With all the different fights we had been in, in such a fast time. None of us had a chance to loot anything yet. So as a team we went around looting all the corpses. Luckily we didn’t have to rummage through their pockets, or touch the corpses.
Unfortunately we couldn’t loot a corpse, we didn’t directly hit in battle. So we spent much to much time waving our hands through intangible bags. Until the correct person grabbed it. All told we looted more bags of enchanting sand. Some leather gear, the girls turned their noses up at the smell of the leather. Also about five clubs that were not usable by anyone. The best drop came from the boss orc. It was a gold mine. The one object every gamer wished they had in real life. A bag of holding.
As long as the object fit into the opening it could hold it. This one bag caused more arguments between the group than anything else. As I was default getting all the enchanting sand I didn’t feel it was fair to get the bag also. So I chose to be out of the running. My only caveat was that whoever won, had to carry my sand. Until we all had a bag of our own. Our typical rolling dice trick, didn’t work since none of us carried dice. So it devolved into a very heated game of rock, paper, scissors. Which Aiden won.
None of us were tired yet, so we kept searching the perimeter of our safe zone for more encounters. We spent the better part of the day slicing, and dicing our way through a steady stream of orc camps. It was getting to the point that almost any of us could take an entire camp of five by ourselves. The experience, and loot started to become lower quality. We had all reached level ten by now. We decided to head back to our budding town to sell our trash. And to consolidate our level ups. We were hopeful to see if we had a chance to buy higher quality gear.
As we entered our area we all received a tooltip informing us.
[Congratulations you have successfully cleared your outer range of all hostile forces. Your zone will upgrade to tier two. Increasing the area of safety to 2 square miles. Be careful as the safe zone increases in power, it will draw the attention of higher teir monsters. You will also receive another magical box to add another building for free.]
Awesome, we could get a barracks to help defend our area now. The tool tip kind of hinted that we would need the protection soon. I turned to the group. “I know we are all exhausted from the grind. But before we zonk out. I’d like to build the barracks to help defend our town. The soldiers will be a nice addition, but im more looking forward to the many beds it will offer.” That perked everyone up. It also meant I didn't get any arguments over which should be the next building.
The barracks formed in the middle of the clearing. A squad of ten soldiers materialized. All were wearing low grade chain mail armor. With a wooden shield banded with iron studs. The helmets of all, were a simple skull cap. All except for a single one with a plume of blue.
I’m going to go out on a limb here guessing he was the soldier in charge. They formed into pairs, starting to walk the perimeter of our camp. With the plumbed soldier marching over to us. “Corporal Hennings reporting for duty.” He fairly screamed in our general direction. The three airforce veterans in the group all shared a look. We knew the score. “Good job Corporal, carry on.” I replied. Corporal Hennings saluted, turned, and proceeded to post outside of the forge tunnel. As a central location it was fine with us.
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I turned to our group. “Should we catch some zzz's or sell our loot first?” Keith, and Erica both motioned to the barracks. “We are getting some sleep. After I get up i’ll be in the forge making better armor. Those orcs were not hard after we leveled a bit. But the first few hits went almost right through my armor. I need better, stronger armor before we meet something stronger.” Keith responded. I looked over towards Katie, and Aiden. Only Aiden was next to me. I caught a fleeting glance of Katie trudging to the barracks already yawning. “OK looks like it’s just you, and me Aiden. You have the bag of our loot. So if you go to sleep it will be unanimous.” Aiden looked tired, but he motioned to the store. “Let’s sell the trash, than get sleep. We can gather in the morning to discuss what we do with the cash we sell the loot for.” I nodded joining him walking to the store.
River had his disquieting grin on his face as we approached. “Hello humans, come to get more fashionable clothes?” We both shook our heads in the negative. “Just here to sell loot than go to sleep.” I responded. "Ohh you mustn't toy with my feelings, we only just met." River said playfully. At least I hope it was playfully, my mind was just tired enough I might say or promise something I would regret later.
Aiden pulled out the clubs, the leather armor pieces. It was a much bigger pile than i expected. Mostly scrap, but might be enough for something. River inspected the loot confered with Mr. Depressed, even if we couldn’t see him. Than turned to us. “I can give you twenty silver pieces for this. Not the best quality, but we can use them as components for better gear.” That caught Aidens attention. “What do you mean by components?”
River hesitated slightly, than responded. “All gear can be broken down into a component state. Take one part, add it to another part. Poof it has a chance to build something greater.” Aiden looked confused, but responded. “Do you mean like engineering?”
River than got a confused look himself. “No its more mystical than that. We don’t put a rod on a gear to somehow make a laser. We in essence break the items down, into component parts. They become tokens of that type. Clubs become lesser weapon tokens. If we combine them with enough tokens they become weak versions, weak to common, than common to enhanced. Enhanced to rare, rare to unique. Finally unique to epic. but they lose all enchantments when turned into a component. A nifty dagger of vampiric bite that could sell for 20 gold, would probably downgrade to a rare component worth maybe 5 gold. So only downgrade trash you never intend to sell."
We muled over this statement for a few seconds before River continued. "With enough component parts you can than research blueprints for different types of things. The higher the quality you start with, the less is needed to advance. You can use these components to make all kinds of things. Armor, weapons, golems. The list goes on, and on.”
Aiden jumped at that statement. “Golems? We could make golems?” River smiled replying. “Why yes ofcourse. But you will need to study hard, and experiment to get to that point. I think the lowest grade golem i’ve heard of is common.”
Aidens eyes danced as he turned to me. “That’s what i’m talking about. That’s the profession for me. Just think with enough components I could make living armor. I could have a suit of power armor.” I grinned mischievously. “Should I call you Tony now?” Aiden looked confused for a second then the light dawned in his eyes. “Oh I see what you mean…. No not planning on going that route. I’m thinking more power suit like in anime.”
Aiden turned to River. “How do I learn the profession? What do I need to do to advance it as fast as possible?” River smiled. “I can train you in the profession, all you will need to do at first is to bring me more loot to break down. We can start right now if you want?”
Aiden didn’t look tired anymore. I waved goodbye walking over to the barracks. It was time to get some sleep, tomorrow was going to be a long day. Now that we had a reasonably safe location. It was time to start gathering others. I didn’t know how bad the world had regressed, in the short time we had been here. But any we saved the better it would be.