
“Were your eyes always that color?”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head.
“Never mind. Memory must be going because of my age. Well, show me what you have.”
First I pulled out the Rust Wing Crow’s feathers: 6 flight feathers, and 4 dorsal feathers, and set them out on the counter.
“Ah. Got on the bad side of one of those bastards, huh? What did you do?”
“Got too close to its nest.”
“Really? Well for its flight and dorsal feathers, I’ll buy those for 5 dollars each, for a total of 50. Now for these…” She held up one of the three tin plates. “I can buy for ten each. 80 dollars all together. Now, if you had brought me some of its bones….that’s where the real money lies.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do you have anything else?”
I brought out the three eggs I found in its nest.
“Oh ho...these could be worth something. It’ll take some work to find a buyer, so the best I’m willing to do is 40 for them.”
Unlike the other two, she felt like someone I couldn’t haggle with when selling things to.
“Deal.”
“Anything else?”
I pulled out the scraps of the Moon Deer’s Pelt.
“Oh my goodness, is that...from a moon deer?”
“It is.”
“What in the living hell did you do to it?”
“I...I tried to skin it.”
She busted out laughing.